Learning & Leading Through Technology

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Coordinated Implementation

Perhaps the most important aspect of implementing AT in schools is ensuring the students and all who work with them receive appropriate training. Unless educators understand the specific AT well enough to teach a student to use it and a student has the skills necessary to efficiently operate AT, integration will be difficult.

As with any technology, training without planning for integration is not enough. The following activities can help ensure that you integrate AT seamlessly into your classroom:

Contingency planning. Technology will fail from time to time. Ensuring that there is a backup plan for when a student’s primary AT fails is important.

Coordination. AT needs to be managed.

Developing a plan that addresses
equipment management and availa-
bility as well as support needs for
the student is essential.

Performance Monitoring

These two articles describe methods for measuring student performance when using AT: “Evaluating Academic Performance with and without Technology,” MACUL Journal, by Dave L. Edyburn ( bit.ly/TSCDEdyburn), and “Monitor That Progress! Interpreting Data Trends for Assistive Technology Decision Making,” Teaching Exceptional Children, by Howard P. Parette, George R. Peterson-Karlan, Brian W. Wojcik, and Nora Bardi ( bit.ly/monitorthat progress; requires login and purchase).

In the United States, each state has an agency that serves as its Assistive Technology Act Program provider, offering technical support and, in some cases, a library from which schools can borrow various forms of AT. You can find a listing of those programs at ataporg.org/states_listing.html.

I hope these thoughts and tips help you as you work with students who may be candidates for, or who are already using, AT. These technologies provide much promise for students who are experiencing difficulties in school. Ensuring that we follow a thoughtful AT process helps us to realize that promise and create successful outcomes for students.

Brian W. Wojcik, EdD, ATP,
is an assistant professor of
teacher education at the
University of Nebraska at
Kearney. He is also a past
president of ISTE’s Special
Interest Group for Special
Gayl Bowser serves as the
volunteer column editor for
As I See AT. Her work as
an independent consultant
focuses on the integration
of technology into the educa-
tional programs of students
with disabilities. Bowser provides assistive
technology consultation, training, and technical
assistance in the United States and abroad.