Techquity: Balancing Innovation and Inclusion in Digital Learning

00:01.14
Erin Evans
Thank you all for joining us for this episode of Tech In EdTech. Today we are joined by Christine Fox, the Project Director at CAST which is the Center for Applied Special Technology. Christine, welcome.

00:17.79
Christine Fox
Thank you, good morning. 

00:18.71
Erin Evans
How are you today?

00:28.14
Christine Fox
I'm doing well. I'm excited to be here and to get to share some of our stories here and our work at CAST and particularly the project that I lead, The Center on Inclusive Technology and Education Systems (CITES).

00:34.38
Erin Evans
Super, we're looking forward to diving into that. So today's conversation is going to be around Techquity which would be balancing innovation and inclusion in digital learning. Um, so as we've introduced Christine I want to give you a little bit of background on her. She's an educational leader who has more than 20 years of experience in education and she leads initiatives that demonstrate how technology resources impact teaching and learning in a positive manner Christine can you give us a little bit of background just about yourself and how you got into education and into the role that you have now.

01:07.54
Christine Fox
Sure, so briefly after I graduated from college I actually worked in Mexico as a volunteer because I wasn't sure what I wanted to do but I knew I wanted to learn to speak Spanish fluently and my experiences there were running a youth center which by default led to many education opportunities such as after school tutoring and summer classes and organizing events for children and so after that, I returned and got my masters in teaching English as a second language um taught for several years, worked as a reading coach, and then I dove into edtech when I wanted to move back to Florida from New York and there was a virtual opportunity to run and participate in leading SETDA, The State EdTech Directors Association. So SETDA was a virtual office, starting in 2004. Um, and my time there was well spent, and I learned and grew on the education research, the nonprofit leadership membership organization space, and through that position, I was on the AEM Center advisory board for CAST as well as the CITES advisory board. So when I saw that this opportunity came up, I was so excited to join the CAST team and be able to help lead this work. Um, my background I worked at the first inclusion school in Palm Beach County so my belief in inclusion and supporting students with disabilities stemmed from the launch of my career.

02:50.51
Erin Evans
That's an awesome background. Um, you mentioned the AEM Center and CITES can you give us a little bit more information on those two entities?

03:00.52
Christine Fox
Sure, so the National AEMs Center and CITES are both national technical assistance centers. They're funded by the US Office, Special Education Programs at the US DoE and we have different roles but we definitely complement one another. So the National AEMs Center provides specific support regarding accessible educational materials and they support educators and systems from early childhood through higher ed and a large part of their work is working on intensive technical assistance with state agencies. So they're working with 7 states who actually have partnered districts, highlighting the importance of collaboration, um, the need for accessible educational materials, how to create those, how to procure those, and how to provide those for students and you can reach more information about them at aem.cast.org and then CITES, the Center on Inclusive Technology and Education Systems is also a federal grant, our focus is on district leadership so bringing together EdTech and IT leaders along with AT assistive technology and special education leaders. So they're collaborating at the district level and providing and we're providing a framework for those district leaders for inclusive technology practices. So, we focus on accessible education materials as well as AT whereas, and as we know and we might get into today, there's overlap for sure on how um accessibility features and technology support every student, and the CITES framework has been evolving, and developed over the last five years and I'm excited to share that we just were renewed, so we have CITES 2.0 launching on October 1st and we have another 5 years to kind of dig into this work, create resources, work alongside districts to highlight and support their inclusive technology practices.

05:13.44
Erin Evans
That's really exciting. Congratulations, on the renewal. I'm sure that was a big win for you guys.

05:16.59
Christine Fox
Yes, it was a lot of work. It's the first time I've been through this process of this type of application response and it is very intense. All of these grants are extremely competitive and we're excited to be able to continue because we feel like we're just at the cusp and we have so many ideas moving forward so we're really happy this is coming around.



