[blindkid] Wake Up Call: Addressing the E-Based & Web-Based Educational Gap between Sighted & Blind Students

[Carol Castellano]

Whoa, Eric, this is an amazing wake-up 
call.  Perhaps this should be a Federation 
priority in our education initiative.  I truly 
thank you for putting all the time and effort into writing this!

Carol

At 12:56 AM 8/31/2011, you wrote:
>Talk about a wake up call! I learned that not only are iPads being piloted
>in the high school, but also in every school in our district. At my younger
>son¹s elementary school the whole 5th grade class will be using iPads this
>school year. One of the other elementary schools in our district chose to
>pilot iPads at the kindergarten level! The whole district is getting wired
>to phase in the electronic era. This is no longer some futurist possibility
>­ the e-wave is here & will likely roll into your district before you know
>it. How many TVIs & parents are ready to assure their blind K-12 students
>have equal exposure to all the iPad has to offer? How many know who to link
>braille-notakers to iPads?
>It is with this reality in mind that I share the following thoughts.
>Based on the US Department of Justice¹s & the US Department of Education¹s
>joint written statements (attached), existing accessibility laws include
>requirements to ensure that e-based & web-based education is accessible to
>all. As such, e-based & web-based instructional materials & tools are
>mandated to be not only blind student-user-friendly, but e-content must as
>much as possible be equivalent to the educational experience that sighted
>print reading students are privy to.
>The laws & regulations seem quite clear & specifics have been well-defined
>the US DOE & DOJ Joint FAQ (attached), yet surprisingly few individuals in
>school districts, in the blindness education field, & in textbook
>publisher¹s circles appear to be aware of the regulations, & fewer still
>appear to be in compliance with regulations. Mechanisms to inform all those
>that need to know, as well as mechanisms to encourage & enforce compliance
>are lacking.
>I know that there are individuals on these list-servs who have started to
>address the issues. As a parent of 2 blind students mainstreamed in an
>academically high-performing school district, I would like to share what I
>perceive to be some of the main issues within the scope of this topic. I
>will start with a thought-provoking theoretical scenario & then move on to
>try to define specific areas of concern that not only warrant attention, but
>that need to be addressed.
>I am hoping those of you who have the interest, the motivation, the
>connections, & the clout will take these issues not only to heart, but will
>also take the lead in tackling these head-on Locally (in your school
>districts & VI programs), at the State level, & Nationally.
>Imagine a large-scale study spanning a decade or so which divides all
>sighted students in the US into 2 groups: Study Group 1 would have full
>access to the entire content of current textbooks (or iPad-based e-textbooks
>if you prefer); the other half of the students, Study Group 2, would be
>permitted access to only the main body text & some side text. Study Group 1
>would have access to detailed maps for social science & well-done graphics
>of all sorts for both science & math (e-based graphics might even be
>interactive); the millions of students in Study Group 2 would have limited
>access to all non-text visuals, and would have exposure to only a limited
>number of make shift maps & diagrams deemed to be the ³most important ones²
>created by someone locally in their district.
>What would the results of such a study be? Who would score better on tests?
>Who would rank higher in their class? Would their higher education & job
>opportunities be affected?
>ANSWER: There would be outrage over how unfair this type of study would be
>well before it ever got off the ground & such an experiment could never
>happen because it would be considered unethical. Yet, this does illustrate
>the position blind students are or could be in.
>I am a huge fan of technology & e-text & its potential to enhance the
>learning experience of all, but the scope of the accessibility issues that
>needs to be addressed in the area of emerging electronic education &
>technology is broad & is not getting an appropriate level attention &
>urgency. These issues should be addressed thoughtfully & preemptively,
>rather than in the historical reactive fashion. These are not esoteric
>concerns, but rather have now become concrete academic issues. It would not
>be as stretch to go so far as to take the position that this may even be an
>equal rights issue.
>1. E-Textbooks for blind students are not an educationally equivalent
>experience to standard print textbooks the sighted students are using.
>The most blaring example of this is that in current e-textbooks for blind
>students the pictures, charts, & diagrams are usually frequently omitted. It
>is critical to understand that in state-adopted textbooks beyond the main
>body of text, most textbook pages contain additional diagrams,
>illustrations, graphs, pictures, charts, & links to suggested webpages.
