Let's start with a scenario. I mean, it's a scene
that plays out in pretty much every school district
in the country right around August. Oh, yeah.
Budget season. Exactly. The administration, they
look at the budget, they look at this strategic
plan, and they make the big announcement. We
have achieved one -to -one computing. Right.
Every student has a Chromebook. The Wi -Fi is
strong. The dashboard is all green lights. And
the assumption is We did it. We bridged the digital
divide. Everyone has access. And that's the hardware
fallacy. It's so seductive because it's measurable.
You can count the laptops. You can measure the
bandwidth. Sure. But if you stop there, you haven't
actually solved the equity problem. You've just
electrified it. That distinction right there
between just handing out gear and actually creating
an environment where that gear is useful for
everyone, that's what we're unpacking today.
We're digging into a piece by Gary Ackerman.
It's titled Assistive and Accessible Technology.
published back in September 2025 on hackscience
.education. And the reason we pulled this one
from the stack isn't because we think anyone
needs a tutorial on what a screen reader is.
I think most of our listeners know the basics.
We pulled it because Ackerman does something
really critical. He disentangles these two terms
that get thrown around all the time as if they're
the same thing. Assistive technology and accessibility.
Exactly. And he argues that confusing them isn't
just like, a semantic mistake. It's a design
failure, a failure that actively excludes people.
I'll be the first to admit I've been guilty of
lumping them together. You know, it's all just
the stuff we do to help people with disabilities
use computers. Right? It's what most people think.
But Ackerman sets up this fantastic framework
toolkit versus architecture that just, it really
shines a light on why that's so dangerous. It's
dangerous because it completely blurs the lines
of responsibility. OK. How so? Well, if you think
everything is just tech support, then you assume
the IT person is going to fix it. But Ackerman's
framework forces you to realize that while one
side of this is technical, the other is, it's
structural. And if the structure is broken? The
tech doesn't matter, not one bit. OK, so let's
break that down. The first half, the toolkit.
This is what he calls assistive technology. Yeah.
And the definition here feels pretty rigid. We
aren't talking about, say, features already built
into an iPad. No, not at all. And that's a key
distinction. Ackerman defines assistive tech
as a, quote, personalized toolkit. Think of it
like a bespoke suit in the education world. It's
not off the rack. So it's specific hardware or
software for one single student to bridge a very
specific gap. Precisely. This is the difference
between a learning preference and, um... a medical
necessity. We aren't talking about a student
who just, you know, prefers dark mode. We're
talking about a student who physically cannot
use a standard mouse or who can't perceive a
standard screen. The source really highlights
that selecting this tech is a, it's a high stakes
collaborative process. But who's in the room
for that decision? I mean, you can't just be
the teacher guessing what might work. No, it's
a full tactical team. You've got the special
educators who understand the pedagogy. You might
have outside consultants who specialize in, say,
visual or motor impairments. What? And then crucially,
you have the school IT professionals. And Ackerman
makes a point. to really elevate their role here.
They aren't just the people who plug it in. Well,
let's talk about that for a second, because in
most places, IT is all about standardization.
Of course. They want every computer to be identical.
It's easier to manage, easier to secure. But
this stuff, assistive tech, is by its very definition
non -standard. And that's the core tension. You
have a student who needs a very specific, maybe
even an obscure, legacy device just to communicate.
I can see the security team getting nervous already.
Oh, absolutely. It might need open ports on the
firewall that they hate. It might need drivers
that conflict with the district's update policy.
The IT pros job here really changes from system
administrator to... pedagogical partner. I like
that. They have to figure out how to make this
bespoke square peg fit into the network's round
hole. Because if they don't, that student effectively
loses their voice. It's interoperability as a
civil right. That's a great way to put it. The
source mentions examples like Braille printers.
And for anyone who hasn't seen one, these are
not your desktop ink jets. They're loud, heavy,
industrial bossers. You don't put one in every
classroom. No, it travels with that one specific
student. Exactly, it travels with them. Or the
assistive listening systems that he mentions.
