Assistive Technology in Third Level and Distance Education

Norman Coombs, Ph.D.

Chair of EASI (Equal Access to Software and Information)

Professor Emeritus, Rochester Institute of Technology

Nrcgsh@rit.edu

Introduction:

Today's information technology has the potential to undo much of the difficulties for people with disabilities in accessing information. Actually, this problem had been intensified by previous technologies. However, storing information in a digital format means it can be displayed in a variety of output formats. For people who have problems reading text, the printing press created enormous quantities of inaccessible information. For others unable to hear spoken language, the radio, telephone, movies and television created a similar mountain of inaccessible communication. In contrast, the information on a computer monitor can now be spoken by a speech synthesizer, and audio and video on the internet can readily be accompanied with transcriptions or captions. It is only fair that while previous technology caused or intensified problems in accessing information, that contemporary technology helps to transcend those very barriers.

Third level education has long made intensive use of print information in and out of the classroom. This has created different problems for different disability groups. Those who are blind have had to rely on human readers or on humans who have previously transcribed the print into Braille for them. Those with limited vision may have been able to struggle by in reading text by using some kind of magnifier system, but this was awkward and inconvenient. People with various visual processing disabilities also had to struggle to manipulate the text, and sometimes also relied on a human reader to provide auditory versions of the text so they could understand it adequately. Students with motor impairments that made it impossible for them to hold books and turn pages also suffered from a print disability. Frequently they relied on human readers too as the only way to access texts.

Lectures and class discussions have also been an integral part of education. Students who are deaf were unable to access this information independently. The use of movies and videos in education further intensified their problems. The use of signing interpreters and notetakers were the standard solutions for them. While learners with auditory processing problems could hear the lectures, they frequently had difficulty in following the material. Notetakers were again the usual solution.

Society normally looks at disability as an attribute of the person with that disability. If we look below the surface of what has just been said, we have an alternative perspective. What we have described is that a disability takes shape in a context. The blind student has problems reading print but not in following a lecture. Conversely, the deaf student may not be able to hear the lecture but reads the print accompaniments with no problem. If we think of a disability in a functional context instead of in the abstract, it becomes easier to overcome. In this context, a disability is not so much an attribute of a person as it is a mismatch between a particular person and a particular environment. When we think of a disability as a personal attribute, it is the person who must be changed. If we put it in a functional context, we have the choice of altering either the person or some feature in the environment. Our choices have been dramatically enlarged. We now have the choice of trying to fix the person or fix the environment. Some assistive technology fixes the person; some fixes the environment. Eye glasses fix the person by enlarging what is seen. Screen magnification software or larger computer monitors fix the computer environment. Similarly, large print books and larger road signs fix other environmental features. Because this presentation will focus on assistive or adaptive computer technology, we will be considering ways to change the information environment through this technology.

Why Adapt Computer and Information Technology?

In the United States, there has long been an annual survey of the use of computers in third level education or what we call post-secondary education. (I am referring to US data because it is what I know. I am not suggesting it is any standard or guideline. However, I do believe strongly that technology has its own inner imperative driving it, and I believe much of what is happening in the US will soon happen in Europe although with some unique European cultural overtones.) This study showed computer use in education was very low and growing at a snail's pace through the 1980s and the early 1990s. The number of courses making use of computers and information technology remained in the single digits. But, all this has changed dramatically in the past half dozen years. The most recent study covering 1998 shows that more than half of the university courses use e-mail as an integral part of the class in some way. Similarly, more than a third were using the internet as part of the class material, and there is no reason to expect this explosive growth to slow its pace any time soon.

The invasion of computers into education is a blessing and a curse for students with disabilities. Adaptive computer technology can provide amazing access to information for students with disabilities. It provides the opportunity for them to compete in the classroom with other students on a level playingfield more than ever before in history. This technology is a revolution for society, but it is far more revolutionary for students with disabilities.

When the personal computer and adaptive computer technology first emerged nearly 20 years ago, the University of Nebraska did a study to see if this technology made a significant difference for the success of students with disabilities. The answer was a resounding 'yes'. The grades of the students improved markedly. The number of students who failed a course or who dropped out of a course in midterm both dropped by about a quarter. Every indicator measured by the study showed a significant improvement. Yes, these students were surviving in higher education before they were given these tools. But, they could now succeed and not merely survive.

Like many other people with disabilities, I attended college decades ago before this technology existed. Like others, I earned a Ph.D. and went on to teach in university. As a history professor, I gave presentations and published. However, my work has been made easier since I obtained this technology, and my professional output has expanded significantly. Because of my use of computers and educational technology in my courses and because of my pioneering work in distance learning, I was nominated New York State Teacher of the Year and awarded the Zenith Master of Innovation Award. My own life has been changed. A colleague told me that I had become a different person, more poised and more self confident. Stories like mine are not unique. This technology has provided new opportunities for personal and professional success for people around the world.

