- Well, it certainly wasn't something I thought about
growing up, or in college in Ann Arbor Michigan,
none of this came to the forefront till I had a child
with a disability.
(upbeat piano music)
Part of what we need to do is come up with a vision for
what was his life gonna be like?
And my wife and I thought long and hard about that,
and the thing that kept coming to the forefront,
is that he would feel like he belonged.
Think of who you are as a person, now, you have a job,
but you also have hobbies, and interests, and passions,
and a lot of that was formed growing up,
not just through the academic experience of school,
but through the social and emotional experience of school.
Being with lots of different kinds of kids, and people,
and learning to be challenged in your presumptions,
and learning that diversity is a broad spectrum of people.
Unless you live that diversity day in and day out,
I don't think you ever grasp that,
and I don't think you ever develop socially and emotionally
the way that you need to.
To belong when you're a child that uses a wheel chair,
that has a significant speech disorder,
and other challenges, you need to be in a community
that believes that all people belong in your schools,
in your extra curricular activities,
that all kids can learn, that all kids can go on to college,
and when you think about that level of accessibility,
you're talking about every part of our society.
So, thankfully we're in a community that believes that
kids with disabilities belong in general education
because 30 years of research shows that inclusive
education for kids with disabilities yields better
outcomes academically, socially, in terms of their jobs,
in terms of their access to college.
(happy music)
Access, accessibility, inclusivity, has to be a lens that
you start from the very beginning, when you're thinking
about what software to purchase, how do you write code,
who do you work with on your team, can we bring in a more
diverse team of people to think about this,
can we beta test our projects with people who have different
challenges and different abilities?
Once you have that lens of inclusivity and accessibility,
you start looking at all different aspects of our society
and saying hmm, is this really designed
in the best possible way?
Is it the most universally designed technology?
I think that IT folks, first they have to have that
motivation, they have to believe that college is a place
for all learners, and there are increasingly students
of all different kinds of abilities and disabilities
going to college.
They're actually 270 programs around the country
at universities that are specifically geared towards
bringing more students with disabilities
into the college environment.
So, once you have that lens and that motivation,
then you think, how am I gonna universally design
the technology from the beginning,
especially when you have the opportunity to take on
new projects and build new infrastructure,
if that's your lens from the beginning, you're gonna save
so much work in terms of trying to retrofit down
the line to meet new ADA requirements,
or new accessibility requirements.
(upbeat banjo music)