>These charts & other visuals may make up a quarter to over a half of the
>relevant content on a given textbook page; as such, much of this information
>is not really supplemental, but rather represents the ³key points² on what
>the students are expected to learn & understand. Not only is the graphic
>content NOT DESCRIBED fully in e-textbooks, but the presence/absence of the
>graphics may not even noted - so the blind student may not even be aware
>they are missing vital information that has been presented to sighted kids
>in graphic form. As an aside, even some of the California State produced
>embossed textbooks omit figures, diagrams, charts, & especially maps (under
>the heading of something along of ³see teacher² for this section) ­ yet one
>must wonder: ³how often does the clarification actually happen?².
>The e-files are a nice supplement, they are easily searchable; they are
>portable & give students ongoing access to glossaries & textbook
>dictionaries. E-text affords students the opportunity to look up specifics
>in other chapters easily when they don¹t have the needed embossed volume
>readily available. Unlike sighted students who have the whole book in the
>classroom & at home, braille readers only have real-time access to 1 or a
>few volumes at time in class, & unlike their sighted peers who have a full
>textbook for home use, many (if not most) don¹t have a full embossed copy of
>their textbooks for home. Yes, this a real problem for many reasons: because
>some teachers teach chapters out of sequence, when studying for exams
>students may need access to other chapters, & importantly the textbook
>glossaries & indexes are in completely separate volumes which blind students
>don¹t have ready access to.
>Part of the reluctance of TVIs in past years to use e-textbooks is the
>argument that they are not completely ³cleaned up². Not all are fully
>transcriber-proofed - at least many don¹t appear to be - having extra
>symbols/markers that students need to ignore. While the formatting of
>e-textbooks for blind students (or lack thereof) hasn¹t changed that much,
>more & more TVIs & students realize that the e-textbooks are never-the-less
>readable & as such usable. In the textbooks for blind students that I have
>seen, the book is presented as a folder, the files have been ³.rtf² files,
>some of which are readable in their downloaded form on a braillenotaker,
>others are not readable. The files names within the folders are page
>numbers, not chapter titles ­ this does not appear to have been particularly
>well-thought out.
>A further problem with e-textbooks (that is also an issue with embossed
>textbooks, is that the supplemental or illustrative ³side text² & comments
>in elementary, middle school, & high school education level textbooks is
>somehow inserted between paragraphs of the main textbook text (often in what
>seems to be an arbitrary way) that breaks from the main text flow. Older
>students can adapt to this, but this makes it confusing & harder for
>children in the younger grades, especially 4th grade and under who are
>trying to follow along in passages being read in class.
>The unfortunate reality is that ³Publisher Quality books² don¹t necessarily
>provide the blind/visually-impaired reader an equal literary experience to
>the print version, even in the educational setting. Bookshare is truly an
>Amazing Resource! The last few years most of our school district¹s Summer
>Reading books have been available for immediate download; the few that were
>not yet available, were quickly processed by the Bookshare staff & posted
>within a few weeks. The Bookshare staff & volunteers are phenomenal group of
>individuals. That being said, there are however issues that may not be
>obvious to all. My elder son finished one of his 9th grade Summer Reading
>Books, ³The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time². The text was
>overall fine, but the published print version of this book has quite number
>of important visuals in the form of diagrams, puzzles, formulas & pictures,
>symbols etc, that are an important part of this novel. Some of the symbols
>were transcribed incorrectly, but in most cases these important components
>were just omitted completely. The context of the visuals was not described &
>not even referred to ­ it just wasn¹t there on the downloadable version. My
>son could tell something was missing based on the context, & requested we go
>to our local library to check out the print version of the book ­ we did &
>described each graphic. My son contacted Bookshare to inform them of the
>problem with this particular book. The response he received was: ³This is a
>publisher quality book and unfortunately we cannot edit publisher quality
>books.² This novel is a Summer Reading Book not only locally, but elsewhere
>as well & as such is part of academic curriculums. An increasing number of
>academic literary books are including graphics that are an integral part of
>the stories. I am an optimist & hope that this can be eventually
>appropriately addressed. Hopefully the ³Publisher Quality² textbooks that
>Bookshare produces are/will be closer to a true print-equivalent experience
>for our students than the above-mentioned book was.
>As e-textbooks are further refined, students will still need access to
>high-quality transcriber-produced & embossed textbooks for diagrams, charts,
>maps, & other graphically-displayed components ­ it just is not acceptable
>that such information be omitted & students need the hand-on to really
>understand the graphic layouts. It is my understanding that based on the
>current laws, omissions of the pertinent graphically displayed content in
>state-adopted textbooks is not only ³not fair² to blind students, but in
>reality, it is does not meet the legal requirements set forth by the laws of
>this country. Those that produce & distribute textbooks for blind students
>should pay attention to this for they may be held accountable for assuring
>compliance with the law.
