by Russell T. Osguthorpe
Department of Instructional Psychology and Technology
Brigham Young University
Provo, Utah

Introducing Computer Technology
into Special Education Facilities in China

In the spring of 1986, Yvette Marrin invited me to accompany her and David Bruce McMahan on an exploratory visit to Beijing to determine how instructional technology might be integrated into special education facilities in China. Because the graduate students from my department were able to speak Chinese, National Cristina Foundation felt they could be particularly helpful in helping the Foundation introduce the technology they had donated to programs in Beijing, particularly the educational software that was unknown in China. During that initial visit, we decided to return to Beijing in February and March of 1987 with six Brigham Young University graduate students in instructional technology who would spend six weeks introducing software applications to special education teachers in a school for the deaf, a school for the blind, and a school for those with mental retardation.

With Yvette Marrin accompanying us, our purpose during the six-week visit was to determine if Chinese special education students could benefit from technology applications that we had found useful in the U.S. During the six weeks we encountered challenges that always come when two cultures try to work together. Communication challenges arose as might be expected. For example, in the School for the Deaf, we not only dealt with Chinese-to-English translation, but we also had to translate Chinese sign language into American Sign Language. But language issues were actually not nearly as daunting as cultural differences. Because Chinese special educators had never used computers in their classrooms, they viewed the technology differently than did American educators. Overcoming these challenges required patience and understanding on the part of both the Chinese and the Americans.

One obvious question we had to answer was: Can Chinese students benefit at all from American software? Prior to arriving in China we selected software designed for non-readers, thus there were no English words on the screen. The software had learning objectives such as teaching cause and effect, number concepts, etc. But it soon became clear that even without language on the screen, cultural differences still made the software only moderately useful.

After returning to the U.S. following the six-week intervention period, we wondered if the Chinese educators would be able to benefit from the technical assistance we had attempted to provide. Would they continue to use the computers and software that had been donated? Would they find other uses for the computers than those we had demonstrated?

When we returned over a year later, we found that not only had they found some of the donated software useful, but they had begun to develop their own Chinese software in each of the three schools. Schools from Taiwan and other provinces in China had also visited the schools to see how they might establish similar programs in their own regions of China.

In 1989 Ted Hasselbring of Peabody College at Vanderbilt University returned to help conduct workshops on the use of special education technology. Follow-up visits were made with each of the three schools to assess needs and determine next steps. In each case, local computer coordinators who had been assigned to work on the project showed how the schools were developing new ways of using technology in their unique environments for their students.

In the process of these follow-up visits, we became attached to the schools, the teachers, and the principals. Some of these professionals later visited the U.S. to observe how technology was being used to improve special education. The inter-cultural exchanges led to sustained progress for the project. Chinese and Americans learned together about ways of improving the education of those with special needs.

Looking back on the experience, I am amazed that we did it, and I am amazed that it worked as well as it did. I remember my frustration one evening as a Chinese driver dropped me off at the Beijing Hotel, and tried to tell me what time he would pick me up the next morning. He spoke no English, and I spoke no Chinese. He stood next to his car and drew a large 9 in the dust on the trunk. I nodded that I had understood and saw him the next morning at 9:00 a.m. As I returned to my room I vowed that since I knew I would be returning to China, I would learn a little Chinese. Upon returning to BYU, my wife and I enrolled in a Chinese class, and the learning began. Although I never became fluent, I learned enough to get along as the project progressed.

When we began the project, we hoped that the work we did in Beijing would benefit other special education sites throughout China. This was a lofty vision. But each time we visited, the leaders of the schools would show us pictures of other educational leaders from other provinces in China who had visited their schools and then returned home to implement what they had learned in Beijing. These dissemination efforts provided some of the most convincing evidence that the project was a success.

On this the 20th Anniversary year of the National Cristina Foundation I reflect on all that the Foundation has accomplished. I think about the fact that my experiences with NCF and with others like them have helped me see learning in a new light, different from how I viewed it when I was attending school or even later as a teacher or as a parent. I cannot, for example, explain the type of learning that occurred in the NCF story by counting the pieces of information that McMahan and Marrin assimilated, stored, and retrieved, adding the pieces together, and drawing a conclusion that describes that wholeness of their learning.

In fact, I have never heard either of them talk about their experience with NCF as a “learning experience.” They might refer to it as their life’s work and consider learning to be an incidental side benefit. But a closer examination of the NCF story and others like it, reveal that learning—a more broadly defined, deeper kind of learning – was at the core of the experience from the beginning, and must remain I believe, at the core for an organization (a family, a business, a school, a church, etc) and the people in it to stay “alive”. My best wishes to National Cristina Foundation as it continues its work on behalf of people around the world.

By Harry “Bud” Rizer
Member of the Board of Directors
National Cristina Foundation

The year was 1984 and I was employed at the Maryland Rehabilitation Center in Baltimore, Maryland where I literally carried the first personal computer into the building several years previously. I was fortunate to be the coordinator of a project with a very broad mission to investigate the potential applications of technology for persons severely disabled by either cerebral palsy or multiple sclerosis. The term “assistive technology” would not be introduced for another five years in the Technology Related Assistance Act of 1989.

There was no better location to represent the birthplace of assistive technology in Maryland than at the Maryland Rehabilitation Center, now called the Workforce Technology Center. This comprehensive vocational rehabilitation facility serves adults of all ages with all types of disabilities on both a day basis and residential basis. The departments and staffing represent every conceivable type of rehabilitation and support professional and there has always been a tremendous feeling of family among the staff and the clients with whom they interacted on a daily basis.

