What is Mastery of Assistive Technology and How Do We Measure It

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Hi everyone my name is Catherine Merritt. I am  a speech pathologist and research instructor   with SWAAAC. I'm super excited that you  all are here for our September webinar.   Just a quick note beforehand we will in  a couple slides in have a quick Zoom poll   just to gather some data around the learning  objective so be on the lookout for that but   otherwise I will go ahead and introduce  our speaker today Dr. Ben Satterfield.  Thank you Catherine. Good afternoon everybody I  appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today.   We're going to be talking about Mastery of  assistive technology and how we might go   about measuring that. I have one of my research  team with me today Karen Milchus and I'd like to  

give her a chance to just introduce herself as we  get kicked off here. Hi my name is Karen Milchus   I'm a research engineer at CIDI the Center for  Inclusive Design and Innovation. I work primarily   in the area of workplace accommodations and I will  be kind of checking the chat and you know fielding   some questions and to sort of taking notes  today so thank you Ben for letting me join you.   We also have a number of other people on our  research team I'll just let you know that   we're not alone we've gathered a rich array of  talented people who work in various offices and   aspects colleges within the Institute as we call  it Georgia Tech. Bruce Walker is from the School   of Psychology and this college of interactive  Computing we also have Liz DiStefano who's the   director of the center for education integrating  science math and Computing or seismic for short.   Salima Leforce is with Advanced the Center  for Advanced Communication Policy and Patricia   Griffith and Matthew Blake work with us at CIDI  the Center for Inclusive Design and Innovation and   Patricia is our statistician and Matthew is  our lead I.T person these people have made a  

made a great contribution to what the work  that we've done I just want to recognize   their contributions. So let's go ahead and  talk about the learning objectives today.   I know you're going to be doing a poll here in a  minute where you're going to sort of do a pre-test   on what you know already so let's just talk a  little bit about what we hope to accomplish today.   The first thing is that we'll want to tell you  a little bit about how we came up with the ideas   that we've come up with and with this tool that  we use to assess where someone is in their journey   toward Mastery of assistive technology and we  did that through a process known as the Delphi   research method. So we're going to talk a little  bit about that and I think it would be a a good   objective to have as you being able to understand  or remember one of the unique elements of that   research method because it's pretty unique.  Secondly we'd like you to do some thinking with   us about what it is that becoming a power user  or a an expert in assistive technology mastering   the assistive technology what is what are some  indicators of that and maybe what might be some   predictors. So you could see that that's coming  or that's the person's on the right trajectory to   accomplish it and then lastly I'd like to ask you  to join us in taking this tool and using it take   it out for a spin test drive if you will and do  a little evaluation on yourself. And so what I'd  

like you to think about now is what what's a tool  that you use some assistive technology tool that   you're familiar with maybe use one that you feel  like you're particularly good at using so maybe   you've mastered it so assess your level of Mastery  just off the top of your head at one through four   point scale where one is a novice and four would  be a power user of that assistive technology and   then later we'll give you a chance to see how  you score on the tool that we've created and   then you can give us some feedback on it okay. So  just to give you a little bit of background Karen   and I work at the Center for Inclusive Design  and Innovation or CIDI which is one of several   research centers that are part of the College  of design at Georgia Tech. We're kind of unique   because we do both research and service provision  in the same house and there's not a there's not a   lot of that that happens at Georgia Tech you're  one or the other so we're kind of unique we're   the result of a merger of two agencies or two  research centers in the college. One was AMAC   the Accessible Materials Access Center and CATEA  or the Center for AT and Environmental Access   and they've merged back in 2019 and have been a  unit a self-contained unit on campus ever since.   CIDI has kind of become a leader in pushing for  advocating for accessibility locally in Georgia   and around the campus accessibility for people  with disabilities but to make sure that everybody   has access to not just physical spaces but also  to information and that includes web accessibility   and educational materials and the like. So we do  a lot of consulting with agencies on accessibility  