05:44.22
Erin Evans
That's fantastic. You just mentioned the collaboration at the district level between the assistive technologies and the accessible education materials and you know this podcast is titled Techquity and one of the pieces that we think of when we talk about that term is equal access for users to the hardware as well as to the content and the software. So can you dive into a little bit more on what techquity means to you in this regard?

06:16.00
Christine Fox
Sure, first I want to give a shout-out to Ken Shelton,  he is a well-respected education technology leader, a keynote speaker. I worked with him at SETDA and heard him speak at other times and that was the first time I heard the term techquity. So, I know it is becoming more common and I think the fact that the importance of equity across education technology systems is important. In the edtech space, we often are referring to access to broadband and devices, and here in the more focused area of special education and students with disabilities, the focus is also about access to the content and the tools.

07:17.75
Erin Evans
You know how equity how the meaning of equity applies to the work that you're doing and I think you've already touched on it. Um, and it kind of led me into the next question I wanted to ask you which was when you're talking about access to the technologies, what are some of those barriers that you see that institutions face in terms of implementing those technology systems? As well as do you have any examples of how those technologies can effectively be integrated into those learning experiences to support students with different abilities?

08:02.31
Christine Fox
Sure so what we found is most often the barriers are internal. Um, sometimes it's just a lack of knowledge, a lack of knowledge on the part of the edtech and IT leaders, on the assistive technologies that are available and how they can be available for all students. In addition, they might not realize that there are experts in the field right within their district or at their regional service agency that can support the implementation of assistive technologies. So, many times you might hear that funding is an issue but we feel that once leaders are talking to one another. They're able to better understand what's available and why, also When tech leaders are involved in conversations with special education department AT leaders they can better understand how devices that they purchase may have embedded accessibility features and assistive technologies and there isn't a need for an additional support or device depending on you know the role and what that child might need. So we have seen over time that many districts are beginning to provide assistive technologies to all students understanding that in our everyday life, we're using a lot of these features, right? I'm quite sure that every listener here has sent a text. Um, I feel confident that most of us use voice text whether while driving or running around the house and trying to accomplish things and communicate with our colleagues. Folks are finding that screen readers are very helpful when either traveling or if you have a long paper that you need to get through for research that you can listen to it as well as read so these features are used in our everyday lives and oftentimes they are prohibited from students accessing them at school which is unfortunate because they can help and support many leaders because of their variabilities, their learning styles, and even their location, right? If a child has to watch a video and they're in a noisy home having captions on can be extremely helpful. So I think the playing field is being leveled because more districts are being proactive about providing professional learning for educators on the what and why and also, the how to implement these tools and making them available for everyone.

10:45.18
Erin Evans
Yeah, and you brought up a couple of really good points. One being you know the technologies are everywhere these days and I've seen it at my own house. You know I have a son who's in middle school and he is using, I had an open house last night and you know the teachers are like just have the students upload everything through Canvas and you know they can take a picture of this and just send it to me via this app and those are all just part of the everyday lives. So I agree that that balance is there on how those everyday capabilities are available to everyone and then how can they be leveraged initially for those students with disabilities to ensure that they know how to use those features if they haven't already. Another thing that kind of connects to that you mentioned you know the hardware is catching up. Talk to me a little bit about the software, the content, the programs that are out there, and what you've seen over the past 10-15 years in the progress on the content and materials being made more accessible and then where are there gaps that people in the Edtech industry can continue to work to close them to ensure accessibility for all users.


12:00.86
Christine Fox
Well, I feel confident that the glorified PDF has been hopefully put to bed and digital content in many cases is truly dynamic and digital and has features and capabilities that a textbook that is paper and or a textbook that has been simply uploaded as a PDF to a website. I feel like we're really moving beyond that so that's great because digital content should leverage the bells and whistles of digital tools. Um, having said that then students have access to things like highlighting text, leveraging vocabulary banks, being able to look up words in a dictionary or thesaurus while they're reading. So that they're using the different tools that we might have used um via analog tools. However, in a digital space and also the ability to hold your content create portfolios leverage content in Canvas is so valuable when things are kept. You know all together in one place and students can go back to that work. I know years ago when we heard about digital content many publishers would simply say, yes, we have a digital textbook and it really was just a PDF. Yeah, very frustrating. 

