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Panelists: Brian Norton, Josh Anderson, Belva Smith
ATFAQ186 – Q1. Elopement and Location Tracking, Q2. Programmable Smoke Detector, Q3. Adaptive Laser Pointer, Q4. Indoor wayfinding, Q5. Wildcard: Do we need to know how to use a computer?
—————- Transcript Starts Here ——————-
Speaker 1:
I have a question.
Speaker 2:
Huh?
Speaker 1:
Like, what?
Speaker 3:
I’ve always wondered…
Speaker 4:
What about?
Speaker 5:
Do you know?
Speaker 6:
I have a question.
Speaker 7:
I’ve always wondered…
Speaker 1:
I have a question.
Speaker 3:
I have a question.
Speaker 8:
Oh, I have a question.
Speaker 9:
I have a question.
Speaker 10:
I have a question.
Brian Norton:
Welcome to ATFAQ, Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions with your host, Brian Norton, director of Assistive Technology at Easterseals Crossroads. This is a show where we address your questions about assistive technology, the hardware, software, tools and gadgets that help people with disabilities lead more independent and fulfilling lives. Have a question, you’d like to answer it on our show, send us a tweet with the hashtag ATFAQ. Call our listener line at 317-721-7124 or send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. The world of assistive technology has questions and we have answers. Now let’s jump into today’s show. Hello, and welcome to ATFAQ, Episode 186. My name is Brian Norton, and I’m the host of the show. We are so happy that you’ve taken some time to tune in with us this week. We’ve got a great lineup of assistive technology questions for you today. But before we jump in, I want to take a moment to go around and introduce the folks who are here with me. First is Belva. Belva is our vision team, lead with our clinical assistive technology team. So Belva, do you want to say hi?
Belva Smith:
Hey, everybody.
Brian Norton:
We also have Josh. Josh is the manager of our clinical assistive technology program and popular host of the AT Update Podcast, another one of our podcasts here at the INDATA program at Easterseals Crossroads. Josh, you want to say hi?
Josh Anderson:
Hey, everybody. Welcome back.
Brian Norton:
Excellent. Excellent. Hey, I want to talk about the show and provide people who are new listeners just a little bit of information about how the show works. So we gather up feedback and we come across assistive technology questions every week, and we try to form that and put that into a show. We handle about four or five questions a week. If you have a question, if you have an assistive technology question, give us a call or send us an email or send us a tweet. We’ve got easy ways to get us your information. You can call our listener line, that’s 317-721-7124. You can email us at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or you can send us a tweet with the hashtag ATFAQ. Again, we’re not just looking for your questions, but we also want your feedback.
If you’re a listener, let us know. If you have any more information about answers that maybe that we haven’t shared on the show, so when we have questions, we’re really trying to provide well-rounded answers to the folks who call in. So whatever you have, might be a great thing to add to the show and to be able to provide to that person. So please share your knowledge and information with us. We do love to get that feedback and to hear from you. So without further ado, I do want to bring up one bit of feedback. Someone left us a voicemail and so we’re going to go ahead and play that, and to start out our show today,
Speaker 14:
Hey, blind guy down in Florida. I just felt compelled to tell you how great the show is. It’s really been awesome lately and on point and interesting to me specifically. Congratulations on another year and thank you for all you do. I’m not in Indiana, never been to Indiana, no intention on going to Indiana, and I just want you to know that it means a world to me. Just, thanks.
Brian Norton:
Excellent. Excellent. Hey, we love to hear from our listeners, and thank you for encouraging us in what we do and the work that we’re doing here with our podcasts. So just a bit of feedback this morning and want to thank you for that all the way from Florida joining us today, so thank you. Without further ado, we’re going to jump into our first question today. The first question is an email from Caitlin. She was wondering if we would have any devices that are good for location tracking due to the possibility of elopement. They take their tablet with them most places. However, if the weather doesn’t allow for that, they won’t. They’re unable to tolerate bracelets or necklaces. The particular person that they’re talking about can’t tolerate those types of devices. I thought I would reach out and see if your assistive technology department had any suggestions or devices that I didn’t think of. Please let me know and thank you.