we do provide Braille Services captioning and  described audio we provide a lot of e-text and   also we have a certified assistive technology team  that can work directly with individuals who need   assistance and can provide training. So we serve  virtually all of the schools in the University   system in the state of Georgia and then we have  some other schools around the country that we also   support or provide services for and one of the  things that CIDE does and this will factor into   what we're going to say in a minute we provide  alternative or I should say accessible educational   materials to students who are going to college in  Georgia. if you have a disability and you you need   to have your textbook in an alternative format or  a braille or you need captioning services while   you're taking a class listening to a lecture  we're the guys who step up to provide that.   So we've also provided a library of software so  that if a student comes to Georgia College and   they need accessible materials they also can get  the software for a period of time to one semester   at a time to allow them to make take advantage of  the materials that they get in accessible format.  

So that's CIDI that's where we come from and  the organization tools for life is part of that   organization. part of my work has has been four  tools for life as well as CIDI is celebrating   its 30th year as Georgia's assistive technology  program tools for life serves all ages and all   disabilities throughout the state all Georgians  and our mission is to just reduce the barriers   and expand access to assistive technology that  can help individuals live learn work and play as   independently as they can in their community of  choice. so we've also had one other feature the   what's called the National Pass it On Center which  is a national technical assistance center for the   56 different Tech Act agencies around the country  and throughout the U.S territories to help develop   safe and effective realization processes to  support AT reuse. so we're not just about new   and what we are about new and exciting things  about assistive technology but we're also in   the business of helping take slightly used and  refurbished assistive technology and make it   available where people need to get access to that.  so anyway that's kind of where we're coming from.  

I think you are probably aware of the fact  that we have a a growing research base about   assistive technology and its Effectiveness  or the outcomes of assistive technology   going back to the 80s and the 1990s these studies  weren't shall we say Ironclad they stood to be   done with more robust research methodology  but they all tend to point in the direction   of positive impacts from the use of assistive  technology in education particularly in K-12   and the one study that really stands out that is  kind of robust is the national longitudinal study   this was done between 2000 and 2010  so it was covered several years   over 300,000 students took part in the  study and what we found was pretty amazing   when it comes to using assistive technology.  For instance 99.8 percent of the students who   receive assistive technology while they were in  high school graduated and among those who didn't   receive any at just under 80 percent graduated.  The study also found that about 81 percent of the   students who received assistive technology  went on to some kind of a post-secondary   institution whether it was a tech school or  Community College or a four-year Institution   but only about 40 percent of the people who didn't  use assistive technology in school went on to do   that and then to go further to look at the the  employment situation about 80 percent of the   students who received assistive technology had  a paying job after high school but only about   51 of the ones who didn't had a paying job.  That was pretty stunning information and so   it's it's encouraged I think and added weight  to the research that has been going forward but   it also encourages us knowing that when kids are  exposed to and have a chance to develop a mastery   of assistive technology we should be looking  for graduation rates to rise post-secondary   participation to increase better workplace  outcomes and also some of the other research   also points to Independent living outcomes being  better in terms of kids being able to live on   their own and be successful. Okay so knowing this  we at the CIDI back in the days when it was called   AMEC we were serving students college students  throughout the state of Georgia as they would   come through their universities they would come  to to AMAC which was the what we call CIDI then   to receive the support they needed. They would  get their accessible materials from us they could   download software and use it and we also had a  customer support Center that would work pretty   much around the clock. I mean if kids needed help  in the evenings we were there and we were trying  

