What on earth is assistive technology

In this podcast we meet with Pete Scorey, the LIS Officer for Assistive Technology.
We discuss with Pete about what assistive technology is, how it can support your learning or work, then think about what is available and how the university can support you.

Transcript

“What on earth is Assistive Technology?” 

Introduction

Wendy Garner

Hello and welcome to our new podcast series, “Your Library Talks” where the focus is on something which can help everyone and so what we'll be looking at is what on earth is assistive technology? My name is Wendy Garner and I'm a senior lecturer in the School of Education.

Anne Williams

And I'm Anne Williams. I'm one of the academic liaison librarians in the library and I'm going to introduce today's guest, which is Pete Scorey, who is our LIS officer for Assistive Technologies. So, Pete, if you'd like to say a little bit about yourself?

Peter Scorey

Great. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me on the podcast. Yes, I am the LIS officer for Assistive Technologies, and I've worked for the university for about nine years, coming up to nine years.  It was a new role when I joined and before that my role was done by different departments, different parts of the university. But it was born out of the DSA, the Disabled Students Allowance, which is a non-means tested grant for students with disabilities or learning differences. And basically, at that time (it was the time of austerity), the government was looking to reducing the benefits of the DSA and so the university thought that someone that can train students, to support students, through that change would be good. So, from there, I train staff and students, I keep abreast of assistive technology and developments in the field, which we'll talk a bit about later, I think. And finally, a lot recently, last few years I've been involved with digital accessibility for the university as well. So that's me.

Anne Williams

That's great, thanks Pete, and I was going to say that you're there for all students as well, aren't you, not just disabled students?

Peter Scorey

Yeah, yeah. So, anyone who would like to have a chat about assistive technology or how it can support them in their studies or even life generally, I’m happy to chat to them.

Anne Williams

That's brilliant. So, I'm just going to give you a guide to the key points that we're going to talk about within this podcast. So, to start off with, we're going to think about what on earth is assistive technology and then we're going to think about how it can help you with your learning, with your work, with life, as Pete said. Then we're going to think about what's available and how do we access it?  So two questions in one there! And finally, about the support that is available. So, starting off, Pete, what would you say assistive technology is?

What is Assistive Technology (AT)?

Peter Scorey

Yes, that's a big question. Assistive technology is anything that can really help someone to perform a task, whether that be in life in general or, specifically, for the university in their studies.  The basic example would be the simple spelling checker within Word or grammar checker. Those are examples of assistive technology apps within a bigger programme, Microsoft Office. So, then you've also got things like dictation and you've got the immersive reader which reads out text from Word.  It's not just confined to software and computers, but also to any device so things like tablets, phones and then you get hardware devices as well so things like wrist rests, ergonomic mice, back rests. All that, all that equipment, all those things can be classed as assistive technology.

The Impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Wendy Garner

Well, thanks Pete. I have got a burning question and I hope you don't mind if I butt in at this point.  I’m very interested, in fact, I'm doing a short course on artificial intelligence (AI) at the moment and I'm really interested to know your views on how this might affect assistive technology.

Peter Scorey

Yeah, it's making a massive impact already, actually, AI is seeping into all the assistive technology apps, basically. So, dictation is one of those aspects, for example, as it has more and more understanding when converting the speech into text and getting more and more accurate, and that's an AI process in the background.  Immersive Reader, so it uses AI, or AI can be used to generate different voices (for Immersive Reader) and those are just learning, are constantly learning, getting more and more accurate. There are loads of applications. Other applications such as we have or we did have a mind mapping solution called “MindView” and I just saw a demonstration recently where the student just put something in the subject field of a mind map within "MindView” and then just pressed a button and then it just generated a mind map.  So it really helps students who have 'blank page’ anxiousness and that helps them get going, helps the creative juices flowing. So yeah, those are just a few examples, but it'll be massive.

Anne Williams

Gosh, that's a lot, isn't it? As you say, it's that whole ‘blank page’ thing, yeah.

Peter Scorey

Yeah. It's....

Digital Accessibility

Wendy Garner

In terms of digital accessibility, Pete, could you, I mean, what does that mean? Could you say a bit more about that, perhaps?

Peter Scorey

Yeah, of course. So assistive technology is what an individual can really do to basically help themselves to be able to understand work, to support their learning, to support their study. But then there's another side so the university has an obligation to make their resources accessible as well, and that makes it easier for anyone, all their students, all their staff members, to read documents and comprehend them first time. And there are simple rules that you can follow to be able to make resources more accessible. Those are in the rules and regulations that I tell people and advise them to use when they're creating resources for the first time. So digital accessibility is what the institution can do for students or the university can do for their students and assistive technology is what an individual does for themselves.

How can AT support learning

Wendy Garner

That's useful. So, we've had a a quick explanation there of what digital accessibility and what assistive technology is so our second point, really, is can we just explore perhaps a bit more, Pete, how it might support students in their learning, in their work or maybe, you know, even in their life in general?

Peter Scorey

Yeah, certainly. So, I've touched on a few assistive technology apps already, so dictation, spell checking, the Immersive Reader where it reads text back but there are loads of others, such as mind mapping, which is useful for students with learning differences because some students are more visual thinkers, so mind maps are a lot easier (for them) to plan their work with, plan their tasks with and breakdown complex problems. We have recording lectures for which we have dictaphones and laptops. We do operate a loan service where we can loan students that equipment and other equipment, as it happens, that can support them so they don't have to pay for it themselves. So, with a dictaphone, a student can record their interviews for dissertations or lectures or labs or whatever it is and then there is software that will take the recordings, take the audio files, and then can index them. You can add notes to those audio files, you can split them up so that student has like an audio representation of their notes from the lecture, so it's easier for that student then to refer to when they're revising for exams and so on. So those, that's just a few examples of what's out there, but there's so much more.

