Assistive Technology On Disabled Students Impact Education Essay

helpful Technology On Disabled Students Impact upbringing EssayAbstractThis test proposes to modulate the tinct of assistive Technology (AT) on alter learners in in the south Afri push aside high institutions. The modify multitude in all(prenominal) ordering atomic number 18 primarily facing some enfeeble quandaries, including physical, emotional and physiological degradation. As a result, empowering hoi polloi with disabilities to realize their self-esteem as come up as enhance their skilling and employability represents an interesting and challenging task to government, industry, interest groups and individuals earthly concernwide. However, the rising assistive technology provides a unique opportunity to alleviate the challenges of people with disabilities. Exploiting this novel technology, our current coating is to moderate the bear upon of AT on alter students in southwest Afri hatful higher(prenominal) institutions. Randomized carry off group pre-test and post-test experimental visualize result be victimisation upd for strike determination. Cronbach of import volition be utilise to measure the reliability of the consumeive tellation solicited from participating students in a kind of participatory travel along. Bootstrapping statistics will be habitd to analyze the result of the experimental design and cor coincidence will be wasting diseased to discover relationship among data samples. As a case fill, we would like to validate our design utilise promiscuously selected students from University of Pretoria, Tshwane University of Technology and University of Witwatersrand, which due to their closeness to the look forers makes the education cost-effective. We argon desireful that our design would be systemic enough to be slow extrapolated into other institutions. The judge contributions of this strike be to (a) explore different types of AT gettable to handicapped students, (b) correspond the manipulatio nr-friendliness of the AT, (c) compargon the performance of modify students with non- incapacitate peers and (d) cast the impact of AT on disabled students in southward African higher institutions.Keywords Assistive Technology, disabilities, to the south Africa, disabled students1. IntroductionThe disabled people in any part of the world ar generally facing many debilitating quandaries and they are not experiencing the kind of comfort, dexterity and optimism that more or less non-disabled people enjoy. The consider of people with disabilities, continuous to insistently increase due to high pasture of accidents, natural disasters, diseases and increasing number of aging people. For instance, disabled people in southwestward Africa account for 5% (2255982) of the total population (Statistics southeasterly Africa, 2001), which retrieveing(a)ly outgrows the previous statistics of (please supply previous statistics.) and in many parts of the world, the humbug is sympathetic. As a result, the impact of having some to a greater extent people with disabilities in our society than ever before is immeasurable. The South African government has embarked on encouraging firsts to book more disabled South Africans obtain semi-formal information as a way to provide succour so that disabled people are better empowered in the society. For example, the Ministry of Education improvises that South African schools should provide AT assistances and equipments for disabled students to change a balanced (free and appropriate) public education. These initiatives make the hold of AT much relevant in our schools be it higher or lower institutions of learning.An emerge AT is any mobile device or infrastructure that can be use to maintain or improve the capabilities of individuals with disabilities (IDEA, 1990). With careful homework and guidance, the vast number of AT devices and software can be potentially beneficial to disabled students (Duhaney Duhaney, 2000). AT can enable people who are suffering from a wide range of natural disabilities to enjoy more comfortable lives. These technologies are being utilise at home, schools, work places and in any case in communities as a whole by disabled people (Howell, 1996). The use of AT is allowing people with disabilities to be more independent, productive, self-confident and for them to easily integrate into the mainstream society. The technology, for example, can enable a student with physically damage hands or arms to be able to operate a computer with a switch or an onscreen keyboard, a mute student to communicate development a device that speaks and a student who cannot walk can be assisted to do so with specialised automatonlike devices (Mirenda, 2001).As a result, the impact of AT on disable students in South Africa is undoubtedly enormous. Moreover, not only is AT beneficial for education method and learning purpose, the living style of disabled students can be greatly improved socia lly by allowing them, for instance to play games and communicate fluently. However, many issues and obstacles such as lack of AT knowledge, training, funding, poor coordination between service providers and technology developers as well as fear of these technologies are hindering the successful application of AT in the society at large. That is why this poll proposes to evaluate the impact of AT on disable students in South African higher institutions.1.1. Problem Statement and search QuestionsToday, the sterling(prenominal) challenge confronting the South African students with disabilities is to smoothly integrate into the society, participate in a competitive educational system and be equipped for the professional person economic world. A number of emerging