to assist them in using the tools and downloading  their textbooks that were in a special format   but what this the support team started to find  was that there were some students that were just   really hard to help that we we reached out to them  we provided training just like we did the ones who   were successful but for some reason it just didn't  stick you know so we started trying to figure out   what it was that was going on and how we could  be more effective because these students were   you know not not doing very well in their in  their studies and what we decided to do was to   look at the difference between their preparation  you know how prepared they were coming out of   high school to use the technology that we were  providing. That seemed to be one possibility so   we did a little study. We've called it the AMAC  study. We looked at several hundred students we   focused on kids with learning disabilities  ADHD some kids on the high end of the autism   spectrum but kids with what we call High incidence  disabilities and we looked at their high school we   asked them to tell us some things about their  experiences in high school and tried to map out   whether or not they felt like they had mastered  their technology when they were in high school   and if they did we looked at them in one category  and if they didn't we looked at the students who   didn't in a different category so then we asked  them some more questions about what happened   when they got to college and we took grade point  average the difference between grade point average   in high school and then in college as an indicator  as to whether they were more successful in   college or less so or you know in terms  of projecting the the success rate that   they had in school so we mapped grade point  average from high school to college and we   looked at whether they identified themselves  as being a somebody who was familiar with   assistive technology coming out of high school  and what we found shouldn't surprise us it really   maps nicely over what we were experiencing in our  customer service center is that kids who master   their technology when they're in high school have  a better chance of being successful in college.   It doesn't cover everything I mean you still got  to apply yourself but clearly there was a there   was a difference between those students who knew  how to use their technology and their performance   in the first year of school and the students who  didn't really have a good handle on it in their   performance. Okay I think I've linked or put it  in here the the how to get that particular study   if you want to read it it's available through  the assistive technology outcomes and benefits   journal and that is an open Journal  so you don't have to pay anything   if you want to download it online  ATOB is the acronym for it okay.

so we had this study it you know when we looked  at it we said "Wow this this is pretty impressive   information." It goes along with all that we've  been seeing the evidence and that sort of thing   but there were a lot of questions that were left  unanswered and we wanted to sort of take a look at   what it is what's really going on here so we  talked we thought about what what Mastery is   you know becoming an effective user of something  and what does Mastery look like as it applies to   assistive technology and can we measure it is it  something we can track now we know some things. We   know what assistive technology is that's defined  for us by federal law and just so we're all on   the same page assistive technology is anything  any piece of equipment whether it's purchase   off the shelf or it's made as a one-off to be  customized for an individual the anything that's   going to improve the functional capabilities of an  individual including aspects like learning, work,   home living and their ability to navigate  the community and so that embraces high-tech,   low-tech, mid-tech and will you have to plug it  in or it takes batteries or whether it's just a   laminated piece of paper with some really  important stuff on it you know it's the   technology is defined this way and  and we're for the purposes of this   study we're not shrinking or limiting  the definition so as we talk about this   keep an open mind in terms of what kinds  of technology this might apply to. Okay   now we took a look at several models to try to  figure out some sort of a hypothetical starting   point and we looked at several that you might be  familiar with. Patricia Dowden has a Continuum   of communication Independence that has to do with  AAC users that talks about different stages that   AAC users go through and how they become effective  users. Gerald Craddock back in 2006 had us a study  

that he published talking about the Continuum in  education going from a novice to a power user and   then in the more General category of Technology  use Dreyfus at Dreyfus have done several studies   and there's a rich literature going back to the  1980s talking about a four or five stage model   of how one Masters mental activities so we use  those as sort of models to help shape what we were   going to postulate as the the pattern that this  followed. What we came up with was a four stage   progression that we sort of anticipate or  what from our experience we thought users   of assistive technology go through to be moving  from a novice user to the power user through a   couple of different stages and we called them the  second stage was context dependent because you're   becoming more familiar with the technology but  you're using it in specific situations and perhaps   with specific individuals helping you but then  you become a transitional user in the third stage   where you're becoming more independent but you  still haven't got it all figured out you're still   trying to make your way with the technology  and then ultimately you become a power user   so we pull together a team of researchers  to to work on this. We've got a grant from   Georgia Tech to study this and what we wanted  to do was to develop a conceptual framework   around which or through which we might think  about Mastery of assistive technology and we   wanted to see if we could develop a tool some  way to measure it some way to plot progress   or see where you are at any particular moment  and maybe get some ideas about how that what   the next step might be that sort of thing  okay so that was our our starting point.

