Assistive Technology In Education Research Articles

Tecnologia Assistiva na Educação

This article proposes a contemporary analysis of Assistive Technology in Education and its direct relationship with the promotion of a culture of inclusion in schools. The methodological paths followed were those of the bibliographic review analysis; analysis of the contemporary social fact and also, with interviews with experts who work in innovation projects and assistive technology. We sought to bring up a contextualization of the social fact related to the Brazilian school context about the use and application of Assistive Technology in Specialized Educational Assistance (AEE) in Brazilian public schools, as well as to analyze data and information from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) which, through the census, analyzes the social context of people with disabilities, high abilities/giftedness and singularities. In this eagerness, the article discusses through academic analyzes in order to try to understand some paradoxes that are installed in the convergence of information. Through an academic perspective, the investigations were of the most elementary concepts about Assistive Technology, as well as brought up social and pedagogical issues and also presents the technology called Colibri, which presents itself as an alternative to break with existing obstacles to a digital and social inclusion of people with disabilities in Brazil.

TECNOLOGIA ASSISTIVA NA EDUCAÇÃO

This article proposes a contemporary analysis of Assistive Technology in Education and its direct relationship with the promotion of a culture of inclusion in schools. The methodological paths followed were those of the bibliographic review analysis; analysis of the contemporary social fact and also, with interviews with experts who work in innovation projects and assistive technology. We sought to bring up a contextualization of the social fact related to the Brazilian school context about the use and application of Assistive Technology in Specialized Educational Assistance (AEE) in Brazilian public schools, as well as to analyze data and information from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) which, through the census, analyzes the social context of people with disabilities, high abilities/giftedness and singularities. In this eagerness, the article discusses through academic analyzes in order to try to understand some paradoxes that are installed in the convergence of information. Through an academic perspective, the investigations were of the most elementary concepts about Assistive Technology, as well as brought up social and pedagogical issues and also presents the technology called Colibri, which presents itself as an alternative to break with existing obstacles to a digital and social inclusion of people with disabilities in Brazil.

Microsoft Copilot and Anthropic Claude AI in education and library service

Purpose This study aims to explore the collaborative potential of Microsoft Copilot and Anthropic Claude AI as an assistive technology in education and library services. The research delves into technical architectures and various use cases for both tools, proposing integration strategies within educational and library environments. The paper also addresses challenges such as algorithmic bias, hallucination and data rights. Design/methodology/approach The study used a literature review approach combined with the proposal of integration strategies across education and library settings. Findings The collaborative framework between Copilot and Claude AI offers a comprehensive solution for transforming education and library services. The study identifies the seamless combination of real-time internet access, information retrieval and advanced comprehension features as key findings. In addition, challenges such as algorithmic bias and data rights are addressed, emphasizing the need for responsible AI governance, transparency and continuous improvement. Originality/value Contribute to the field by exploring the unique collaborative framework of Copilot and Claude AI in a specific context, emphasizing responsible AI governance and addressing existing gaps.

Augmented Reality (AR): An Assistive Technology for Special Education Needs

Since 2017, the Ministry of Education has introduced Basic Vocational Skills subjects that able special students to master basic living skills in their schooling years underlying Secondary School Standard Curriculum – Special Education (KSSM –PK). The biggest challenge for individuals with ASD is to be independent and get jobs after schooling. Hence, beginning in 2017, Secondary School Standard Curriculum – Special Education (KSSM –PK) has introduced the Basic Vocational Skills subject, which students must master during their schooling years. From the preliminary study, many teachers revealed that they face difficulty delivering lessons primarily related to teaching and learning materials to enhance ASD students mastering living and vocational skills. Designing and developing effective teaching and learning aids, especially for children with special education needs are in alarming stages. Parents and caregivers indicated they face insufficient enhancement and practice learning tools for their children, especially after school hours. The guidebook and extra exercise books are essential for them to master their learning while at home. In response to the gap mentioned earlier and decipher the myriad of potential uses of Augmented Reality (AR) as an assistive educational technology, the current study aimed to design and develop a differentiated instructional pedagogical kit (Kit-MASAK) with AR to assist children with special education needs especially ASD students master in basic vocational skills Preparing and cooking skills). Methodologically, a total 3 students were involved in the phenomenological study. The preliminary analysis of the data summary across the case studies revealed that the Kit MASAK successfully brought contemporary content into the classroom, leading to an exciting teaching and learning environment among students. Furthermore, this study also provides several significant implications for the research and practice.

