An Editorial
By
Bonnie L. Snyder
BonnieLS21@Gmail.com
History in the field of technology usually refers to maybe five to ten years ago; particularly when we think in terms of technology in education. It wasn’t that long ago we were beginning to feel a glimmer of excitement at the prospect of technology opening whole new worlds for our visually impaired students. There was BEX, there was the Echo speech synthesizer, etc., etc. And our kids were off and running in the technology arena.
The software, particularly, was sparce, but we made use of everything that we discovered would work for our students. Even today, software for the blind is minimal. Commercially, there are some decent programs marketed by APH, but that is about all.
But, if you look around the Internet, you can find all kinds of exciting and useful shareware and freeware that can be used for all areas of disability, the blind and visually impaired included.
However, access to this treasure trove of software is often denied to our students. Why? Because of people in the Information Technology (IT) positions. It bothers me that a large number of IT people have no background in education at all, and I know of several who don’t have much more than a high school diploma! There are some ITs who are wonderful and cooperative, but there are far too many who are not.
Editorial Continued