Belva Smith:
Well, I’m not sure what Caitlyn thought of ’cause she didn’t let us know. So the only thing that popped into my mind right away was the AirTag holders because you can get those for your soles of your shoe, put them on the inside. You don’t even know they’re there. How well they would work, I don’t really know if it gets hot and sweaty, would that interfere with their ability to communicate the way you want them to? But they could also be tied to the shoe lace of a shoe or attached to the shoe lace, and those are very inexpensive. They’re under 20 bucks on Amazon. That was the first thing that I thought of was the AirTag.
Josh Anderson:
Belva, I jumped straight to that too, just mostly ’cause of cost. I know everything else is usually a little bit more expensive, but those, especially if you already use iDevices, then that’s a great way. I believe you can even set up geofencing and things like that with those AirTags if you want to get more in depth so that you know if someone leaves a certain location, school or day program or wherever it is they’re supposed to be, you can know as soon as they leave and not just exactly where they are. Along those same lines, Brian, what was the old one, Tile? Is that what was before AirTags?
Belva Smith:
Yep.
Josh Anderson:
Are those even still around?
Brian Norton:
Yep.
Belva Smith:
Yes.
Josh Anderson:
‘Cause I’ve known-
Belva Smith:
Yeah.
Josh Anderson:
Okay.
Belva Smith:
Yeah.
Josh Anderson:
‘Cause I’ve known folks before, not so much for elopement but just for knowing where people are to use those kind of things in a backpack or something else, just to know where the individual is. Then it’s also nice because then if something does happen to their backpack, well you’ve got that in there also. But I know if you’re looking for more of a all encompassing device that’s made maybe a little bit for this, I know the AngelSense is a big one that a lot of folks use. They have two different kinds of solutions available. One is more of a watch kind of thing, so of course, you wouldn’t really want that one more than likely.
But they also have a wearable GPS, which I believe can be put in a lot of different ways. So you can actually sew it into stuff. You can make it to where it’s not removable, facet it to things, all kinds of different stuff that you might be able to do to. Comes with little, I think what they’re called fasteners or magnetic locks so you have a little key, you lock it on something and it can’t really go away. I believe this also has a two-way information, so if they’re somewhere they’re not supposed to be, you can actually have two-way conversation with the person through the device.
With that, though, the device itself runs between a couple of hundred dollars and free just depending on if there’s a deal going on. But then there is an annual or monthly plan associated with that, which I think runs a little more than $40 a month give or take. So that AngelSense definitely does have elopement alarms, warnings, GPS tracking, other things and it’s more made for this kind of need. But as Belva brought up, the first thing, AirTags are a little bit less expensive for the device and the whole way to make it work than something like this would be just on a monthly basis. So it just depends on what exactly you need, but there are different ones that do not have to be a watch, a necklace, a bracelet or something that even consciously has to be taken with an individual every day.
Brian Norton:
I do love the option for using the AirTags. The AirTags, there are lots of different ways to attach them to things. I think, Belva, alluded to that, like keychains. There’s wallets that you can put them in. They’re small enough that you could probably sew them into different types of clothing too. It wouldn’t be too much of a problem to do some of that stuff. AngelSense, Josh, you mentioned that one. That’s a really popular one and used by a lot of folks. A couple other ones, we have one here in our library, our loan library. It’s called Trax Play. It’s a small rectangular device. It’s not very big, maybe the size of a couple of quarters and it can be threaded in through your shoestrings. It can be put into a little pouch on your waist. You don’t have to wear it necessarily on a wristband or a necklace or those kinds of things, although you could probably do that, but it does provide real time GPS tracking.
