Education
[Introduction] Welcome to the LD State of Mind, a podcast about learning together and making a difference for college students. Join us as we discuss tips and useful information with our peers and experts in the area of learning variability’s. [Patrick] Welcome to episode two. I’m your host Patrick Young and joining me today is my guest Dan Comden. Dan why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself. [Dan] Hi Patrick I’d be happy to do so. I’ve been working in the field of information technology and accessibility going back to the 80’s. I’ve been in information technology here at the University of Washington Main Seattle campus going back to 1992. I am in the role of helping students, faculty, and staff with disabilities have access to the IT resources that they need in order to pursue their academic programs or do their jobs. I’ve been involved with providing services to students with disabilities since I was undergrad, in college back in the 80’s. I actually started as a student employee reading textbooks onto tape. That was our main assistive technology at that time, was human readers recording textbooks read out loud. That’s how I got into this field, as a student employee. So, I’ve been at it for a long time, seen a lot of changes, seen a lot of amazing technology, got to meet some amazing students over the years, which is probably the best part of my job. [Patrick] Wow it definitely sounds like we got the right man for the job. Having such a long history in this field, how can you tell me the changes that you have seen in assistive technology? How have they changed, how have they grown, and how do you think today’s technology has become more effective in helping students? [Dan] Well, wow that’s a pretty all-encompassing question there. You know, when I talk about what things were back in the 80’s, it was really an analog world. We couldn’t do what we are doing right now, being on opposite sides of the country having a conversation and easily recording it from the comfort of our own offices. So what we did back then was primarily putting books on tape with human readers. We provided in-class note-taking assistance; we did mobility assistance around the campus. At that time, when I started personal computers really were not at all common, they were very uncommon. When I was in that role, PC’s really started to be something that you would see in offices, but even then it was typical that there would be only one computer in the office. So, at that time, assistive technology was being developed, there was a little bit of a lag. But with the relatively simple interface on the computers, which was really text-based, it was relatively easy to do simple accommodations to allow people with different disabilities to use those computers. Students with learning disabilities were kind of left out. The process of making a computer speak was fairly advanced for a few years. You know, having those sound capabilities in the computer was relatively unusual. So over the course of the last 30+ years, what we’ve seen is computing becoming more ubiquitous, meaning it’s just everywhere. It’s on our desks; it’s in our faces, literally everyday with our smart phones and other mobile devices. And then, along with that is an amazing array of tools that allow people to do their jobs. Whether that job is working at an office, working in the field, or being a student in a classroom. [Patrick] Absolutely. I know I myself when I was in middle school I had one of those big yellow recorders. It was from the library that was used for the learning, dyslexic, and blind program they had. I just had a tape and I had to flip it over every thirty minutes to continue reading my book. And that helped me so much; that helped give me a love for literature. So, starting in the early days, before they had smart pens and stuff like that, that’s how I really learned and that’s what I got to use. So that’s awesome that you were directly recording thos...