The methodology we chose to use was  what's known as the Delphi method. I   don't know if you know very much about  this but this is really kind of neat.   Back in the 1960s when the world was still  very much a cold war mentality and nuclear   shall we say the threat of nuclear war was kind  of real you know it was it was something that   people were seriously thinking about and it  was a political reality in the in the inner   International political Arena the Rand corporation  called on some scientists to try to give them some   idea about what would be the likely outcomes  of a nuclear war and how would we best plan   to recover from it. In that eventuality kind  of a bright cheerful concept so investigate   but the idea was they used they developed this  methodology in the process because one of the   things they wanted to do is they had a number  of different experts they wanted to hear from   and they wanted them to be able to speak their  mind and they wanted to try to clarify what each   one of them had to say but they realized  some of these guys have got some other   well they're scientists and so many of them  have very determined notions about what the the   realities of the world and they were afraid  that it would all just get into a you know   maybe throwing spitballs at each other by  the time if they try to get them all in the   room at the same time so what they did was they  separated them and allowed them to give input   but they did it anonymously and so they tapped  the expertise of all these different scientists   collected the information and then repackaged it  and it sent it back sent it back out in a series   of iterative steps to let the scientists say oh  okay that's what the the group seems to think,   I agree with this point, I disagree with this  point. So they could make their observations in  

detail and then in the next round they would  be collected again and shared with each of   the scientists and then they could comment again  and the goal was as time went on in a series of   these iterative steps then the groups would come  together and there would be sort of a consensus   about the various issues that were involved in  that research. So we use that same technique.   We felt like that was an important way to really  hear from people who had important things to say   and if we were going to get a panel of  experts that needed to include some people   with disabilities who had become or we felt like  they had become power users so we needed to hear   from them we needed to know what they thought  we also reached out to a number of people who   had helped people become power users you know  through their work as providers of technology. So   we went for four rounds usually this Delphi method  lasts three or four rounds we went the full four   rounds and the each round is going to begin with  some opportunity to react to information or to   create information and then the subsequent rounds  would react to the those reactions that had been   collected from the previous round. Does that make  sense? So we're putting information or collecting   information from the group synthesizing it and  putting it back out for their reaction. Okay  

I don't know if there are any questions about that  but I'd be happy to answer them before we go on. Okay and we can always drop back and talk about  this some more as we go on but our panel had   12 members to it and we're just really really  we're excited about the the nature of this team   because we had a number of different disabilities  represented we also had different affiliations so   we had two folks with vision impairments, two  with learning disabilities, two with motoric   impairments, one with a hearing impairment,  one of the communication disorder, an AAC user,   but we also had seven who were associated with  academic institutions and eight were practitioners   in their own right. As you can imagine some  of these people were in more than one category   but was a real rich diversity and breadth of  experience. They had done a lot of stuff for   themselves in terms of arriving at Mastery and  had done a lot to help others achieve Mastery so   this was we just felt like this was a real good  group and the insights they gave us definitely   met and exceeded our expectations. Okay so  in round one we use the first steps to get   them to brainstorm about what came to their minds  what did they think of when they heard the term   or they saw the term a power user of assistive  technology so you know we're we're asking this   question seeking a framework for thinking about  the characteristics that comprise Mastery and we   thought okay well let's start by looking at what  the power user the person who achieves Mastery.  

What are the characteristics that they or what  what are the the features the the factors the   the predictors if you will? What is it that  that if you see this in an individual who   is learning assistive technology this is a  good indicator that they're going to wind up   becoming a power user or maybe they've arrived so  then what are the indicators of having arrived?   So I kind of want to invite you to join us  today in kind of revisiting that process   and kind of looking at what it what it takes  to become or what you think of when you   here's a term or you see these words  a power user of assistive technology.  So what I'd like you to do for just a minute  here and you can write this on a piece of   paper and then pick one or two and put them in  the chat or you can just put them in the chat   if you want to but I'd like you to stop and  take a minute and think about what it means   to be a power user of assistive technology and  just fire away we want to hear what you think. You all have some great ideas,  keep them coming, this is good. Okay that's outstanding. Feel free to keep adding  to the list. I just want to mention a couple, just  

