The following transcript is based upon an interview with two Maine special education directors made in June 2003 dealing with issues related to the use of Assistive Technology in their respective school districts. The interview is available in VHS format or as audio-only in QuickTime format.
This transcript begins with each speaker introducing themselves followed by a series of six questions.
Hi, I'm Kathy Fries, I'm the Special Education Director in the South Portland school department in South Portland, Maine. In a previous life, I worked for the Maine CITE Project in the Maine Department of Education, and that project was focused on bringing assistive technology into schools. I'm in the unique position now of being one of the folks that gets to implement things I had preached for four years [laughter].
Hi, I'm Kerry Priest, I'm the Director of Pupil Services for the city of Brewer, located in central Maine. Our school district serves about 2,000 children, K through 12. Started a pilot project on assistive technology and instruction about six years ago and I'm delighted to be here today and tell you the results of that project.
Question 1: How is Assistive Technology integrated in terms of funding, program and curriculum into your district? Please give examples where regular education dollars have been used in addition to special education/regular education combinations.
In our district, we would like to incorporate universal design into all curricular areas for all students. We have a district of about 3,100 children, 600 of them are in special services, special education services, and we're finding that as we use technology, assistive technology, and hardware and software with children who have special needs and watch their education progress grow, we're convinced that if we do this across the curriculum, we'll be able to open any curriculum area to any child.
Our curriculum design project is similar, in that we try to provide a wide variety of instructional formats and instructional opportunities for all children, children with disabilities, children with English as a second language, children at risk. And we try to break down the barriers for their learning by providing them with multiple opportunities and many different approaches to learning. And technology is giving us a great opportunity to do that.
In the State of Maine, we use funding that we get, that flows through the State from the federal government, our local entitlement monies, as well as our local budget money to support assistive technology. The first year that we did it, really full scale, tried to bring technology and software into the special education classrooms, it ran us around $30,000, a little over $30,000. So it was a substantial investment, but we've got 10 schools, 10 buildings that we were trying to outfit with materials. Since that time, it's cost us less money and, again, we have it split between a couple of different funding sources.
We started with a pilot project that really put together two different pools of money. One of them was from our local entitlement, like Kathy's. Half, or $14,000 came from local entitlement, $14,000 came from local funds. We started just working in the middle school with the 7th grade team, because that was the team that was most advanced and most ready to try some pretty ambitious approaches to instruction with technology. And over the next three years, we had the 6th grade team and the 8th grade team fighting over who would be next to get their pilot project. And we used a combination of Special Ed and local and grant funds. The last team we did was the 8th grade team, and that was mostly local and grant funds and just a little bit of Special Ed money. We also did two projects at the high school, in which we used a combination of special education flow through money and some local funds.
We haven't had much that we've done yet with students who use English as a second language, but just in recent weeks we've been talking about it, more like, how can we apply this to help these children learn vocabulary better, learn the grammar of the language a little bit better. There's a new device that we purchased this year, I can't remember what it's called, but it's a pen that if you scan it over a document, it'll read the word for you and then it'll tell you what the definition is of the word or it'll tell you how to spell it. And although we haven't had a whole lot of success with that with our middle school students, mainly because they're a little too proud to use it in front of their buddies, we think it'd be really useful with elementary school students, who are English as a second language students. 'Cause they're looking for multiple opportunities to hear a word spoken, to find out what the definition might be and how you can use it in different context. So I think we might try that in that venue next.
I think engagement of kids in technology is another very important aspect. That this is something that kids want to have access to. They want to have their turn at the computer. They want to problem solve. They want to research. They want to use the technology to learn as efficiently and as effectively as possible.
I think that an area that I'd like to work on is how to use our infrastructure of our technology better in our school system. I think, for myself as an administrator, I don't know a whole lot about what pieces of infrastructure technologically need to be in place. I need to go and find that out from somebody else. So I have to rely on someone who knows a lot more than I do about the technology.
Our Superintendent, who is also our technology coordinator, is an excellent person explaining that you need to buy the most versatile pieces of technology you can -- things that are more universal, things that aren't overly specialized for students, because in the real world, they're not going to have those overly specialized technology devices available. So having them work on laptops, having them work on desktop PC's is a lot more practical than having something highly specialized just for them to overcome their disability. Brewer has a three-year cycle for purchasing technology and this is all run out of the Superintendent's office and with the Technology Coordinator. And there's a very clear plan of upgrade, replacement and reassignment for when we do the purchases. So every bit of technology that we are purchasing, it is planned over a long period of time and not for an immediate use and then replacement. So the best things are those things that can be most universally accessible for wide populations, a number of populations and are familiar to all our students.
In our school department, we take two approaches to how we're looking at technology. When we are applying for grants, we make sure that universal design is built into the request for curriculum materials that we're purchasing. We try and obtain a digital copy of a textbook when we place an order with a publisher, so that we can use it with the assistive technology that we have available. But we also take a system wide approach, in that we make sure that computers that we're ordering, have - like a baseline of necessary features that are pretty commonly found on most Macs and PCs these days anyway. And we also allow additional funding within our technology budget plan so that if we have to purchase technology for a child who has a visual impairment, for example, and is going to need a type of computer, a type of software that's beyond what you would normally find out there in the market, that we're able to buy that, too.
