Communications technology is giving us the opportunity to rectify this injustice. Innovations such as CD-ROMs, digitized books, voice-activated software, and on-line database systems will make the classroom truly inclusive. No longer will students with disabilities be granted only the geographic common ground of shared classroom space; thanks to technology, they will establish meaningful intellectual common ground as well. Their full participation will dilute other students' stereotypes about people with disabilities, to the benefit of society as a whole.
There will be other benefits as well. History demonstrates that the advantages of technology are often dispersed more widely than people anticipate. The telephone, for example, grew out of Alexander Graham Bell's efforts to amplify his voice to communicate with his hearing-impaired wife. (Ironically, Bell's invention did not help people with hearing problems for nearly a century, until the invention of TDD.)
When I was Chairman of the Public Broadcasting Service in the 1970s, we pioneered the use of closed captions to bring television to people who could not hear. We never dreamed that millions of immigrants would rely on that technology to learn English, as they are doing today.
Using technology to help people with disabilities has been an abiding interest of The Annenberg Washington Program. In 1986, well before "information superhighway" had penetrated the vernacular, we worked with the Gallaudet Research Institute on a forum called "Marketplace Problems in Communications Technology for Disabled People". Last year, Peter David Blanck, an Annenberg Senior Fellow and a Law Professor at the University of Iowa, produced a white paper on the employment provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This year, in addition to convening the conference summarized in this report, Blanck is studying how Sears, Roebuck & Co. uses communications technology to meet the needs of its employees with disabilities. (The "Sears" report is available on-line.)
In planning this conference, our goal was to demonstrate as well as discuss educational inclusiveness. The agenda and participant list were printed in Braille and provided on computer diskettes. Four signers translated the proceedings. FM headsets with amplifiers were available for people with hearing impairment. One participant never left his home in Massachusetts; he participated via telephone audio hookup.
Most important, this report has been issued on multimedia CD-ROM. Our initial purpose was to make the conference proceedings accessible to people with disabilities, but we soon realized that the CD-ROM would have wider appeal. The printed page cannot begin to capture the technology demonstrations at the conference. The video on the CD-ROM will provide a much better representation of these spellbinding presentations. To receive a complimentary copy of the accesible CD-ROM (Macintosh-compatible only), contact The Annenebrg Washington Program.
In that respect, this report exemplifies the unconfinable benefits of new technology. We are pleased to be able to use accessible technology to analyze accessible technology.
Newton N. Minow
Director
The Annenberg Washington Program