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Presenter(s)
Donna McNear
Rum River Special Education Cooperative
315 Seventh Lane NE
Cambridge, MN 55008
Phone: 763-689-3600
Fax: 763-689-3601
Email: dmcnear@ecenet.com
Jim Sullivan
Optelec, USA Inc.
4411 Westchester Ct.
Hudson, OH 44236
Phone: 330-528-0002
Email: jims@optelec.com
This session is designed to help participants understand the importance of standards to guide teaching practices in braille literacy and assistive technology skills, and increase their ability to implement standards based teaching practices in assistive technology services for students who use braille.
Current educational laws, policies, and initiatives are placing an increasing emphasis on research-based educational practices for all students. Teachers in special education fields that are considered "low-incidence," such as in the disability area of visual impairments, are frequently faced with professional and ethical dilemmas because the body of knowledge that is research-based is relatively small in comparison with other teaching fields. In lieu of valid research-based teaching practices, educational standards provide a framework teachers can use to guide their teaching practices to increase student outcomes in braille literacy skills.
A source for guiding educational practices in technology literacy for students who read and write in braille is the National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS), an initiative from the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). School districts throughout the United Stated of America are changing educational practices through the integration of NETS in their school curricula. It is critical that educators in vision impairments explore methods to increase student outcomes in braille literacy and assistive technology because it is common knowledge that technology for people with visual impairments has been slow to develop and implement. It is not unusual for students who read and write in braille to not have access to 21st century assistive technology tools that will help them achieve success in learning, communication, and life skills. Even though technology has "equaled the playing field" for students who read and write in braille, technology is! now also creating greater gaps for the "haves" and the "have nots." It is critical that educators discover new solutions to increase student outcomes in braille literacy skills.
There are many reasons why students who read and write in braille have not had appropriate access to tools, such as funding disparities, perceived cost of tools, and lack of knowledge about integrating braille technology tools into the literacy curriculum. Frequently, teachers feel overwhelmed with trying to provide students with braille assistive technology because of the challenges mentioned above. But teachers can have immediate control over the challenges through implementing standards-based teaching practices to increase the expectations as to what students should know and be able to do to lead successful and productive lives in the 21st century.
This presentation will demonstrate how aligning the braille knowledge and skills students must know and be able to do with the National Educational Technology Standards for Students will provide educators with a much needed resource to improve student outcomes in braille and the use of 21st century technology. This will be demonstrated through the example of how an assistive technology tool, such as an electronic braille writer, can be used to teach braille literacy tasks aligned with the National Educational Technology Standards for Students to improve student outcomes in braille literacy tasks.
The following information will be shared in this session: an overview of the National Educational Technology Standards for Students, their application as a framework and model for increasing the braille literacy skills of students who read and write in braille, the process used to align the NETS with the braille literacy tasks, and demonstration of how assistive technology tools will increase student outcomes. The information provided in this session will assist educators in evaluation, planning, and implementation of braille literacy skills and assistive technology services for students who read and write in braille.
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