MSc Educational Assistive Technology: Training an Emergent Professional Group.

The MSc Educational Assistive Technology (EduAT), is a recently established course, having welcomed the first cohort in January 2021, this group have recently completed their studies. At time of writing (summer 2023) the course is actively recruiting it's fourth cohort who are due to commence in January 2024. The course is now an established part of the AT training offer as the curriculum has been developed and delivered. This paper supports the presentation prepared for AAATE 2023. The EduAT approach uses the ESCO definition of the Assistive Technologist role, which is briefly summarised. The paper continues with how and why MSc EduAT was developed and explores how this MSc fits into a wider AT training ecosystem, noting roles that EduAT has been designed to support. An overview of the curriculum developed to train assistive technologists is included alongside a summary of what has been learned since the course began. The paper concludes by briefly summarising AT and AAC research group plans that have been informed by the experience of developing and delivering the MSc EduAT, and through the contributions students have made to the authors wider understanding of the assistive technology landscape in the UK and beyond.

Introducing Assistive Technology (AT) to Pre-Service Teachers: Observations and Experiences

Assistive technology (AT) can help students with special needs with their learning, and the importance of AT is on the rise with the development of new technologies and the diversification of student body. However, it is observed that pre-service teachers need to be better prepared for the use of AT in their teaching, including awareness, creative and innovative ways of problem solving, and pedagogical use of “low-tech” “mid-tech” and “high-tech” AT. Based on the observation and experience of the author in his teaching of an ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) course in a teacher education program at a middle-sized university in Ontario, Canada, this paper intends to broaden educators’ understanding of AT including hardware and software, emphasize the necessity of the introduction of AT in teacher education programs, and discuss the pedagogical uses of various types of AT tools. By sharing our observations and experiences, it is hoped that educators can be inspired to use various methods to expand the understanding of AT in pre-service teacher education and in-service teacher professional development programs.

Assistive technology training within an educational technology course: Perceptions of preservice special education teachers

Although the importance of assistive technology (AT) has been supported in the literature, preservice special education teachers (PSETs) are still graduating with inadequate AT knowledge and skills. In this study, an educational technology course was modified and the PSETs’ perceptions about their AT knowledge and skills and the course were investigated. Data were collected from 67 PSETs through pre- and post-survey. The findings revealed that their AT knowledge and skills increased remarkably following the course. The PSETs found the course to be valuable as it enabled them to gain AT knowledge and skills, to become aware of the importance of AT in special education, and to provide some real-life experience. They mentioned appreciating the special education focus and active learning features of the course, but listed the heavy course workload, the challenges of the course project, and the intensive course content as weaknesses of the course. They also recommended suggestions to improve the course.

Assistive Technology Education: Experiences of Preservice Special Education Teachers Within an Instructional Material Development Project

The purpose of this study was to explore preservice special education teachers’ experiences within an instructional material development project for students with disabilities during a semester-long technology integration course. Data were collected from 61 preservice special education teachers through an open-ended questionnaire, instructional design reports, and instructional materials. The findings indicated that working with students with disabilities in a real-life environment helped the preservice teachers realize the importance of assistive technology in education to support these students’ needs. This experience also helped the teachers to ascertain what barriers may exist to assistive technology use in education, such as insufficient technology knowledge and skills, and inadequate infrastructure of classrooms, etc. The preservice teachers emphasized that following an instructional design process facilitated the development of effective instructional materials. They also stressed that the instructional material development project contributed to their professional development in different ways, such as practical skills through real-life experiences and technology-related skills.

