Assistive Technology and the Mobile Student Body

By Ofer Chermesh

Laptop penetration and wireless connectivity, two major technological phenomena of this past decade, could have dramatically affected the penetration and adoption of assistive technology in educational institutes. However, the conservative policies of software-based assistive technology vendors have prevented this promise from being fulfilled.

Laptops have penetrated educational institutions; there is no question about that. Laptop mobility is very important to students as they can easily carry their computers around. Some educational institutes encourage their students to purchase laptops by offering subsidized prices or easy payment terms. Other colleges and universities have gone as far as to mandate laptop ownership for all their students.

Wi-Fi technology enables wireless internet access to any computer/laptop found in the range of the wireless network. It has become quite prevalent in educational institutes. A September 2008 study, sponsored by the Wi-Fi alliance, revealed the following facts:

-- 90% of college students said that Wi-Fi access is essential to education

-- 57% said that without Wi-Fi access, school would be a lot harder for them

-- 60% said that a Wi-Fi network on campus indicates that a school cares about its students

Many educational institutes offer nowadays their students software-based assistive technology products. In many cases the institute reviews a set of such products, and under the constraints of a limited budget, purchases a limited number of licenses to be installed at the institute’s assistive technology/computer center. In the days of the desktop technology, such an offer was deemed effective, even forthcoming, but in the context of a mobile student body, where many students own laptops and the educational institute is connected in a wireless network, this “fixed” server model is a grand miss. This model blocks assistive technology penetration instead of promoting it.

Several technical, licensing, and commercial issues need to be resolved in the learning assistive technology products in order to enable the mobile student body to enjoy the benefits of a truly mobile study environment.

From a technical perspective online connectivity may dramatically reduce the maintenance of an assistive software package. If online download is enabled, then the IT Manager is not required to install the software package to each student requesting the software. The student himself can easily connect to the site of the Assistive Technology vendor, download the software, and install it. If an automatic upgrade option is supported, then whenever there is a new software upgrade, the system automatically installs the latest versions to online users. Automatic installations and upgrades is the only effective way to manage widespread software installations.

From a commercial, licensing perspective, innovative licensing algorithms need to be developed to adjust to this mobile world. There are currently three leading software licenses models being offered today by software assistive technology vendors:

-- Fixed license model: The educational institute buys N fixed licenses. At every single point of time, there can be only N installed computers.

-- Concurrent license model: The educational institute buys M concurrent licenses. These licenses can be installed on as many computers as wanted, but at a single point of time only M users can use this software package.

-- Site license: The educational institute pays for the (estimated) average overall usage of the software. Alternatively, there may be a fixed site license price. The fixed price usually reflects the maximum amount of dollars that the software vendor believes it can receive from the institute. 

All of these licensing models are attuned to well controlled environments, where the number of computers is well known. However, they are incompatible with a mobile student body environment. In such a mobile world, the basic building blocks must change. Assistive technologies must become “network” aware, servicing all students on the educational institute’s network. Vendors may offer their assistive technology services for free within the school grounds. This may serve both social awareness feelings and commercial interests. IT departments of educational institutes must be open to accept these new “network-aware” licensing models being driven by new technological trends.

Assistive technology prevalence in an educational institute will attract new students and directly improve the success of students requiring learning assistive services. These students will be able to easily access learning assistive technology services from anywhere, be it the classroom, cafeteria or their campus room. These students will easily gain confidence and independence as their much needed assistive tools is available to them anytime and anywhere within the school grounds.

About the Author

Ofer Chermesh is the founder of Ghotit. Ghotit develops innovative writing assistant technology for people with dyslexia and ESL. Ghotit services are developed with the vision of helping people with learning disabilities / differences gain confidence in their writing. Ghotit offers it services free to Educational Institutes' networks.  http://www.ghotit.com