[nfbwatlk] Digital Revolution Changing Lives of Students With Disabilities, Education Week, February 27 2012

[Prows, Bennett (HHS/OCR)]

Interesting.  And, I like the way the writer understands the concepts: "translating his Braille into English, and English into Braille" 

Guess we are bilingual.  (grin.)

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Mike Freeman
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2012 7:12 PM
To: 'NFB of Washington Talk Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [nfbwatlk] Digital Revolution Changing Lives of Students With Disabilities, Education Week, February 27 2012

What's gonna happen to the blind kid with the iPad and Refreshabraille when
he needs a complicated word processor as opposed to just reading text from
beginning to end? There isn't an iPad app out there that can go from
beginning to end of a document in one keystroke as a Braille note-taker can.
One wonders whether Cahty white knows this?

Mike


-----Original Message-----
From: nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Nightingale, Noel
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2012 5:18 PM
To: nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org
Subject: [nfbwatlk] Digital Revolution Changing Lives of Students With
Disabilities, Education Week, February 27 2012


Link:
http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2012/02/27/mct_digitalspeced.html

Text:
Published Online: February 27, 2012
Digital Revolution Changing Lives of Students With Disabilities
By Frank Schultz, The Janesville Gazette, Wis. (MCT)

Janesville, Wis.

Kyle Beasley is a smart second-grader with an infectious grin.

He's also functionally blind.

Until last fall, the 7-year-old used, 8-by-11-inch Braille texts that
teachers printed for him on a special machine.

Each page cost about $1. He once had four lockers just to store his
textbooks.

Today, the student at Roosevelt Elementary School easily carries his own
iPad and a special Braille translator that allow him to read all his
textbooks, send emails, access the Internet, check the weather and do just
about anything anyone else can do with a computer.

It's new technology that is fundamentally changing how blind people interact
with their world, but it appears the digital revolution is just getting
started when it comes to improving the lives of people with all sorts of
disabilities.

Some of the developments border on the magical, compared with what was
available 20 years ago. Schools are the places where people first encounter
them.

Educators are scrambling to keep up with developments for those who can't
see, can't hear, whose minds have trouble with the written word, who can't
use their arms or legs and even those who can do little more than move their
eyes.

The Janesville School District employs a teacher whose job is to find the
technology that best suits each student who has a disability. Her name is
Kathy White.

"Technology is exploding for us," White said.

Keeping up is a challenge, but colleagues said White is very good at it.

"Kathy White is a master at figuring out what students need then finding,
adapting or building what is necessary to further enhance a student's
ability to learn," Superintendent Karen Schulte said.

White keeps abreast of developments and matches the emerging technologies
with the hundreds of students in the Janesville School District who have
disabilities.

Kyle's translator-called Refreshabraille-is just one example. It has a
Braille keyboard that allows Kyle to write as well as read. It communicates
with his iPad, translating his Braille into English, and English into
Braille.

Plastic Braille dots pop up instantly on a pad, corresponding to a text
displayed on the iPad. Bluetooth technology lets the two devices "talk" to
each other.

Kyle expertly reads the dots with his index finger. When he's done with one
set of dots, the next set pops up.

Keeping up in class is easy, Kyle said with a proud smile.

Asked how he likes his Refreshabraille compared with paper texts, his face
glowed proudly.

"I can read it faster," he said.

There's a learning curve, and Baumunk teaches Kyle problem-solving
strategies for when he gets stuck, but he appears to have learned quickly
since he got the devices last fall.

"It's making him incredibly independent," Baumunk said.

White gets calls from teachers who have students stymied by disabilities.
White looks for a technology to overcome the barriers. She works with every
age in the school district, from 12th-graders to 3-year-olds. The range of
needs is wide.

Consider Correy Winke, who was slated for a slow-paced science class when he
entered Parker High School about 18 months ago. College "was the farthest
thing from my mind," he said.

Correy has dyslexia. His mind has trouble processing the printed word.

White figured Correy had what it takes to reach higher. She helped him get
an iPod and a laptop computer, along with software that will read any text
to him out loud and guess at the words he needs as he writes a class
assignment.

He deftly manipulated a cellphone application and writing programs on his
laptop as he showed a visitor how it all works.

Now a sophomore, Correy is pulling down A's and B's and taking courses such
as honors geometry. Asked if he can handle the work, he responded with a
confident, "Oh, yeah!"

There was a time when Correy would have had an aide assigned to him or
perhaps even been placed in a special-education class.

"I'm in all regular classes," he says proudly.

Correy has a questioning mind. He is learning guitar and hopes to become a
music producer. He recently decided he wants to read "Macbeth."

"I like a challenge," he said.

He's focused on getting into college.

"That wasn't even on the radar" when he was in middle school, White said.

White checks in with Correy about once a week. Now that he has gotten more
adept with the technology, she will back off, she said.

White often has to prove that a particular kind of technology is what's best
for a student. Once she has the proof, she can apply for the money to pay
for it, often through Medical Assistance.

Funding is crucial because anything that is made to help with disabilities
is bound to be expensive, she said.

One such case was a young girl who had never moved unless someone moved her.
White thought she could handle a motorized wheelchair, but the girl could
not control her hand well enough to drive one.

White got a motorized toy car from a store, rebuilt the seat and re-wired it
so the girl could flip a switch to make it go.

White's father was a millwright at the Kenosha Chrysler plant, she said, so
she inherited some of his skills.

"I like to do things like that when I have time to play around," she said.

The experiment was an instant success for the girl.

She was laughing so hard ... we kept telling her to breathe," White
recalled.

With that proof in hand, White was able to request that Medical Assistance
cover the cost of a modified power chair.

Dealing with a computer keyboard is a challenge for many of White's
students. She has found keyboards with larger- or smaller-than-standard
keys, alternative key configurations, and keyboards for use with one hand.

White recently borrowed a computer system called a Tobii Communicator in
hopes it would help a few students who don't have the use of their hands at
all.

Related Blog


Visit this blog.Developed for the paraplegic war wounded, the Tobii includes
a camera that tracks a person's eye movements. Gazing steadily at designated
spots on the computer screen is like pressing a button or clicking a mouse.
It allows someone whose hands don't work to access the Internet and much
more.

With the right connected hardware, a person can switch lights or a TV off
and on, drive a powered wheelchair or even open a door. Users can write and
send email or do just about anything else with a computer.

Three students are using borrowed equipment, and White hopes to document
their efforts so they can get funding for their own machines.

"The students who are using it are using it extremely well," White said, and
they're "extremely excited" once they see the possibilities to do things
they have never been able to do for themselves.

"They become so empowered," White said.

One drawback: Constant concentration on controlling the dot on the screen
can be draining.

White estimates she visits 50 to 60 students a week, helping them learn
their new software or hardware, but that's not the biggest challenge.

"The hardest part for us is to keep up with what's going on," she said.


Copyright (c) 2012, The Janesville Gazette, Wis. Distributed by
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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