Playing to Learn - My Thoughts on the AT Assessment Models

For this week's class, each student had to prepare a presentation of four models for AT assessment.  Although everyone was to be prepared to present, only three people would be presenting (due to time constraints), and those three people would be determined with the roll of the dice.  Lucky or not, my name was selected as one of the three names of people to present.  For my classmates, you can see my PowerPoint presentation in its entirety under the second discussion thread in our Blackboard site.  For anyone and everyone else, the highlights of my presentation are these:

• There are far more than four models of AT assessment.
• The four models I chose to present were:
• Education Tech Points (by Bowser & Reed, 1995)
• Matching Person and Technology (by Scherer and colleagues, 2002)
• Human, Activity, Assistive Technology (by Cook & Hussey, 2002)
• Student, Environment, Task, and Tool (by Zabala, 1995)
• The commonalities I noticed (as I discussed in a previous blog about Alberta's education system) were student/individual, task, context, and technology.  (What I would learn more about in class was time.)
•  The SETT model is sometimes referred to within other models.
• Assessment is not seen as a one-time event, but as an ongoing occurrence.
• Assessment requires a collaborative effort on the part of a team which should include the student.

Thinking about what I had to do for my blog this week, I decided to use what I already know about Inspiration to discuss some of my ideas about the AT assessment models.  (Realize that I haven't used Inspiration since 2005 and my knowledge of it is fairly limited.)  In the image below, I have tried to show that there are five factors within the various assessment models: student, environment, task, technology, and time.  These factors are sometimes called by other names within the different models (for example, task may be called activity) but the main idea remains.

As aforementioned, the one factor of which I had not taken great notice in my research for the presentations this week was time.  Between the class discussions and my review of Scherer's table of how milieu, personality of user, and the technology itself can influence a person's use of AT, I have come to understand more about the importance of time as a factor influencing AT assessment.  Although I had seen that the models called for assessment to be more than a one time event, I did not take note of concerns about how the user changes over time, how the user may need time to learn to use the technology, or how the technology may require time to be updated or serviced when problems occur. 

In the image below, I began to show some of the links between the five factors.  As you might imagine, however, the links between the factors are extensive.  It is difficult to fit every link on the diagram.  (As I write this sentence, it strikes me that I didn't write that the environment may have or lack supports - teachers, friends, and family - for the student.)  In addition, it is difficult to consider one factor without considering the others.  Although the links flow from one factor to another, sometimes the link note refers to a third factor.

(Note: For some reason, the five factors common to the AT assessment models remind me of Schwab's four commonplaces: student, teacher, milieu, and content, and this makes sense to me since we are considering AT in the context of education.) 


Resources: For more information about the assessment models, visit the websites listed below.


Education Tech Points
Ñ 
http://www.dinf.ne.jp/doc/english/Us_Eu/conf/csun_99/session0089.html

Ñhttp://www.teachingat.info/constructs/education.html

Ñhttp://www.temple.edu/martec/accessibility/cd/data/assistivetech/brochure_edy_burn.pdf

Ñhttp://www.homemods.org/resources/pages/ATAssess.shtml

Matching Person and Technology (MPT)
Ñ  
http://www.homemods.org/resources/pages/ATAssess.shtml

Ñhttp://www.teachingat.info/constructs/matching.html
 

Human, Activity, Assistive Technology (HAAT) 

 

http://www.teachingat.info/constructs/human.html

Ñhttp://www.temple.edu/martec/accessibility/cd/data/assistivetech/brochure_edy_burn.pdf

Ñhttp://www.eng.mu.edu/wintersj/rehab/rehab167/Mod1/haat/HAATmodel.htm

Ñhttp://assistivetech-4alllearners.wikispaces.com/file/view/HAAT+model+info.pdf

Student, Environment, Task, and Tool (SETT)
Ñ 
http://www.joyzabala.com/uploads/CA_Kananaskis__SETT_Horses_Mouth.pdf

Ñhttp://www.joyzabala.com/uploads/Zabala_SETT_Leveling_the_Learning_Field.pdf

Ñhttp://www.teachingat.info/constructs/student.html

Ñhttp://www.doe.virginia.gov/special_ed/iep_instruct_svcs/assistive_technology/framework_assistive_technology.pdf

Ñhttp://www.temple.edu/martec/accessibility/cd/data/assistivetech/brochure_edy_burn.pdf

Ñhttp://www.homemods.org/resources/pages/ATAssess.shtml