13:28.28
Erin Evans
A Pdf. Yeah.

13:33.98
Christine Fox
It's kind of the same as when math teachers tell us they're working digitally but the students take a photo of their math homework and upload it to some website. Um, yeah, that frustrates you as a parent as well as in my you know career space but having said that I think that folks are really seeing that the barriers and whether it's on websites apps, and other digital content is becoming much more obvious to folks because of the number of users of screen readers and other assistive technologies that simple things such as alt tagging images, leveraging heading structures, um, simplifying fonts and content are all so important so that folks using these screen readers can hear and understand the content in the same way the rest of us can. You know as someone who has always struggled with those crazy busy slides whether teacher slides or at conferences. You know, simple things like that even I think folks are becoming more aware that, um, very busy crazy fonts, even the color contrast I think these are all things that become a big deal when you're using assistive technologies. But I think folks are understanding better that it impacts many learners whether adults or so or children and whether or not they have a five or four IEP plan.

15:17.20
Erin
Yeah, from an accessibility perspective that's one of the things that we're always talking about which is how the the implementation of alignment to those guidelines, the WCAG guidelines while specifically outlined to support users with disabilities helps everybody and you know it's, I like the term that you use that this is bringing awareness. The fact that there are more users out there and they're seeing where the barriers are others everybody is noticing, oh you know I'm on my this busy subway and I have my captions on oh that was an accessibility feature, to begin with, but I use it all the time. And I think that um, that awareness and that's starting to bring the innate need for that inclusion at the beginning, and I would say from my perspective we're seeing it more as we're starting to build new products and support the build on new platforms and other technologies. That awareness is there and the questions are being asked of how can I do this better and you know that's always a fun thing to to have conversations around.

16:25.60
Christine Fox
I think of it the same way as automatic doors. You know we, automatic doors, curb cuts, are accessibility of features but then with Covid automatic doors became more important hooks, and just as a user you realize, oh why? Why do I have to open this heavy door? I have all these packages or um, you know as a young mom curb cutouts became very cool because of the strollers and you know there are just ways that it's becoming part of our norm in public places and spaces and we're all embedded in this technology world, so important.

17:13.99
Erin Evans
100% agree. Tell me a little bit more about some of the projects that you guys are working on or that you specifically are working on and diving into related to some of the assistive technologies in the schools right now.

17:28.40
Christine Fox
Sure so the CITES framework is a website and on that website, we have um, 6 primary areas of focus leadership, infrastructure, teaching, learning, assessment, and family engagement, and for each of those areas we have dug deep to have practices that align to those topic areas and then action steps and the thing we're working on right now and we've just published for leadership teaching and learning self-assessments via rubric so that district leaders can pause and look at where they are and where they want to go and we found those to be really effective. We had versions of self-assessments but we're working intensively with um, six targeted districts that have helped us evolve this work over time. And so we've refined those self-assessments and when districts have leaders complete those independently and then come together to talk about where they are It's a very interesting dynamic. So I would encourage folks to check those out. We also just published a video on the what and why of inclusive technology that your listeners may find extremely helpful and we're going to have several more videos published and alongside of those professional learning kits so any district leader um can take the content that we have and customize it to use in their schools and districts and one great thing about having work published via your federal dollars is it's not only free, it's openly licensed and we want folks to reuse, remix, and leverage the content in the best way possible to meet their needs.

19:18.90
Erin Evans
Yeah, I love that it's open standardization if you will right like these resources are out there and they are fantastic resources and you know getting the message out, utilizing them, and making sure that they're understood and that you guys are there to support. And I know that I've seen a lot of the conversations that you've shared at different conferences and I love how engaged the audience is when they're looking and learning about the things they didn't know were there.

