Educators from Africa Talk Technology
Educational Leadership Program participants from left to right: Fiona Parker from South Africa, Mary Maragia from Kenya, Rajabu Mtunge from Tanzania, and Millicent Ayitey from Ghana.
Dressed sharply in a dark suit, Rajabu Mtunge runs his fingertips over a Talking Campus Model in the lobby of Perkins School for the Blind’s Grousbeck Center for Students and Technology (GCST). Mtunge, who is visiting from Tanzania, is one of 13 educators from around the world staying at Perkins Watertown, MA campus for the 2011-2012 Educational Leadership Program (ELP).
On a rainy Wednesday afternoon in November he and the other international educators are gathered in a GCST conference room sharing PowerPoint presentations about multiple disability education programs across Africa.
Surrounded by the new building’s cutting-edge assistive technology, Mtunge talked about challenges for future special education teachers at the Patandi Teachers College of Special Needs in Tanzania, where he is a lecturer in the college's training program on blindness and low vision.
“We need braille paper and braille machines,” said Mtunge.
Mtunge said the college needs more learning tools for students who are blind, including Perkins Braillers®. He said even when teachers have access to assistive technology and training in how to use it, they face a second challenge when the schools they end up teaching in cannot access those same tools.
The rooms of the Grousbeck Center, a world-class teacher training facility, offer a stark contrast to the classroom setups described by Mtunge and his fellow ELP participants. Controlled by iPads, which are readily accessible to people with visual impairments, meeting and training rooms at the GCST are wired for international access with a long-term vision of connecting educators around the globe through video conferencing.
Sometimes the low and high tech solutions being used at Perkins present international educators with strategies they hadn't considered. Maybe it's technology that is hard to come by in their countries due to cost but just as often assistive devices are innovative teaching aids that they can adapt by using the materials they have at home to accomplish the same goal.
Mtunge has already seen both ends of that spectrum in action. He saw students using braille notetakers – small, portable devices with braille keyboards for entering information. The machines use audio output and produce raised braille dots so a user who is blind can access the information. He also observed low tech communication solutions at Perkins, including the use of Mayer-Johnson symbols – or cards with pictures beside large text for learners who have usable vision.
“We need to know what exists so that we can advocate to get it,” Mtunge said. “I see that and I start to think, how can I get that in my country?”
Exposure to new possibilities is precisely why teachers like Mtunge leave their homes for nine months and travel across continents for the Educational Leadership Program each year. Graduates of the program become recognized experts in multiple disability education and go on to train other teachers around the world.
Mary Kwamboka Maragia intends to use what she learns in the ELP to strengthen educational services for children who are deafblind in her home country of Kenya. Maragia teaches at the Kilimani Primary School, an integrated public school. The school added a Deafblind Unit in 2002 and now serves 15 learners ages 2 to 17. It is the only facility that caters to the educational needs of students with deafblindness in Nairobi City and its surrounding provinces.
“Our learners have combined vision and hearing losses and this challenges their abilities to communicate, access information, build social relationships, and to move about safely,” Maragia explained.
Maragia said the Deafblind Unit has two Perkins Braillers for students to share. The Perkins Brailler, pen and paper to individuals who are blind, is an essential tool for communication and independence. Students who cannot access braillers face the challenge of learning to read and write using a slate and stylus, which require users to manually punch individual braille dots into paper. The dots must be made backwards (from right to left) so the imprinted words can be read from left to right.
Fiona Parker, an occupational therapist at the Arthur Blaxall School for the Blind in South Africa, said just about every child who needs one at her school has a Perkins Brailler to use in the classroom. However, the school does not have access to low vision aids such as magnifiers or video magnification (CCTVs).
The Arthur Blaxall School serves 200 students ages 5 to 19 with programs focused on academics, vocational training, and deafblindness education. As the school’s only occupational therapist, Parker said she focuses her attention on helping student’s build a strong foundation through early intervention and preschool. Parker said she uses the internet to connect with other OT’s but noted that the practice of sharing information online is uncommon since not everyone has internet access and many teachers are not computer literate.
Millicent Ayitey said even though teachers at her school in Ghana have some knowledge in using technology, they do not have internet access to share teaching strategies. Additionally, computers are not accessible to individuals who are blind because teachers cannot access training on assistive technologies like screen reading software.
Ayitey teaches children who are visually impaired with additional disabilities at the Akropong School for the Blind in Ghana. Her classroom has one Perkins Brailler but each student has his or her own slate. Ayitey is responsible for teaching math, science, English, social studies, and braille in a classroom of 13 students ages 10 to 14. She is also an assistant house mistress teaching daily living skills to 30 students.
Ayitey knows her students can achieve great things regardless of their disabilities because so many of them already have. The school has many vibrant groups including a music group, traditional dancing group, sports team, spelling bee, and essay writing group. Notable graduates of the school have gone on to become directors of organizations, lawyers, teachers, and journalists.
“I believe my students will perform creditably when supported with adequate and appropriate facilities, teaching aids, and accessible technologies,” Ayitey said. “I want to express my profound gratitude to Perkins for the opportunity to broaden my knowledge to help my school.”
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