8th September 2007

On 8 September 2007 a day of discussion and workshops was held at Wellington College. Students, teachers, parents, and members of Wellington City Council, Manukau City Council, RNZFB, Ministry of Education, Bleenz, W3A, Squiz came together to discuss how to improve accessible education.

Purpose

To explore the possibilities for the future of education for print disabled, using internet-based technology.

Goals

To discuss how technology might advance the concept of personalised education for blind and visually impaired students.

To raise the consciousness of non-student stakeholders to the barriers currently faced by these students and show the advantages of an inclusive and flexible online model.

To update all stakeholders on the government’s current policies around personalised education, so as to fall in line with the Secondary Futures project.

Outcomes

Participants will gain a greater understanding of the working of the education system and each other’s needs, so that they can begin to work collaboratively. Cooperation is the foundation of an online model.

The Internet Liberation Consortium will obtain the raw components from which an online personalised educational model can be developed.

Participants

It is envisaged that up to 50 participants would be invited. These would include blind and visually impaired students from greater Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch. Other stakeholders may include parents, resource or support teachers, RNZFB staff, Blind and Low Vision Education Network of New Zealand (BLENNZ), Special Education, Disability Advisors from City Councils and schoolteachers.

The Day

This was planned for Saturday 8 September between 09:30 and 17:30 hours, and was held at Wellington Boys College.

Following introductions, it is envisaged that the morning will be taken up with a presentation from a government official or minister, to be followed by questions and discussion within predetermined groups.

The second session of the day was a consciousness raising exercise, led by students.

Following a working lunch, students and teachers gave presentations on what their future of education might be. The last part of the day was taken up with individual groups discussing the implementation of such a future in detail. The groups came together for a summary at the end of the day. 

Presentation

Primary facilitators will be Kylee Maloney and Kathy Olsen from Squiz, with support from Neil Jarvis of RNZFB, Bruce Aylward of Access Audit company W3A and BLENNZ.

Documents

Rose Hopkins Presentation (PowerPoint)