“One year on –assistive technologies in the real world”

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After being at university for a year, my Disabled Students’ Award has proved to be extremely beneficial. I was assessed at an Access Centre to see how my LEA should spend my allotted money. The assessor seemed to have standard packages to suit students doing different courses. Firstly, the computer bought for me has been essential. It has served my computing needs to the full – I use a touch screen, in conjunction with my head pointer, as an alternative to the conventional mouse. This means that I have full control over what I’m doing, and avoids the need having to ask for help. The computer was packaged with programs like Adobe Premier and other media creation and editing applications. I haven’t really used any of these as the idea of my course is to get us, the students, using more advanced media editing tools, such as AVID (which is “the industry’s standard” video editing package).

I have an academic assistant who takes notes for me in lectures and group meetings. Now, my LEA purchased a mini-disc player (with a standard interviewers’ microphone) to record lectures and meetings for me to refer to at later stages. Recording my lectures and other meetings would be an advantage avoiding the hassle of my sparing my academic assistants enough time to type my notes up. However, recording lectures is just not practical. The sound dynamics in lecture theatres means that you won’t get a very good sound recording. Firstly, many lecture theatres are very echoey due to standard plastered walls and high ceilings! The other problem is that tutors walk around whilst hosting the lecture or seminar meaning that the distance between the microphone and the tutor keeps changing and causes quiet bits in the recording. One way to avoid this is to use a floor microphone, but then you have a health & safety problem with all the trailing wires on the floor! A Table PC would have been a better option to go for as it would translate handwriting into print for easy transfer to my desktop. I did ask for this but they said that my DSA would not be able to purchase a Tablet PC as well as my desktop.

My assessment at the Access Centre was quite easy in that the assessor was quite liberal in what she put forward in her recommendations. Even though they had a “standard” package to recommend based on the type of my course, the assessor did listen to me and recommended the items, which I thought I needed. Obviously, as this was my first time in higher education, I was not able to question things like the recommendation of the mini-disc player. Looking back in hindsight, my DSA could have been spent more wisely by my LEA – it’s difficult to say, but I would have thought that they would have been able to buy a Tablet PC if they hadn’t bought a lot of the equipment which I don’t even use. They also bought me an Alphasmart DANA, which is a small black portable keyboard for note taking – it’s commercially referred to a laptop alternative because you can store your text-only notes on it but then transfer them over to your main desktop via a USB cable. Fine, but I use a head pointer to type, and anyway my academic assistants take notes for my, but they’re not typists! The idea of having an Alphasmart DANA is good, but it’s only good if the person who has got it can type pretty fast. Some of the equipment like the Alphasmart DANA were not really discussed with me and tailored to my needs. Then again, I was given the list of recommendations to approve, but without a lot of authority, as this was, again, my first time at moving to university.

Taking notes can become a problem because my assistants do take notes, but they don’t have time to type them up, so I sometimes have to spend my free time typing them up – sometimes this takes ages! My tutors don’t really publish any lecture notes. We do get Unit Guides, which contains literature about the particular units – these get e-mailed to us all. Having electronic guides are useful, but if the tutors find errors in them after being e-mailed out, they then have to e-mail out the amended versions, which can get confusing! I’m not saying that the tutors are not helpful as they will let me have any available notes upon request.

During my first year, we have been introduced to a lot of specialist equipment. Because of my physical difficulties, I m unable to use certain pieces of equipment such as cameras and lights, and I therefore need to direct my assistants to physically use the equipment for me. However, the computer-based applications have been easier to configure to enable me to use them. One great example is using an electrode-sensitive sound desk – the sliders only move with a human touch detecting the electric pulses from the fingertips. To enable me to move the sliders up and down, I attach a piece of wire to my earring, which goes down my pointer and goes round the rubber tip on my head pointer (this conducts the electricity from my ear to the rubber tip). The sound technician needs to take the credit for that idea!

The downfall with these computer-based systems is that none of them are set up to work via touch screens. I am yet to find out if the university is able to buy some touch screens allowing me to use these systems independently and efficiently. At the moment, I’m unable to control the mouse and have to direct my assistants, who some don’t even know the basics of using Windows!

However, my LEA has now made it possible to have the audio editing system on my computer in my room. This means that I can do any audio work efficiently and in my own time.

Looking back in hindsight, it would have been better if I started thinking about my DSA and how it should be spent during my second year at sixth-form College. Then again, a lot was happening that year and I was under enough pressure as it was! Maybe the access centre should recommend items which are only asked for by the student and of course supported by the assessor! Then if the student finds themselves needing more equipment during their term time once they got to know what they have to do on their course, they would then be able to order it. That is not to say that my LEA spent my entire award at the beginning of my first year, but they did spend a big chunk of it.

Overall, going to university is a huge learning curve, especially if you’ve got some kind of physical or mobility difficulty. Not just for you, but for other people as well!

Just take it as it comes!