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Presenter(s)
Richard L. Schatzberg
Aequus Technologies, LLC
107 Windsor Drive
Pine Brook, NJ 07058
Phone: 973-713-4124
Fax: 973-227-5400
Email: rschatzberg@aequustechnologies.com
Carol J. Wideman
Vcom3D, Inc.
3452 Lake Lynda Drive, Suite 260
Orlando, FL 32817
Phone: 407-737-7310
Fax: 407-737-6821
Email: carolw@vcom3d.com
Ted Henter
Henter Math, LLC
P.O. Box 40430
St. Petersburg, FL 33743-0430
Phone: 888-533-6284
Fax: 727-302-9422
Email: ted@hentermath.com
Background
For decades, many people with disabilities, especially those with visual and hearing impairments, have had a difficult time integrating into society, inclusive of where they live, work and study. As one cause, studies indicate that students with disabilities continue to receive the poorest access to education of any segment of our population. Especially troubling in our high-tech society is data compiled by the National Center for Education Statistics, which indicates that students with disabilities are severely underrepresented in life sciences, physical sciences and mathematics1. Our education and rehabilitation systems rely too heavily upon a limited number of instructional specialists. Despite federal mandates, the lack of access to- and trained support in- assistive technology (AT) tools remains a significant barrier to post secondary opportunities for students with disabilities2.
Convergence of Events Impacts Education of Children with Disabilities
Two drivers will continue to enable improvements in learning outcomes for students with disabilities. While government legislation increases awareness of special education issues, technology innovations has increasingly enabled students with disabilities to seamlessly interact with their classmates and teachers.
In the past, the production of textbooks and other instruction materials for students with disabilities has been an afterthought. It is only through the Chaffee Amendment to the Copyright Law that the post-production process of creating Braille and large print textbooks, as well as audio books, has been permitted. Often times, this slow process results in many students receiving books late in the school year. Driven by the convergence of today's digital technologies, an unprecedented outcome is possible in the education of children with disabilities.
For the first time, there exists a unique opportunity for students with disabilities to move to the forefront of instructional materials. The recent passage of the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS) by the U.S. Congress creates the potential for technology solutions that:
1) Provide complete access to educational content, standardized tests, and dynamic web content;
2) Require no additional AT equipment;
3) Greatly reduce the cost expenditures and reliance on teaching specialist;
4) Provide flexible delivery options, including CD/DVD, telephone, and via the web.
The benefits of these new technologies extend much beyond providing access to children with disabilities. Properly created Digital Talking Books (DTBs) can provide unique viewing, listening and learning styles for English language learners (ELL) and for ubiquitous use by other non-disabled segments of the population. From a market perspective, the larger the population served, the more affordable the pricing of these solutions on a per unit basis, as the return on investment can be divided across a much larger population of potential users.
The idea of people with disabilities as trend-setters has precedent in our society. Curb cut-outs, that were initially intended to allow people who use wheelchairs to move more easily along our streets, have become an important part of our culture. Spend a few minutes on a busy corner and you will see that those same cut-outs are being used by workers pushing carts, parents pushing their children in strollers, and the elderly. Much like accessible curbs, the chart in Figure 1 demonstrates how DTBs and other related digital technologies can create a similar progression.
FIGURE 1
Accessibility Innovations Creates Improved Learning Outcomes
The creation of innovative solutions can provide access to instructional materials, standardized tests, and dynamic web content for the segments of our population that have difficulty gaining access through traditional means and technologies. These innovative features allow students to select the method of reading, listening and viewing (input formats) that best suits their learning styles. The table in Figure 2 demonstrates how well-designed DTBs can impact students with a wide range of disabilities.
FIGURE 2
Product Extensions to the NIMAS Standard Create New Learning Environments
The National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS) creates a standard file format for talking books, however it is the incorporation of innovative product extensions to digital books that will lead to improved learning outcomes for a broader range of users. Two innovative technologies in particular demonstrate how solutions for a single segment of the population of people with disabilities can have a positive impact on a wide array of students, in some cases for students with and without disabilities. The first is a 3-D avatar3 (animated character) that was developed to render content in American Sign Language (ASL) or Signed English (SE), and the second is a tool that helps blind and low vision students walk through the process of solving math problems.
To date, adaptations of digital content for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (D/HH) population are generally made by ensuring "text-equivalents" are available in web pages and digital books. This includes adding text captioning for spoken and auditory information (see Web Content Accessibility Guidelines at http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/). Although providing a text-equivalent "translates" auditory information into the visual modality, this does not ensure that the digital information is equally accessible for the diversity of communication needs found among D/HH people. Research indicates that the median reading comprehension of seventeen and eighteen year old D/HH students is at a fourth grade level (Holt, et al., 1997) (GRI, 1996). Thus, English text, although visual, is not necessarily accessible from a language perspective. Many D/HH individuals in the United States prefer or require communication in some variant of ASL. Presenting English text concurrently with ASL meets a broad spectrum of communication needs and may build upon the English literacy skills an individual already has. To address this need, Vcom3D, Inc. has developed SigningAvatar(r) technology, which provides sign language access to digital media using 3-D animated characters (also known as avatars). Because the technology runs in an Internet browser as well as stand-alone software, SigningAvatar(tm) content can be embedded in DTBs/Literacy Software, Multimedia presentations, documents, and Web pages. Content and SigningAvatar software may be stored on an Internet server, computer desktop, or on CD-ROM. Vcom3D's current research includes development of software to automatically translate any English text to sign language. When completed, this will provide cost effective "any where, any time" access to digital content for D/HH individuals.
