What are the Technological Needs of Disabled Students in Turkey?

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What are the Technological Needs of Disabled
Students in Turkey?

• Fethi A. Inan
• The University of Memphis

Claire Thomas Ozel Middle East Technical
University
Celal Sezer Iller Bankasi
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• Esref Armagan
• born both unsighted
• never received any formal schooling or
  training
• draws and paints by using his hands and
  primarily oil paints.

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Facts about turkey

• Population of Turkey
• 67.8 million (as of 2002)
• Number of PC s
• 1.4 Million
• Number of cellular phone holders
• 27,887,500 (2003)
• Yearly income per capita
• 3,500
• Current Internet Users
• 5.5 million (2003)
• Literacy rate (2003)
• total population 86.5
• male 94.3
• female 78.7

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Proportion of disabled people
Proportion
Male 11.10
Female 13.45
Urban 12.70
Rural 11.67
Total 12.29
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Proportion of types of disabilities
Proportion
Orthopedic 19.65
Seeing 30.81
Hearing 20.84
Speaking 2.46
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Literacy status
Literate
Male 71.86
Female 51.99
Urban 70.42
Rural 56.56
Total 63.67
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Completed Education level
Primary Sch. (K 1-5) Middle Sch. (K6-8) High Sch. (K9-11) Higher Edu.
Male 47.21 6.98 8.98 3.10
Female 32.22 3.78 3.97 1.45
Urban 42.75 8.00 10.62 4.36
Rural 39.17 3.31 3.16 .47
Total 40.97 5.64 6.90 2.42
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Approaches to special education

• Individualistic approaches
• Functional inabilities
• Separate schools
• Social approaches
• Inappropriate environmental and social conditions
• Regular Schools

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Countries and approaches
Blind and partially sighted pupils by type of
facility ()
Italy USA Finland Turkey Hungary
Regular Class 96 68 61 44 0
Special Class 0 17 0 0 0
Special School 4 14 39 56 100
The Deaf and partially hearing pupils by type of
facility ()
Italy USA Fin Turkey Hungary
Regular class 95 55 5 12 0
Special class 1 27 11 8 0
Special school 4 18 85 79 100
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Legislation in USA

• Rehabilitation Act of 1973
• Mandated that people with disabilities have
  access to programs and services that receive
  federal fund.
• American Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990
• Required that people with disabilities have
  access to public programs and services,
  regardless of whether or not they are federally
  funded.
• Specially, individuals with disabilities enroll
  in distance learning program, course content must
  be accessible to them.

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Legislation and constitutional issues

• 1982 Turkish Constitution
• Outlaws any kind of discrimination and advocates
  equal rights for all citizens
• Pupils with disabilities should share the same
  statutory entitlement to a broad and balanced
  curriculum
• Provide free primary education and to supplement
  and aid private and corporate initiatives.
• All state schools must be financed entirely by
  the state through the Ministry of National
  Education to meet the needs of children.

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Special Education Structure in Turkey

• Primary school (K 1-8)
• Mandatory
• Directed by Government
• Separate schools
• High School (K 9-11)
• Directed by Government
• Separate schools
• University
• Facilitate by Higher Education Council
• Each university has its own SED politics
• No legal requirements

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Implications of legalities

• The government has special schools for children
  with hearing, visual, mental and physical
  difficulties
• High risk of repeating or dropping out because of
  environmental reasons and lack of resources
• Although Turkey recognizes the rights of children
  with disabilities to receive a suitable
  (comparatively equal) education, the right to
  special education has not been upheld in practice
  as required by the legislation

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SED Problems in Turkey

• Lack of resources
• Lack of expert teachers, professionals and
  administrators who are expert
• Lack of information exchange among external
  services and institutions
• Lack of collaboration between administrators,
  professionals, teachers, parents and external
  services

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Assistive/Adaptive Technologies

• Assistive Technology Any device or method which
  makes the environment more accessible to a person
  with a disability
• Assistive Computing A method which incorporates
  any method or device which makes the computer
  more accessible for a user with a disability.

