Briefing document Possible Uses Of PDAs For Engineering Students with Disabilities

Jon Trinder
Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering, University of Glasgow

Introduction

This report briefly discusses potential uses for Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) for engineering students, especially those with a disability.

The PDA is a small, portable handheld computer that typically comes equipped with diary and personal organiser tools. A PDA normally has the ability to synchronise and exchange data with a desktop computer and can be customised by installing extra applications, thus enabling the PDA to be utilised in many ways.

General educational uses for a PDA

A PDA may be utilised in many ways dependent on the applications installed in the device. The possible uses include using the PDA as a text book, a notepad, a dictation machine or an interactive tutor. The large number of available applications means the device is easy to customise for specific tasks. A standard PDA could be used:

As a diary/organiser for timetables.
To send and receive email (via hot-syncing with your desktop system or direct using the PDA).
To read lecture notes, web pages and course material.
As a revision tool utilising “Quiz” applications.
To carry bibliographies and reference materials.
To synchronise web browser bookmarks between desktop systems.
As a specialised calculator.
For note-taking.

PDA uses that may aid students with disabilities

The PDA can be a useful enabling technology for students with physical or cognitive disabilities. In addition to the functions listed above, specific uses that can aid those with disabilities include:

As a dictation machine (on machines with sound facilities).
As a text reader (on machines with sound facilities).
As specialist dictionaries.
Storing emergency contacts such as tutors and counsellors.

As with any technology there are extremes of price and functionality and more advanced features such as speech recognition and wireless connectivity require a more powerful and expensive machine. However a PDA does not need to be leading edge to be useful and a moderately priced PDA (£70-£200) can be utilised as a valuable learning resource.

Encouraging student collaboration

For students with communication or confidence difficulties a PDA can provide assistance via its "beaming function". Most PDAs provide a beaming facility (either via infra-red or Bluetooth technology) to enable the exchange of information both from PDA to PDA and between PDAs and other devices. Therefore in class, students can write their questions out and beam them to their colleagues or tutor. This is helpful for anyone with a speech impairment as well as those who lack the confidence to ask a question in front of their peers. The increased opportunity for communication also provides the possibility of greater collaboration between students within lectures.

The opportunities for collaboration are enriched by the wide variety of content that can be interchanged even between different types of PDA. Such collaboration by means of document exchange may be particularly valuable means of "inclusion" for students with communication difficulties.

Producing visual aids

It is said that "a picture paints a thousand words" and some PDAs and mobile phones now included a digital camera. These vary in their resolution but high resolution is not always needed, especially if the image is to be viewed on a PDA screen. The photos produced are a quick way of capturing information, and as the means of drawing diagrams onto a PDA are quite limited, a picture of a diagram may be a useful alternative.

Taking photographs during a lab demonstration or experiment is a useful memory aid and a reminder of the sequence of events. This can be particularly helpful for those with dyslexia and all students that have trouble concentrating.

The camera facilities can also be utilised for accessing areas that may not be easily reached by a disabled student, perhaps during a demonstration or field trip. The "action" could be captured by another student on a PDA and immediately viewed by the disabled student.

Many PDAs are capable of recording short movies. There is a misconception that all video content used within teaching should be to "broadcast standard", but this is not the case. A quickly produced camcorder movie is more than adequate for many purposes, and it is also more immediate.

The PDA/Camera combination may also assist with colour differentiation. For example, in electronics, many components use a colour code to indicate their value. It is possible to take a photograph of a component and alter the colour balance to help differentiate colours. This facility has also been found to be useful by electrical engineering students to "see" normally invisible infra-red signals.

Providing More Study Time

The PDA was originally conceived as an organisational aid and this is often overlooked when considering its use within education. For example, dyslexic students may have particular problems with scheduling and organising their study time. The PDAs' organisational tools can be particularly helpful for these students, allowing reminder alarms to be set for important submission deadlines, lecture times or exams.

The PDA opens up new study opportunities for all students. With many students having to work part time, their amount of available study time has been reduced. Any learning resource that can be utilised during the rare gaps in a contemporary students busy schedule is a valuable asset to them. The problem is having useful learning materials to hand when they have some spare time that could be utilised for learning. Whilst it is impractical to carry physical course materials such as text books or lecture notes at all times, it is possible to carry a large number of learning resources in a PDA. Such a portable resource has additional benefits for disabled students who may need extra time for study and reflection, and for them the PDA is able to provide additional support and assistance.

Conclusions

It is important to consider the accessibility of a PDA and its adaptability to accommodate particular disabilities. For example for those students with visual impairments and dyslexia it is useful to be able to customise interface attributes such as colour and font size. With the increased use of PDAs in many disciplines, both within university courses and the workplace, it is important that we begin to exploit the potential of these hand-held computers to the benefit of all students.

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