kind of bring them up here just to so that we can  kind of get them out in front of us. The ability   to teach others how to use their technology, being  an independent user, operational proficiency,   independent, spontaneous, effective and efficient,  using it quickly and easily, somebody who uses AT   consistently and effectively in various contexts  throughout their environment, can troubleshoot,   intrinsically motivated, competency, can use it  over a variety of subjects, can teach themselves   to locate unfamiliar components in the device, so  Advanced knowledge and technique of how AT works. Independent use in novel situations,  troubleshooting, use it for things   that they identify as important to them the  user, yeah and in ways that work for them,   self-edit, the ability to adjust the  technology for their uses, their purposes,   independent using in various  settings, can use it fluency. Sort of an automaticity type of thing  perhaps. Okay these are excellent ideas. I appreciate your taking the time with us to kind  of think this through because I think it'll make a   lot of sense as we look at what's what happened.  As we got this feedback from our panel the panel   gave us a lot of information I mean these people  really had thought it through and they spent a   lot of time giving us feedback and we had I  don't know hundreds of characteristics now.  

Many of them were very similar and they didn't  just give us one word or two word phrases they   were they were long descriptions so we tried  to package that and what we came up with was   the sort of what we call our superset of  characteristics that summarize in about 30   characteristics. The thinking of our panel on  what a power user what the indicators were or what   the profile of someone who was a power user  would be and here's what they came up with. And   I'll just run through it so we can get it out in  front of us. Access to support, problem solving,   access to training, flexibility,  Independence, seeing some familiar   ideas here, Ingenuity. creativity, technical  knowledge, knowledge of AT options and solutions,   the ability to troubleshoot, usage curiosity,  technical skills, motivation, self-awareness,   diligence, opportunities to use the AT,  self-advocacy, technical experience,   proactivity, connection to the AT Community,  patience, time to learn and to experiment   and to learn adaptability, access to AT,  experience with AT, persistence, practice,   connection to other AT developers, and money  and resources. So that's the the superset that  

our of characteristics that our panel came up  with. Let me throw it open and if you want to   unmute your mic and make a comment here. What  do you think about this? You're welcome to enter   in the chat as well but give us your feedback.  What do you think about this list? Is it similar   to what you were thinking? There's some items  here that surprise you or what's your thought? Can we say that at least some of the ideas that  you all came up with appear on this on this list?   Are there any ones that appear  on this list that surprise you? The reference to networking is interesting. Anyone have any plots they want to share? Okay again we can curious about the money and  resources yeah that was an interesting point.

Okay well we can come back to this if  there are some things that pop out at us   in our next two rounds what we did was take  these characteristics in our superset and we   put them back out to the panel and we asked them  to talk about them what what did they think about   them prioritizing for us you know which ones  are the most important are there some that are   just not that important or some need to be  combined or did some need to be expanded on   so the group gave us comments gave  us some ideas about prioritization   and we were asking them in particular to look at  each of those characteristics and tell us which   were the most important as indicators  of someone having become a power user   and they did a likert scale one to five one being  not that important five being very important   and then which were the most likely predictors so  if you're working with someone and you're trying   to help them learn how to use their assistive  technology what are some what are some things to   look for predictors that indicate that the person  would eventually become a power user and again   they rated those on a scale of one to five five  being essential one being not very important okay. And we went through a couple of rounds until there  was an emerging consensus around a set of about   12 to 15 factors and here here  they are in terms of predictors   uh and the rank order was opportunity to use  AT is number one, knowledge of AT options was   number two, problem solving number three, four  was able to troubleshoot, five was motivation,   six was persistence, seven was adaptability,  eight was self-advocacy, nine was time to   experience and learn, 10 was access to AT, 11 was  flexibility in there went through a little bit of   a morphing of the definition there in terms of  flexibility related to high tolerance for error,   and then 12 was technical knowledge. So those were  the 12 items that the panel felt were predictors   of somebody eventually becoming an assistive a  master of assistive technology the indicators   of someone having arrived were these. Top one  was problem solving, second was adaptability,   third was knowledge of AT options, fourth was  access to AT, fifth was ability to troubleshoot,   sixth opportunity to use AT, seven was  Independence, eight motivation, nine   flexibility in terms of high tolerance for error,  10 technical knowledge, 11 improved effective use,   12 self-advocacy, 13 time to experience  and learn, and 14 desire to be independent.  