Wendy Garner

Thanks, Pete, and thanks for that exploration of what it actually means. I've certainly learned a lot already.  Going on to our sort of second area, then, if that's what it is, how would you propose it could help us and support our learning, our work, life in general?

Peter Scorey

Yeah. So I've mentioned already about students that might have like a block in how to start their assignments. So assistive technology or AI can help them do that. Read aloud can help because some students find it a lot easier, instead of proofreading their work, if it's read to them that it's a lot easier for them to actually hear mistakes in their work as opposed to actually just reading the text and trying to see the mistakes. Ergonomic mice, if people have a temporary injury, for example, and using an ergonomic mouse may well keep them as productive as they were before because there's a different position that the wrist takes. So, there are loads of different applications, in fact, there are so many.  I think the best way of looking at it to try and identify where you feel that assistive technology would help within your own studies and then, from there, then actually research whether there's something that would help you. Be that dictation or read aloud or tinting the screen a certain colour. That's the best way to think about it, not just in studies, as you mentioned, but also in life.

What AT is available to staff and students?

Wendy Garner

Yeah. Thanks, Pete. So, I guess we've had a look at what it is, how it can help us. So now on to sort of practicalities, what is available and how might we access it.

Peter Scorey

OK, so the university subscribes to one of the commercial leaders in assistive technology called "Texthelp Read&Write Gold” and that's available on all the university computers, both in the libraries and in computer labs. You should be able to see the purple jigsaw icon from the desktop itself, so you can easily get into it. Basically, it's a toolbar with lots of different apps on it, so things like read aloud or enhanced spell checking, there's a homophone checker, there's a translator, there's also a screen tinter. So, it will tint your screen a certain colour to maybe remove glare from the screen in case your eyes get tired from the glare of the white background on black text. So that's “Texthelp Read&Write Gold” which is available on university computers. We also subscribe to a mind map editor called “Mindmeister”.  That's for people, staff, students who find it easier to plan their tasks using a visual tool and, in this case, it's a mind map. It allows staff and students to go into their (web) browser, to go into "MindMeister” and create their own mind maps, to break down their assignments or their tasks. As well as all that, there's also those free apps within Microsoft Office. So, all staff and students get a free copy of Microsoft Office and within that, there's dictation, there's spelling, there's grammar checking and there's also the read aloud available too. So, yeah, it's everywhere.

Anne Williams

Lots out there. Lots out there, absolutely.

Peter Scorey

Yeah, definitely.

How to access support?

Anne Williams

So, we've talked about what's available. So then thinking about the support that's available because it's sort of, it's just like “ohh, where do I begin”?

Peter Scorey

Indeed, yeah, it can be very overwhelming. I do have some portal pages that are available and as I've said, it's sometimes a good idea to start by actually looking at yourself and where you feel that you might be struggling. I’ve created a table where you can identify where you struggle and then it actually suggests assistive technology that might help. But I'm more than happy for staff and students to contact me. I'm at ‘assistive-technologies@chester.ac.uk’, happy to demonstrate any assistive technology that we have.  I can also advise on our loan service so we have a lot of assistive technologies such as laptops, dictaphones, ergonomic equipment that we can loan to staff and students as well. If students feel that they so have an actual learning difference, then I would definitely advise them to go to the Student Support (Disability and Inclusion) team. They will then be able to advise not just on whether to apply for the DSA but will actually give students a wealth of information about how to cope with that learning difference and the support that is available.

Summary

Wendy Garner

Thanks, Pete. That's fantastic. So just to recap, finally, the four key points we've looked at today are what is assistive technology, how can it help us, what is available and also what support is available within the university.  And I'm going to hand over to you for the final part.

Book Recommendation

Anne Williams

Yes, absolutely. So being a library podcast, we thought that it would be nice to finish each one with our guest’s recommendation of a book or other piece of information that they'd like to share, and I think you've got a book, Pete, that you think is brilliant and you'd like to recommend for us all to have a look at and read.

Peter Scorey

Yeah, definitely. It's a book that I read a few years ago but I was reminded of it because Netflix have just made it a series. It's called the "3 Body Problem" by a Chinese author called Liu Xian, I think that’s his name. I've probably pronounced that totally wrong. It's a science fiction book, I'm a science fiction geek but it's just excellent. When I first read it, it was totally original, so yeah, really enjoyed it. I also believe it's on Libby as well.

Anne Williams

Yeah. So that's great. So, you can get Pete’s recommendation from the Libby app, from the library, so easy to access. And that makes me sort of think, yeah, do you know what?  I'm not a sci-fi person but it's always good to have a recommendation for something different and to change and have a go at something. Isn't it, Wendy?

Wendy Garner

Absolutely. I mean, I absolutely love a recommendation.  I particularly like swapping, by post, paperback books with friends and, you know, university friends who know me well...

Anne Williams

That's a good idea.

Wendy Garner

...and they send me things I would not normally pick out and, sometimes, their books I've enjoyed more than those I've selected for myself!  So, I think it's a great idea to step outside of your comfort zone. So, thank you. Thanks, Pete. And that was really, really helpful.  We're going to say goodbye for now but we do hope you'll join us next time. Thanks, everyone.

Anne Willams

Bye bye. Thank you.