[Digital_Divide] CoSN pushes accessible technology

[bridging_the_divide at touchsmart.net]

CoSN pushes accessible technology
By Corey Murray, Associate Editor, eSchool News
January 24, 2005

The nonprofit Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) has launched a 
three-year initiative intended to demonstrate how greater collaboration 
and increased communication between school technology leaders and 
special-education departments can deliver the benefits of a 
technology-rich education to all students, including those with 
disabilities.

CoSN officially unveiled the program during the annual Assistive 
Technology Industry Association conference in Orlando Jan. 21 and plans 
to make a similar announcement at the Florida Educational Technology 
Conference, also in Orlando, on Jan. 27.

"America's schools need a new conversation between those responsible 
for general education and those responsible for special education 
around how technology can assist all students," said Bob Moore, CoSN 
chairman, who is also executive director of IT services at Blue Valley 
Union School District 229 in Overland Park, Kan. "This new initiative 
will bridge the divide between district-level technology and 
special-education leaders, demonstrating how successful districts are 
overcoming these obstacles and what tools can be employed to extend 
access to technology to students of all abilities."

Through its "Accessible Technologies for All Students" initiative, CoSN 
will host a series of educational resources and professional 
development opportunities intended to facilitate the effective use of 
educational technology for all students, regardless of ability or 
disability.

Among the project's many endeavors are a program web site, 
www.accessibletech4all.org, featuring a repository of best practices 
that highlight how successful districts have sought to integrate the 
work of IT staff and mainstream educators with the efforts of 
special-education departments; an educator's toolkit that includes 
slide shows, checklists, and suggestions for improving the widespread 
access to technology for all students; a whitepaper outlining the 
issues surrounding K-12 technology accessibility; and a series of 
online courses and face-to-face workshops explaining the importance of 
accessible technologies in U.S. schools.

The ongoing initiative also will feature an aggressive advocacy 
campaign, including interviews and meetings between K-12 district 
technology leaders and special-education directors and a Capitol Hill 
policy briefing, providing educators with an opportunity to state their 
case for accessible technologies to members of Congress.

Since the inception of the federal No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, a 
new era of accountability in the nation's schools has made it incumbent 
on all educators, including those in special education, to raise the 
bar on student achievement. Faced with an enormous task--and determined 
not to leave a single student behind--many educators have embraced 
technology as a means to achieve the sweeping federal mandate.

In general, however, schools have largely approached the integration of 
technology on two separate fronts: assistive technology, or solutions 
generally reserved for students in the special-education system; and 
information technology, which encompasses the use of instructional 
technologies in mainstream learning environments.

As CoSN's latest report suggests, a fundamental rift exists between the 
good work being done in mainstream education and the strides being made 
by special-education leaders, especially in terms of students' use of 
technology.

"Communication and interaction between those in charge of 
special-education assistive technologies and those responsible for 
district information and instructional technology programs remains 
almost non-existent in many school district settings," wrote project 
director Sonja Schmieder in her introduction to CoSN's latest report.

But times are changing, CoSN suggests.

Rather than maintain separate approaches to the use of technology in 
schools, educators can help all children succeed by using technology to 
bridge the gap between special-needs learners and mainstream students. 
Where assistive technologies might be used to provide special-ed 
learners with access to mainstream opportunities, the same solutions 
might also be deployed in traditional classrooms to help mainstream 
students exceed their potential through the application of new and, as 
yet, untested approaches to learning.

"NCLB has forced us to understand that underachievement is not limited 
to students with disabilities," explained Dave Edyburn, an associate 
professor with the Department of Exceptional Education at the 
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, during a Jan. 19 webcast about 
CoSN's initiative.

Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the concept of "universal 
design," an emerging theory of instructional design that suggests it's 
better to create instructional solutions built to address a wide array 
of educational needs. The theory, supported by such educational groups 
as CoSN and the Massachusetts-based Center for Applied Special 
Technology, contends that technology has the greatest effect on 
learning for all students, including those with disabilities, when it 
is deployed with a unified vision, combining the resources of AT 
(assistive technology) and IT (information technology) into a single, 
workable solution.

The reason is simple, says Edyburn: No two students are the same.

"American classrooms are more diverse than ever, and efforts that 
enable all students to achieve high academic standards will require new 
approaches to teaching and learning," he noted. "Assistive technology 
has the potential to impact everyone, either directly as a personal 
user of assistive technology, or indirectly, as a means of helping 
someone we know."

Not that shifting the way school districts view the use of assistive 
technologies will be easy. According to CoSN's report, schools likely 
will have to overcome a myriad of obstacles before building a united 
front between AT and IT.

Aside from an overall lack of vision by school decision makers, the 
report states that insufficient training, the technical incompatibility 
of systems, the existence of financial hurdles, and an overall lack of 
time and resources likely will make it difficult to achieve better 
communication between AT and IT staffs--at first.

But don't despair, Schmieder says; the results--when they come--will be 
worth it.

"Positive relationships between general and special-education 
technology leaders have the potential to create a powerful force for 
enhancing the school culture as well as advocating for technology-rich 
education overall," she wrote in the report.

Aside from fostering better communication among staff and sharing 
ideas, educators say increased collaboration between special-ed and IT 
departments will bring about partnerships critical to education reform, 
accelerate the use of technology in schools, increase access to 
assistive and accessible technologies for all students, and employ a 
greater range of solutions that ultimately can individualize 
instruction for every student, regardless of disability or learning 
style.

Still not sold on the idea? Several forward-thinking districts already 
are reporting favorable results, says CoSN.



For instance, in Blue Valley, a 20,000-student district outside Kansas 
City, CoSN's Moore sought to bring AT and IT staffers together by 
establishing an IT-AT Working Group whose job was to author and 
implement a joint technology plan for all students, including those 
with disabilities, at a new elementary school in the district.

To lead the group, Blue Valley also created a new AT coordinator 
position, with the sole job of streamlining collaboration between these 
two historically disjointed departments.

"We're just starting to see the results of this--and it's very 
exciting," said Moore. For a closer look at the goings-on in Blue 
Valley, educators can visit the CoSN project web site and look at the 
case study.

Meanwhile, educators at the 60,800-student Boston Public Schools (BPS) 
have taken the idea one step further, creating an entire department 
charged with building a better rapport between the district's Office of 
Instructional Technology and its assistive technology arm.

Directed by Kristen Eichleay, BPS's Access Technology Center (ATC) is 
responsible for fostering relationships across various instructional 
departments and ensuring that AT and IT staff members confer when 
deciding what technologies make the most sense for the district.

As the director of a three-person office, Eichleay participates in all 
district-level IT meetings and activities. Because her office shares 
its budget with the larger IT office, the ATC also has a direct say in 
what technologies the district chooses to invest in.

Through a series of collaborative projects and grants obtained 
throughout the district, the ATC is helping to ensure that "assistive 
technology" is no longer a term reserved solely for students with 
disabilities, Eichleay says.

CoSN's Accessible Technologies for All Students initiative is supported 
by corporate sponsors Sprint Corp., AlphaSmart Inc., Apple Computer, 
Educational Testing Service, IntelliTools Inc., Kurzweil Educational 
Systems, and Verizon. eSchool News is the initiative's media sponsor.

CoSN's full report on this topic will be available this spring as part 
of the 2005 CoSN Compendium.

Links:

Consortium for School Networking
http://www.cosn.org

Accessible Technologies for all Students
http://www.accessibletech4all.org

Blue Valley Union School District
http://www.bluevalleyk12.org

Center for Applied Special Technology
http://www.cast.org


http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/PFshowstory.cfm?ArticleID=5468
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