So based on what you just thought through  and your list that you all came up with,   what are your reactions to this this list,   the predictors and the indicators? Any  surprises here on the the prioritization? Do you see any patterns? We have a rather quiet group Ben. That's okay,  it's been a long day I'm sure for all of us.   So anyway this gives you an idea about  we've got the the mean rankings there   that show you the level of consensus so  everyone thought that the these items were   pretty highly ranked pretty significant  relative to or the order of importance. Okay got a few thoughts here. Knowledge to AT and time to use AT,   problem solving and troubleshooting  seem to be at the top of both yeah. And there is clearly a sense of intrinsic  motivation to some of this yeah. Finding it a little strange that access  and opportunities are indicators okay.

I suppose someone having a lot of access  might suggest that they have a better chance   of mastering it than someone who didn't get access  very often or opportunity to use the AT very often   we all are familiar with the AAC device  that's comes to school with the kid and   then goes on the Shelf until they get  ready to get on the bus and go home but   what comes out when the speech pathologist  shows up and is is helping to to work with   the student for 20 minutes twice a week but  then it's not you know in use all the time. Oh I see what you're saying that's a predictor  right okay all right I find self-advocate advocacy   interesting as this can be shot down so quickly  by society that wants people to be verbal yeah. That's a good point. Okay any other thoughts? A lot of indicators share a common theme.

So what we found in this set of  indicators and predictors was   that they kind of clustered together around  four we're calling them constructs specific   categories of approach to Mastery of assistive  technology and those four are experienced with   AT proficiency with AT knowledge of AT  and a personal identification with AT   so in general the experience with AT is  to construct that it talks about having   had time to experiment with their assistive  technology and learn how to use their tool   it's going to necessarily necessitate  sufficient access to their AT an opportunity   to use it so that Mastery would develop it  involves a series of positive experiences   so that you're motivated to continue using it  and reinforce the learning and the growth as they   experience their device or their their software  or whatever the tool is and it's further evidenced   by improved Effectiveness and their ability to  use it with greater Independence as time goes on   the proficiency is the construct that we use to  describe effective use of the assistive technology   the growth The Experience aptitude with AT the  individual begins to apply it to more and more   scenarios engages more fully in the features  that come in their AT but the troubleshooting   is part of this this is knowing your device  when it's not working as expected what to do   but then there's also problem solving which is  identifying the barriers to using your ID your   AT in the environment and how to work with it  to resolve problems in the environment work with   your AT and then there's the development  of technical skills that come along with   application of the AT in different situations in  terms of knowledge of assistive technology this is   involving technical knowledge that develops an  awareness of what's going on in in your system   of willingness to explore and to investigate  things an ability to expand their knowledge about   their AT and to do so more independently as time  goes on the ability to make informed in Choice   informed choices about AT which tool which feature  to use in for which task and the functional   knowledge about assistive technology which just  comes gets developed as they use it more and more   and then with the interesting one for us was the  this list of characteristics that sort of come   under personal identification with their assistive  technology it's almost like in order for you to   really Master it somebody mentioned something that  had to do with automatic effortless natural use of   it it's almost got to become an extension of Who  You Are or your ability to call on it and use it   in situations needs to become shaped and and  developed by characteristics like adaptability   and persistence flexibility especially tolerance  for error Power users are motivated you know they   demonstrate a desire to be independent their  AT is part of that Independence it's a tool to   express it for some of them they have developed  the capacity to advocate for their needs they   understand why it's important and when it's  important as they come to Mastery and so they're   more likely to be able to speak up and say this  is why I need this and being proactive with a team   they're participants in their care personal  care and their life decisions and assistive   technology becomes a part of that process so  there's a nurturing of some soft skills that   develop particularly with regard to AT  use and this list kind of covers that   so we sort of use that as a framework to develop  in round four these factors into a format into an   evaluation tool so we use a matrix format that  was populated with sort of a rubric style set   of definitions or descriptions of progress from  novice all the way to power user and this that   describes sort of the stages that one might go  through in their Journey from novice to power user   so we set up set it up sort of like a score  sheet so that you take the these 22 different   characteristics and say all right for myself  or for another person if I'm evaluating them   where do they stand in these four stages where  do I think they stand right now between novice   and power user and so the panel was asked to take  the test evaluate themselves and then maybe go out   and evaluate one or two other persons and give  us some feedback and so that we collected the   critique that they gave us and the feedback that  information and ideas that they gave us and we   built them into this tool so here's the tool it's  called the Continuum of AT Mastery or the CATM.   I'd like to invite you to take it out  for a test drive and see what you think   so in a minute I'm going to give you the link  so you can go out and do that and then come back   when you're finished but I'd like you to think  about some assistive technology tool or device   or something that you're that you've used that  you feel comfortable with or maybe it's a new   one and you're not all that easy of feeling the  comfortable with but that's okay just pick one   and then use it to complete the score sheet when  you're through think about the results and there's   a place at the bottom for you to give us some  feedback about whether you think the result is   accurate in terms of its assessment of where you  stand with that tool and then there might be some   things You observe about the query the questions  are asked or the you know the the ease with   which you took take this test this assessment and  that we'd love to hear from you as you finish up   so let me share with you here's the link  it's https colon forward slash forward slash   at Dash mastery Dot c-i-d-i dot g-a-t-e-c-h  dot EDU so once you get to that website.   Yes let's do that. Karen is that something you  can put in the chat? I am working on it. Thank   you ma'am. So once you get there you'll see  a login screen that looks kind of like the   one that's on the slide now. What you'll do  is you'll click on please register here and  

