My EASI Webinar

I am very excited about my upcoming webinar for EASI. It will be four live sessions April 21, 28, May 12, 19 (By the way this was rescheduled from a March date). There will also be three asynchronous discussion sessions. This webinar is built around my recent LRP book on managing AT in higher ed. Select here to go to EASI’s announcement about this webinar.

What is most exciting to me is that it will be delivered on the web. The web is certainly one of the most important educational “venues” of the future and EASI’s Norman Coombs has literally years of experience providing educational events on the web. I think our collaboration will make for a memorable training experience. .

Webinar Focus

Those of you familiar with my work know that I emphasize AT management strategies for practitioners in higher education. Managing AT is a process and the better we understand our goals, the various tech pieces, our resources and our limitations the smoother our operations will run. And that not only benefits the student, but also the harried and overworked DS or AT coordinator.

Of course, technology is central to any workshop on AT, but there are different ways to approach technology; you can take the micro approach and discuss an application’s operational key combinations, installation quirks etc. or you can take a more macro approach and discuss types of AT and how they work in the larger university environment. Both approaches are equally valid, I just happen to take the macro view because it fits well with the management discussion.

Who Should Take This Webinar?

This training is very helpful to DS or AT coordinators who are relatively new to the field and are still gaining experience. Experienced managers who want to integrate their AT offerings into a cohesive program, but are finding it fairly challenging will also benefit from this webinar. If, on the other hand, you are trying to find out things like what the keystrokes the screen-reader JAWS needs to read footnotes, you should seek a different workshop.

A Brief Story

I was leaving a conference in Nevada last summer and the line for the airport shuttle was long and not moving. I turned to the person behind me and asked if he wanted to share a cab and he said yes. On the way to the airport he asked if I remembered him and I admitted that I did not. He told me he had taken my work shop in Pittsburgh a year or two ago and he said that the workshop helped him get a job as a DS coordinator. Well, I can’t promise such results for everyone, but if you are truly interested in successfully organizing, implementing and managing your college’s AT program then you will benefit from this webinar.

A Word About Me

I do workshops, consulting and even wrote a book, but my full-time job is as the AT coordinator for the University of Oregon. I work all the time with real students, real faculty, real campus IT people, real campus web developers etc. You get the idea, I fight the same fight you do every day. The material in my workshops comes from this distinctive and authentic environment.

Carl Brown
1946 - 2008

The AT professional family has lost one of its most esteemed members. Carl Brown, Director of the High Tech Center Training Unit (HTCTU), died November 21, 2008 in Northern California. One simply cannot overstate Carl’s importance to the field of assistive technology, especially in higher education. He steadfastly championed this cause for over 30 years.

I had the very good fortune of participating in his training program in the early 90s. Carl and his staff at the time, Wayne Chenoweth and Marcia Norris, produced trainings that remain the standard by which others are judged to this day.

Carl Brown had the greatest vision and the most resolute determination of anyone I have ever known in the AT field. For many it will be hard to understand this loss because Carl promoted ideas, programs and philosophies rather than himself. But make no mistake; absolutely no one has had greater influence on shaping and defining AT in higher education than Carl Brown.

One trick I quickly learned during those training days was that if you brought your lunch back to the HTCTU, the chances were good that you would end up having lunch with Carl and whoever else was around in the conference room. I have fond memories of those lunches. My very first in-depth class about the internet was done by Carl in 93 or 94. Not only was he enthusiastic about the internet in its then rather primitive state, but it was clear he could see the future and the great possibilities the internet held. Also in those days I “toured” the De Anza College campus in a virtual reality that Carl built. It was a completely text and command line environment, but you could enter rooms, explore objects and even travel across the campus. As I said, he was man of vision.

It has been years since I have spoken with Carl, but his influence remains in much of my daily work. This is truly a very sad loss. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family.

Emerging and Diverging Competencies in College AT Support

I recently attended the International Dyslexia Association (IDA) national conference and it has me thinking about how supporting Assistive Technology in colleges and universities is diverging into two separate and distinct competencies. On the one hand, is the technical support aspect to AT, and on the other there is an emerging end-user support competency. The reason the IDA conference got me thinking about this is the way they discussed students utilizing AT. There was very little “technical” talk of keystrokes, networking problems, roaming profiles etc at the presentations. There was talk about assessing students, selecting appropriate tools and strategies, evaluating outcomes etc. While technology is an important tool to these professionals, the focus remained on the student.

The technical support competency essentially makes sure that the computers work and the AT is functioning as it should. The newer emerging end-user competency ensures that the user is getting the maximum benefit of the technology and in the world of AT this is a critical piece of support. These competencies are not unique to AT, but it is the AT aspect that is the subject of this brief article.

The Technical Support Competency

The AT tech-support competencies includes basic skill sets such as: understanding computer security, networking protocols, configuring and maintaining of desktop computers and basic web interactions. Additionally, the AT tech-support provider needs to understand resolving software conflicts, innovative uses of system level devices and their special application to AT. They also need a basic understanding of the alternative methods students with disabilities use when computing.

But in the end, the AT technical support competency is about providing a smooth-running, efficient and trouble-free computer. It has little to do with the end-user.

The End-user Support Competency

The end-user support competencies are skills related to the successful use of the recommended applications. Training computer users has grown into its own area of expertise. It is an even more critical task when the computer users have disabilities. While training students with physical disabilities requires special skills, it is students with learning disabilities that I want to focus on here.

Students with learning disabilities, obviously, may require alternative learning methods and learning to use the computer is no exception. An AT provider expected to get students with learning disabilities fluent with computers, must have some expertise in this specialized training area. And remember, we are not (necessarily) talking about using word processors or spreadsheets, but specialized programs to help the student compensate for a reading or other cognitive deficit.
Most AT support staff will probably tell you that their job is a blend of these two skill sets. I have been doing this for over fifteen years and that is what I would say. The depth of knowledge in each skill set is increasing to the point that it is becoming difficult for one person to do both well. In my own case, a few years back I began shifting basic tech-support to a systems group and I received formal and informal training in teaching technology integration to students.

How This May Affect Your Staffing

If you have an AT specialist on staff, then establish whether their strengths are technical support or end-user support. If your employee has good technical skills, then you might consider enhancing your end-user support. Most colleges have a department supporting academically struggling students and they can make a great partner in this endeavor. Their specialty is the student. They may even find some of your technology of interest for the students that they are serving.

If your AT specialist leans toward end-user support (this can be the case when a college hires a former student with a disability to work in the AT lab), then you might want to strengthen basic technical support. You usually find such support from your college IT department. Support can also be available from a smaller group, sometimes referred to as “systems support.” For example, such a group might manage computers in the library.

If you have no AT specialist, but are contemplating hiring one, then decide which competency set you need most and let that direct your job description. The important thing is that, in the very near future, blending these skill sets into one job may not be in the best interest of your students.

The Take Away

Know that there are two emerging and separate skill sets necessary to deliver high quality AT support in colleges and universities. By virtue of history, the technical side is more established, but now many experts recognize the importance of specialized support for maximizing the end-user’s benefit of the technology.

The technical set-up and maintenance of academic computing facilities is increasingly being taken over by various systems groups on college campuses. This frees DS to hire a technologist who’s expertise and training focuses on end-user success. And this is extremely important in promoting the academic success of students with learning disabilities.