Category Archives: Disruptive Innovation In Education

Creating an AAC Communication Game-plan

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Russ Ewell| Leave a comment

“What you want is a real talisman, a magic something you think I conjured up to coax Temple into joining life, as you hope your child will.  There was no magic; there was just doing the best I could.  That’s the point; that’s the talisman.”

Eustacia Cutler, A Thorn in My Pocket

I am grateful to special needs parents like Eustacia Cutler, the mother of Temple Grandin.  Ms. Cutler tells her story of raising Temple in the book titled “A Thorn in My Pocket”.   It is a story lived out in the 1950’s, long before the disability rights so many of us take for granted today.   Her story is similar to those of other courageous parents, who have made so many of today’s advances possible.

 Creating A Different Future

In our personal journey of building a special needs family, we have met countless parents like Ms. Cutler.  These are those who were told upon birth to institutionalize their children, but chose instead to create a different future for them.  They overcame extraordinary personal and societal pressures to build the best life possible for their children.

Overcoming Human Limits

All of these parents deserve our gratitude and admiration, because their pioneering efforts laid the foundation for the disability rights we enjoy today.  They are the one’s who made advocacy and inclusion possible.  The wonderful technologies, which help those with disabilities overcome their human limits, wouldn’t exist without them.

The Best Life Possible

I have been reflecting on the many lessons passed on to my wife and I from parents like these.   One thing seems clear; these parents met their differences and difficulties with resilience and creativity.  They viewed the future through the eyes of hope, and then worked with determination to make their dreams come true.

What were those dreams?

Giving their children the best life possible.

Raising a Verbally Challenged Child

As I ponder all of this, it is hard to imagine the difficulties faced by families whose children did not speak in the 1950’s.   We don’t hear as much about children with verbal challenges.

 For those of us with children who fall into this category inspiration can be elusive.  The future can be frightening.  Temple Grandin’s story might only take us for far, but then we must remember, it is the resilience, creativity, and determination that make her story an inspiration.

 Considering the immense challenge of raising a verbally challenged child with special needs in the 1950’s makes me grateful for today.  It makes me particularly grateful for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC).  One can only imagined what the parent of yesterday could have done with today’s tools.

This imagining led me to apply the lessons learned from those who have gone before us to making today’s tools work.  What could the parents, doctors, therapist, and teachers who we have learned from over the last 20 years teach all of us about helping our kids use AAC?

I came up with 8 questions to answer based on the wisdom of those who have gone before us.

 

  1. What is AAC?
  2. When should we start?
  3. Where do we begin?
  4. Who does what?
  5. When will they talk?
  6. How do we make progress?
  7. What if it doesn’t work?
  8. How can we afford this?

 

My upcoming post’s will seek to answer these questions based on what I have learned and seen from others.    By applying these lessons, I am confident each one of us will be able to create an AAC communication game plan for our children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted in Breakthrough Ideas, Disruptive Innovation In Education, Hacking Autism

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Could Apple Revolutionize Special Education?

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Russ Ewell| Leave a comment

Let’s take just one stakeholder example: students with disabilities, as well as their teachers and parents. Autism advocate and software developer Russ Ewell from the Hope Technology Group is excited. “Apple could unlock another door for autism with this breakthrough,” Ewell said. “Parents could create social story books.” So could special education teachers or therapists, tailored for each student.

Tim Carmody, What’s Wrong with Education…

Tim Carmody has written an extraordinary article about the future of education and publishing.  I will have additional comments about this subject in the future, especially after Apple’s announcement.  What thrilled me was the quote he used – a quote belonging to me.

I was dreaming about a publishing platform created by Apple, which might allow any parent to create social stories for their kids.  Imagine parents, teachers, and therapist being able to work together developing social story books for their kids.  Volumes helping them with every stressful event, difficult social situation, or simply helping them understand emotions.

If Apple does something like this…a garageband of ebooks – along with the iPad, they would be taking another disruptive step toward revolutionizing special education.

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Posted in Breakthrough Ideas, Disruptive Innovation In Education, Fast Reads

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The Tyranny of Routine

Posted on January 1, 2012 by Russ Ewell| Leave a comment

The lazy man works twice as hard.  My mother told that to me, and now I say it to my kids.  If you’re writing an essay, keep it in the lines and in the margins so you don’t have to do it over.

Gary Oldman, Esquire Magazine, What I’ve Learned, December 16, 2011

Technology is not magic.  We can place it in the classroom, but without seamless integration into the curriculum, and innovative application, we might as well be using number 2 pencils.

When it comes to innovation, educational institutions are not very different from other organizations.   Change is hard and routine can often  be the enemy of progress.  This is true of education, whether it is at home or in the classroom.

Whether you are a parent like me, or a teacher, it is important for us to understand the dangers of routine.   Routine can choke innovation.

How can this happen?  Those who parent or teach can use routine for themselves, but fail to understand its impact on those they are attempting to educate.  For instance, we often use routines to keep ourselves from feeling out of control.

  1. Routine can keep us from being overwhelmed
  2. It helps us feel in control
  3. It helps us feel secure
  4. It protects and shelters us from the uncertainty of change
  5. It keeps things moving even though we are uninspired
  6. It allows us to reuse the old, rather than develop the new
  7. It limits how much we have to prepare

Routines tyrannize our lives.  We become dependent on them to keep our lives sane, and when innovation requires that we set them aside, we are unable to do it.  When this happens routine becomes destructive.

  1. Routine makes no breakthroughs
  2. It has no vision
  3. It sees no need for innovation
  4. It stifles creativity

Here is some questions I am asking myself.

  1. What routines are keeping me from making breakthroughs?
  2. What routines are keeping me from utilizing technology to help my children make breakthroughs?
  3. What routines are preventing my children’s teacher’s from making classroom breakthroughs?