There’s another one that’s really simple and very similar to that one. It’s called GeoZilla, GPS Tracker, so G-E-O-Z-I-L-L-A. It costs about 150 bucks for the device, so it’s an expensive upfront cost, but then I don’t believe there’s monthly charges with that. You may have to check on the durability and those kinds of things, but it’s about the size of a quarter, so it’s super small. It’s about the size of your AirTags, your Apple AirTags, and so you might look at that one as well. A lot of these types of devices are made for the phone where you track them on the phone. In this particular case where they don’t want to take their tablet and they can’t tolerate bracelets and necklaces, a lot of the things go out the window and you have to look at some other solutions.
To Belva’s point earlier, AirTags are super inexpensive. You can get them pretty easily and pretty quickly. You might start there because of how inexpensive they are and if that works, great. If not, you might look at some of the other options. I mentioned our loan library. That loan library, you could borrow the Trax Play for 30 days, check it out, or at least get a demo, a demonstration of that device to be able to see how that actually works, see if it works for you. So we do short-term loans. You can borrow things for 30 days free of charge, helping you make an informed decision on whether that device will work for you or not. So if you’re interested in borrowing that, you can reach out to us. You can reach out to us at eastersealstech.com. If you are not from Indiana, there’s a catch with that.
We only loan items to people in Indiana, so because we’re an Indiana-based Assistive Technology Act program. However, if you’re looking for an Assistive Technology Act program in your area, you can go to eastersealstech.com/states and then look up your local Assistive Technology Act. We all operate some sort of a loan library and can help you find devices that would work for your particular situation. So I would definitely want you to be able to check those out. Try them before you buy them, and if possible, help make a better informed decision on what you’re purchasing for whatever solution you need. Well, hey, I’d love to open this up to our listeners.
If you have any additional information, maybe it’s a device that you’ve used for someone that you know, you can give us a call on our listener line that’s 317-721-7124 or send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or a tweet to #ATFAQ. Love to hear from you to be able to provide more information about this question back to Caitlin. Thanks so much. All right, so our next question is an email from Angela. She’s a county caseworker looking for a programmable smoke detector. Mom wants to be able to record her voice guiding her son who’s autistic so that they can get out of where they are. They’re working to get him an apartment and want to be able to provide verbal guidance if there’s a fire, and so suggestions for that.
Josh Anderson:
So I could not find one that you could record a voice on. There are talking ones that will tell you, especially if you have multiple ones around the house or the area it can say, “Hey, fire detected in the bathroom,” or, “Hey, carbon monoxide detected in the kitchen.” So I found a lot of those, but that doesn’t really sound like what they’re looking for. I’m sure there’s ways around it or ways maybe to connect some kind of recording device maybe to a fire alarm, but really maybe setting up some kind of system with… and I don’t even know exactly how you’d do it, but Ring and all of those have tons of different devices.
So you’ve got your cameras, you’ve got other things that usually send alerts to phones or computers or tablets or apps. They give you pictures and stuff. They have a device that’s in a smoke alarm/carbon monoxide listener, so it’s not an actual smoke alarm. It sits next to a smoke alarm. So especially maybe for an apartment where you might not be able to change that device and it picks up that information and then sends it to your Ring system. So I don’t know if there’d be a way to record some alerts or things within that system or if that alert could be sent to mom who could then call. That’s a lot of ifs in a matter of a fire having-
Belva Smith:
Right, and my concern is that-
Josh Anderson:
… it go to someone off-site.
Belva Smith:
Yeah, and my concern with this question, Josh, is where’s the fire at? Because that could have everything to do with how you’re getting out.
Josh Anderson:
Oh, for sure, yeah. Yeah. ‘Cause if your directions are go down the hall out the front door, well, if the fire’s-
Belva Smith:
Right.
Josh Anderson:
… in the hall out the front door, well then you don’t-
Belva Smith:
Right.
Brian Norton:
Really good point, Belva.
Josh Anderson:
… want to do that.
