Report
| www . ICEVI - Europe . org Report |
|
[ Previous: Report on theme 4: Special fields of competence ] [ Table of Contents ] [ Next: Results of the questionnaire ]
The proceedings of Group V were aimed at discussing the need to use and the availability of access technology for people with visual impairment, including the use of access technology in the classroom, its implications for the information technology teacher, the other classroom teachers, the visually impaired pupil himself/herself, as well as their peers, and the itinerant teacher as the person whose task it is to facilitate work of all these persons.
On April 5, the Seminar Workshop discussions commenced. The discussion in Group V dealt with the access technology questions.
The working method adopted was that of a presentation of a case study. The case was a 13-year-old pupil in a mainstream setting, severely visually impaired, using 16x magnification as information acquisition aid, capable of reading and writing ink-print independently, although extremely slowly, capable of using a computer, though without access technology (making use exclusively of the accessibility options that the Windows environment offers).
Upon the presentation of the case, the participants were asked to pose questions to elicit further details concerning the case presented.
Various questions were asked, and they were next sub-divided into a number of topical groups. the participants considered possible adaptations that the pupil could use, and pondered, whether magnification was the right choice for him. Suggestion was made as to changing from magnification to synthetic speech output to become the basic means of knowledge acquisition.
The participants agreed to further discuss the following topics, arrived at as the result of the case study:
The participants agreed that experienced visually impaired access technology users should be referred to for training of the students in the access technology use.
E-learning in the training of teachers of the visually impaired.
The students should learn to use e-learning techniques to enhance their necessary knowledge.
The use of the Internet was considered a very important tool, since via its use teachers could cooperate, exchanging information and experiences. During the discussion language issues were mentioned, as well as various other difficulties inherent in e-learning.
Steve McCall, Tarja hannikainen and peter Rodney prepared the paper on a proposal for the European e-learning Project. The paper was distributed among the workshop participants. It will also be included in the ICEVI European website. It was agreed that the proposal concerned basically education, thus education should be the main emphasis here, while e-learning should be considered merely a convenient vehicle for the carrying out of the main objective of the proposal.
Also, a questionnaire has been prepared to be distributed among the participants of the workshop, and the participants were expected to suggest subjects that should be included in the preparation of the European modules. As soon as the network has been established, the formal proposal to the European Commission will be presented. And Peter Rodney expressed his will to personally present this proposal to the Commission.
The participants mentioned a number of examples of specialized expert courses that might constitute parts of the European modules, for instance, cerebral visual impairment, autism and blindness, early intervention, using adaptive technology, or specific language acquisition problems of visually impaired children.
In this context it was mentioned that what is good for the visually impaired pupil may equally well be good for all the other pupils - for the visually impaired pupil's sighted peers.
The participants emphasized the need of collecting all the dispersed information concerning materials available - produced handbooks and other materials that the visually impaired pupils might use and that are to be found somewhere within the country or even internationally. The itinerant teachers themselves have no resources and/or time to produce the special material that is required, and thus this should be the responsibility of the resource centers, Braille or special graphical materials having been mentioned here as examples.
The proceedings of the April 6 session began with the participants pondering on whether there should be concrete procedures and standards formulated at all, and there was a disagreement as to this question. The participants came to the conclusion that one should concentrate rather on basics, leaving detailed elaboration of this problem for the national programs to be established. The participants agreed that concrete standards and competences for national programs should be established later, based on the general implications to be formulated during the Workshop.
The participants agreed that access technology, when made use of by a visually impaired pupil in the classroom, can bring positive consequences for the whole educational situation within the classroom. It was agreed that the use of access technology makes the classroom better for all the pupils, not merely for the visually impaired one, and while making the work more challenging for the classroom teachers, at the same time this gives them more resources to draw upon. This, however, does not happen by itself, but it is the teacher who must be endowed with appropriate tools to make it happen, since computers are just equipment , facilitating carrying out of these group working methods. Thus, the classroom teacher should be equipped with appropriate pedagogical strategies to properly handle the situation, so as not to allow the visually impaired child's segregation or isolation in the mainstream situation due to the technology use. Therefore, the classroom teacher should be required to have a basic knowledge of technology in general, while it should be the role of the itinerant teacher to provide the classroom teacher with information, concerning both pedagogical strategies and basic use of access technology, required for the implementation of these strategies.
Hence, the general suggestion from group V pertaining to subjects to be included in the curricula of training of teachers of the visually impaired pupils is that the knowledge and skills in the area of access technology should go hand-in-hand with the knowledge of pedagogical strategies to be used, and that both should be provided simultaneously to the students in itinerant teacher training programs.
Irrespective of the discussion results, worth noting is the atmosphere of thorough interest and cooperation, accompanying the proceedings, and the significance of this fact deserves stressing in view of the philosophy, adopted by ICEVI and stating that mostly the same persons are expected to participate in different workshops, in order to facilitate mutual understanding and communication. This special atmosphere proves that people from East and West, North and South are capable of discussing important matters and achieving important conclusions that further the problems of those most needy.
The reporter for Group V would like to express his extreme gratitude to both the Chair Person - Mr. Peter Rodney, and the Facilitator - Mrs. Krisztina Kovacs, as well as to all the other participants of the Group - Mrs. Beata Prónay deserving my special mention here - for their assistance in the preparation of this report.