My name is Ofer Chermesh and I'm the CEO of Ghotit a company which develops
assistance technology for people with dyslexia or/and ESL (I'm Dyslexia).
I have written an article that I want to publish and I hope that the group
members will be willing to have a look and send comments and suggestions (if
you have any ideas of publications that will be interested in the story I
will be happy if you will be willing to share them with me).
Please find below the article
Hope to hear from you soon.
Regards,
Ofer Chermesh
http://dyslexia-blog.ghotit.com/
Assistive Technology and the Mobile Student Body
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
<http://www.ghotit.com/>
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