Providing this technology in every institution empowers students with disabilities to find their full potential. Education is about empowering people, and by providing these tools, schools are only expanding their fundamental mission to a broader population.

The curse in the inclusion of computers into education is that frequently computer and software design needlessly creates new barriers to accessing information for students with disabilities. Speech synthesizers with screen reader software can give the blind person spoken output of what is on the computer display. However, the synthesizer can only speak text that is displayed on the screen. The increasing use of graphics leaves the synthesizer speechless. Yes, the newer screen reader software can recognize some standard graphics and connect words to them. If software designers would put text labels with their graphics, access would be simplified. Using redundant features in the original design can provide a better interface for everyone. Some people who are not blind respond better to text and some prefer pictures. Providing both makes the interface better for everyone.

Similarly, the mouse is a blessing for some and a problem for others. Existing mouses cannot be used by the blind and by some with motor impairments. Standard operating systems now permit all actions to be done both by the mouse and by keystroke alternatives. When software designers follow this pattern, the software can be manipulated by everyone. When they have an unusual design which does not provide this redundancy, someone is shut out. Again, leaving out the disability issue, some users are mouse persons and some are keyboard persons. Redundancy is better for everyone.

This is not a presentation on the technical details of universal design. I am saying that adaptive technology and universal design in packaged, commercial software together are necessary for complete accessibility. For example, I was given a evaluation copy of software where the vendor bragged that the program would be fully accessible as every action was keyboard accessible. It turns out that the box I had to click on to say I accepted the user agreement for the software could not be reached by a keystroke. I never got into the actual program.

Besides providing adaptive technology and besides checking commercial software for universal design principles and providing these for students with disabilities as "the right thing to do", legislative and governmental administrative bodies in Europe and America are mandating more and more provision of computer and information technology that is accessible to people with disabilities. In America, when the English tried to dictate whose tea we drank back in the 1700s, a rowdy group of Bostonians dumped the boatload of tea in the harbor. We don't like doing something because someone mandates it. I suspect Europeans are similarly stubborn. I don't like using the threat of government intervention as a reason to do something. However, it is important to know what the law does mandate. Imagine driving down a road where there were speed limits but where they were not posted. Drivers would be very insecure not knowing what the speed limit was. If you are going to break the law, it is at least nice to know what it is first. We may have more disability rights legislation in the US than most other places. However, there is often a large gap between the law and its active enforcement. Nevertheless, the fact is that in all of our countries the government is increasingly taking the side of people with disabilities in their fight to gain access to computer and information technology. Not providing adaptive technology may be hurtful to many students and may also lead to painful results for the school.

In the past, one of the reasons to avoid providing adaptive computer technology has been its cost. Prices in the US and Europe vary, but everywhere these costs have been dropping dramatically. Voice recognition software a decade ago was near $10,000 and now is frequently available as low as $100. Providing information in electronic format with an interface accessible by users with disabilities is by far the least expensive way to provide the information. The information already exists in some electronic format. Providing it in Braille or read by a human is far more costly and takes far more time. If the school may have to provide or may want to provide information to users with disabilities in the future, using the existing electronic data is clearly a fantastic economic saving. Seeing that that information is created and stored in readily accessible formats at the time of its creation is far less expensive than having to modify it later. Design for access at the beginning, and cost is very small.

Distance Learning:

My personal involvement in distance learning is the one time in my life where being blind turned out to be an advantage. No, I don't mean that no one on the net knew I was blind although there is an old cartoon that shows two dogs sitting at two keyboards. One says to the other: On the Internet, no one knows that you are a dog!" What I mean is that that in the early 1980s most people did not think of computers as a communication tool. Now, every computer you buy comes with several software packages to help you connect to the net. In those ancient days, computers were for computing and maybe for programming. I recall a computer science teacher asking me to send him information. When I asked for his e-mail address, after an awkward silence, he confessed he had never used e-mail. For me, the computer connected me to our college secretary to exchange documents and soon afterwards to students. Early in my computer use, it occurred to me that my students could submit their papers to me in e-mail. When I got their work in hard copy, I had to have them read to me. This meant scheduling time with a reader, arranging to get together and then sitting while my reader read aloud and I tried to stay awake and listen. With my computer doing the reading, there were no limitations of time and place. I did it when I liked including when I had insomnia. What began as an experiment with a few students soon became my standard work format. Students liked it as their papers with grades were returned much sooner.

