186: edtech for IT: Accessibility In 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act became law in the United States. This civil rights law is intended to ensure all individuals have access to public resources regardless of their disability status. For educators, this means the materials they use in class (such as textbooks) must be available to Read More
An excerpt from my 2022 book:
During one week when I was managing IT for a rural school, I encountered two examples of how educators do not understand the nature of the enterprise IT systems that we need in schools. On Monday, a teacher brought me a sale paper for a local box store retailer (it was early in the holiday Read More
193: edtech for IT: Assistive Technologies & Accessibility School IT professionals often collaborate with special education teachers, leaders, and consultants to select, install, configure, maintain, and manage assistive technologies necessary for students who need them. These devices include items such as Braille printers, keyboards for specialized input, specialized displays, assistive listening systems (for individual students Read More
Educators’ technology needs tend to be different from those encountered in other businesses and industries. Educators generally value flexible systems that allow them to assess the usefulness of software, sites, and services; and to respond to new discoveries and changing expectations quickly. Students who are just learning to read and write often find complicated systems Read More
One of the most challenging issues related to digital information in schools is copyright. This is especially true in the time since one-to-one initiatives became common. One rationale for adding computing devices for each student to the budget was that textbooks (traditionally a very expensive resource) would no longer be necessary. While textbooks that are Read More
Humans have a long history with technology. It is reasonable to conclude that humans and their technologies cannot be separated. Without our tools, our species would not have become the Earth-altering species we have become. When reviewing the history of our technology, we see that information technologies are a relatively recent invention, but for several Read More
The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) has been law in the United States since 2000. The intent of the law is to protect the privacy and the personal information of children. In general, this is the law used by social media and other companies that restrict access to their platforms to individuals under 13 Read More
Most IT professionals are familiar with the need to keep data secure. In schools, the importance of privacy takes on special importance. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is law in the United States which is intended to safeguard sensitive information about children in schools. While there are some types so information that Read More
A wide range of expenses consumes educational technology budgets. Very obvious expenses marked the cyclic spending that characterized the first decades of educational computing; computers arrived in boxed, as did software on disks to be inserted into the computers. As networks were installed, expenses became more hidden from users. Servers, routers, and switches (each with Read More