EdTech: (Pt. 1) Navigating the Intersection of Accessibility, Technology, Innovation and Special Education with Joe Brazier

Discover how a former coach turned his playbook towards revolutionizing special education with technology. Joe Brazier from Microsoft's K-12 education team joins us to share his inspirational journey from the sidelines to the forefront of educational innovation. His story is one of unexpected turns, leading to a profound impact on how educators utilize tech tools to empower students with disabilities. Listen to Joe's insights on data-driven decision-making, and how it's changing the educational landscape for the better, ensuring clear communication and consistent outcomes across the board.

In an education system where one size rarely fits all, Joe walks us through his experience in the trenches of special education, evolving from analog tapes to the magic of iPads and HoloLens devices. His collaboration with Microsoft Education has not only dismantled barriers but has also played a crucial role in destigmatizing assistive technology. This chat is packed with compelling examples of how Microsoft initiatives are crafting personalized learning experiences and fostering an inclusive environment where every student can excel.

Wrapping up, Joe leaves us with powerful insights on the future of educational technology. From leveraging universal design principles to advocating for gradual adoption of new tech, Joe's perspective highlights the transformative potential of accessibility tools. His voice is a rallying cry for a future where every learner, regardless of ability, can navigate their educational journey with independence and success. Don't miss our next episode where Joe Frazier will take us through selecting the right technological aids to enrich the lives of students with disabilities.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey everyone, it's a Fast 15 plus a bonus five. Today we're excited to welcome Joe Brazier. Joe leads Microsoft's K-12 strategy on the worldwide education team. He works closely with education industry colleagues and device teams to help refine, develop and deliver Microsoft's vision for the ever-evolving landscape of K-12 education. Prior to taking this role, he spent over a decade working in special education at all levels of the K-12 system. He spent that time providing technology access and skills for students with social, cognitive and physical obstacles to the typical learning experience. This passion for equity and inclusion continues in his work building a more inclusive education experience for all. Join me in welcoming Joe Brazier to the Fast 15. Joe Brazier, so happy that you're here with us to discuss technology and ed tech and how we can meet the needs of students with disabilities.

Speaker 2: 1:02

Thank you for having me. I'm very excited and happy to have this conversation. The areas of technology and special education, and especially how we can really be creative to support all students, is something that I've held very close to my heart and kept with me along my career. So happy to have this discussion today.

Speaker 1: 1:20

Thank you. I really did want to just find out what your journey was to begin getting into the field of special education. What is that experience? Where did it start? What's the inspiration behind your journey?

Speaker 2: 1:35

Special education was not on my radar. I had the opportunity to coach at my old high school and I was doing different jobs and I wasn't going to college at the time. This is what I want to do. I want to work with students. I want to work with kids. How do I get into this? They said, well, you got to get your degree, you got to get your teaching credentials, and I'm like done. So I went back to school. The quickest route to my undergrad was a history degree, which I found out that I love, and so in doing that, I was thinking I wanted to work in schools eventually. So I should start working in schools now. And as I was looking at different assistant roles, there was this one called Para Educator, which was like a few more since more an hour. So I was like, cool, I'll go do that.

Speaker 2: 2:14

The first classroom that I walked into was an elementary school classroom as a para sub, and the teacher looked at me and she said are you the sub? You want a job? I said I don't even know what I'm doing yet. Right, the first time I walked in. But you can't see me. I'm a six foot former college athlete former, as in like decades ago now. But I would walk into these classrooms and they have these very great ladies would look at me and they would look at one of their most challenging students and they'd be like I think you can help me with that student.

Speaker 2: 2:48

But that ended up being a lot of times was a lot of data tracking on paper, a lot of these things, and I was trying to find ways to make that easier. Okay, as a person going around doing that, how can I make the most out of that and actually see, make that data makes sense a little bit easier? And so once upon a time I was just doing something as simple as taking that paper data and tally marks, putting it into Excel and using conditional formatting Okay, see, frequency data, right, and then pretty straightforward and then being able to watch the decisions made off of that was very interesting, and even the questions that are brought up was very interesting. So I kind of walked into a special ed classroom and never walked out. It wasn't on my radar. I went to.

Speaker 2: 3:29

I went to get my teaching degree to be a football coach and I have coached it zero minutes.

Speaker 1: 3:34

Really.

Speaker 2: 3:34

Of course football, because special education kind of grasps the whole to me and never let go.