So we try and plan for a range of things, but I would agree with Kerry and what Brewer's doing. You really have to have a baseline of what you feel is the minimum requirement your district needs, district wide, and you build on that.
Question 2: How has training and staff development increased your ability to serve 504, Title I and English-as-Second-Language children and others?
The training, the opportunities that we've provided in our district for staff, teachers and educational technicians, as well as for parents, has varied. Training for parents has really been done one-to-one with families, especially for technology that is going between school and home. When a device has been selected for a child, we invite the family in for the training that's done with staff that day, so that they hear the same thing the staff is hearing, and know how to use the technology pretty equally with the child.
Our training for staff has taken two different modes. We have a speech therapist in the district who really has become a specialist in assistive technology and she's able to load software and show how to use new devices and switches and things that come into the district. And she can either go and serve a teacher and her staff individually in a classroom or she's able to provide workshops for staff as a whole.
And we've done a combination of things, from getting our teachers together after school for mini-workshops, to taking all day staff development time that the district has set aside to teach our staff how to use the technology.
We've had an ambitious approach to training teachers, administrators, educational technicians, students and parents. I think we've made good use of the opportunities around the state, whether it's workshops, conferences, or courses. There are some excellent online courses that people are now taking.
We did have a five class course that we offered to parents of middle schoolers when we began our pilot program, so that the parents would know what the students were talking about when they came home with these wild stories about what they were doing in school. And the parents would also be aware and familiar with the kind of software that we were purchasing for their instructional assistance. We also have summer training programs for students and parents, awareness type of classes they can take to become more familiar with the technology.
Question 3: How are parents of regular education and special education students involved?
The parent role has been very interesting for us. We started out by just hand choosing students that we wanted to put the technology with and we took that group of parents and took them to USM to the assistive technology center at MECATS --it's now called ALLtech. We brought the parents there for an evening to let them see what the technology was and what the potential of it was going to be. And for most of those families that worked very well. In fact, several of them, when we purchased technology for the student, the family already had perhaps a computer at home and decided that they wanted a copy for home use.
And so that was kind of neat. It's an interesting outcome that we really weren't expecting. We weren't anticipating that. But we found that families really do need to know what the technology is about and to understand it, because if they don't, they can't really help the child carry it over at home. I'd have to say for the most part, families are very supportive. If a child is taking a computer, for example, back and forth to school, a laptop, families are very invested in making sure that it's taken care of very well, that nothing happens to it. If the child is using any other small piece of technology, like a Franklin speller or even a calculator, we do find parents are very supportive of making sure it gets back in the backpack and comes to school the next day.
I think the parents' role in this particular aspect of the kid's education is vital, as it is in most every other role. Sometimes parents do have the best opportunity to research and find out what works best for their child. They are the case manager for the child from kindergarten to graduation, so they should know the child best. And when we talk about the different types of technology we're considering, often times they will really give us some guidance in what would work best for them.
Question 4: What are you most proud of in terms of using Assistive Technology in your program offerings?
What we found is, we've put money into each of our school buildings. Our teachers and their peers have gotten excited about the results that they've seen with different children. And invariably they'll invite a principal in to see the neat work that's gone on in the classroom. And the spillover from that is that now the principals are using some of their own building money, regular ed money, to augment classrooms with either more copies of the same types of materials that we're already using or they're branching out and trying different materials that they suspect will have good results as well. So we've been pleased with how there's been sort of like a ripple effect that's occurred in our buildings. It's been great.
This isn't hard to sell to teachers once you get it operating. The excitement on the part of the students, the improved outcomes on the part of student progress and academic success and just the fun of it, it isn't hard to convince teachers to submit a proposal.
In South Portland, we definitely have noticed that we've been able to expand our ability to serve children who are in different categories or different groups. Now for example, we use assistive technology software such as Inspiration or Kidspiration with our children who are 504 students. We have also purchased Earobics at the elementary level, and Lexia at the middle school level, both of which are reading programs aimed at helping a reader move on their own, from level to level, through a reading series or reading program. And we found that to be useful, not only with our special education students, but also our students who are on other state and federal monies learning how to read.
We've used the technology in a variety of applications for those particular populations of at-risk students, whether they're ESL students or traditional Chapter One students. And we found that a number of things occur. Having the text to voice program available for all 7th and 8th graders, we could include more kids in the higher content areas of social studies and science and not do as many modifications, because they had access to the same information material from the textbooks. They weren't letting...we didn't allow those poor literacy skills to detract from what they were able to get out of the textbook and what they were getting out of the printed material. That really helped. It was evidenced in our scores improved in the content area significantly in two years and we think it's because more kids were more engaged more of the time in that real learning. Where we used to think, "how are we going to keep them busy for the next 42 minutes?" now it's how can we get them out of here for the next class that's coming in?
