Editorial

Citation

Abbott, C. (2013), "Editorial", Journal of Assistive Technologies, Vol. 7 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/jat.2013.55107aaa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Assistive Technologies, Volume 7, Issue 1

As JAT moves into its seventh volume, we bring you a selection of peer-reviewed and shorter articles as well as two reviews. We begin with a paper discussing the impact of ICT services on the quality of life of older people. Lead author Jacqueline Damant from the London School of Economics writes here with colleagues Martin Knapp, Sarah Watters, Margaret Ellis and Derek King, and with Paul Freddolino from Michigan State University. The work described was completed by the members of the MonAMI Consortium representing the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, the University of Zaragoza in Spain and the Technical University of Kosice in Slovakia. Funded under the EU FP6 programme, the project worked with 69 technology users aged around 80 years. Using a mixed methods approach, the team explored the use of the MonAMI system by this group of older users. They looked in particular at five quality of life areas, and assessed the extent to which the technology was contributing to these aspects. Despite the inevitable difficulties that arose due to differences between the groups in the various countries, much was learned about the possible links between technology and quality of life for some older people.

In her paper on graphic symbol use, Katerina Mavrou looks in particular at how these can be used to develop questioning by young children. Writing with Elena Charalampous and Michalis Michaelides, her colleagues at the European University of Cyprus, Mavrou describes her work with 40 children aged around four years who were placed in either an experimental group or a control group. Both groups took part in the same instructional tasks, but the experimental group were taught through the use of graphic symbols, whilst the control group were instructed through more conventional means. Mavrou and her co-authors focus first on the growing acknowledgement of the central role of questioning in learning (even though the questions more often come from teachers than learners), and then go on to consider the extent to which symbol use enables such questioning to be more prevalent or more meaningful. Although the team did not find statistically significant change to all the variables examined, there was evidence that the use of symbols provoked more questions on the part of learners; the results on the possibility of an increase in utterance length are less clear, the authors suggesting this may be due to the limited timescale during which the experiment took place. Locating their results firmly within a design for all philosophy, Mavrou, Charalampous and Michaelides suggest that their findings have an importance related to all learners, rather than just those traditionally offered the support of graphic symbols.

Our next paper is from Anita Devi and Andy McGarry, writing about online pedagogy from the perspective of educators and those who support education. They consider the continuing rise of online learning within compulsory schooling, and the particular affordances of one proprietary system for those with learning difficulties, and for those at risk of exclusion. The case study describes the particular virtual learning environment (VLE) in use in a school, and the ways in which this is based on understandings of communities of practice. Among the issues discussed are anonymity, involvement of students and assessment for learning. Linking a number of theoretical models to the VLE in use, Devi and McGarry show it has been built with some of these in mind, and can be seen to be aligned with others. The seven key elements of the online education system are explained, and the paper concludes with a series of case studies of learners at the school, and a discussion of these.

Our final peer-reviewed paper looks forward to our next issue, 7.2, which will feature of range of selected papers from ICCHP 2012, the 13th International Conference on Computers Helping People with special educational needs. Together with my Guest Issue Co-editors for 7.2, Roberto Manduchi (UC Santa Cruz, USA), James Coughlan (Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, California, USA) and Klaus Miesenberger (University of Linz, Austria), I will be bringing you a selection of the best papers from that conference. In this issue, we have a foretaste of what is to come, in the shape of a paper by Jesus Zegarra Flores and René Farcy from Université Paris Sud, France dealing with GPS and navigation for visually impaired people in cities. Starting from the premise that GPS does not give accurate location readings if speed of movement is low, the authors describe their development of an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU). The IMU developed by the team consists of a compass, a gyroscope and an accelerometer, and this is used together with GPS within an Android smartphone. The particular difficulties faced by visually impaired users of GPS devices are described in some detail, together with an explanation of how the incorporation of an IMU attempts to alleviate some of these problems. A series of tests conducted by a blind user are discussed, and one of the key affordances identified was stability. It was also noted as important that the participant testing the device was very experienced with using other navigation aids, and was therefore able to benefit from the greater control offered by the current device. We look forward to reading more from other participants at ICCHP 2012 in our next issue.

The first short article in this issue comes from Aase Holmgaard, writing with her Danish colleague Hanne Pedersen and myself about one case study within the Animated Learning project funded by the EU and co-ordinated by the Animation Workshop in Viborg. In this case study, the authors describe how animation software offers new opportunities for several young people identified as being on the autism spectrum. In our second article in this section, William Collinge from the University of Reading presents a conceptual valuation framework designed to allow those involved with telecare to assess the social, psychological and practical effects of the use of these technologies. Suggesting the social aspects of telecare use have been given less attention than might have been the case, Collinge considers the work that has been done in this area and puts forward an outline of a valuation tool that will go some way to ensuring that socio-cultural issues of telecare use can be considered.

Also in the final section of this issue are two reviews. The first, by JAT reviews Editor Ann Aspinall, looks at the RNIB web site and in particular the information to be found there about assistive technologies. Our second review is from John Galloway, who writes about a new book about ICT in education from Sal McKeown, long an enthusiastic advocate of the use of technology by those with learning difficulties, impairments and disabilities.

Chris Abbott