Universal Access

For you blog this week, please discuss the concept of universal access. In your own school and/or classroom, have you thought about this issue when it comes to the integration of technology? What are you doing to ensure that your technical resources are accessible to all?

Well... I suppose I first need to think about what "universal access" means -- even after the presentation, I know there are many varied facets to the concept. For example, I'll consider ESL learners first : Obviously, there are some handy technological methods for assisting students who struggle with the English language. We have a significant population of Korean students whose parents mostly work at the university -- and who haven't necessarily been in the country for very long. They are often tracked into lower classes simply due to their English language abilities (though their work ethic is that of an advanced student). Many Korean students have portable translators for use on assignments, but as far as I know, these are not provided by the school district. On the other hand, many of our Hispanic students who struggle with English do not have access to these devices. There are economic factors that I don't think I need to spell out here. Perhaps our district could help to improve the "universal access" by making these gadgets available to all ESL students.

Another facet of universal access is in considering students with other special needs. I've never seen a sight-impaired student using any technological tool for help with reading a computer screen, though it seems it would be easy enough to enlarge text. And some of the motor skills necessary for operating a computer would be undoubtedly difficult for certain special needs students. I've never seen these students using any disability-equipped keyboards... it just takes them a lot longer to hunt and peck. I'm no expert so I'm not even sure what they would use in these scenarios... but I'm sure these tools exist.

IL Tech Standards

For your Week Eleven blog, please reflect on one of the first blogs you wrote regarding the 20 skills every educator should know. In considering technology standards for teachers and students, are we reaching these standards -- or are the standards beyond what we could achieve?


Well I'll start a bit off the topic because this caught my eye from the teacher standards :
"2H. Adheres to copyright laws and guidelines in the access and use of information from various technologies."

Interesting considering my "confessions" from the previous blog. I guess I knew this was always expected, but I didn't know that this requirement was actually there, in writing, in the Illinois Tech Standards. It makes sense, though. Unfortunately, there is a vast difference between a "law" and a "guideline" -- with the first, you worry about actual legal trouble, but with the second, the boundaries seem a bit more hazy. In any case, am I going to look up the laws/guidelines for compiling a DVD of material that I already own for use in the classroom? When I'm not distributing or making a profit off of said DVD? Hmm.

Anyway, back on the topic. The prompt is a little confusing, since it asks us to review those 20 skills but then just comment on the Illinois Standards. So here's what I have to say.

Initially, my biggest beef with the "20 skills" article had to do with videoconferencing and online teaching skills. Not that I don't find these skills valuable... just that I don't see them as mandatory in my current teaching setting. Hence my gripe with those being skills that "every teacher should know." And yet I see standard 2I, which reads :

2I. Demonstrates knowledge of broadcast instruction, audio/video conferencing, and other distant learning applications.

So there we go -- apparently the state finds this skill important as well. But can we really say that teachers should be able to "demonstrate knowledge" of these tech skills if they aren't going to use them? If a school doesn't support, isn't equipped for, or doesn't have any need for audio/video conferencing, is it really feasible or even fair that a teacher should be required to demonstrate this? Maybe it's my own biased perspective, coming from a school that is sadly behind the curve on technology, mostly due to budget/space restraints. (Especially embarrassing considering I'm in the same town as UIUC.) I don't necessarily think this standard is something beyond what we could achieve... just that it's basically irrelevant to many current teaching situations. A nice idea, but some sophisticated technology needs to be in place before a teacher can "demonstrate knowledge" of these skills. Can't do that if it doesn't exist.

The other skills seem fair and reasonable to me. I can imagine more veteran teachers having a problem with learning technology if they haven't grown up using it, but as the years go on, that will become less of an issue. And so will, I hope, the issue of whether or not the necessary technologies even exist in public schools.

Copyright and Technology

Consider the question, are we responsible users of technology? How well do we model fair use and copyright guidelines when technology makes it so easy for us to use other people's material?

Well, I can really only speak for myself... so I'll come clean and be honest here. In a lot of ways, my use of technology has straddled the line between appropriate use and copyright infringement. But when it comes down to it, if you need a resource to make a lesson work, sometimes you do what you have to do. Hey, I'm not selling bootlegged copies of movies to my students, but here are a few possible infractions I'll fess up to :

Edited the curse words out of an R-rated movie and burned a new copy for use amongst a few of my colleagues. Yes, I own the original, but I think the distribution (even though it was free) probably breaks a few guidelines.

Made a compilation of scenes from different versions of Hamlet for classroom use.

Xeroxed a "long short story" to distribute to students when we didn't have enough copies of the book.

Et cetera. These aren't exactly jail-worthy offenses here, but I'll fully admit that I didn't research any "fair use" laws before doing any of this. Possibly out of laziness, more likely due to the fact that I needed these resources for a lesson, and I wasn't about to scrap the entire plan just due to fears over copyright. And let's be honest--how often do the copyright police sweep schools looking for rule-breakers?

As far as modeling this for the kids... in the days of YouTube, LimeWire, torrent sites, etc., the students are more than aware of all of the ways to get something for free. So my DVD of Simpsons clips (all from DVDs that I already own) isn't giving them any ideas they don't already have.

Sure, we have a responsibility to follow copyright guidelines. But part of the problem is many "fair use" policies are constantly in flux as new technologies aries. The aforementioned YouTube... I'm surprised that site hasn't been shut down yet. (In fact, they were just bought by Google for over a billion dollars!) But what an incredible resource, especially if you're researching media. With the proliferation of the Web, the idea of ownership is hazier than ever.