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Providing Assistive Technology: A WebQuest for Educators and Administrators Designed
by Marika Wong
Introduction
| Task
| Process
| Evaluation
| Conclusion
| Credits If you are an educator or
administrator in a school district of any size, and you are responsible
for meeting the educational needs of students, you will likely have
encountered students who use assistive
technology. Although assistive technology
has been around for a long time, there has been an increased awareness
that assistive technology must be
considered in a special education student's IEP, especially since the
reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ('97).
The activities in this
WebQuest involve:
As you start the process of
determining how your school district will provide assistive technology
services, you must first solicit the interest of colleagues who will help
you. Regardless of the size of your district, AT is never a
“one-person show.” It is a multidisciplinary issue requiring the
expertise of professionals with specific skills and interests. Here
is where you begin: 1. Identify people from different
specializations within special education (speech pathologists,
occupational/physical therapists, classroom teachers of learning
disabled/multiply disabled/autism spectrum/etc. students, psychologists,
vision and deaf/hard of hearing specialists, etc.) who may already have
experience and interest in assistive technology. 2. Identify people from different
specializations outside of special education (reading specialists,
teachers for at-risk students, technology coordinators, etc.) who express
interest in learning about ways to improve student achievement through
technology. 3.
Hold a meeting with
the goal of forming a committee who will help you along the rest of this
process. Narrow the group by finding out about people’s availability
for continued involvement, commitment to the process, and skills they can
bring to the team. 4.
After you have
selected a committee, research the following websites for information
about AT and the law:
http://www.ed.gov/offices/OSERS/Policy/ http://www.fctd.info/resources/tech101.cfm 5.
Research your
state’s regulations (interpretation of federal law) which pertain to
AT. Use your favorite search engine to search for “state name
education code and assistive technology.” Each state also has an
“Office of Public Instruction” which may have the education code.
Note any significant differences in federal and state requirements of
school districts. 6.
Look at your school
district’s special education policy and procedure manual, if there is
one. Does it address AT? To what extent does it detail
provision of assistive technology services (assessment, provision of
devices, training, ongoing support)?
7.
Go to the website
http://sweb.uky.edu/~jszaba0/QIAT.html
and download the QIAT Self-Evaluation Matrix. Have individual
members of your committee complete this self-evaluation and then go over
your results together. Identify areas of need in your district where
you can make improvements in delivering AT services. Go to http://www.wati.org/atcompetencies.htm
to assist in your self-evaluation. 8.
To discover how
your district compares to other districts of like size, go to http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/districtsearch/
and type in the number of students or number of schools in your district
(in the “additional characteristics” area. Scroll through the list
to find districts that are similar to yours and click on their
links. Compare information until you find three districts that
closely match yours for student population, racial diversity, fiscal
information, and other characteristics that you feel are
important. 9.
Use your favorite
search engine again to find those three districts’ websites, and see if
you can find any information about assistive technology from the
website. You may have to email or make telephone calls to find the
person/people in special education who coordinate AT services. You
may find that districts rely on county agencies or state agencies to
provide their AT services. Find out if your own state has such
services on a county or state level, and whether you can access
them. Research what kinds of assistive technology services and
equipment these agencies offer, and any other helpful information you can
use. Here are some examples of district/county/agency
websites: http://www.milwaukee.k12.wi.us/pages/MPS/Teachers_Staff/Tech_Tools/assttech/Monitor http://www.otap-oregon.org/index.cfm http://boston.k12.ma.us/teach/technology/emmanuel.asp http://www.howard.k12.md.us/special/services/assistive.html
10.
Determine whether
these county/ state services are adequate in meeting the AT service needs
in your district. If not, secure budgeting to hire AT team
members. Bring all of the researched data to the special education
budgeting meeting(s) to validate the necessity for this expense. Be
sure to include budget lines for staff salary, expenses such as mileage,
professional development, equipment, etc. Providing AT is
not inexpensive, but it is required by law, and the “local education
agency” AKA your school district will be legally liable if it is
not provided. 11.
Determine your
service delivery model, based on the number of AT team members you are
able to hire, the number of special education students your district
serves, and how services are to be delivered. Contact some of the
school districts which rank similar to yours to find out how they deliver
AT services. Consider state and local technology centers which may
do evaluations but not direct service with “IEP
minutes.”
12.
Research
professional development opportunities, including certification for AT
practitioners (ATACP certification.) Look at local universities for
AT coursework, summer institutes, etc. Select a program, seminars,
or coursework for your members to attend. http://uwctds.washington.edu/si2003/index.htm http://www.resna.org/prodev/prd_programs.html
13.
Using your contacts
with other school districts’ AT teams, develop a referral procedure,
assessment process, and follow-up plan. Also look at the SETT
framework and QIAT “quality indicators” for what is considered by AT
professionals to be the “national standard.” http://sweb.uky.edu/~jszaba0/QIAT.html http://www.wati.org/bestpractices.htm
14.
Begin training your
team, develop procedures, have the procedures adopted into the
district’s special education procedural manual, and then go out and
provide outstanding assistive technology services to your diverse learning
population. Don’t forget to continue training others, stay on top of
the latest developments in AT equipment and best practices, and advocate
at the highest levels for what you have learned to be a required
consideration for every student’s IEP. GOOD
LUCK!! Here are some more great resources
to assist in this task: http://webschoolsolutions.com/wati/wati-forms.htm http://www.wati.org/schoolprofile.htm
How have you done in
accomplishing your goal of developing an effective service delivery model
for assistive technology? Please rate your team’s
progress:
By completing this WebQuest, it is hoped that you will be well on the way
to identifying the areas in which your school district needs to improve AT
services, and making gains toward meeting your goals. You will have
identified a team, learned about the law, assessed yourselves, researched
how AT is being done around the country, and developed a plan to align
yourselves with AT best practices. Assistive technology is an
ever-changing field, with new developments in strategies and solutions
constantly occurring. In order to be effective, you must stay
current to trends and stay connected with other AT professionals.
This is part of that process-- continue to strive for excellence in
AT. This WebQuest was done as an assignment for Frank Odasz’ online course EDTE 5174 “Making the Best Use of
Internet Resources for K-12 Instruction” at
The graphics for this WebQuest were found on the Microsoft Office ClipArt
Library. Last updated on
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