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A virtual approach to providing assistive technology in education

Proposal No: 2719

Bios & Handouts

Speaker(s)

  • Simon Dermer, Managing Director, eSSENTIAL Accessibility

Disability Area:          

Topic Area:                  

Length of Session (in hours): 1-hrFormat: Lecture Expertise Level: All Levels Type of session: Not provided

Summary of Session

Brazil’s 5th largest post-secondary institution will summarize its experience migrating select AT beyond its adaptive technology centres. Cruzeiro do Sul makes a web-based solution available to all of its prospective applicants and students with physical disabilities both on and off its ten campuses.

Abstract

Most institutions only offer assistive technology to students with disabilities within the confining walls of an adaptive technology centre. While the AT centre plays a necessary role in supporting students, it is not sufficient. For the disadvantages of relying solely on this legacy approach are fixed location geographic restriction, limited number of workstations/seats, and high average cost of administration/user among others. The inconvenience from lack of portability leaves students with unmet needs, is of no benefit to applicants, and saddles the organization with costs arising from a host of inefficiencies. Find out how an institution with 107,000 students and ten separate schools overcame these constraints in select context to increase AT utilization, enhance convenience and dramatically decrease costs all while projecting a more welcoming disability-friendly message that has inspired the administration and faculty to continue on the path to doing disability well.

Keypoints

  1. How to make select AT available to all students and applicants
  2. Reduce average cost/user
  3. Improve student customer service

Speaker Bio(s)

Simon Dermer

Simon Dermer - Managing director of eSSENTIAL Accessibility Bio to follow with handout

Handout(s)

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