then you'll create a new user registration you'll  create a username and a password and confirm it. And then once you've done that you click  register and you'll be all set up in the system   so then you want to log in using that new  username and password and click on add a survey   and do a self-evaluation and answer the  questions see what you think and let you   go after it if you have any questions as  you attempt it don't hesitate to unmute   or put a message in this in the chat and we  can help you out if you have any problems. Okay so I'm doing an evaluation of myself or  another in this case we'll do a self-evaluation   and we'll begin the survey so there's a  date and then the survey participants. For some reason I am not   no the survey participant is myself that's  right I'm doing a self-evaluation. So  

what's the assistive technology am I using?  I'll use read and write for my example. And the context or the what it's  being used for I'll be reading   in the classroom it's helpful to establish  this because particularly when you're going   to use it across multiple evaluators you need to  sort of identify what what it is we're doing to   to do a effective evaluation so here's the first  set experience with AT. We've got access to  AT, opportunity to use AT, positive experience  with AT, and time to experiment and learn   and the choices for novice are  limited for context dependent   occasional transitional user would be more  frequent and a power user would be always   and we have a little bit of a description so  when we're talking about access to AT, we're   talking about usage training support for AT that  is appropriate for the individual so I might say   I get that frequently opportunities to use it  are frequent positive experience and occasionally   successful with it a time to use it and  I don't have much time to use it but it's   it's out there for me I just don't get to  use it very much okay so the next set has   to do with proficiency with 18. and so we're  talking about effective use troubleshooting  

