Assistive technology ‘familiarity audit’

Source material from Jisc TechDis (used with permission).

This exercise aims to 
1) raise awareness of the nature and range of assistive technology
2) give us feedback on the breadth of backgrounds in the group in order to inform later activities and groups.

Activity 1
Please go through the list below on your own, marking the columns appropriately according to 
(i)	your knowledge of the technology 
(ii)	the uses you associate with the technology.

Hardware

Technology	Direct knowledge
	Indirect knowledge
	Not familiar with this
	If you have some direct or indirect knowledge please fill in these columns by ticking the type of impairment that has been addressed with this technology	
				Visual Impairment	Hearing Impairment	Motor Impairment	Cognitive Impairment	
Chording keyboard								
Keyguard								
Rollerball								
Joystick								
Graphics tablet								
Wheel  mouse								
Touch screen								
Switches (with mounting device)								
Video magnifier								
Cassette recorder								
Minidisc recorder								
Digital recorder								
OCR pen								
USB memory stick								
PDA								
Digital camera								
Camcorder								
Video phone								

Software - (in-built)

Technology	Direct knowledge
	Indirect knowledge
	Not familiar with this
	If you have some direct or indirect knowledge please fill in these columns by ticking the type of impairment that has been addressed with this technology	
				Visual Impairment	Hearing Impairment	Motor Impairment	Cognitive Impairment	
Magnifier								
Sticky keys								
Mouse keys								
Narrator								
On screen keyboard								
Filter keys								
Pointer options								
Toggle keys								
Display properties								

Software - (third party)

Technology	Direct knowledge
	Indirect knowledge
	Not familiar with this
	If you have some direct or indirect knowledge please fill in these columns by ticking the type of impairment that has been addressed with this technology	
				Visual Impairment	Hearing Impairment	Motor Impairment	Cognitive Impairment	
Screen reader								
Magnifier								
Word prediction								
Mind mapping								
Voice recognition								
Icon/toolbar design								

Non-ILT

Technology	Direct knowledge
	Indirect knowledge
	Not familiar with this
	If you have some direct or indirect knowledge please fill in these columns by ticking the type of impairment that has been addressed with this technology	
				Visual Impairment	Hearing Impairment	Motor Impairment	Cognitive Impairment	
Adjustable table								
Lap tray								
Table lamp								
Wrist rest								
Foot rest								
Arm support								
Monitor arm								
Document holder								

Activity 2
Get into groups of 2 – 4 and compare your lists. Look particularly for: 
(i)	Technologies that nobody has come across
(ii)	Technologies that have been used in a variety of different contexts (e.g. one person uses with visually impaired learner but another uses the same technology with motor impaired learners).
(iii)	As a group try to assess roughly what percentage of the technologies you covered would count as ‘curriculum assistive technologies’ compared to those used as ‘lifeskills technologies’. Clearly there may be a further group – ‘Both curriculum and lifeskills’.