There is a lot of resarch being done on technology enhanced education, e-learning, new technologies for schools or higher education. Also, alot of research in rehabilitation studies or AAC or AAL is carried out on technologies to support handicapped people/ people with disabilities. It seems that these fields are not yet connected. I find it hard to find literature on issues such as Technology Design for handicapped people, e-learning for handicapped people etc. Can you help? I am interested in exchanging ideas.
Hi Isabel,
Indeed, we can summarize (or generalize) your claim as following: digital inclusion is not the main concern in the digital areas (industry or research). We talk about accessibility of software or through specific hardware. I work on the video game field, in which some groups are very active, like: ablegamers.com, IGDA GA SIG, specialeffect.org.uk or oneswitch.org.uk, for instance. I'm sure that all of their work can be tranlated from the video game object to other domains, at least would inspire people.
Hi Isabel,
one of my students wrote a thesis about Intellectually disabled adolescents. This is a study into the possibilities of E-learning and substance use prevention-interventions for intellectually disabled adolescents (to obtain via http://essay.utwente.nl/59476/). For your convenience the language of the thesis is in English.
Kind regards,
Marion
Hi Isabel,
Try reading around the area of universal design for learning (UDL). There is considerable attention paid to how technology may enhance access and participation of all learners including those with disabilities. This is a huge field and should contain literature that connects the ideas that you are interested in.
Best wishes
Catriona
Thank you for your answers.
@Jerome: Thank you for ponting to video games. Indeed I can imagine, that through gaming possibilities of adapting assistive technlogies to regular games ideas of inclusion can rise. Especially the One-Switch-Tools seem to offer great possibilities.
@Marion and catriona: Thank you for bringing up the topic of e-learning for poeple with disabilities. This fits well with Catrionas point to look at Universal Design for learning. Yes, e-learning allows people to take the time they need for learning (at least in some cases).
Will look into these fields.
In media education we discuss issues such as media literacy, we discuss competencies people need in an information society such as knowledge about different media, their pros and cons, but also how to develop an informed critical standpoint towards useing or not using vcertain media and software. We also discuss educational benefits such as societal participation by being able to use poular media (such as creating your online petition and send it off to people and later tp the government etc.).
I find that a lot of these issues would also matter in the field of finding appropriate assistive technologies, but are seldomly discussed. And vice versa, people who work with people with disabilities often have a lot of knowledge about methods to use or adapt media, and methods of how to create a learning setting that uses diverse media in order to ease learning and understanding. Especially in schools for kids with disabilities, teachers' knowledge in adapting diverse technologies is big - much bigger than technological knowledge of teachers in regular schools.
In Germany theses fields are hardly connected, although the idea to promote media literacy is widely recognized. The discourse starts a bit in the context of "inclusive media education", but there the focus is more on "how to get people with and without handicaps together by doing media activities". Again, here, video games is an issue.
I feel, that the discourses in other countries seem to be structured around more diverse issues. This is interesting. Universal Design for learning, for example, is not commonly discussed among media educators, although it should definitely be a big issue!
Would love to hear your perspectives.
Best regards,
Isabel
Thank you very much for raising this valuable and inspiring question that also has attracted my research attention recently. Digital literacy has not yet been fully recognized as field for inclusion and special education. For an evidence-based and data driven inclusion to be achieved, intelligent learning and behaviour assessments and adaptive intervention systems are needed at schools. I am greatly looking forward to discuss the opportunities for such a research endeavour. Best regards, morena
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