Belva Smith:
Right. Yeah.
Brian Norton:
Really good point.
Josh Anderson:
Great point.
Belva Smith:
The best thing I came up with for this would be, and I’ve not used it, so I don’t know, I have looked at the reviews and it does have good reviews. I’ve got several consumers that I have set up with, the Smart911. That is a website where you go and put in your personal information and what your special need is. That way, when 911 is contacted, they immediately see pop up on their screen that we have an individual living in this area that has this kind of a special need and maybe they would then be able to try to help guide.
But again, it’s going to depend on where the fire is and how they get notified. I know it’s probably not the answer that they were really looking for, but Smart911, you can put that in your search engine. It’ll pull up the website where you fill out the application, whatever you want to call it, and basically you’re enrolled at that point. I would also highly suggest reaching out to the fire station that might be closer to the area where you’re looking to maybe find a place to live and speak with them and see if they have any suggestions what you might be able to do. So that’s all-
Brian Norton:
Yeah, I was going to say, I think that’s super important, reaching out to your local fire station, informing them of whatever special needs you have in the home so that they know when they get there, specifically how to deal with the person. I would assume in some situations a person with autism would be probably pretty panicked and may have behaviors and other things and they may assume those behaviors are related to something else if they don’t know that person whatsoever.
Belva Smith:
Right.
Brian Norton:
So it’s super important to make sure you reach out to local fire department. I love that Smart911 just for anybody, any of the emergency services-
Josh Anderson:
Sounds great.
Brian Norton:
… whether it’s police or fire or whatever would be a really good thing. To your point, Josh, again, I don’t know anybody who has a built-in recordable voice navigation system. I think you were getting into that if-this, then- that kind of stuff, some of those things that are a Smart app enabled, those kinds of things, you might be able to find something that can be done in that way. But then going back to Belva’s point, well, you don’t know where the fire is, so depending on where that is, all things could be off the table. You might have to change your route and those kinds of things, and so it depends on what you want to record.
If you’re just alerting someone, I would think an alarm and a flashing light or something like that would be enough. But again, yeah, that’s a lot to it. I would also make sure, we do this at our house, make sure you have an escape plan, draw a floor plan. Depending on where that fire is, hopefully, you’ll see smoke. Hopefully, you’ll see fire or hopefully, maybe not you don’t see fire. Maybe you’ve got a lot more time to get out, but practice getting out of your house. Make sure you run that through with them, not just once or twice or over one day but repeatedly over every once in a while, if you will. So make a floor plan, talk about getting out, practice getting out, those kinds of things with somebody so that they know their home and they know the ways to get out of the house depending on where something is.
Belva Smith:
It might seem silly, but this is a thing where, and I think this is very important too for families that have small children, a home fire drill. Like you were just saying, Brian, it’s not something that you do once and, “Okay, we got it, this is what we do in case there’s a fire.” No, you need to repeatedly be doing it, “Here’s what we’re going to do if this is what happens and here’s what we’re going to do if that’s what happens.” Just make sure that you do it enough that it does become like a routine because how you’re going to react is going to have a whole lot to do with the exact situation.
I don’t think any of us really know until we’re put in that situation. So doing a drill, I think, would be very good. I don’t know if he might even be able to… hopefully, if he gets into an apartment complex or something, maybe he’ll have a neighbor that could be like his buddy in a situation like that that would be able to help guide you. ‘Cause then the question does become, even if there’s an elevator, he probably won’t be able to use the elevator. So if he’s got to use the stairs, and I keep saying he, but it could be he or she, if they got to use the stairs, how are they going to do that? ‘Cause it may not be something that they’re used to doing. They’re probably used to using the elevator.