Recent studies of Virtual Learning Environments (Johnson, Rickel & Lester, 2000; Economou, Mitchell, and Boyle, 2000) have indicated that lifelike virtual actors, or "avatars", can provide an important role in guiding learning and structuring interaction in Web-based virtual environments. These avatars can also add an affective component (Lester, et al., 1997), sometimes called the "persona effect", which substantially enhances the learners' attitude toward the material being taught. However, creation of these virtual actors has been expensive, and their application has generally been limited to a small number of research projects. To address this need, Vcom3D has extended the capability of our authoring tools and runtime software to allow us to cost effectively provide interactive multilingual characters that serve as mentors or interpreters and act in role-playing scenarios. We author once and export into Flash, streaming video such as QuickTime, or Vcom3D's real-time 3D player Vcommunicator(r) Showtime!. These characters can be added to DTBs/Literacy Software, Webpages, documents, and presentations.
The second innovation is the Virtual Pencil - computer software for interactive access to math for students who are Pencil Impaired, i.e. students with disabilities, especially visual impairments, fine motor control impairments, and learning disabilities, who require an alternative environment to do mathematics.
In our technologically complex society, the need for education in advanced mathematics is fundamental. While American schools have made great strides in improving mathematics scores for the majority of students, those with disabilities continue to lag behind. Although few states have yet begun to collect and publish data assessing the performance of students with disabilities, the available data shows significant gaps. The following math subtest score data is reported by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction4:
• 46% of fourth grade students with disabilities scored at or above the proficient level on the math subtest compared to 81% of students without disabilities.
• 8% of eighth grade students with disabilities scored at or above the proficient level on the math subtest compared to 47% of students without disabilities.
• 5% of tenth grade students with disabilities scored at or above the proficient level on the math subtest compared to 43% of students without disabilities.
These trends clearly illustrate the need for assistive technology to enhance the ability of students with disabilities as they are learning mathematics.
Students with disabilities are faced with three main problems:
• Getting the assignment or equation in a form they can read;
• Manipulating or editing the equation to work towards a solution;
• Returning it to the teacher in a readable form.
As a result, students with disabilities are denied the opportunity to work through and solve equations independently, and they are denied the benefit of iterative learning - creating an even larger gap in performance in these complex subject areas.
Using Virtual Pencil a student can read, create, or manipulate equations involving a variety of elements and expressions, from simple arithmetic to higher levels of college math. It knows how to handle quantities, radicals, exponents, subscripts, matrices, fractions, Greek symbols, and many other structures. Virtual Pencil can be used by the student just like a pencil working through the problem step by step creating new equations. Instead of marking the paper with the pencil, items or editing commands are picked from menus or entered from the keyboard or alternative input device. The student can see, hear, or feel the information on the screen using enhanced video displays for learning disabled or visually impaired students, audio output for blind students or to enhance the visual medium, and refreshable Braille displays and Braille embossers. The final results can be printed out and handed in, showing all the work.
Teachers can use Virtual Pencil to create an assignment or test, but they will not have to enter a single math problem, it can be imported directly from the e-book. Assignments can be passed around via email for grading or tutoring, saved to a diskette, or printed out. A password prevents students from changing the assignment. The same assignment can be printed-out for students able to use a pencil, saving the teacher valuable time.
It is vital for educators to become aware of research regarding the utilization of innovative technologies that improve learning outcomes for students. Equally important is the acquisition of knowledge as to how these technologies work and how students will improve. Utilization of new technologies along with digital talking books provides the opportunity for all learners, including those with varying degrees of disabilities, to have equal access to materials and concepts thus, increasing the number of students who perform at or above proficient learning levels.
1 National Center for Education Statistics, Students with disabilities in post-secondary education: A profile of preparation, participation, and outcomes, NCES 1999-187, Washington, DC: US Department of Education, 1999, p. 35740.
2 President's Task Force on Employment of Adults with Disabilities Annual Report 2000.
3 An avatar is an interactive representation of a human in a virtual reality environment. Sometimes the term is used exclusively to refer to a representation of the user. We use the broader definition, wherein the term refers to any interactive human representation in the virtual environment.
4 Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (2000). "Positive Student Outcomes. Performance Levels on Statewide Assessments. [Online: http://www.dpi.state.wi.us/dpi/dlsea/een/sip1b.html]
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