Systems that send the teacher's voice directly
to a hearing aid. I mean, this is equipment for
the exclusive use of one student. And that exclusivity
is important. because you can't share a prosthetic.
You can't. This toolkit is what allows that student
to interface with the world. So if the assistive
technology is the toolkit, the thing the student
brings with them to handle the environment, then
the second half of Ackerman's model is the environment
itself. Accessibility. This is the architecture.
I love this analogy. It just shifts the burden
so perfectly. If I can't get into a building
because there are stairs and no ramp, The problem
isn't that I brought the wrong wheelchair. The
problem is the building is defective. Exactly.
And this is where the conversation usually gets
a little uncomfortable for, you know, content
creators. Assistive tech is about the user adapting,
but accessibility is about designing the environment
so it doesn't need adapting. And this is a legal
thing too. Absolutely. Ackerman grounds this
firmly. in a civil rights context. The Americans
with Disabilities Act, this isn't a nice to have,
it's a mandate. Okay, but let's play devil's
advocate. We all know what physical accessibility
looks like. Ramps, elevators, braille on signs.
But digital architecture is invisible until you
hit a wall. It is. The source lists things like
closed captions and alt text. And I mean, these
feel like basic digital hygiene now, but we still
see them missing all the time. All the time because
they're treated as an afterthought. Oh, I'll
upload the video now and I'll add the captions
later. And of course, later never comes. Right.
But think about the architecture of a digital
classroom. Let's say a teacher uploads a PDF
that is just a scanned image of a textbook page.
Which happens constantly. Constantly. Now, to
a sighted student, it looks like text. But to
a student using a screen reader, which is their
toolkit, that PDF is a blank page. It's just
a silent void. So the architecture has failed
the toolkit. Exactly. The screen reader is working
perfectly, but there's no data for it to read.
That's what you mean by the difference between
technical access and functional access. The student
can download the file. But they can't consume
it. It's the digital version of a building with
a locked front door. And Ackerman points out
that good architecture, it benefits everyone.
The curb cut effect. The classic curb cut effect.
Yeah. Ramps were designed for wheelchairs, but
they're great for parents with strollers, delivery
guys with dollies. I use captions all the time
when I'm watching videos on the train without
my headphones. And that's the whole goal of accessibility.
It makes the information more robust. You know,
the source lists unique slide names and presentations
as another requirement. OK, that sounds really
trivial. It does, doesn't it? I mean, why does
it matter if my slides are just named slide one,
slide two, slide three? OK, so imagine you're
navigating that slide deck without looking at
it. You're using a keyboard, listening for a
cue to tell you where you are. Right. If every
slide just announces itself as slide, You have
no landmarks. You can't jump to the conclusion
slide or the data analysis section because the
architecture has no signs. You're lost. You're
in a maze of identical rooms. That's a perfect
way to put it. It's claustrophobic. But if you
have unique names, they act like signage on the
wall. Room 101, history. It allows for independent
navigation. Independence, that's the key word.
If a student has to raise their hand and ask,
what's on this slide? because the accessibility
is broken, you've taken away their independence.
There's one other example in there that I think
people ignore. Avoiding flashing content. They
see it as just a design choice. But it's a safety
issue. Photosensitive epilepsy is very real and
it's dangerous. And even beyond that medical
risk, you know, flashing animation, spinning
text. They're cognitive loads. They're distracting.
They're distracting for students with ADHD. They
make the content harder for everyone to understand.
Good architecture is calm. It's stable. So we
have the toolkit assistive tech, which is specialized
and personal. Yep. And we have the architecture
accessibility, which is universal and structural.
So now we get to the part of the article that
I think causes the most heartburn in schools.
Whose job is this? And this is the massive shift.
For decades, inclusion was the job of the special
ed department. Yeah. If a student couldn't read
the textbook, you called the specialists. Or
you called IT to get them to install the reading
software. Exactly. But Ackerman is arguing that
IT and special ed, they own the toolkit. They
own the specialized gear. But accessibility.
That belongs to the content creator. It belongs
to the content creator. And in a school, that's
the teacher. It's the teacher. It's the curriculum
coordinator. It's the principal sending out the
weekly newsletter. Anyone who makes something.