A Content Analysis of Studies on Assistive Technology in Education

Technology advancement provide more effective and efficient ways for the people to perform individual and or collective roles and execution of responsibilities, and this has also resulted to tenacious upsurge in peoples' dependence on technology. As the right for people with disabilities increases, the need to cater for their educational right like every other learner brought about the quest to provide for AT that can best serve those special students. Application of AT can help students with one or more deficiencies, aid information collection process and increase learning motivation. The aim of this study is to conduct content analysis of studies on AT in education and the research sample consist of research publications on AT in education published on Scopus between 2018-2022. Content analysis was conducted on the research publications related to the research and the data gotten were evaluated through descriptive statistical methods (i.e. percentage and frequency) with the intention that research findings will add to the body of literature and create more quest for research interest on AT in education. The findings indicated that, more studies were conducted in the year 2021 compared to others, qualitative research method was applied more in those studies, followed by quantitative and mixed methods, the larger percentage of the studies under review were conducted under special education, and the greater part of co-authorship were local collaboration.

Assistive Technology in Education

This article offers a socio-technical framing of assistive technology design for in-classroom use to enable a better understanding of how to improve educational opportunities and outcomes for learners with disabilities. By addressing social inequities in public education and recognizing user-centered design faults and inadequacies in the current implementation of assistive technology in the educational environment, this paper focuses on understanding the experiences of learners with disabilities. This article discusses challenges faced when adopting such technology and the effects of the current well-intentioned but flawed implementation of assistive technology. The authors highlight the limitations and shortcomings of the current approaches portrayed in previous research and educational practices. The article concludes with a call for a socio-technical approach to the adoption of assistive technology to augment the learning experience for a more inclusive atmosphere, and encourages a deeper appreciation for the interrelatedness between people, educational organizations, and technology.

특수교육 교육용 보조공학 진단평가 도구 개발을 위한 집단별 인식 및 요구 분석

The purpose of this study is to examine the needs for parents of students with disabilities, special teachers, and assistive engineers for analyzing the assessments and evaluation of the use of educational assistive technology as well as potential research for the future needs. This study consists of focus group interviews with five special teachers, two parents, and three assistive engineers. All interviews are recorded and transcribed.; the interview results in a qualitative study with four major topics including with 14 sub-topics. As a result of the study, four major topics are drawn as followed: first, the current status of the use of educational assistive technology in schools; second, the limitations of the administrative system in schools; third, procedure to develop educational assistive technology; final, improvement of multidisciplinary collaborative system for the assessment and evaluation. In conclusion, discussions and suggestions for future research are drawn.

معوقات استخدام التقنيات التعليمية في مجال ذوي الاحتياجات الخاصة من وجهة نظر معلمي التربية الخاصة والإدارة المدرسية وذوي الاحتياجات الخاصة أنفسهم.