19:53.28
Christine Fox
Definitely and we try if if you see us at any sessions. We always try to make them interactive and model you know UDL practices so that the audiences are engaged and looking and using the tools. I did want to highlight one thing especially because of your organization and and probably much of your audiences. We do have a whole section in the CITES framework around procurement and accessible digital materials and included in that we gathered um RFP questions from districts so that If another district hasn't included accessibility requirements in their procurement process. They can see what other districts are asking or requiring and then leverage that content to meet their needs. So we want to provide the how on how you can do this versus just telling you what you should do.

20:53.00
Erin
And yeah, and the procurement section is really helpful I know that um when I used to work for a publisher I was working and looking at RFPs a lot and the questions on accessibility were random and all over the place, and over time I've seen how there has been more standardized language in RFPs around accessibility and that's been I think you know it definitely helps the publishers to know what they need to be aiming for providing but I also think it helps the districts and the users, right? because then they're consistently asking for the same thing. Um, speaking of that kind of standardization, is there, what are the efforts that are ongoing through CITES or through the AEM Center to help find a way to make the AT inclusion in the process and stuff like that more centralized or is there something happening around that?

21:52.55
Christine Fox
Well, the National AEMs Center has a whole section on obtaining accessible materials, and that includes some of the assistive technologies and they even have sample language for RFPs going back to what you said before. It doesn't mean that it's a mandate or a requirement but streamlining that language will help everyone and in CITES, we are also trying to encourage and educate folks on the VPAT so they're aware of the voluntary product accessibility template. Um, that can, in fact, one of the districts we work with that now makes that a requirement in part of their RFPs. So a lot of what we're doing right now is awareness and then backing that up with tools and resources so that districts are first of all informed and then next you know have the tools they need to be able to require those accessible features assistive technologies across their district. So that's another big thing is that all district leaders and all departments are aware, not just IT and edtech and AT but also curriculum and assessment in the different content areas.

23:13.27
Erin
Yeah, awareness is key and that goes for accessibility, the assistive technologies making those inclusive materials, like it reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Maya Angelou which is you know, once you know better do better and that's a paraphrase I don't have it right in front of me but you know you just you know once you learn what you? What you didn't know that it's up to you to take that forward and um, I've seen that in the accessibility community, I've seen that in a community and I think people really are leaning in because going back to what you had said earlier as we are all using different technologies and we're seeing where there are barriers. We're more aware and I think that that's one positive that came out of the pandemic in some ways, especially the school system is we are aware of where things are are shortfalls and how do we fix that and um, not that not that Covid's been great, but those those have been some positives to come from that. 

24:14.60
Christine Fox
Yes, definitely.

24:23.20
Erin
Alright, last question of the day which is, is there anything else that you would want to add or talk about before we end our fun little chat?

24:26.72
Christine Fox
So I would just say get started for those listening, You know accessibility might already be an area that's of importance to you and but you're you're talking about it amongst your friends and not with the leadership team or with your colleagues across your organization. So really, um, you know digging in and taking first steps whether it's you personally commit that all of your social media posts will be accessible or your organization focuses initially on presentations and how those slide decks can be accessible. Um, that modeling and taking those steps is so critical and a lot of these things are not that hard sometimes are hard to remember but they're not hard to do until they become a habit, and when you when you take those steps and then you can educate others and just informally or formally share what you're doing and why I think the more folks that do that and take those small steps the quicker all of this will spread across the education systems. And the better it will be for all of us as users of technology because that part of this is not going away and so I'm excited to see the shifts um, the partnerships we have at CAST and CITES and the AEM Center have really informed other organizations as well as the schools and districts and I see movement but I think all of us listening today can be part of that movement.

25:55.12
Erin Evans
I agree. Thank you so much for your time today, Christine. It was lovely to have you on. We've really nice to learn more about CITES and CAST and all of the fun things that are going on. We appreciate your time and thank you everybody for joining us today. We hope to have you back for our next podcast. Thank you.

26:14.82
Christine Fox
Thank you so much.