Read Seale Chapter 12 Individual responses to accessibility: tools, activities and contradictions. Make notes in response to the following questions:
- Seale identifies six potential areas for conflict or contradiction within an organisation or activity system. What potential contradictions exist in your organisation and why?
In my own organization there are the subject, object, community and tools. There are the teachers who are responsible in delivering knowledge to the students and they are also responsible to help disabled students too and make their learning resources as accessible as possible. Without the teachers then it will not be possible to deliver knowledge using another role, i.e. learning technologist. As all the roles have to work together in order to successfully deliver the knowledge and make their resources available to their students. There are the tools; however, the legislation is not so strict from what I am experiencing. Maybe this is due to the fact that in my school there are no disabled students in that extent as to need assistive technology to help teachers to make their resources accessible. There is only one kid that just cannot concentrate in the classroom properly but they take it away in a separate classroom when needed. Not the best way though of treating such a kind of situation. The community exists but in a very small part that includes the students themselves, support services and Principal of the school. This is due to the fact that by employing learning technologists, staff developers etc will cost more money to the government. Thus, they might have very few specialists who have to control each and every school in Cyprus. I am not sure about this point, but I am talking from my own experience.
- How helpful is it to conceptualise the development of accessibility within your organisation as an activity system?
From the one hand, it would definitely be helpful, but on the other hand it will not be as there are areas that my own school does not actually fulfill, i.e. rules and division of labour.
Do you think that Figure 12.1 on page 165 would be useful as a trigger for discussion within your organisation?
Having examined the figure I can say that it would have been useful but not many things could be made in order to apply something in the school I am working. However, it would give an idea to the Principal of the school about this accessibility matter that will one day become more formal in the evaluation of this system. I think that if this was presented to the Minister of Education in Cyprus it would have been better to see other views of this matter but still it would be very difficult to do something.
Would it enable you and your colleagues to identify what changes or developments are needed and why they are needed?
It is a very helpful figure in helping us identifying these changes or developments and the reasons why these changes should be applied in the school in order to achieve our objectives regarding accessibility issues.
Comments
When the Boundary Excludes the Problem - Contradictions in an Accessibility System
Reading back through older posts for inspiration, this one stayed with me. The most striking thing here is structural rather than technical. The author says there are no disabled students in the school "in that extent as to need assistive technology." That is a boundary claim. The system has defined itself around the absence of the problem rather than the presence of the need. This produces the contradiction the activity system is designed to expose. The tools (legislation, assistive technology, learning technologists) exist outside the boundary because the object (accessible learning) has been defined narrowly enough to exclude them. The community is small because the funding structure makes it small. The rules are weak because enforcement would require someone to enforce them. These are not independent failures. They are the same structural contradiction appearing in different parts of the triangle. The point about the Principal being shown Figure 12.1 is where the leverage sits. The figure does not solve the problem. It makes the system visible. That is the precondition for any change. A system that cannot see its own contradictions will reproduce them indefinitely. The honest limitation the author identifies - that the model is helpful but the school does not fulfil all its elements - is not a criticism of the model. It is the finding. The gaps are the analysis. Regards,
Russell Larke
BA (Hons) Business Management | MSc Candidate (Systems Thinking)
Trading Beyond Charts