Speaker 1: 3:38

That's amazing and I'm really curious about that interpretation of the data that you were collecting. One was everybody expected to do it or was that something that came innately through, kind of just how you work, how, how you want to see progress and monitor that and know what was happening with the students? Was that a classroom thing or was that a Joe thing?

Speaker 2: 4:04

Was a Joe thing and I was just a parent, so it wasn't like I was old to do anything. I was. I had all this paper and I had some time, and so I started to do that. So when I got into my own classroom within a couple of weeks of doing the same thing, I was like there's got to be not only a better way to interpret the data, but a better way to collect the data and do that, because paper gets lost very easily. So it was one of those things where it took so much off of my plate. It allowed for more accuracy and it allowed me to take the strategies that I knew were effective and leverage technology to make it really come to life.

Speaker 2: 4:40

So I had the opportunity because I worked with such challenging students to work with some very good specialists, and one that has always held. What they said was you can do anything for a week. That's right, so they have me implement new things. I can do anything for a week. And the other was getting on the same page with any and everybody collecting data on the student. So I worked very closely with a couple and it might be me and another person.

Speaker 2: 5:02

So understanding what we were collecting was important so that we were on the same page and we know what we were doing, and I took that to my classroom to have my pairs, so we would always have conversations on what does each thing mean and we'd be very clear.

Speaker 2: 5:14

That way, I could perform the interventions for the student and somebody else could collect the data, or vice versa, and we all knew what we were doing and it was very quick and easy to collect it. And so then making it from collection to visualization and interpretation and discussion was this very clean and clear path all the way across and through, and so it wasn't a directive given to me. I just saw the value and the impact of it and it made so many things easier, and the ABA therapists and the other specialists that I worked with were like we haven't seen anybody do this and I have found a quote, unquote autism app that ever set anything up like that. But it was just something that, for particular students and the things that I needed, it was leveraging the technology along with the strategy that I knew worked, just made it highly valuable.

Speaker 1: 5:59

It's so impactful hearing you have that vision for what the visualization should look like and then passing it along to the other para educators and having a team approach to have your data make sense and be taken with fidelity Right and to then inform where you were heading with the, with the students, in their progress through. Whatever curricula you were working through what, what kind of programming were you engaged in at the start? Was it a set program? Where did you find out about functional academics? What was that journey like for you as you worked through meaningful curriculum?

Speaker 2: 6:37

Well, my my first interaction with functional academics was a training that my district had purchased the curriculum and I remember meeting Candy Steyer and she loved put technology in it to kind of make it come to life.

Speaker 2: 6:51

And I kind of always remembered that, and so it was both of them working in conjunction that really built this curriculum, and it was the ABA piece of it that I kind of connected with. How can I very quickly track what's going on and then be able to ask and have a discussion about that afterwards, as opposed to collecting everything?

Speaker 2: 7:10

and have a be anecdotal and subjective. How can I very quickly get a gauge of what's going on and have that be the basis of the discussion that we can have later? And so worked with that. And then two years later, our district kind of came back together to see how we were implementing it and myself and the two other teachers were doing it all different, Lee Right. So it's like, oh, we needed to kind of be a bit more on track with this. But I think I took more of an ABA approach because I had several of those working in my classroom or coming into my classroom.

Speaker 2: 7:40

So, that data collection piece of it was always a key component and a key piece for me of how can I do that within this curriculum much quicker, much easier, at all times, anywhere, everywhere, all at the same time.

Speaker 1: 7:53

What a powerful story that you're telling in your own journey, for how a paraeducator with the vision for data collection to inform the instructors what a value add that you had to the whole team in the classroom. So take us from the classroom and can you tell about that bridge to really what you're doing now? You were in the classroom for was it how many years? Nine.

Speaker 2: 8:21

I was a total. It was about a decade and a half, but I spent years as a para and then I had I was certified for in my own classroom for seven, before it's starting to try to move on to admin and in different opportunities. So, but that early connection to technology, to use things, had me always looking for what was available. What could I do to build skills with my students? How could I do the things that we're doing much more efficiently? Instead of grabbing tape, cassette and putting them in a thing and having kids sit with with headphones, maybe we could use iTunes and we would have iPads at the time and we could always have access to all the things that the students needed at all times. And so it was always looking for things that we could use.

