The year is 2008. The primary way for educators to display content to students is through boards in the front of the room. Some people with disabilities have trouble seeing the display at great distances. Let’s provide these individuals with a device at their seats that simulcasts what is on the board and so they can magnify it based on their needs. We call this technology screen sharing. The year is 2019. Touchscreen technology is the primary way people interface with computing devices. Text to speech is freely available on any computing device. Word prediction and word completion are default functionalities of text messaging and Internet search services. People talk to a variety of devic- es to control functions and produce text. Numerous educators have adopted flexible learning spaces where every student has a choice in where they work and on what they sit. Many school districts have invited Bring Your Own Technology and One-to- One Device initiatives where educators share content to every student no matter where they sit. These are but a few illustrations (there are many more) of a simple, yet powerful, fact. Functionalities of technologies that were derived as solutions for a small population of people with disabilities are now used widely by the masses. Accommodations As Tools for Educational Experience Design In a Multi-tiered System of Support (MTSS) model, as seen in Image 4, schools determine what interventions (including tech- nologies) are made available to every student. These are called Tier One supports. Tier Two supports might be made available to small groups of students. Tier Three supports are made available based on the needs of the individual student and are frequently listed as accommodations in Individual Education Plans. Accom- modations documented in Individualized Education Programs outline technologies, strategies and other interventions neces- sary to ensure that the student receives a free appropriate public education. Although it might seem like tiered supports are static remaining forever fixed in their spot, this is an illusion brought upon individual snapshots in time. When we examine a histori- cal perspective, the trend is clear. Tier Three supports, over time, often become Tier Two or Tier One. Armed with the knowledge of this historical trend, we can use this known pattern and apply it to the future of instructional design. SEC. 4104 of the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 explicit- ly states that the “STATE USE OF FUNDS [for Student Support and Academic Enrichments] Funds shall be used to support“local ed- ucation agencies in providing programs that increase access to personalized, rigorous learning experiences supported by tech- nology by … providing technical assistance to local educational agencies to improve the ability of local educational agencies to use technology, consistent with the principles of universal de- sign for learning, to support the learning needs of all students,
Image 2: Word completion and word prediction while text messaging
uals with software that allows them to speak what they want to type and have the text appear in the document as they speak it. We call this technology speech to text or voice dictation as seen in Image 3. The year is 2005. The primary place most students sit is in the same style chair as most every other student at the same height. Some people with disabilities have trouble sitting in these chairs or working at the standard height. What’s a solution for many? Let’s provide these individuals with flexible seating, such as soft, portable inflatable pillow-like cushions that allows them to wig- gle, squirm and bounce to help them focus. We call this technol- ogy vestibular or balance discs.
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