One of the first students to submit a project in e-mail was a young deaf woman. On getting her grade, she wrote back with some questions on the grading. I immediately replied. Soon another e-mail arrived with some further question on another topic. After my reply came yet another message. I almost worried we were starting an affair. Her mail said that this was the first time in her life that she had communicated with a teacher without having to go through an interpreter. Yes, this was even using the technology to overcome a dual sensory barrier!

Well, at the time I began integrating e-mail into my classes, my university began looking for a faculty member to experiment with adding more interaction to a television-delivered course with the use of e-mail. I volunteered. The fledgling distance learning department expected a able-bodied engineer or computer science teacher and not a blind history professor.

The term 'distance learning' is misleading today. The technologies that we are talking about are frequently used without much distance being involved. At the Rochester Institute of Technology, most distance learning students live within an hour's driving distance from campus. They usually hold down a full-time job and have a family to care for too. Those two hours travel to campus and home add a lot of stress to a busy schedule. Single mothers come home, have dinner with their children and do not want to hire a baby sitter and abandon the children again. Working from home after the child is in bed is an attractive way to work on a university degree. Others, depending on their work situation, may use their office computer during the lunch hour to connect to their school work. We even have a percentage of students who actually live on campus and take a course from the distance learning program. Some do it because of scheduling conflicts with on-campus equivalent classes. Others like the independence afforded by distance learning. This raises the question of what should we call distance learning.

Some faculty who have been involved in distance learning courses even begin introducing some of the technology into regular classroom courses. One philosophy professor became tired of students spouting off nonsense in the classroom. He switched to providing lecture material in the classroom and moving the discussion to a distance learning conference system. There, students had the opportunity to reflect on what they were saying, and he found the discussions more meaningful. For other reasons, many on-campus courses integrate some distance learning features into their material. Some have begun calling this 'distributed learning' or 'decentralized learning'. While the phrase sounds ugly, I sometimes call it computer-mediated learning.

This is not the place to indulge in an in-depth discussion of terminology. I wanted to demonstrate the distance learning is bigger than it appears at first glance. Next, let us look at how distance learning and disabilities interconnect.

Obviously, everything that has been said earlier in this presentation, both the pros and cons of computers in education still apply. The opportunities are as large as your imagination in using the technology. The problems caused by improper interface design and sometimes by the format in which information is stored are the issues that have to be adapted and looked at carefully. There is no need to repeat the technical parts of design again except to say that they are serious but that they can all be solved. The Web Access Initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium provides excellent guidelines for universal web design. There are a handful of other advantages to this technology for students with disabilities that we should look at.

When you provide adaptive computer technology on campus, the particular software packages you select may be different than those used by a student at home. This can require learning two systems. Accessing information from home means the student can be working on familiar equipment and software.

The ability to access information from home also means that a student can select his best work time in terms of being awake and alert. In most cases, the student can work at an independent pace instead of having to keep up with a group. In many cases, it lets the disabled student work more slowly and carefully. For some, it may also mean that they can move ahead more quickly when they are more skilled than the rest of the class.

In distance learning discussions mediated through a computer, students frequently interact differently. Often, they share more freely. Shy students may talk more freely. Where there is no stage there need be no stage fright! We don't think of shyness as a learning disability, but it amounts to that in some circumstances. The flexibility of distance learning accommodates students with disabilities as well as those with a wide variety of learning styles.

Finally, e-mail frequently turns out to be a simpler and more efficient way to talk to a professor than in person or over the phone. It is asynchronous. How often does a

student go to a professor's office to find the room empty? How often do you call someone only to get an answering machine, and what is more frustrating than returning a call from your machine only to get the machine of the original person?

I do not pretend that distance learning is the perfect educational system. It has strengths and weaknesses. However, it can have some unique potentials for students with disabilities and guaranteeing access to it for them is important.

Conclusion:

We now have one of the most powerful tools to help students with disabilities obtain an education and prepare for work. It seems so obvious, one wonders why it is not universally available! Most of the reason is that many people are not aware of its potential. The next reason is that usually providing this tool is not specifically part of someone's job description. If no one has that responsibility, everyone assumes it is someone else's responsibility, and the job goes undone. Bureaucratic ineptness is another barrier. People want to dump any new jobs on someone else, and 'doing the right thing' becomes bogged down with administrative in-fighting. For those of us who are aware of the potential, it is our responsibility to raise the consciousness of key people at our institutions. We then need to become a kind of pest till some system is put into place to provide such access across the entire institution.

The present largest danger seems to me to be the greatest hope for the future. As computers spread into every corner of education, they threaten to create new barriers and make things worse for students with disabilities. However, about the time this becomes a crisis, there will be only one possible solution: make the entire campus computer and information technology fully accessible to students and professors with disabilities.