technologies assistive and alterive shake off been developed to cater for disabled students. But, very little books has been write about these novel technologies. Additionally, the evaluation of their impact on the end -users has also not been widely underwriteed. One way to guarantee best outcomes for disabled students in South Africa would be to evaluate the impact of AT on these students. To do so, different types of AT would beat to be identified and equal opportunities would induct be given to disabled and non-disabled students to compete. Thus, a participatory interrogation is needful to determine the impact of AT on disabled students in South Africa.The main seek capitulum to solve in this essay is what is the impact of AT on disabled students in South Africa?To resolving power this question satis featureorily, first it is important to trace various AT forthcoming and determine their contributions towards improving the donnish performance of disabled students in South Africa. As result, following investigate sub-questions will be squarely addressed in order to solve the main look into question.What are the different types of AT are operable to disabled students?How user frie ndly are the available AT to disabled students?Does AT smoothly integrate disabled and non-disabled students?Does the use of AT improves the academic performance of disabled students?How is AT used by disabled students to comfort social networking?What influence is AT performing in the life of disabled students?1.2. Goals and targets of the StudyThe core goal of this study to determine the impact of Assistive Technology (AT) on disabled students in South African higher institutions. This could help to uncover some unresolved issues introduced by disabled students on the impact of AT in their learning environments. This goal will be accomplished by implementing the following primary designs.To identify different types of AT that are available to disabled students in South African higher institutions.To determine the user-friendliness of the available AT to disabled students in South African higher institutions.To determine whether the use of AT smoothly integrates disabled students with non-disabled students.To determine whether the use of the AT improves academic performance of disabled students in South African higher institutions.To determine how is AT used by disabled students to facilitate social networking.To determine the influence that AT is playing in the life of disabled students?1.3. Expected DeliverablesWithin a 2 year project leading to an award of MTec degree, it is important to ensure that in that location are clear expectations for what can be delivered in these timescales. We bank to deliver the following.A comprehensive account of disabled students learning experiences and a clear documentation of the impact of AT on disabled students.A set of recommendations for practitioners, arrest staff, institutional managers and program developers on ways to manage the challenges of disabled students in the society.2. Literature ReviewMost of the recent belles-lettres condenseing on the impact of ICT on students in Universities across the world ca n be classified into three sourcesLiterature and case studies that have been developed from publicly funded studies to determine the impact of AT in higher education exist in academic domains and are mostly inform of case studies (e.g. Skills for Access, DART, ALERT).Other studies that actualize this allow in Seale(2006).Research studies that have explored the general education experiences of disabled students exist in both academic and non-academic domains (e.g. BBC, OUCH, SKILL). Other studies that support this hold (Mortimer Crosier, 2006), Shelving et al. 2004 and (Fuller et al. 2004).Research studies that have explored the specific e-learning experiences of disabled students Have generally been conducted in the UK,an example of this is Draffan et al. (2007) in a survey of the use of and mirth with AT by disabled students in UK higher institutions. Another survey by Cobham et al. (2001) also tried to explain the specific experiences of disabled students when using AT.The im portant conclusion from these studies is whether their findings are true for all students, particularly the disabled students who may need emerging technology such as AT effective learning?The unique novelty of this study in relation to these studies listed above are abvious.With the use of participatory research methods, this study shall (a) be a voice for the disabled students (b) get raw (first hand) information from the uses themselves. This enables to answer the paradigm of Nothing about me, without me since the users are involved in every phase of this study. The important conclusion from these studies is whether their findings are true for all students, especially the disabled students who may need emerging technology such as AT effective learning?In particular, some of the most significant change in the education of students with disabilities in South Africa has been the initiative to adapt the comprehensive education theory into their education system (Patton, 1992). Thi s form of initiative is chiefly a collaborative setting that includes a content specialist paired with a learning specialist and then leads to sharing of the teaching responsibilities, which will later benefit the education of all students. The use of inclusive education may change from one institution to other, but it distinctly indicates that it is extremely important as enabler for students to achieve their ultimate educational goals. The rapid developments in innovative ICT infrastructure, particularly in the field of AT rekindles the hope and aspiration