Josh Anderson:
No, you guys both brought up really great points. Beyond the device and stuff, I guess it is really the training and just not even the escape plan, but also just some of that stuff of if the door handle’s hot, don’t open it. Just little things like that would be very important to just remember. Then maybe something that we didn’t really think about this, some folks with autism have real sensitivity to sound, so maybe finding an alarm that can still alert an individual without perhaps exacerbating the situation could be a really good thing too, because no one does their best thinking when there’s smoke in their house and a really loud alarm going off. So you add in some sensory or stimulation sensitivity, that could really add to the confusion and run the risk of somebody maybe not making it out or not remembering all the steps in that plan.
Belva Smith:
Right.
Josh Anderson:
So while you might not be able to get one with the mom’s voice, maybe hearing it say, “Fire! Fire! Fire!” over and over is better to remember than just a really, really horribly loud buzzing that, again, could really and truly slow down being able to get out in time. I love that 911, Belva. That’s awesome that you shared that. That is a great, great tool.
Belva Smith:
Yeah, my poor dog, whenever I get the house smokey from cooking and set the smoke detector off in the house, he goes crazy. He’ll run and grab a toy and go stand in front of the sliding glass door like, “We got to go! We got to go!” It’s cute to watch, but it’s the sound that makes him go crazy. So you’re exactly right. Having one of those extra loud smoke detectors or fire alarms could be more of a catastrophe than help, actually.
Josh Anderson:
Now if your dog goes and grabs your emergency bag before going to the door-
Belva Smith:
Yeah, right.
Josh Anderson:
… then that’s really cool, Belva.
Belva Smith:
Yeah, then we know we’re all in trouble.
Josh Anderson:
Yeah.
Brian Norton:
Oh, I love that. I love that. Well, hey-
Belva Smith:
I love that he’ll go and grab a toy. He don’t care what toy it is, but he grabs a toy ’cause he’s not going alone.
Josh Anderson:
Nope.
Brian Norton:
Gosh, I love that. Hey, I want to open this question up to our listeners. If you have a different solution, let us know about that so we can pass that on to Angela. Our phone number is 317-217-7124 or email is tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. Love to get your feedback on this question and provide that to Angela. Thanks so much. All right, so our next question is an email from Amy. She says, “I am looking for an adaptive laser pointer, preferably something that would attach to a pair of glasses that an individual could use to point to a communication board.” This is being requested by a speech language pathologist, an SLP, and so looking for adaptive laser pointers.
Josh Anderson:
So you got a couple options here. I found some, and Brian, I think this is about the same place that you had looked as well, on, I can’t remember what it’s called. Low Otis, it says-
Brian Norton:
lowtechsolutions.org. Is that where you went?
Josh Anderson:
That’s it. Yeah, that’s it. It’s a clip on, it can clip onto a hat, the side of a hat, a pair of glasses. They have different ones. There’s a cord that actually comes down to a battery pack, so it’s going to give you a lot more energy than maybe a normal… if you think of just a standard handheld laser pointer. The thing is they’re 150 bucks, give or take some money. So they’re not super expensive, of course, as AT goes, but a little bit pricey, especially if you consider the standard laser pointers are not very expensive, five bucks, 10 bucks, something like that. I haven’t bought a laser pointer in a long time, but really, you could probably just get a clip to put to a pair of glasses, ’cause I’m not sure what the person’s dexterity is, whether they can turn on either that on the pair of glasses or even on, oh, a little belt pack or something that would come from the ones here from this Low Tech Solutions.
But if someone else would just turn it on for them, then you can buy a whole lot of $5 ones before you come up to that $150 number, especially even if you change the batteries in them. So that may be a way to go. Something just very important to remember, if you get a clip or get the thing is just to make sure that it’s on there sturdy as well as the glasses are sitting pretty sturdy on their face just because if the glasses hat or whatever have some wobble to it, that little dot on that laser pointer is going to bounce between a couple of different choices for almost everything they’re trying to make. So just make sure that they’re good and just that they have the head dexterity that this is the best way for them to be able to access that… well, I guess not device, because we’re using communication boards, but be able to actually access those boards.