I could just hear the collective groan of a million
overworked teachers right now. I know. They're
dealing with testing, grading, behavior. And
now we're saying, congratulations, you're also
a web compliance officer. Is that really feasible?
It is a valid pushback. We're adding another
layer. But the counter argument is what's the
alternative? Right. If a history teacher makes
a slide deck that's inaccessible, the IT guy
can't fix it. He doesn't know the history content.
He doesn't know that the picture on slide four
is a map of a famous battle and not just, you
know, a decorative picture of a field. Only the
author knows the intent. The author is the architect.
If you build the lesson, you have to build the
ramps. Ackerman does point out that publishers
have a role. Textbooks should come accessible
out of the box. But for all that teacher created
stuff, the source mentions accessibility checkers.
I've seen them in Microsoft Word and Google Docs.
Is that little check mark enough? Can't a teacher
just click check and be done with it? They're
a starting point. They're a really good starting
point, but they are not a silver bullet. OK.
And this is where we have to be careful about
compliance versus actual usability. An automated
checker can tell you, hey, this image is missing
alt text. It gives you the green check. It gives
you the green check. But it can't tell you if
the alt text says IMG5044, or if it says a bar
graph showing rising temperatures in the Arctic
Circle. So you can be technically compliant,
but functionally useless. Exactly. Computers
are good at checking syntax. They are bad at
checking semantics. The teacher still has to
use their judgment. But the tools are getting
so much better at guiding that process, they
flag things for you. So it's like a spell check
for inclusion. That's a good way to think about
it. It requires a cultural shift more than a
technical one. It moves accessibility from being
a retrofit, something we tack on at the end,
to being part of the drafting process itself.
Right, the retrofit problem. If you build a whole
course and then realize, oh, I have a blind student,
now I need to fix this, you have a mountain of
work in front of you. It's expensive. It's time
consuming. But if you build it with headers and
alt text from day one, it adds maybe maybe 3
% more effort to the creation process. It's cheaper
to pour the concrete for the ramp while you're
pouring the sidewalk than to jackhammer it all
up later. Much cheaper, and a whole lot more
welcoming. So when these two things, the toolkit
and the architecture, when they actually work
together in sync, what does that look like? The
source calls it a technology ecosystem. It looks
like flow. It's frictionless. The student walks
in with their specialized device, their toolkit.
They open the teacher's lesson, the architecture.
The device shakes hands with the file. And the
student starts working immediately. At the same
time as their peers. At the exact same time,
without having to ask for a special version,
without waiting for an aid to read it to them.
They're just another student. That's the goal,
isn't it? The invisibility of the friction. The
invisibility of the barrier, the disability is
still there, the technology is still there, but
the handicap, the disadvantage the environment
imposes on them, that's gone. Before we wrap
up, I'm going to zoom out a bit. We've been talking
about schools, since that's Ackerman's focus,
but the learner listening to this, you might
be a project manager, a developer. Yeah. This
applies to you, too. It applies to anyone who
puts information into the world. If you're a
business leader and you send out a company memo
as a flattened PDF image, you've basically told
your low vision employees this isn't for you.
Or if you have a checkout process on your website
that requires a mouse, you've just fired every
customer who navigates by keyboard. And that's
an economic reality. We talk about gatekeepers
in business, but bad accessibility is an automated
gatekeeper. It just slams the door in the face
of millions of potential users. It goes back
to that idea of intention. We think of ourselves
as open, inclusive people. But if our digital
output is closed, our intention doesn't really
matter. Impact over intent? Oh. So I want to
leave everyone with something to think about
today. We tend to think of the digital world
as this infinite open space. But based on our
conversation, it's actually filled with invisible
walls that we build ourselves. And we usually
build them just out of habit. So the next time
you're drafting an email or posting a photo or
building a slide deck, just ask yourself, am
I building a door or am I building a wall? Because
the person on the other side, they have the toolkit.
They just need you to provide the architecture.
Be a good architect. Thanks for diving in with
us. We'll see you in the next one.