Today we were so fortunate to have two Guest Speakers from BCEdAccess come into our class and talk about advocating for students with disabilities and technology integration to assist complex learners and students with disabilities.
I loved their in-depth presentation, and the thing that has stuck in my mind the most was throughout their entire presentation their use of a speech-to-text device. I have ADHD and often find lectures, slide based presentations, and general class discussions to be incredibly difficult to maintain focus on – this has been my greatest challenge so far in University. I have strategies that I have developed over the years, but I have never found it as easy to focus on a presentation than when they had the captions running. Something so simple, that could so easily be integrated into so many of the classes I have been in, right in front of me for what seemed like the first time. It just made sense and made it so much easier for me to follow along. It seems like such a silly thing to have focused so hard on during such an important and informational presentation but I haven’t been able to get it out of my head and it is definitely something I am going to find a way to incorporate into my future classrooms (if not for my students, for myself).
AND THEN I WENT EXPLORING
After class I headed to the BCEdAccess website to hunt for some resources. Something that immediately caught my eye when I went to explore was a tab right at the top of the page that said Exclusion Tracker. The Exclusion Tracker is a survey that BCEdAccess has been doing for the last 6 years to give students, parents and guardians a place to report different ways they have been excluded from educational opportunities. It’s such a powerful resource that really shows how often students with disabilities are left behind in todays system. The survey also has resources available to help teach youth how to advocate for themselves.
Following today’s class I was left thinking of a few questions – What could you do to support a student who’s parents are doing nothing to support them or advocate for them at school and at home? What reasonable steps can you take as an educator to give that student the best possible chance to succeed? What could be seen as overstepping, and would any of that overstepping be illegal?