Belva Smith:
So what exactly are we trying to do? We want to get the pointer attached to the individual’s head so that they can point to the communication board that may be across the room and not have to turn the pointer on when they want to use it, or they also have to be able to turn it on when they want to use it.
Brian Norton:
So it’ll be on, and so it’ll be shooting a light out onto that communication board so they can basically spell words or choose phrases off of that communication board so that can then express their interest or wants or needs to whoever’s there in the room with them. So usually, if someone’s sitting across from them, if they don’t have a traditional augmentative communication device, like a speech-generating device or a tablet with an app on it that will help them produce speech, a lot of times folks will just have a board with the alphabet and-or some common phrases, things that they like to do, things that they don’t like to do. They’ll just use that light to be able to shine on that board and choose or show the person who’s in the room with them what they’re trying to say. Does that make sense?
Belva Smith:
No, yeah, but what that makes me think of is the Dot that we used to use with that head-worn mouse. You know what I’m talking about, Brian?
Brian Norton:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Belva Smith:
We could put that Dot on their glasses or on a hat or even on their forehead, something like that, or maybe even just the laser, but maybe worn on a hat instead of attached to glasses. But if you’re going to attach it to glasses, my suggestion then would be to use the wire ties, what they do with the OrCam. So you use the wire tie and put two magnets on that, two magnets on the pair of glasses and then zoom or connect your laser light with a magnet, basically. That would be fairly inexpensive and easy to do with a pair of glasses.
Brian Norton:
Yeah, that’s a good point. I think, Josh, you even alluded to this, you can probably jerry rig something up to make it work. I’m looking on Amazon right now, and you can get a laser pointer for pretty inexpensive, like 10 bucks. Some are 20 or 30 bucks, but then those are the ones that can get you in trouble with the law when you’re shining it in the sky and stuff like that. But we’re just looking for something that can do a short distance, emit a light and yeah, we’ve got other low vision devices out there. The OrCam Read that basically scans information. It’s attached to your glasses. You look at text, and it reads the text to you.
They’re just using simple cable ties for their application, and so you can definitely look at that. That’s a really good point. You can probably do it for a whole lot less than $150 for sure. I would encourage folks to look at lowtechsolutions.org just to see what types of devices are out there. They also have communication boards for people, for some folks. So you can look at those if your person doesn’t already have a solution with regard to a communication board. But then those devices on that website would also give you an idea of ways how you want to mount it to your glasses and then you can go out there and try to design something yourself. So yeah, all good answers there.
Well, hey, I’d love to open this up to our listeners. You can give us a call on our listener line that’s 317-721-7124, or email us at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or send us a tweet with the hashtag ATFAQ. All great ways to be able to send us your feedback. Perhaps you’ve run across something or a solution like this and have some feedback for Amy. Love to be able to provide that back to her. Thanks so much. All right, so our next email is an email from Wendy. She is looking for information on indoor way finding options for the blind and visually impaired, “We are remodeling our building and would like to help persons who have vision and intellectual disabilities with wayfinding, examples like locating the bathroom or the lunchroom inside our building. Any thoughts, helpful apps or devices?”
Josh Anderson:
So I know there’s lots of different ones out there, and I’m sure that we’ll probably get through a lot of them, but there is a place called Wayfindr Audio Navigation. It’s Way W-A-Y-F-I-N-D-R. So this is based on the beacons, things like that. So you can have set up, beacons mapping and lots of other kinds of things to help you create audio navigation, instructions and compliance. This is not probably what I’d tell everyone to do, but if they’re actually going to redo a building and try to do it, this may be a way to go. I know some places that have the beacon style system set up. So as you get close and you have an app open, it can say, “Hey, you’re getting close to the lunchroom and today’s specials are blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It’s up on your left. On your right’s the bathroom,” and give you all this information.