Speaker 2: 9:02

So that connection kind of brought me to somebody who I knew that worked at Microsoft Education and we had several discussions and then I went on. A weird rant went. I don't know if it's a rant. I sent him a discombobulated voicemail when I first saw the HoloLens and I had a couple students who were going to be coming to my classroom the following year on the spectrum, needed visual schedules, and you know if I could do anything to not have to print out, laminate Velcro things to my wall. I wouldn't have done anything for that.

Speaker 1: 9:34

And.

Speaker 2: 9:34

I remember sending him a voicemail saying I don't know how much this HoloLens thing costs. I said you got to get me to. I've got the perfect student for it. And I essentially laid out an education pitch for a tool and a product that wasn't designed for education, especially for special education, because there's a whole idea that we have to get our students to adapt to the world. And what if we could adapt the world to our students? What if I could get them to move about the world the way that they're used to? And I could just augment. And I think we're all kind of, at this point, familiar with augmented reality, with things like that, and even the.

Speaker 2: 10:07

Vision Pro quest or the Vision Pro that Apple has out now, were accustomed to that idea of placing things in the world, that you will always be there for me and really personalizing it for me. But it wasn't something that was really talked about back then. So he later told me after I've been working with him for a year he's like that was one of those things that I needed, somebody who he thought about, not just cutting edge technology, but technology in general, and how do we bring it into this education space with a very student-centric approach.

Speaker 1: 10:36

Right and now. That's innovative. That is where we need to go and that's how we make it really person-centered. I know that Microsoft is a trailblazer in their accessibility tools, so can you highlight for me and for our listeners some of the key initiatives or projects that Microsoft is working on or that you're doing? What is that looking like right now for individuals with disabilities, and what is that intersection of technology and accessibility? How is that transforming the learning experience for our community that we're wanting to serve?

Speaker 2: 11:10

I think that there's a lot of very cool things that are going on, and I want to try to focus them into two areas.

Speaker 2: 11:17

One in removing stigma and the other in removing barriers. And that idea of removing stigma is that when everybody has access to it, when it's built in and not an additional add-on, when it's the same device, the same look, and you have access to a wealth of accessibility tools and modification abilities built into there, then nobody feels like they're set of courage, nobody feels like they are marginalized and nobody feels like, oh well, I need this separate, different thing in order to do what you're doing, so I'm not as good or I'm different than anyone else. I always think about syndrome from the Incredibles who said when everybody is special, then no one is. So if everybody has access to the tools and everybody can do it, then you don't feel like you're less than because you need other tools. It's just I'm using the same device and these tools are built in just like anybody. I'm not a lot of y'all. They may need it, I may not, it's all the same. So that's one thing, and we've got a lot of tools like our immersive reader and our accessibility features that are in the settings that many people don't know about. But it allows you to augment your interaction with the tools in a way that doesn't mean you need something different, right? Even being able to control it with your eyes without needing a different device is a great tool that you can do. The other one is removing barriers right. Being anybody be able to interact with the technology, whether it is I need to use my eyes, I need to use my voice, I need to use a set of switches. I need something else is thinking holistically about how we remove those barriers for people, and in thinking of that, one of the barriers to helping students and helping get those interventions be productive and helping students grow and accelerate their learning is that access to data right.

Speaker 2: 13:07

How do we remove those barriers to being able to see and track and monitor how our students are doing? And that's where something like our learning accelerators comes in. Student reads on their own in front of their computer. All that data, all that information comes to the teacher. I can update it, change it, review it. I can now track it, but I didn't have to pull the students out of the class into the hallway In order to assess it Exactly, and so what we're seeing is that when I did this in the last school that I worked at, we assessed all the students and they're reading to get them grouped into the right students and it was an elementary school took two and a half.

Speaker 2: 13:43

Okay. What we're seeing with something like reading coach and learning accelerators is people are doing it a couple of times a week, and so kids are. You're tracking much more regularly and that removing barriers to accessing data that you can make decisions on is not gone, but it's removing those. So you can see it more often, you can adjust it more often, you can see how the students are growing. They're like they had a dip, but they grew, they accelerated, they moved to this group, they moved to that group. That way, you don't feel that, oh, I'm in a remedial reading group is a life sentence. You are now able to move the cabin. You're now able to move about the country freely and do the things that you want to do and drive your own learning.

Speaker 1: 14:23

All of the students are being assessed the same way, right? I mean, that's, that's exactly what you're saying. Without the pullout, we're not singling out where we're including in and and make it, making it a whole group activity, whole group experience and Access equally across across the student population we're working with and the other thing that where they're, the stigma really gets removed, is really interesting Because you reminded me and sir saying not getting through getting assessed on the same thing.