>2. New-Generation E-Textbooks will literally prove to be a shift to an
>entirely new dimension. In their current form e-books for use on braille
>notetakers are basically just the straight-forward text found on book pages.
>Graphics, charts, tables, maps etc are currently not adequately described &
>are too frequently omitted. As State-adopted textbooks go electronic, such
>as on an iPad, e-textbooks will no longer be ³2-Dimensional² (that is the
>current straight text with pictures/graphs), rather it is highly likely that
>specific words, concepts within the text, references & pictures will be
>hyper-linked to other pages or websites that discuss those issues in more
>depth & will likely include links to non-accessible video, pictures, and to
>PDF files. (Since may students use braillenotekers to access materials,
>access to PDFs need to somehow be made a priority for those who produce the
>notetakers.) This linking will make textbooks in a sense ³3-D & perhaps even
>4-Dimensional². To my knowledge there is no clear plan in place to address
>this shift to the next dimension. Who is responsible & accountable for
>assuring that blind students will have equal access & educational
>experience?
>3. The move towards electronic & web-based teaching experiences is no longer
>theoretical, but is actively occurring in classrooms & curriculums all over
>the country. This is happening at all grade levels, in some districts more
>rapidly than others, but the shift is definitely in progress. While this has
>the potential to level the playing field, the reality is that many teacher¹s
>webpages, many web-based school calendar programs, and many publishers¹
>webpages are not fully independently accessible. Furthermore, many
>teacher/district calendars  & importantly the publisher¹s websites of many
>state-adopted textbooks that students are instructed to use (to learn more
>about concepts, access study guides, & take pre-tests) contain links to
>materials that are not fully independently accessible. Based on the US Dept.
>of Justice's & US Dept. of Education's New Accessible Technology Guidelines
>(attached) these types of issues are basically illegal, yet these types of
>problems are wide-spread & as commonplace as exceeding the speed limit.  It
>appears that few school district personnel are even aware of the
>requirements of on-line accessibly compliance. According to the guidelines,
>accessibility is mandated by the law - whether or not there are any blind
>students in that class/school ­ just like wheelchair accessibility is now
>required irrespective of whether or not there are wheelchair users in a
>school. Given that many districts are in early stages of development &
>adaptation to the ³educational e-wave,² now is the most logical time to make
>all districts aware so that they can take into account compliance with
>accessibility requirements.
>4. TVIs don¹t get enough training to be truly proficient in all the
>necessary new technologies the blind/VI students need to optimally succeed &
>reach their full potential. Education of our future TVIs in the various
>blind/low vision technologies needs to move well beyond ³exposure level².
>Students in TVI programs should have to demonstrate at least a certain level
>of - not only familiarity - but rather Functional Proficiency with at least
>the basic commonly used blind/low vision software, such as screen-reading
>programs (such as JAWS), accessible OCR programs (such as Kurzweil), &
>accessible braille/text conversion programs (such as Duxbury),  & with
>hardware (note-takers such as BrailleNote or PacMate, etc.) (I realize that
>specific companies & brands can¹t be focused on, I present these as
>illustrative examples - it is up to individual teaching programs to sort out
>the specifics).
>The technological skill level of what may have been adequate for TVI a year
>ago, will no longer be adequate in the very near future. TVIs also now, or
>in the very near future, will be responsible for being able to teach their
>blind/VI students to use iPads & wirelessly link them to braille-displays so
>that students can access their curriculums. TVIs need to be able to teach
>students how to create & format WORD, EXCEL, & PowerPoint files & how to
>independently handle PDFs. The reality is that very few sighted TVIs are
>truly proficient with these technologies to a truly adequate degree that the
>students need nowadays in order to be fully competitive with their sighted
>peers.  How actively & adequately are TVI Teaching Preparation Programs
>addressing these new issues?
>5. In addition to really upping expectations in this area in TVI Teaching
>Preparation Programs, alternate solutions should seriously be considered.
>School Districts/SELPAs/LEAs may want to seriously consider consciously
>partnering more with national organizations of the blind such as the NFB &
>with state schools of the blind, such as in California ­ CSB (the California
>School for the Blind) ­ which has a phenomenal technology program that has
>run regional in-services for TVIs & has CSB campus-based week-long or so
>programs for young blind/VI students in the summer & occasionally at other
>times. Such opportunities are way underutilized. Their online tools for
>teachers & technology users (the students) should be taken advantage of &
>online teaching content should be developed further with all these factors
>in mind.