I think the thing I'm most proud of in trying to get assistive technology really integrated into our school system and accepted by our leaders in our school system, would be the enthusiasm and support that my staff, who are using it, have been able to show. Just by giving the technology to one or two people who I knew would take off and run with it, they were able to kind of infect the rest of the school system with the desire for it. We have a terrific superintendent in our school system, who's very supportive of any idea that you can put forward, that you feel will advance the school curriculums and the progress of the students.
And likewise, our school board has been extremely supportive of that. I think those are key components to having it work within your school system. Because if you don't have their support, it's gonna really be an uphill battle. The things that Kerry referred to earlier about the excitement that you see from the students as a result, were students who wouldn't come to class before, or were avoiding school before, will come in now, just because they want to work on the technology. That's a huge step in the right direction for students.
I'm most proud of some of the outcomes for some individual students with significant disabilities. We have a number of children with attention problems, attention deficit disorder. And it's always been a problem in trying to help them organize materials, to hold onto materials, complete their work independently and get them back to the teacher on-time. Nothing new, I'm sure. But that group has really benefited from the technology pilot programs we've done in Brewer. We have all of the homework available to them online. They can download it at home, do their homework, email it back to their teacher and there isn't any worry about losing anything. That has been something I've been very proud of and we've actually shown that those kids are motivated. They do want to learn. They do want to be successful in school and they're not playing some game with us, trying to get out of work. We've also had a lot of success using the same types of technology with children with autism, who have very significant barriers to their learning. And to engage them in problem solving programs, in memory programs, even in some social programs, the outcomes have been very, very successful.
Question 5: What have been your biggest challenges?
In our school system, I can easily identify what the immediate challenge is in front of us. As I mentioned earlier, we put a lot of effort into putting software and hardware into each of our special education classrooms in all of our school buildings. What we didn't do was train everybody in how to use it all. And so we found after a period of time there were patches in the district where people were using the technology, but there were these gaps that also occurred in the district. And so we've gone back now and are systematically teaching... training the teachers, teaching the teachers how to use the technology with the students. And as soon as we did that, we started getting more complaints about technology not working and we realized that when we first loaded it on, we had a few problems with putting the software on the desktops. But nobody told us there was a problem, because they weren't using it; and so, good news and bad news.
Now, we found out about a problem that needed to be fixed and now the teachers are using it and it's really going very well, but clearly that's been our challenge.
I think the biggest challenge for us in Brewer, time is the coin of the realm in schools, and you never have enough time to do things as well as you want, as careful as you want. There isn't time to research things. We're kind of building a plane as we're going down the runway, quite often. And we've made some huge mistakes that I wish I could take back. But not having the time to research things carefully, we sometimes have purchased things that we can't use. My famous story about buying the Japanese/English conversion program for our computer for one of our ESL students - only to find out that it wouldn't run on an American PC. I had to buy a Japanese PC to run it, and it was just cost prohibitive.
But we made a lot of mistakes like that. It would be nice to have someone or some resource available that could help us with those things. We've had people go to Toys 'r' Us and try out the Franklin spellers and all the different versions of those, because if we were going to be plunking down $45 each, we wanted to know which ones were kid-friendly, which ones were easy to figure out and which ones would hold up. So having the time to research things carefully, to train people as Kathy mentioned, and then to implement them with kids in a careful, instructional way has been a big challenge for us.
We've had another interesting type of a challenge though, too. Some parents become very technology savvy and they will come in for a meeting with us and they will want every piece of technology out there to be identified for their child's use. And most kids can't handle more than a couple of things at a time. You're really better off to teach a child how to do a couple things really well, than give them a selection of 10 things and then don't know which piece to choose first. So that's been an unexpected hurdle to kind of get over with some of the families as well.
Question 6: What is your vision for Assistive Technology and Universal Design for Learning utilization for your program?
Next steps for us, in our district, is to train our staff in materials that we've already given them, so that we know that they use them well. But really our larger focus is to have the technology available in our district wide network so that any child in any classroom can download onto the computer they're using, any software that they need to make their curriculum materials more accessible to them. So that they can produce materials in multiple modes and feel that they're participating in the class to fully reflect what they know and not have to rely on our old pencil and paper methods to do it.
We're entering a very exciting era in technology development and it's application to education. The next five years, we're going to be opening doors for kids that we never dreamed of - and I mean for regular ed kids, for at-risk kids, for students with disabilities. We can't even imagine what's being worked on in the laboratories right now. What I've seen occur now in accessing technology for students who are deaf or hard of hearing, where we don't have to have a small machine that hooks to a phone and can only talk with other deaf people, they can get on a PC now and email with virtually anyone they want to. That's just opening doors for them and making them part of our community that they never had access to before - very exciting. The specific pieces of assistive technology for students with specific disabilities, such as autism, that's allowing them to communicate better, it's very, very exciting. And as I said, the next five years, anything goes.