Speaker 2: 14:50

Yes is you can have the same story leveled for students, right? Because as a middle school special education teacher, with always difficult, how do I find something that is similar to what the other students are reading, but at the level that students needed that? How do?

Speaker 2: 15:04

I do that, and that's one of the really exciting things that I think we have the opportunity to look at moving forward is Giving that content, giving that reading story and putting it at the level, the reading level the students at, so that they feel included, so that they are keeping track of the same story, so that they can have those conversations with their peers right?

Speaker 1: 15:23

Yes, I love that and and hopefully we'll be able to get some links that for people to find out more information about those things, we'll link those into the show notes and Make sure that is widely Understood and known, or just people have access to those tools and really learning more about what's available to them, right? Well, I wanted to ask you this too. So, in the realm of functional academics and skill development, how do you see Technology contributing to the greater independence of Individuals with disabilities? I want to know kind of what your specific ideas with, with tools or features that that are out there Designed to enhance functional academics and daily living skills. What, how do you see? How do you see technology and independent living?

Speaker 2: 16:13

The executive functioning piece.

Speaker 2: 16:15

Yes and I'm thinking of executive function is one of the things in my head because there's all these things around. What is it that I need to accomplish today and how do I go about doing? Is it just that process right there or something that it worked very closely with students and some where I was able to pick it up pretty easily. Others needed more support and I even work with my own high schoolers on that. They were very academically Gifted, very good.

Speaker 2: 16:42

Sometimes there's a struggle to make sure that you know how do I set up this thing for success. I have a project, how do I go about it? And so we'd see that a lot with some of our students of they don't initiate right, they don't get started. Transitions are difficult and even just being able to know what do I have going on and how do I get going Is difficult. So I I often remind people of Microsync as a productivity company, that to help with that and it's not just the computer, but you know, I think something like co-pilot that's built into Windows specifically is one of those things that can really help. And you you think about hey, play some music for me or I need to focus. Let me get it in a focus mode and then you, it does the things for you that you normally would snaps your windows, puts it in dark mode, it plays your playlist to get you going, so that those are three things you don't have to do and get distracted while doing. You can just have that going.

Speaker 2: 17:37

I think about the functional aspect of speech. To text it texts a speech, conversational. People are like oh well, this app doesn't have it. It's like well, it's built into the operating system, so if you can type anywhere, your voice can do that. Your voice can type there for you. And so I think about the many different ways that we interact with and communicate with others, which should be able to interact with and control and leverage our devices to do the things that we need them to do.

Speaker 2: 18:05

Technology has advanced to a place to where it becomes really easy. It advanced to a place to where touchscreen became the primary motive of interacting with things. That works for many people, but not everyone. Maybe you need a switch and a macro and a set of shortcuts. Maybe you need to use your eyes, maybe you need to use your voice or some combination of that, but it should be very much personalized for you. It should not be unexpected. I have this device here and I type with my fingers. It should be. The device is your window into engaging with the world and the things that you need to do and so thinking functionally about and even, like occupational therapists, think about helping students interact with the world. I think helping them figure out how to interact with their technology and the jobs that that opens up is important. Being able to get past that can you do this thing to? What are the skills you actually hold? It is an important part. Looking for it functionally.

Speaker 1: 18:59

That's so well said, joe. We want to make sure that we're always keeping all of these things in mind. What do we need to do to make sure that we're teaching functional skills meaningfully, leading toward the greatest level of independence? Yes, well, listeners, that's it for today's episode of the Fast 15. But real quick, let's remember just a few key points from Joe's discussion with us today.

Speaker 1: 19:24

Number one if everybody has access to the tools and everybody can do it, then you don't feel like you're less than because you need other tools. And then, number two, he also said if you design something for one, you can be designing for all. And then, number three don't be afraid to just try some tools slowly if you're new to technology, and just get a vision for what a functional future looks like. Well, you guys, I hope you have a great day and we will check in next week with our second part with Joe Frazier on educational technology used with special education and finding the right accessibility tools to make life functional and meaningful for an independent future. A heartfelt thank you to our generous sponsors, specially designed education services, publishers of the Functional Academics Program, please take a moment to learn more about the only true comprehensive functional academics program that enables students with moderate to severe disabilities to improve their ability to live independently and show meaningful growth, both academically and personally, while creating accountability with data-driven, evidence-based results. Visit sdesworkscom to learn more.