My introduction to the technology world in rehabilitation was truly a baptism by fire. Something had to be done and it was my responsibility to do it. Fortunately, I was always interested in technology and probably owned the first personal computer in my own neighborhood.

It did not take long to discover the potential power of computer related technology for persons with disabilities. Within a short period of time we had speech synthesizers speaking for those without voices, alternative control systems for high level spinal cord injured clients who could not hold a pen or turn a page, computer based assessments for those who could not manipulate the physical environment and talking terminals and computers for the blind. All of this was made possible by an administrative philosophy to pursue whatever possibilities might improve the rehabilitation potential of our population and a general belief that technology may indeed be the future of our field.
The program that was developing from within the center was gathering recognition statewide and beyond. It was this outside recognition that led to my eventual introduction to the National Cristina Foundation.

It was not unusual for our center to receive requests for information or for appointments to visit our center. Thus, it was only mildly odd that I received notice that some people from New York City wanted to come down to see my program and to meet with me. This was my introduction to Dr. Yvette Marrin and Mr. David Bruce McMahan (now Dr. McMahan).

To put what began to transpire into in technical terms, it didn’t take long for me to realize that I was measuring the impact of technology on disability in bits and bites whereas NCF was measuring in gigabytes. My vision was internal to my program and the center. The NCF vision was inclusive of the entire world and all individuals with disabilities.

Sometimes in life in order to create a vision, you must first be exposed to one. That is what happened during my accelerated learning curve of being involved with NCF beginning over twenty years ago. Since that time, so much has changed. I have been involved in technology and disability projects throughout the country. NCF has been involved world wide and has attracted the attention of some of the biggest manufacturers of technology in the process. The simple concept first developed by NCF twenty years ago, that every computer has a second life in an environment perhaps far different and far more impacting from its first life, has been the driving force of a great deal of change that has occurred regarding the perception of disability as impacted by technology.

NCF has been too busy to look back. In doing so now, what is seen should serve as a strong dose of encouragement to continue to move forward. Even with the vision of twenty years ago, no one could have imagined the state of technology in the disability world today. With organizations like the National Cristina Foundation so intent on continuing system change, none of us can imagine how far we will travel in another twenty years.

RETHINK

Aerosmith's front man Steven Tyler and actor and director Robert Redford joined Intel Corporation CEO Craig R. Barrett and eBay President and CEO Meg Whitman in signing up to preserve the environment, with their autographs etched onto a new type of PC. Redford, Tyler, Barrett and Whitman autographed two limited-edition HP Digital Entertainment Centers powered by the Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor with HT Technology.

The auction proceeds will support the National Cristina Foundation, an organization that encourages corporations and individuals to donate surplus and used technology, then directs those donations to training and educational organizations nationwide.

NCF is a partner in the Rethink Initiative, a new eBay program supported by Intel that brings together industry, government, environmental groups and the eBay community to address the electronics product disposition issue – or “e-waste.”

The Rethink Initiative was unveiled January 6, 2005 at the Consumer Electronics Show where Tyler, Redford, Barrett and Whitman autographed the entertainment PCs. Redford and Tyler support Intel and eBay in encouraging consumers to both “rethink” how they recycle their technology products and adopt an environmentally conscious approach to disposing of old equipment. The auction will help promote the Rethink Initiative.

David Bernstein
President
AnythingIT Inc.

ANYTHING IT

Dear Yvette:

I wanted to personally congratulate you for reaching this wonderful milestone. NCF without question provides a very important service in assisting to bridge the digital divide.

You have built a successful organization that operates in a difficult environment given all of the issues related to providing successful donation programs for the corporate community that effectively benefit the thousands of locations receiving equipment through the NCF Process. In doing so, your commitment and passion for helping others is truly making a difference in the world and for this, I believe you and your chairman, David Bruce McMahan, are true visionaries.

Keep up the tremendous work!

Best Regards,

by Eleonor Ward
A PatchWorx member
www.patchworx.org

When I found PatchWorx on the web I became the first UK member and many others have since joined. Their aims are clear- to create a safe environment for children and young people who face all kinds of medical difficulties to interact and make friends all across the world. When I joined four years ago, I didn’t realize just what a lifeline it would become.

I don’t know how young people with serious illnesses can survive without the Internet and the kind of support the charity PatchWorx provides. They are people that keep me going, give me a reason to climb out of bed in the morning, they hold my hand, be it virtually, and make me smile each and every day. I hope one day to make it to university and to study journalism and at some point to travel the world!

To our friends and colleagues at the National Cristina Foundation,

National Cristina Foundation recognized that while technology and its advances have made most people’s lives better, others have been left behind and don’t have the resources to take advantage of higher paying jobs, more sophisticated skills and more advanced educational opportunities. Twenty years ago, the National Cristina Foundation set out to build a bridge—a bridge across the technological divide—and Market Velocity is honored to be a partner of National Cristina’s in bridging this divide.

In partnership with National Cristina, we are making it easy for corporations to choose equipment donations as a viable option for used asset disposition. This donation channel enables our clients and their customers to find the appropriate solution for their equipment via either remarketing, reuse or recycling.

Market Velocity views our partnership with the National Cristina Foundation as our most strategic corporate citizenship initiative because we know the stronger we make this bridge, the benefits recognized by those in need increases exponentially.

Congratulations to the National Cristina Foundation on its 20th anniversary. We are proud to call you our partner and our friend.

Your team at Market Velocity