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Assistive technologies can do

• Personal satisfaction
• Career opportunities
• Share information
• Study and work independence
• Fast reliable and flexible learning environments
• Compensate for the disabilities
• Environments for communication and Socialization
• Prepare people for employment

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Assistive tehnologies

• Speech synthesis (Text-to-Speech)
• Voice recognition software (Speech to Text)
• Organizational programs

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Universal Design of Instruction

• Inclusiveness
• Physical access
• Delivery method
• Information access
• Interaction
• Feedback
• Demonstration of knowledge (assessment)

We need to use the new technologies not only to
overcome existing barriers to learning, but to
design environment for learning that have fewer
barriers right from the start (Rose, 2001)
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Classroom implication Problems

• Schools dont know what technology is available
  and in what way these technologies can apply
• Teachers/instructor are not trained sufficiently
  (Actually no training)
• More costly equipment compare to regular
• There is not enough computer and computer with
  special educational technology No regulation for
  accessibility issue

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WWW

• The power of web is in its universality. Access
  by everyone regardless of disability is an
  essential aspect (Tim Lee-Berners, W3C)
• Assistive technologies make it possible for
  individuals with a wide range of disabilities to
  gain access to computer. However, most of the
  internet resources are still not accessible to
  individuals with disabilities using these
  technologies (Burgstahler, 2002)

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Problem Accessibility

• Seeing graphics
• Hearing audio
• Movement (mouse)
• Connection speed

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Suggestion for accessibility

• Maintain simple, consistent page layout
• Legitability
• Captioning or transcribing audio/video
• Make links clear and descriptive
• Use informative tag (ALT)
• Make available short cuts

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Professional establishments

• SIG in TBD
• Founded in 2002
• Activities
• Create standards
• Prepare manual and documents
• Examine new developments
• Educations Centers
• 20 education centers
• 3 internet cafe

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Professional establishments

• OKU Turkish screen reader
• Voluntarily developed
• Provides
• E-mail
• Internet browsing
• Writing (notepad)
• Clock, calendar and calculator

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Universities and disabled students

• University Entrance Exam (OSS)
• Application
• Exam format and process
• Questions
• Most of the students attend social science
  programs (Political science, Law schools)
• Only voluntarily services are available

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Bogazici University

• Audio unit at library
• Partially class books are made audio (Voluntarily
  created)
• Reader equipment
• Computers
• Each disabled student is provided with
• Talking dictionary
• Braille and speaker
• Braille calculator

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Middle East Technical University

• Audio library
• Computer
• Reader equipment
• Student club
• PROJE detaylari, activities you can add what you
  are doing now

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Conclusions

• Equal opportunities
• No separations
• Universal design of instruction
• Preservice teacher training program must become
  more familiar with assistive technologies

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Recommendation for university

• Accessibility of document, syllabus, lecture
  notes
• Presentation of content in different format
• Directing SED activities from main office
• Universal design of instruction

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Questions
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Planning Study Purpose

• Investigate the technological needs of disabled
  university students in Turkey and examine how
  assistive technologies can help them to obtain
  equal opportunities in tertiary education.

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Planning Study Questions

• What type of technologies are currently been
  using by disabled students in Turkey?
• To what extent are these technologies used by
  disabled students?
• What are the barriers which impair disabled
  students utilization of technology?

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Planning Study Instruments

• The subjects of this study will be the students
  from four universities in Ankara
• Technologies for students with disabilities
  Survey was developed and will be administered

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References

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• http//www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/
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• Jonsson, T. Wiman, R. (2001). Education,
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• SIS (2002). 2002 Turkey disability survey.
  AnkaraTurkey
• Rose, D. (2001). Universal design for learning.
  Journal of Special Education Technology. 16 (4),
  pp.64-67
• Guvenir, A. (2004). Oku 3.0.1.
  http//www.cs.bilkent.edu.tr/guvenir/oku
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  tm
• Mendels, P (1999). Barrriers online for those
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• Comden, D. Burgstahler, S. (2002). World wide
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• Burgstahler, S. (2002). Universal design of
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• Elibal, I. , Enguclu, A. , Turkeli, S. (2002).
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• Forgave, K. E. (2002). Assistive technologies
  empowering students with disabilities. The
  Clearing House, 75(3).
• Burgstahler, S. (2002). Distance learning The
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  Library Hi Tech, 20 (4), pp. 420-432 .