These are just a few musings on routine.  They have been helpful to me, and I hope they are helpful to you.

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Posted in Breakthrough Ideas, Disruptive Innovation In Education, Educational & Social Leadership, Educational Innovation, Fast Reads

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Reflections on Hacking Autism

Posted on October 15, 2011 by Russ Ewell| Leave a comment

Americans’ entrepreneurial self-esteem is now embodied by Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon. These are indeed fabulously innovative companies with world-beating business models. Yet one wonders if they are increasingly the exception, not the rule, and if the passing of Mr Jobs is simply the most prominent example of a broader decline in American entrepreneurship.

Steve Job’s and America’s Decline, Economist

One day after the death of Steve Job’s, the prognosticators at the Economist looked into their intellectual crystal ball.  Apparently, they saw the decline of American entrepreneurship.

Six days after the death of Steve Job’s, I attended an initiative called Hacking Autism.  What I saw there was in direct contradiction to the argument made by the Economist.

I saw a garage.  Let me explain.

The Garage Mentality

In 1993, my wife and I moved to Silicon Valley.  We discovered the garage, which is more mentality than place.  The mindset of the garage, “if we can dream it, we can build it.“

Nothing is impossible in the garage.

We adopted and applied this mentality to our own life.  Raising children with special needs, we decided to leverage technology’s potential for helping them overcome their human limits.

When multi touch arrived on the scene, our family became early adopters.  The first useful multi-touch tool we discovered was the HP TouchSmart.  We created our own garage of discovery around it.  Our experiences lead to an incredible story, which is too long for this space.

This story allowed us to be part of the budding partnership between HP, Goodby Silverstein (GSP), and Hope Technology School (HTS).   These inspired partners joined with Autism Speaks and the Flutie Foundation to create Hacking Autism.

Hacking Autism would put the Garage of discovery and possibility, in the service of every family with autism.

 

 

The Garage Building Business

Phil Mckinney and Kayla Takeuchi

Doing the obvious is what everyone expects.

Phil Mckinney, CTO HP Personal Systems Group

I didn’t know what to expect, when I arrived at the HP Executive Briefing Center to attend Hacking Autism.  Hacking Autism had been the brainchild of Goodby Silversetin.  HP partnered with them, and was now hosting the actual event.   Autism Speaks and the Flutie Foundation were sponsoring it.   Phil Mckinney, the CTO of HP, had become a driving force, because of his passion for the cause, so he was the chief spokesperson (unofficial chief inspiration officer).

I was with one of the engineer’s who helped me develop an Android App called Quick Talk, which was inspired by the idea of Hacking Autism.  We were very small people, irrelevant by comparison, and walking into the room I felt our smallness.

It didn’t take long for my insecurity to be replaced by excitement.  Phil Mckinney described his vision for Hacking Autism, and the electricity of his passion spread like a contagion.  He described an open, collaborative, and empathetic vision.  We would tap into the generous community of software engineers, educators, advocates, and parents, to help those with autism find their voices and reach their potential.

 Mr. Mckinney believed Hacking Autism was a viral idea, which needed to be spread.  Anyone, anywhere, with a heart for autism, would work together with likeminded partners to create great software.  Already groups as close as New York, and as far away as Sweden were preparing to launch their own versions of the event.

 As I listened to Mr. Mckinney, and talked with other participants, it became clear, we were being mobilized and given the freedom to invent.  We were tasked with creating three apps, all of which would be free of cost.  In the future, anyone could take the code, and customize the apps on their platform of choice, as long as the final product was free.

 I looked around at all the amazing people in the room and realized, we were entering the garage building business.   Hacking Autism was going to inspire people around the world to get in the garage and invent.

 

Get In The Garage

Russ Ewell and Phil McKinney

“Today is about making technology that gives people a voice, and the ability to participate.

Phil Mckinney, CTO Hewlett & Packard

I almost missed Hacking Autism.  I almost failed to get in the garage.   On the day of Hacking Autism, I had a very important meeting, and was uncertain about my attendance.   Two things happened to remove the uncertainty, and get me in the garage.

 First, Anne Finnie of HP contacted my wife to make sure I was going to be there.   Anne was representative of the HP employee’s involved.  For them this was not about HP, but about bringing the right people together to launch Hacking Autism.

Interestingly enough, this unselfish desire to contribute to the community without concern for profit was very much HP, the old HP of Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard.  I found this original HP culture very much alive in my time at Hacking Autism.

Set out to build a company and make a contribution, not an empire and a fortune.

Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard

The next thing to happen might have been arranged by the ghosts of the garage, because my important meeting was rescheduled.  I was free to attend.

Without Anne’s persistence, and the rescheduling of the meeting, I might have missed Hacking Autism.  This would have been unfortunate, because at Hacking Autism my eyes were opened to the possibilities of the garage.

If I had missed Hacking Autism…

I would never have met the delightful team from Autism Speaks.  I was both amazed and inspired by how hard they are working to give a large organization the common touch.   They were interested in our story, our software, and began talking partnership right away.  This is their mission, to bring people together to make progress in the effort to overcome autism.

I would never have seen the heart of Silicon Valley on display, in the faces of incredibly talented and unselfish engineers, who came together to invent solutions for people with autism.

I would have missed the completion of a story, where the passionate employees of Goodby Silverstein, turn the inspiration of one child’s breakthrough, into a global idea called Hacking Autism.

I left Hacking Autism determined to remain involved, and encourage others to join us in the garage…where American Entrepreneurship continues to burn bright.

 

 

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Posted in Breakthrough Ideas, Disruptive Innovation In Education, Educational & Social Leadership, Hacking Autism, Quick Talk

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