for those who have so long been deprived of opportunities with which life has weight down them visual impairment, physical damage, hearing impairment and Communication impairments (Levin Scharffenberger, 1990). More importantly, disability is being recognized as a social construct created by ability-oriented and ability-dominated environments.Traditional methods for studying the impacts of AT on disabled students in South African higher education includes (a) interviews, (b) questionnaire surveys and (c) focus groups. However, in recent time, there has been a need to develop methods and practices that enable the student voice to be more focus on AT studies (Levin Scharffenberger, 1990). However, it should be clarified that efforts to include disabled students in studies of the impact of AT in the learning environments may need new alternative methods besides the traditional methods. Researcher can draw their learner-centred AT research studies from two related filed methods to analyse the impact of AT on disabled students in universities, these include (a) participatory design and (b) participatory research. These methods are commonly used for designing AT and to interconnected the related fields of user-centred design, co-design and inclusive design (Hanson, et al., 2007). Participatory design fit in was defined as the involvement of disabled students throughout the entire phases of the study ( Hanson et al. 2007). This study involves (a) working directly with the disabled students to fully participate in the study from phase one throughout to last phase, (b) involving the real disabled students in their real contexts, ignoring window dressing to keep the deficiencies of their school secret, (c) a continuous cycle of development and evaluation phases until both the researcher and research participants (disabled student in this case) reach an agreed solution, (d) dual participation between participants (disabled students) and designers in development of key AT methodologies. The benefits of participatory design methods are obvious when researching intensive study on the disabled students and how they use these technologies in daily activities (Davies et al. 2004). The strong in-depth analysis offered by such methods appears to be extremely applicable to research studies focusing on hearing the student voice.This study, then nominates participatory methods to be used to ex plore the impact of AT on disabled students in three higher education institutions in South Africa, taking three universities (a) University of Pretoria, (b) University of Witwatersrand and (c) Tshwane University of Technology as a case study. This study advocates that there is the need for research to be written from the disabled students spatial relation and that is why participatory research is an appropriate approach for this study. Although most of the educators in south Africa are trying to make sure that the disabled students use the same technology as non-disabled, it has been hard for the disabled students to deal with the fact that most of the software being developed do not arrest the aspect of inclusive education and design for all (Fischer, 1995).Research throw and MethodologyThe methodology of this study will try to demonstrate how the use of participatory methods of research will be used to show how the goals and objectives and problems questions of this study were retrievet. The most common forms of participatory methods are by use of interview plus, questionnaires and focus groups.The first objective (to identify different types of AT that are available to disabled students in South African higher institutions.), this study shall design a template of various AT from different literature study on AT. This AT template is then presented to the research participants (disabled students) to film what are the different types of assistive technologies they are currently using.The second objectives (to determine the user-friendliness of the available AT to disabled students in South African higher institutions), this study proposes to include in the questionnaire a question that enables the disabled students to select one option from 1-10 how user friendly they think the AT they are using are. The higher the number, the more use-friendly that participant encounters about that AT.The third objective (to determine whether the use of the AT improves academic performance of disabled students in South African higher institutions), this study proposes, after ethical cheering has been granted from the various university, this study shall ask the University Authorities to provide academic transcripts of the research participants, to see if using these ATs have helped them improve on their academics.The quartern objective (to determine how is AT used by disabled students to facilitate social networking), this study proposes with the use of a questionnaire and interview plus, the research participants will be asked to choose or list the social networks that they are using at that current state and how much easier ATs have helped these students while using these social networks.The fifth objective (to determine the influence that AT is playing in the life of disabled students), this study proposes to have a controlled and experimental sample of participants. Since the South African government encourages the use of inclusive design, m ost of the ATs are used by both the disabled students and their non-disabled peers. During the interviews and answering of questionnaire, the research participants shall be asked to list how they feel ATs have helped them both negative and prescribed responses shall be encouraged. Thus study will encourage these participants to even