The issue that a lot of places run into is this is a really awesome, great system. The minute you stop maintaining it, you’re going to have very outdated information that may or may not be helpful to somebody. So if it’s something that you’re going to do as a large business, it may be great to let someone else do that just to maintain that whole system of beacons and everything else. There are other ones that I’m sure we’ll probably get into them that can actually map your area. There’s a lot of things that can be done with LIDAR these days, newer iPhones, although, this isn’t really something you do yourself. But I can touch on things in my camera and find out what they are, but if I have some usable vision, I could easily hold it up to a door. If there’s a sign on that door, it’ll read it right to me.
So there’s some different kinds of ways around it, but if it’s something you really want to do, if you want to do a beacon system, something that can keep up with changes, can tell you updates and things like that, maybe look at having somebody do it for you unless you’re going to have somebody who’s devoted to that, that that’s their job and that you have a backup person to do it when they’re sick or off or leave or get promoted or those kinds of things. Just because I know a lot of places that do implement these kind of wayfinding systems, in the way of the beacon and stuff, and again, there are other ways where they usually fall short is not in the equipment itself, it’s in maintaining the equipment in the information held within. So again, there’s a lot of options out there. This is just one that’s works hand-in-hand with you to build the system that it is that you want. It’s probably going to be a little more expensive, I would guess, than some other options, but it’s something to look into.
Brian Norton:
Yeah, that’s really cool. A couple of different apps that I’ll direct folks to, GoodMaps has an app. It’s called GoodMaps Explore for iOS, and I believe they’ve got an Android version coming out soon. You could have tested this, there’s a conference in Florida every year. It’s called ATIA. They use this particular app so that folks who are blind or visually impaired could navigate the convention hall and navigate within the vendor hall. So this is not an app that you just open up and it automatically knows where it is and the building features. Just like the autonomous cars go around and map for Google and for Apple and for all these different mapping systems, this actually requires them to map your building for you.
So they have someone, in fact, I go to their website and I see a person carrying something that looks like what you find on top of the cars, mapping the inside of a building for somebody. So there is a lot of work to be done upfront. Then to Josh’s point, work that needs to be maintained over the course of several years to make sure if you’ve changed anything or there’s obstructions or those kinds of things, you’ve got to make sure folks are aware and those things are updated in the mapping systems. But you can look up GoodMaps Explore for iOS. There’s also a company, it’s called BlindSquare, and Josh mentioned these before as well.
Beacons are little devices that you can mount in and around the building so that as you pass them with your iPhone or your tablet, whatever solution that you have, it can be an Android as well, it’s going to send you information or a notification to your phone to tell you that you’re passing the bathroom or you’re passing this, that, or the elevator, per se. So there’s different options with these beacons that you can have. Then I was surprised as I was looking up answers to this question, Seeing AI also has an AI indoor navigation option. It’s a first generation. Look at it, it’s in beta form I believe at this point. But basically, it’s using AI in the device’s camera to identify routes within the building so you can have it learn a route in and around your building, and it helps you navigate in and around spaces.
So yeah, I thought that was interesting. That’s an app that we recommend a lot for folks that we see in our clinical program. So it just basically helps you a lot of times identify people, objects, texts, those kinds of things, pictures, money, UPC codes and a lot more. But now they’ve added this AI indoor navigation option as well. All right. So hey, I’m going to open this up to our listeners. If you have any additional information about indoor wayfinding, you can give us a call. Our phone number is 317-721-7124, or send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or a tweet with the hashtag ATFAQ. Look forward to hearing from you. Thanks so much.
Josh Anderson:
Now it’s time for the wild card question.
Brian Norton:
All right, so our next question is the wild card question. This is a question that Belva has for us as a team, and it’s a question we haven’t had any time to explore or think of. So Belva, what do you got for us today?
Belva Smith:
So my question comes from experience of being in the field because whenever I sit down with folks, one of the first things I hear is that, “I want to know how to use a computer.” Okay, “Well then my question is why do you want to know how to use a computer?” So my question for you guys today is, do we all really need to know how to use a computer? If so, do we need to be experts or just beginners, and what are we going to do with it when we know how?