>An additional solution would be for all local VI programs to hire at least
>one proficient blind TVI. Blind individuals will in general be the most
>proficient with the various blind technologies & their functional
>application for they use these tools on a daily basis. (I do realized that
>there are sighted TVIs that are in fact capable of doing it all & I applaud
>that, but based on my interactions with families & TVIs from around the
>country, there are many TVIs who lack the needed level of proficiency with
>the blind technologies.) The current concept of caseloads could be
>restructured at bit, to more of a team approach when needed, where the blind
>TVI focuses more on the technology aspects of each student¹s educational
>needs, as well as other critical blindness skills. Having such local
>expertise in each VI program would be a huge boost of resources to the
>programs & the students each program is charged with educating. Furthermore
>having daily access to such a blind co-worker would likely result in
>enhancement of the technology skills of all the TVIs in the program.
>6. While literally infants & toddlers are being exposed to iPads & iPhones
>(this is not an exaggeration, I see this in my office regularly), equivalent
>exposure of blind kids to similar technologies typically only begins later
>in elementary school & beyond. In fact at our son¹s high school orientation
>this week, the principal described how his elementary school age children &
>even his 5 year old have iPads & use them to access Khan Academy
>(www.khanacademy.org <http://www.khanacademy.org> ) & Rocket Math
>(www.rocketmath.net <http://www.rocketmath.net> ) & he gave examples how
>these programs have helped his boost his own young children¹s academic
>performance. How many blind children have this type of access? If you
>believe in equal expectations, why don¹t your students have such equal
>access?
>If there is not an immediate educational awakening & paradigm shift in the
>Blind/VI Educational Arena, very few kids at the elementarily & middle
>school level will be anywhere near as proficient as their sighted peers in
>technology. While I have observed a slow shift in attitudes with respect to
>earlier age of exposure to technology, the gap between what sighted kids &
>blind kids remains huge, & arguably with the earlier exposure of sighted
>kids to iPads & iPhones & child-oriented computer programs, the gap will
>likely get even bigger. This gap needs to be closed. There needs to be a
>strong shift to much earlier introduction of technologies to kids & their
>families. Kids /families should have access to screen readers at home
>electronic games (braille-notetaker-based & computer/web-based), and other
>sighted peer equivalent hardware & software.
>7. Lastly, in the context of young children, the concept of what constitutes
>³blind-accessible² needs to be defined. The same webpage that may
>technically be accessible to a student in middle school or high school (who
>has been trained in blind technologies) may very well not be independently
>accessible to a student in the younger grades, for various reasons including
>the technologies may not yet have been introduced, or they may not yet have
>the required proficiently, or they may not have the needed software or
>hardware to access required assignments at home.
>The current problems & the obstacles that lay ahead have been described &
>appreciated by many educators, parents, students, & leaders in industry &
>the blind community, yet as I look around, I can¹t quite figure out who is
>really taking the lead. There are many well-meaning & strong advocates, but
>there is no clear team leader.
>Some of you may be familiar with these famous lines from the poem, Invictus:
>³I am the master of my fate:
>I am the captain of my soul.² We all have a
>vested interest in this area. The web-based electronic-based educational
>fleet of ships has set sail - for both charted & uncharted waters. There are
>many exceptional & experienced ³sailors² & captains, but each is steering
>their own ship with their own goals in mind. For the voyage to be fruitful
>more coordinated course need to be charted ahead of time; we need a mission
>& fleet admiral (or steering committee) to oversee the voyage & to take
>responsibility for addressing the obstacles that will be encountered along
>the way. A team-approach is needed locally & at the State & National levels.
>This really needs to be made a priority.
>Respectfully,
>Eric Vasiliauskas
>
>-----
>1. June 29, 2010 US Department of Education Dear Colleague letter:
>www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-20100629.html
><http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-20100629.html>
>.
>2. Guidelines in the form of Frequently Asked Questions:
>www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/dcl-ebook-faq-201105.html
><http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/dcl-ebook-faq-201105.html> .
>3. May 26, 2011 second US DOE Dear Colleague letter stating that the same
>legal obligations apply to elementary and secondary schools:
>www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-201105-ese.html
><http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-201105-ese.html>
>
>
>
>
>Content-type: application/pdf; name=" US DOE Dear Colleague Letter  (DCL2) to"
>         Elementary and Secondary Education Officials May 26, 2011.pdf";
>         x-mac-creator="4341524F"; x-mac-type="50444620"
>Content-disposition: attachment;
>         filename="US DOE Dear Colleague Letter (DCL2) to Elementary and"
>         Secondary Education Officials May 26, 2011.pdf"
>
>
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