Students with disabilities benefit from technology

Two years ago, Margaret Londergan devised a plan. \nAfter working for the University for almost 20 years, Londergan knew that students with disabilities needed more support than technology made possible. Someone needed to design a place where cutting-edge technology could be tested -- a place where students with learning, mental or physical disabilities could test different technologies and be provided with solutions that worked best for them. Because Londergan had already developed most of the computer sites on campus, she knew she could make it happen.\nToday, Londergan manages the Adaptive Technology Center, which helps roughly 250 students with disabilities find the technology they need to sit through a professor's PowerPoint lecture or take a Scantron test. Londergan said it wasn't hard to get started.\n"UITS recognized the value of something like that pretty readily," she said. "They thought it would be a positive addition for students on campus, and there were already several funding streams, including the student technology fee."\nOne of the center's features is the Kurzweil 3000 reading assistance program. The program helps students with limited sight, dyslexia and those who do not speak English as a first language. Students bring their books to the center, where they are dismantled and then scanned.\nThe book is converted into CD format, which students can put on their computers and have read to them by the Kurzweil program. Students can choose from a variety of voices, ranging from "Jane," who has a clipped, British accent, to "Jennifer," the most popular, who speaks in expressionless computerized tones. Center employees install the program onto students' computers for free. \n"The only stipulation is that they have to prove they own the book," Londergan said. "We take copyright very seriously here. Once we've converted the book to electronic form, we keep the CD so that students can't give it to their friends to copy. Students who want to read it can check it out, just like a library. We then give the dismantled books back to the students, and they can have them reassembled at Kinko's for $3 a book."\nThe center also offers a program called JAWS, which assists students who are blind or have limited sight in reading computer pages by reading aloud to them, and Refreshable Braille, a Braille representation of a computer screen. \nMary Stores, a center employee who is blind, explained that the raised bumps on the attachment to her computer keyboard show her where things are on her computer screen and when items are highlighted. Stores, who graduated from Ball State in 2000, came to IU to work at the Adaptive Technology Center. There, she does Braille transcripts and Web design, and also works as a note-taker for other students. Stores said she doesn't have a preference between having a computer program read to her or Refreshable Braille.\n "It just depends on what I'm working on," Stores said. "With speech, if you want to change something, you have to listen to them talk while you arrow to it. But with Braille, you can just click, and the mistake is gone." \nStudents are often referred to the center through Disabled Student Services, which works hand-in-hand with the center to provide various services to disabled students. In some cases, a student needs more than technology to help them get through a class.\n"Not every student needs the same thing," Learning Disabilities Coordinator Jody Ferguson said. "They might need a quiet exam setting, someone to read test questions aloud to them, permission to tape record a lecture, or a note-taker to take class notes. It's very much on a case-by-case basis. "The important thing, and our mission here, is to make sure that everyone has equal access to an education here at IU, whether they have a reading disorder, or problems with math calculation, dyslexia, or information processing."\nStudents sometimes find out about Disabled Student Services and the Adaptive Technology Center before they come to IU, Ferguson said. But those who don't can be referred by professors or Resident Assistants, or can come to the office themselves for a free screening to see if they qualify for services, Ferguson said. \nStudents who have disabilities require a wide range of services, said Martha Jacques, director of Disabled Student Services. \n"If you have two students in wheelchairs, one might need a note-taker and the other might only need a key to the elevator in Ballantine," she said. "It's very much on a case-by-case basis"