ETEC 644: Week Eight
Okay, I submitted my IRB application to Dr. Newberry this week; hopefully, I filled it out correctly as I couldn’t get past the 10 minute marker in the video. I wrote about this in Kenny’s blog. I feel that my project, being a design and development type project, really doesn’t fall into the research-centric protections of the IRB proposal, but I could be wrong. We’ll see.
I also listened to the informative interview with Barb Kouba, which made me think of my previous line of work prior to teaching. Her tenet that assistive technologies need to be more integrated into all education classes, not to mention special education, is an insightful examination into the apparent lack of understanding of these technologies by most teachers/professors. When I first moved to Chicago, I worked at a summer camp, and continued this work for three years, for adults with Cerebral Palsy. This work, and my later work with Autism and mental retardation, really opened my eyes to the lack of technologies geared specifically for these individuals. At the camp, many of the individuals couldn’t speak and communicated through speech boards where they pressed a picture and the board said the word; yet, these boards seemed archaic and so extremely limited. After all, these Fisher-Price looking boards only had maybe twenty words on them. These men and women I worked with wanted to converse but were often impeded by the technology to have fluent conversations, which amounted to great perceived frustration on their parts. While I’m sure there was even more advanced technology available in the early 90′s when I worked at the camp, I also know that the technologies were probably cost prohibitive for these individuals as many of them lived in nursing homes and other state-assisted living environments. In fact, I clearly remember wanting to build low cost devices to help these individuals communicate more efficiently as I was frustrated with their “toy” type devices they had. This notion is still in the back of my mind as I have ventured farther into the open source world. On a side note, I wish Barb’s website would load as I would love to explore more about her thesis and results from that thesis.
Well, I guess back to trying to get together my prototype for this class.
May 31st, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Hi Mark…just took a look at your IRB application. Looks good. I have one of my surveys done. I still have to put together the consent, and then I think I am ready to turn in the application to the actual IRB. Nice work!
May 31st, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Hey Mark,
The IRB application looks good! I am glad I read yours because I went back to mine to review something and realized that my answers to 10-15 were tacked on at the back of the document!
I hope your design and development stages are going smooth!
May 31st, 2009 at 10:32 pm
Mark, I too ran into the same problem with the podcast. Took a look at yours, and it got me on the right track. Thanks for unknowingly sharing.
It amazes me that we will put computers in classrooms for simple word processing, there are cheaper tools for this, yet it seems so hard for people to grasp the intent of technology. It is suppose to make our lives easier. It can automate and computate in extraordinary ways. Assistive technologies seem like a no brainer in our classrooms. Good work on your IRB and thanks again. Bill
June 6th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Hello Mark,
First of all, great work on your ETEC 692 project. The website navigates well is very user friendly.
Second, you can talk to Barbara on the main campus. I interviewed her on Thursday, and she had her thesis project on hand. It was a bit dusty, but she is so proud of that accomplishment. Her office is in the Wedge part of the library, and her office is in the lab by the little deli in the Wedge.
Check her out!
Raul