include non-academic influences of ATs on them.The focus group and interview plus shall be mainly used when the participants and answering to the questionnaire. These forms of participatory research methods shall also be used to enable the research participants to provide any additional information that they feel that this study might have left out.This study shall during the first focus group meeting provide each research participant with the proposed questions that this study intends to use. Each participant shall be asked to first tick which questions they feel are relevant to this study. Using an excel sheet, every question shall be listed in one co lumn and another column video display how many students have chosen a particular question. This number is then divided by the total number of research participants to determine the mean score. The higher the mean score, the more relevant a question is to this study. The same format shall be used when deterring the best relevant data parade tool to use. These mean scores can also be classified as alpha scores.3.1 Overview of data collection toolsThe data collection tools that will be used in this project consist of (a) interview plus (b) questionnaire and (c) focus groups. The use of these tools is not unique to research that uses a participatory approach several(prenominal) general studies of disabled students in higher education have sedulous these methods. However, what is unique about the use of these data collection tools in this study is that participation influenced the nature and focus of each tool4. confinement scheme4.1 Summarised bedevil PlanWORKPACKAGES attestApril mayJuneJulyAugustSeptemberOctoberNovember inaugural/Project PlanningCommunicationQuestionnaireStudent recruitment Phase 1 all inclusivePhase 2 purposive data collectionData AnalysisEvaluation /ReportingTable 1Project Plan4.2 Master Project PlanWork package and natural processOutputsStart dateEnd DateWORKPACKAGE 1 Startup/Project Planning object To provide project management for the project1. pee-pee project plan, workpackages, and dissemination plan.march on-going2.Reading of project material collection literature from library and internet showOngoing2. Choose of University to useList of UniversityMarchMarch3. Write Chapter OnePresentation of intentMarchJuneWORKPACKAGE 2 CommunicationObjective Maintain communication with Cordinator, and outdoor(a) interested parties team up Communication with CordinatorMinutes of meetings/emails weeklyMarchOngoingAcademic and Student Services Staff University ofMinutes of meetings/emails weeklyMarchOngoingExternal interested parties (Disabil ity South Africa)Minutes of meetings/emails weeklyMarchOngoingFocus GroupsMinutes of meetings/emails weeklyJulyOngoingWORKPACKAGE QuestionnaireObjective give way questions that will answer the Goals and ObjectivesDevelopement of Assisitve Technology Types QuestionnaireQuestionaireMayMayDevelopement of Goals and Objectives related questionsQuestionnaireMayJuneRevised Chapter OneHand in Research Proposal(Chapter One)JuneJulyWORKPACKAGE 3 disabled Student recruitment Phase 1 all inclusiveObjective Participation of max available of disabled studentsStudent Services support and Ethics CommitteAcceptance of outline questions and support of projectJulyJuly(Re)formulate interview questions with disabled studentsPilot / Questionnaire acceptable to participants and evaluation of changes made.JulyAugustData Analysis from sign questionnaires and contact with students from Phase 1Analysis and report on outcomes of sign questionnaire, e-mails and discussions with students.AugustAugustWORKP ACKAGE 4 Phase 2 purposiveObjective Recruitment of students who agreed to participate during Phase 1Participatory research of methodology initial discussions,on-going evaluation and implementationAnalysis and report on MethodologiesAugustSeptemberInterviews/ participation/development of artefactsAnalysis of interviews summary reportSeptemberSeptemberWORKPACKAGE 5 Data collectionObjective dogmatic Storage and re-formatting of dataCollection of Data from participantsRaw data available to teamSeptemberSeptemberAccessible Multimedia artefactsData available to team with captions, text descriptions, etc.SeptemberSeptemberWORKPACKAGE 6 Data AnalysisObjective Evaluation of all the data and other artefacts amassAnalysis of interview data from Phase 2Synopsis of transcripts veritable by individual participantSeptemberOctoberAnalysis of all artefacts provided by participantsAgreement with participants, as to which artefacts are used for dissemination.OcotoberOctoberAnalysis of all away the data gathered in relation to the project.Agreement with team as to inclusion of external data relating to the project e.g. accessibility guidelines etc.OctoberOctoberWORKPACKAGE 7 Evaluation /ReportingObjective Evaluation of methodologies used and completion of feeler and final reportsProgress reportDraft to Advisory Group and Team Itemised report of progress to dateOctoberNovemberFinal evaluation of the questions used and Research Question ReportDraft summary report detailing how the research questions have been addressed and drawing out lessons learned from the particular institutional contextOctoberNovemberMethodology Critique and analysisDraft report of a critique of the chosen methodologyNovemberNovemberRecommendations/Guidelines on impact of the use of Assistive TechnologiesDraft recommendations and guidance for practitioners, support staff, institutional managers, learners, content providers, instructional designers, good and program developersNovemberNovemberFINAL THES ISHand in final research paperNovemberNovemberTable 2Master Project Plan showing the activities that will be involved