technical skills and problem solving and so again  the descriptors are to the right so effective use   is the use of AT to participate and do things that  the user wants to do well yeah that's that's when   I use it that's what I use it for troubleshooting  not that good with troubleshooting this software   when it when I have problems with it my technical  skills I occasionally demonstrate that I   I can make it do what I want problem solving  in the environment I'll say occasional. Okay   in the next section knowledge of AT we're  talking about functional AT knowledge   technical AT knowledge knowledge of options  it's the ability to expand your knowledge of   AT and making informed choices and again the  descriptors are next to them so functional 18   knowledge is the individual becomes familiar  with personality customized approach to using   features personalizing strategies for use so I'm  doing that some technical knowledge I have some   knowledge about options I know more about the  options that I know about actually using them   expanding my knowledge I think I can do that but  I'm I could stand to do it better and in making   informed choices well I'd like to think I do that  a lot but maybe not so I'll click some okay and   then the last category is the personal connection  with A2 so this is self-advocacy adaptability   flexibility persistence Independence motivation  and proactivity and then what we're seeing here   is a description of each one so my ability to talk  about my needs yeah I can do that my adaptability   I can do that but I'm not I'm not I'm stubborn  sometimes my flexibility my ability to deal to   tolerate error I wish I could do better with  that my persistence I'm pretty persistent so   give me that I'm independent something I really  want to do do it by myself so I'm motivated   proactivity that may be a weakness for me I'm  going to say so okay so I filled out all of the   radio buttons for each of these and I'm ready to  submit so I'm going to click on the submit button   and what I get is the survey has been  saved but I now I get a little score sheet   and it gives me some information  about the nature of the assessment   here's the scoring for each of the four segments  and then a total score my average on a five point   scale is 2.5 and then I get a little bit of a  bar graph to see sort of graphically where I am   so I'm kind of a tradition a transitional user  but I can go back to that to the results and   I can see where I need to go next in terms  of what my score was in each one of those. Okay and then if you get a chance to complete  this we also have at the bottom of the score sheet   a chance to give us some feedback on  whether the instructions were clear   whether you feel like this was an accurate  assessment please note any omissions or   aspects that were confusing and how do  you think a tool like this might be used   and when you're finished you can hit click  the submit button and it'll be part of our   you know you can have input into our process  as well any questions or thoughts about that. Have any of you had a chance  to complete it on your own? And more importantly did you see your own  responses or did you see the responses of someone   else who is filling it under the same name? I'm  not sure if anything was getting overwritten   there. Well that's what I was wondering  is what you found when you went out there   well we'll get that fixed probably within the next  24 hours. I tested it just before we came on and  

I didn't find any problems so I'm not really  sure what what came of that. Okay let me know   is there anything else anybody wants to  see or to illustrate from this score sheet   I'm going to stop sharing and go  back to the presentation if I could.   Well it looks as if a few people have  had some success with that, great. So you had one question maybe add myself as  a survey participant and add the person that   could be it might have to do with how how you  were registering as a user at the beginning. So this is a kind of a bird's eye view of what  that form looks like so once it's completed   you'll get a sheet that you could print it out as  a PDF or you could leverage it as saved online.

Okay we're going to need to wrap things up here  but if you get a chance it would be great if   you could fill out those feedback questions and  give us some ideas about what you thought because   that's basically the rest of our presentation was  to try to encourage you to give us some feedback   and tell us what you think. So I want to thank  you for wading through this with us and taking   part in the the thought process of developing the  idea of what Mastery of assistive technology is   welcome the opportunity to continue the  conversation in the future so please feel free to   reach out to us and what I'm going to do is jump  to the end and put our contact information up. So if you want to reach out  and continue the conversation   please feel free to do so thanks everybody.

Thank you so much Dr. Satterfield and  thank you to all of you our participants.   Dr. Satterfield we really appreciate you for  sharing your time and expertise on this really   important topic today. I see many comments  in the chat about just how interesting and   helpful this is so we really appreciate it and Dr.  Satterfield did graciously allow us to record this  

presentation today so we will post this recording  on our SWAAAC YouTube channel and I will send the   link to all of our registered participants as soon  as it's ready. It'll either be from Brenda or I   and also everyone please expect a  post-training survey in your email   in just a few minutes. This will only take  three to five minutes to complete and your   feedback is really important to us we do  read every comment and your certificate of   attendance will be sent once we receive that  survey from you. Lastly you can find more  

important information about future professional  development opportunities including more of our   monthly webinars at SWAAAC.org and we hope to  see you all again soon. Thanks so much everyone. Bye everybody.

2022-09-30

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