Cultural Relevance and Assisstive Technology: A Reflection on “Assistive Technology: Enabling Dreams”

Every day, I use my relatively new Compaq computer. I socialize on Myspace, post a blog or two, e-mail a few professors, surf the World Wide Web for random things and tools, and I conduct research. Every now and again, my computer will freeze or perform incredibly slow and I’ll naturally get frustrated, slam on the control, alt, delete buttons or anxiously click my mouse, while signing in irritation at my computers inability to perform up to my standards. There are days when I hate computers and technology, but then I try to imagine my life without the ability to surf a wealth of knowledge with a few simple and maybe slow clicks of a mouse and I look at my mouse pad, shamefully and take it a bit easier. The reality is that, for millions of disabled people in the United States technology, such my sometimes slow laptop, changes the course of their lives for the better. After viewing “Assistive Technology: Enabling Dreams,” a short movie clip produced by Ken Ellis, under the George Lucas Educational Foundation, I have come to better understand concepts of assistive technology and how such technology provides greater opportunities for individuals with disabilities that were not present before the advent of such technologies.
As explained in the movie clip, technology, for a regular student, is a tool that saves time and effort in performing tasks such as researching, exploring, and creating. But for the disabled individuals, such as college student, Susanna Sweeney-Martini, a simple laptop is a lifeline that enables and empowers her to be more independent and self-sufficient. I was amazed with some of the tools available to the students within the short film, such as those available to the students with disabilities at the Redwood Heights Elementary School in Oakland, California. Students were well-equipped with communication boards that were fitted to the best ways for students to access them. For instance, one student who could only move his eyebrows was fitted with a device that allowed him to communicate, verbally, by lifting and dropping his eyebrows. According to this short video clip, if students are introduced to assistive technology early on, then such students can spend more time learning the content curriculum like his or her “able” classmates.
Seeing all of this assistive technology, I try to recollect about my experience with disabled classmates in my elementary, middle, and high school years. However, I had no experiences. Up until the later part of my college experience, I had never heard of the term “assistive technology.” What I do remember from high school, however, was rather shocking. Students that were immobile and in wheel chairs were often parked in a small classroom and left alone with other disabled students. This experience, now that I recall it in this day and age and having been acquainted with assistive technology, brings me to a discussion that I had been engaged with in a linguistics class. The topic was linguistics and technology, specifically, how students who have access to technology are superior to those who do not have access to technology in the sense that technology is quickly taking over the way in which society functions. Today, it is necessary to know how to use a computer for most that you do. Competency is no longer just whether you can read or not, but is morphing into whether you can type or use the web or not. Those who have access to computer are dubbed as the haves and those who do not have, the have-nots. Clearly, this segregation of students spans across to the disabled community and Guam is a have not community. Similar to the statement made in the clip, most local educators do not know about such assistive tools and also, educators do not include such technologies when planning their lessons. However, for Guam, assistive tools are often not used because the lack of resources and funds to do so. Being a product of a public school and a future educator, there is barely enough money to provide for those without disabilities. For example, going to high school, the computer lab was reserved for students in the computer class and the library had about ten operational computers that serviced, at the time, over 2,000 students. Of course, the population of disabled students is much smaller in comparison to able students. However, assistive technology does not always come cheap. Yet, I would imagine that an investment in a tool that can make the life of a person more successful, possibly in terms of just being able to communicate to others, would warrant the investment. I imagine there are million of others who ponder the same thought as I do.
My ultimate opinion of assistive technology is a positive one, of course. As the movie clip suggests, technological tools can change the lives of those who get to use them and can provide for opportunities for the future that may not have been there otherwise. Assistive technology can open doors for students, doors that may have been nailed shut with a big flashing neon signed that read “closed.” However, coming from a future educator’s perspective and one from Guam, who will teach on the island in about a year, assistive technology needs to come a long way before all, or just most of those with disabilities can take advantage of them. The tools exist, but the funds may not. Persistence and demand are necessary to get what one wants and quite frankly, needs in order to be successful in our society. I believe the Guam Public School System needs to do much more to enable the dreams of the island’s disabled students and that should be at the top of a priority list. And despite what most may think, individuals with disabilities do have dreams and have the potential to pursue them, they may just need the assistive tools to follow through.

“Assistive Technology: Enabling Dreams”. Prod. Ken Ellis. Perf. Sussanna Sweeney-Martini, Sheryl Burgstahler, and Vishal Saraiya. 2005.

To view this clip visit:
http://www.edutopia.org/assistive-technology-enabling-dreams-video