رمى هذا البحث إلى التعرف معوقات استخدام التقنيات التعليمية المساعدة في مجال ذوي الاحتياجات الخاصة من وجهة نظر معلمي التربية الخاصة. اتبع البحث المنهج الوصفي، وکانت أدوات جمع البيانات والمعلومات المطلوبة هي الاستبانة. واستخدم الباحث برنامج SPSS في الحصول على الإحصائيات المطلوبة من حساب الفروق والدلالات، وتکون مجتمع البحث من معلمي ومعلمات التربية الخاصة بمحافظة أبو عريش منطقة جازان، وعينة البحث تکونت من (40) معلم ومعلم من جملة (60) معلم ومعلمة للتربية الخاصة بالمحافظة. من أهم النتائج التي توصل إليها البحث: من المعوقات التي تحول دون استخدام التقنيات التعليمية في مجال ذوي الاحتياجات الخاصة (لدي معلم التربية الخاصة) ضعف الإلمام بقواعد استخدام التقنيات التعليمية لديه، واعتقاده بأن التقنيات تحول دون تدريس المنهج الدراسي في وقته المحدد له. أما (لدي ذوي الاحتياجات الخاصة أنفسهم) وجود مشکلات حسية أو بدنية لديهم تحد من قدرتهم على الاستخدام، ونسيانهم السريع لما تعلموه بواسطة الأجهزة. (لدي الإدارة المدرسية) بعد الفصول الدراسية عن مرکز مصادر التعلم بالمدرسة، عدم توافر المعينات التعليمية المناسبة من اجهزة ووسائل بمراکز مصادر التعلم بالمدارس، ومن أهم التوصيات التي خلص إليها البحث: إقامة دورات تدريبية اثناء الخدمة لمعلمي التربية الخاصة بصورة مستمرة، توفير الأجهزة المناسبة لذوي الاحتياجات الخاصة، إنشاء مراکز مصادر التعلم على مستوياتها المختلفة الموافقة والمناسبة ذوي الاحتياجات الخاصة. ABSTRACT This research aimed to identify the barriers of using Assistive Educational Technology (AET) from perspectives of special education teachers. A descriptive approach was adopted in this study. Data were collected using online-based questionnaires from special education teachers (n = 40) out of (n = 60) teachers in Abu Arish region, Jazan. Researchers used SPSS to analyze the differences and similarities of the collected data. The most important results of the research that barriers of using AT from teachers’ perspectives were lack of knowledge in using AT, the belief that AT consumes a class time. In addition, barriers of using AT from perspectives of disabled students were having sensory or physical issues that limit students' uses of AT and forgetting what they have learned by using AT fast. Moreover, barriers from school administration perspectives were the separation of classrooms from learning resource centers, and the lack of appropriate educational AT. Findings of research recommended conducting continuous in-service training for special education teachers, providing appropriate AT devices, and establishing different levels of learning resources centers to adopt various special needs.

Mid-Air Haptic Rendering of 2D Geometric Shapes With a Dynamic Tactile Pointer.

An important challenge that affects ultrasonic mid-air haptics, in contrast to physical touch, is that we lose certain exploratory procedures such as contour following. This makes the task of perceiving geometric properties and shape identification more difficult. Meanwhile, the growing interest in mid-air haptics and their application to various new areas requires an improved understanding of how we perceive specific haptic stimuli, such as icons and control dials in mid-air. We address this challenge by investigating static and dynamic methods of displaying 2D geometric shapes in mid-air. We display a circle, a square, and a triangle, in either a static or dynamic condition, using ultrasonic mid-air haptics. In the static condition, the shapes are presented as a full outline in mid-air, while in the dynamic condition, a tactile pointer is moved around the perimeter of the shapes. We measure participants' accuracy and confidence of identifying shapes in two controlled experiments ( n1 = 34, n2 = 25). Results reveal that in the dynamic condition people recognise shapes significantly more accurately, and with higher confidence. We also find that representing polygons as a set of individually drawn haptic strokes, with a short pause at the corners, drastically enhances shape recognition accuracy. Our research supports the design of mid-air haptic user interfaces in application scenarios such as in-car interactions or assistive technology in education.

Virtual Haptic Perception as an Educational Assistive Technology: A Case Study in Inclusive Education.

The traditional educational process of blind people is a complex practice that relies on the haptic perception (tactile perception) of physical models. However, physical models may be costly, inaccessible or may require a large storage space. To overcome these difficulties, in this article a virtual haptic perception approach to support the teaching and learning process of blind people is proposed. The proposed approach combines the use of virtual reality and haptic technologies. The research aim is to objectively evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of using virtual haptic perception in the education of blind children. For this purpose, an experimental methodology was defined and used to teach maths, in particular fundamental three-dimensional (3D) shapes, to blind children. The results are analysed in terms of the participants' ability to explore and recognize virtual objects, and the knowledge gain after the virtual perception learning period. From this analysis it is concluded that haptic virtual perception is a valid and effective assistive technology for the education of blind children.

