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Liberation Technology Equal Access Via Computer Communication by Dr. Norman Coombs, Rochester Institute of Technology
I am a blind professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology. As such I use a computer with a speech synthesizer, and regularly teach a class of students online with a computer conference. Most of these students have no physical handicap. Some, however, are hearing impaired, and others totally deaf I have team taught another course at the New School for Social Research, some 350 miles away, with a teacher who is blind and confined to a wheelchair. On the computer screen, our handicaps of blindness and mobility make no difference. One of the courses I teach online is African Amercan history In that class, some students are White, some Black, others Asian, and still others Native American. Obviously, some of the class members are male and others female. All of these differences, like those of the handicaps described above, become un important on the computer screen. It isnt that these characteristics disappear; participants share their identities, views and feelings freely However, these differences no longer block communication and community. In fact, conference members often feel free to make such differences one of the topics for discussion. A student in my Black history course said that what he liked about conducting a class discussion on the computer was that it didnt matter whether a person was male, female, black, white, red, yellow, blind or deaf. His comments were accepted for their own worth and not judged by some prior stereotype. One myth about the computer is that it is cold, depersonalizing and intimidating. When I began using the computer to communicate with students, I had no idea of its potential to change my life and my teaching. First, it liberated me, a blind teacher, from my dependence on other people. I now have all my assignments submitted through electronic mail including take-home exams and have little need for human readers. Because of this I have become a member of a pilot study using computer conferencing to replace classroom discussion for students in continuing education.Students with a personal computer and modem could work from home or the office. This freed them from the time and bother of commuting and also let them set their own schedule. The conference facilitates genuine group discussion without the class having to be in the same place at the same time. In addition, I find it easy to send frequent personal notes to individual students, giving me more contact with individual students than is usual in a traditional classroom. I find conferencing appeals to three groups. First the off-campus continuing education students who no longer have to commute. Second, those who had been taking television or correspondence courses. The online experience gives them a means of exchanging information between themselves and their teacher The third group turns out to be regular day students with scheduling problems. Online options are especially valuable for students whose schedules are filled by laboratory courses. Although computer conferencing had obvious benefits for me, I had failed to grasp its significance for disabled students in general. Only when a deaf student joined the class did I realize its potential. This deaf woman said that this was the first time in her life that she had conversed with one of her teachers without using an intermediary. She also remarked that mine had been her most valuable college course because she could share in the discussions easily and totally. Computer conferencing can also benefit people with mobility impairments. They can "go" to school while they stay at home. The distance involved could be anything from a few miles to all the way across the continent or across an ocean. Students with motor impairments can also use this system. There are a variety of alternate input devices to let motor impaired persons use a computer even though they cannot handle a keyboard. But conferencing liberates more people than the physically disabled All students became less inhibited in the discussions. Once students got over any initial computer phobia, many found it easier to participate. Where there is no stage then there is no stage fright. While some educators prefer to keep the teaching process academic and objective, others are convinced that students learn more profoundly when they become emotionally engaged in the process. My class underlined this aspect of conferencing. In a discussion on welfare, one woman in her twenties confessed to being on welfare and described her feelings about it. In a Black history course, students described personal experiences as victims of racism. White students admitted to having been taught to be prejudiced and asked for help and understanding. Black students revealed that they had prejudices about various shades of color within their own community. As a teacher, I often felt that I was treading on privileged ground. These were experiences I had never had in the 29 previous years of my teaching career. Computer communications are infamous as a place where people can make thoughtless and irresponsible attacks on one another, something known as “flaming." In my experience, happily, there has been almost none of this. First, the teacher has the opportunity to set ground rules and establish a professional atmosphere. Second, a computer conference is different than electronic mail. Once a mass mailing has been sent, it is irretrievable, while the contents of a computer conference are posted publicly for all to see. Most students seemed intuitively aware of the potential for misunderstanding and, before criticizing someone, they frequently asked questions to be sure that they understood what had been meant by the previous author. On very rare occasions I have removed a posting before it was read by most of the class. Usually, I prefer to leave controversial material on the conference and utilize it as a group learning experience. Finally, I am personally excited about the ability of computer networking to provide more equal access to education and information for many persons with physical disabilities. In the fall of 1991, the Rochester Institute of Technology and Gallaudet University in Washington conducted an experiment involving two courses: one taught from Rochester and the other from Washington, DC. Students from both campuses were enrolled in both classes. While some use was made of videos and movies, class discussions and meetings between a student and a teacher were all done with computer telecommunications using Internet as the connecting link. Some students were hearing impaired and one teacher was blind. Computer communication has other important implications for both the print handicapped and those with motor impairments. Library catalogs can already be accessed from a personal computer and a modern. Soon, growing numbers of reference works will be available online. While the copyright problems are complex, it seems inevitable that large amounts of text material from periodicals and books will also be accessible on a computer network. I still have vivid memories of the first time I connected my computer to a library catalog and found my book was really there. It was only a year ago that I had my first personal, unassisted, access to an encyclopedia. Not only is this technology liberating to those of us who have physical impairments, but in turn, it will help to make us more productive members of society. Not all handicapped persons rush to join the computer world. Indeed, many have become dependent on human support systems. Sometimes, independence is frightening, and handicapped students may need special assistance to get started. Another problem is cost. While the personal computer has decentralized power and is seen as a democratizing force in society, it works mainly for the middle class. Unless there is a deliberate policy to the contrary, such technology will leave the underclass further behind. Visually impaired computer users, at present, have one growing
worry. They fear that graphic interfaces and touch screens may take
away all that the computer has promised to them. Recently passed
federal legislation has tried to guarantee that future computer
hardware and software be accessible to all the physically disabled,
but there is no real mechanism to enforce this. Besides, voluntary
awareness and cooperation by computer providers is a far better
approach to the problem. EDUCOM has established EASI to work within
the academic community for software access, and it is having an
important impact on voluntary compliance Others believe that adaptive
software and hardware can be produced which can adequately interpret
graphic interfaces for the visually impaired.
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