{"id":7136,"date":"2024-11-21T04:01:48","date_gmt":"2024-11-21T04:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/?page_id=7136"},"modified":"2025-03-23T23:00:32","modified_gmt":"2025-03-23T23:00:32","slug":"facilitating-learning-and-employment-with-technology","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/ru\/parents\/facilitating-learning-and-employment-with-technology\/","title":{"rendered":"Facilitating Learning and Employment with Technology"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Facilitating Learning and Employment with Technology<\/h1>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
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COVID Impacts with our Low<\/strong> Vision Teenagers<\/strong><\/h2>\n

As we remember, once COVID hit and kids were sent home to learn virtually this past spring, IEPs in our local county were basically frozen as schools struggled to develop plans for their teachers to continue teaching virtually.\u00a0\u00a0During the summer, the school system planned for the fall, and our county decided to keep schools physically closed for the first 9 weeks and students would learn virtually, but with a new plan and curriculum.\u00a0\u00a0Many IEP updates and adjustments were not started until after the school year began so student accommodations for virtual learning were delayed or there was a gap from the start of the new academic year.\u00a0\u00a0This was frustrating for us as a parent of a low vision teenager, but understanding the COVID environment, we adapted.<\/p>\n

One example that should have been obvious from the start was virtual learning on a laptop.\u00a0\u00a0The school did a mass purchase of laptops to issue to students and these all came with small 12\u201d screens.\u00a0\u00a0We asked about the size of the screen and let our case manager know that it would be too small of a screen size and extremely difficult for our son.\u00a0\u00a0We expanded our request to the Assistive Technology Specialist and Low Vision Specialist who worked with us to get a laptop with a larger screen, but that was going to take 2 weeks and school had already started.\u00a0\u00a0Again we adapted, I grabbed our large 24\u201d screen for our home desktop computer, went and bought a SVGA-to-HDMI adapter and we used this system until his larger laptop came in mid-September.<\/p>\n

My challenge and encouragement to parents with middle school and high school age students is what I call the \u201cTriple A\u201d or \u201cAAA\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0This acronym stands for \u201cAdapt, Advocate, and Avant-garde\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Now the term \u201cavant-garde\u201d fits nicely into the acronym and I had a layman\u2019s understanding of the term until I looked it up.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cFavouring or introducing new and experimental ideas and methods\u2026\u201d This was perfect!\u00a0\u00a0Thinking outside-the-box is a critical skillset for parents of students with low vision needs.\u00a0\u00a0While the schools legal advisors won\u2019t let the faculty and staff team members participating in the IEP comment on available budget or budget constraints, it is the \u201celephant in the room\u201d at each IEP meeting. You, as the parent, must adapt, advocate, and be the avant-garde promoter for your child.<\/p>\n

Another small tip that I feel is part of advocating is to get emails and cell phone\/text numbers for all of the IEP team members rather than let the case manager contact them.\u00a0\u00a0While sometimes this can be an issue for the case manager who wants to control how information flows, contacting the specific team members to follow up with an issue, a particular area, or an accommodation that you are concerned about allows that subject matter expert to advise and inform without the pressure of the school IEP team.\u00a0\u00a0For example, we have a motivated Assistive Technology Specialist who is always open to partnering with us to look for technology improvements that may assist our son in how he uses this technology both in the classroom and now with COVID restrictions, outside the classroom.<\/p>\n

Thinking outside-the-box as our kid\u2019s best adaptive and avant-garde promoter takes up so much time and energy, but the hope of improving our child\u2019s quality of life gives us the determination and drive to continue.\u00a0\u00a0Recently, we were researching and we found these glasses by a company called eSight that developed a wearable medical device designed to improve the functional vision of those living with low vision or legal blindness.\u00a0\u00a0We contacted the company and agreed to try them out.\u00a0\u00a0We did a Zoom meeting with a company technician and he walked us through how to setup and use them.\u00a0\u00a0We were able to try the system out for a couple weeks.\u00a0\u00a0Our initial feedback is that the improvement made to version 4 of the system make them look less like glasses and more like a wearable system (see photo below) than version 3.\u00a0\u00a0However, there were many improvements as they attempted to lighten the weight while adding to the capability.\u00a0\u00a0For our son, the ability of the camera to work in low light as well as the zoom magnification functions were certainly enhancing characteristics. There was still a noticeable lag when panning laterally, and the reduction in binocular cueing for up-close viewing made this a hard sell to interest our son in wearing the devices. We felt this device may be great for legally blind or visual acuity of 20\/200 or higher.\u00a0\u00a0But we are not giving up\u2026technology is moving fast and we will keep looking at other systems that are coming out!<\/p>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Recently, I researched other systems and saw a prototyping article on Stereo Vision-Based Sensory Substitution for the Visually Impaired titled \u201cSound of Vision (SoV) Project\u201d.<\/p>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Next month I am going to see if there are systems we can test to provide some user feedback as this system appears to focus on depth perception and obstacle avoidance.<\/p>\n

~ Written by Chuck Walls<\/strong><\/p>\n

References:<\/h3>\n