교육용 보조공학기기 연구개발 활성화 방안 연구: 전문가 포커스 그룹 인터뷰를 중심으로

교육용 보조공학기기 연구개발 활성화 방안 연구: 전문가 포커스 그룹 인터뷰를 중심으로

Networked library access and services delivery for the blind and visually impaired university students: evidence from the UAE

PurposeThe study aims to discuss the special needs-centric information delivery as a new genre of the academic library services. It also sheds light on the assistive technology used to help blind or visually impaired (BVI) students to access the available digital contents and use online services conveniently. A particular emphasis placed on gaining some insights into BVIs’ perceptions towards the orientation and assistance offered by the access service librarians, as well as any experience in using assistive educational technology for reading and information access.Design/methodology/approachThe authors used semi-structured interview survey to gather the necessary data from 35 BVI university students drawn from the Special Needs Services (SNS) Unit at the UAE University. The interview was concerned with use of library e-resources and online services for doing their assignments, easy-to-use facilities to access the e-resources and main challenges facing them in communicating with the librarians.FindingsThe findings revealed that the BVI students considered that the university library does not answer their needs for getting access to digital content and using online services adequately.Practical implicationsThe Main Library should cooperate closely with the SNS Unit to get the most benefits from their experience in the BVI-devoted services to develop an efficient library information discovery and delivery to this student group.Originality/valueThere is scarcity of scholarly studies on the pedagogical and information acquisition challenges facing the BVI university students in the UAE higher education. This is the first research study that tackles the experience of the BVI students in using the academic library.

A Study on Construction of an Assistance System for the Activation Plan of Educational Assistive Technology Support Service at Special Education Field: based on experts' focus group interviews

A Study on Construction of an Assistance System for the Activation Plan of Educational Assistive Technology Support Service at Special Education Field: based on experts' focus group interviews

Teaching blind women about the anatomy and physiology of the female reproductive system through educational manual

Abstract Objectives: to evaluate blind women’s learning on the anatomy and physiology of the female reproductive system through the use of an educational material. Methods: methodological development study performed with blind women. The participants responded the pre-test to evaluate their knowledge on sexual and reproductive health and received a manual on anatomy and the reproduction of the physiology After an individual reading, in a period ranging from three to fifteen days, they responded the post-test. Results: there was an increase of correct answers in the post-test in all the items in relation to the categories of The Woman's Body and How One Gets Pregnant becoming significant in the following knowledge of “clitoris increases with the woman excited" (p=0.009), “the function of the vagina in a sexual intercourse "(p<0.001), “How does fertilization occurs”(p<0.001) and "the ovulating period" (p<0.001). Conclusions: the manual enabled the participants to learn about the female anatomy and the physiology of fertilization after educational assistive technology.

Educational Assistive Technology for Students with Communication Disorders

Assistive technology has a significant impact on helping students with communication disorders achieve their academic goals. Selecting an appropriate assistive technology for a student requires parents, educators, and other professionals take a comprehensive view, carefully analyzing the interaction between the student, the technology, the tasks to be performed, and the settings where it will be used. It is important for the researchers to have better understanding of this disability issues and develop their own tool. Foreign assistive technologies are expensive and not readily available for the student with communication disorders in Thailand. It is therefore desirable to design and develop such tools for the student in Thailand and determine its effectiveness on performance of the student. Consequently, this paper obviously is considered on a study to integrate usability testing into the design and development of two assistive technology tools called Thai Word Search program and Thai word prediction program. Thai Word Search program assists student with communication disorders to write any vocabulary that he/she cannot spell it correctly. However, Thai word prediction has its advantages for students with communication disorders as the function of word completion and word prediction. Finally, the study indicated that student with communication disorders in this study increase his ability in writing when using assistive technology more than without using assistive technology. The result for the first tool shows the value of p is 0.00001. Additionally, result for the second tool shows the value of p is 0.00027. Therefore both results are significant at p ≤ 0.05.

Assistive Technology in Education: Screen Magnifier

Technology, which basically helps human do things easier, has also emerged in helping learners perform a better learning. This descriptive study explores the screen magnifier as assistive technology in education which is installed in many electronic devices for visual assistance. It also pinpoints how the technology works, characteristics of the students who use the technology, issues of the technologies use in the classroom (including costs). The study indicates that screen magnifier is crucially important for low vision students because most learning activities require a lot of intensive eye sight. Furthermore, the users may find screen magnifier easy to install and to use. Besides that, this study suggests that students also get accommodation besides using Screen Magnifier individually in the classrooms.