An Editorial
By
Bonnie L. Snyder
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.
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.
While we would never expect to be told what materials we may or may not use to teach our students by non-educational staff at our schools or in our districts, we sit back and allow these IT types to dictate to us what software we are allowed or not allowed to use to educate our students. Yes, I understand fully, their concern over viruses, and to some extent, their concern about incompatibilities (this is exaggerated all out of proportion), but there are virus checkers that can examine software prior to installing it to assure us all that these programs contain no lurking monsters. If, after all that, a virus or other problem appears on our computers (usually from some other means) it really is not a time to panic and run screaming “It HAS to be the software the TVIs installed. It can’t possibly be anything else.” (Like not updating the virus checking software on a regular basis or a few other IT responsibilities … after all, they KNOW ALL and are the GODS of technology and can do no wrong). The quickest and most accurate means to fix the problem is for the ITs to have Acronis True Image backup software installed (or something similar). They can make a complete image of each computer setup prior to the start of the school year. Then if something goes wrong, they can blow off everything on that computer, reinstall the image … and voila! The computer is back up and running.
I for one, am sick and tired of the tyranny of the IT department, and it’s time for us to take a stand. It is time to toss the ITs from their self constructed thrones as they are the main obsticles to the technology education of our disabled students.