Josh Anderson:
Huh, well, that’s A hard one. Now, when you say computer, you mean physical screen, keyboard, computer, computer, right?
Belva Smith:
Yep. Yep.
Josh Anderson:
I would argue that unless it’s for a job or you’re in college, you could probably do almost everything you can do on a computer from your phone or a tablet, at least most things. Even if you’re in college, you can maybe fudge it with a tablet work wise. Depending on your job, you may never have to access a computer, even clock in, clock out systems are usually built in or can be done from a phone or something like that. With that, I’d say there’s certain things you do need to know, safety, security, what information you put out there. Maybe some basic internet information just of, I’m sure there’s a Nigerian prince with millions of dollars that wants to give it to me out there somewhere, but I doubt he’s going to email me and just what to click on, what’s real, what’s not. Maybe just some things around that.
But as far as actually being an expert, does everybody need to know how to master Excel? No, probably not. Does everybody know how to use PowerPoint? No. Word? Probably not. I’m pretty sure there’s probably an app on your phone that could write your resume better than you could with skill. Not sure, but might look that up just for fun. So Belva, I guess, do you need to know how to use technology? If the question was that, I would say somewhat. You can’t walk into McDonald’s and order food without using a giant touchscreen. So I guess you have to know how to use technology in some way, shape or form. But as far as a computer itself, oh, man. Unless you’re, again, in college I think you do. I really do. For a lot of jobs you do. But beyond that, I’d say you could probably get by with a tablet, a phone or I don’t know, probably maybe even less depending on what you’re looking to do. I guess you could still get away with a checkbook and stamps if you really needed to pay most of your bills on anything.
Brian Norton:
Hey, that’s what I do.
Josh Anderson:
Brian, we’re not going to use you as an example.
Brian Norton:
Just go balance my checkbook once a week.
Josh Anderson:
Do you really?
Brian Norton:
I do.
Josh Anderson:
By hand?
Brian Norton:
By hand, yeah, absolutely.
Josh Anderson:
Wow.
Brian Norton:
Yeah.
Belva Smith:
You’re joking, right, Brian?
Brian Norton:
No, I still do, for sure.
Josh Anderson:
I have to go on a manhunt for my checkbook in the one to two times a year I have to write a check because I can’t do something else. It’s like, “Okay, where did I put that seven months ago? The last time I actually pulled that out.”
Brian Norton:
Right.
Josh Anderson:
If I write a check, it’s because it’s the only thing they take or fully out of spite-
Belva Smith:
Yep.
Josh Anderson:
… because I don’t want them to get my money too fast.
Belva Smith:
Yep.
Josh Anderson:
Yep.
Brian Norton:
Here’s what I do with that is I have to have a checkbook because I have things that are going to be automatically deducted from my account down the road. So I keep track of those in my checkbook, but also with all the little things we do with our debit cards every day it’s like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, and you’ve got all these charges. I always want to make sure that when we eventually get to the date when that automatic deduction comes out, I have enough money there. So that’s why every week I balance and just balance my checkbook.
Josh Anderson:
So hold on. You take the electronic payments from your debit card and write those into your checkbook?
Brian Norton:
Absolutely.
Josh Anderson:
Brian, I used to do that too, 20 some odd years ago when I first moved out. That’s awesome.
Brian Norton:
Yeah.
Belva Smith:
Yeah. Yeah. I like that.
Brian Norton:
I do. I do that. Absolutely.
Belva Smith:
I am so you, Josh. I could not even tell you the last time I wrote a check, but what I can tell you is I only did write a check because it was the only option I had.
Josh Anderson:
Yeah. Yeah. Usually, it’s something house related where you have to pay 2 1/2% more to use any kind of card. It’s like, “Well, for that amount of money, I will go dig that thing out and happily write this to you.”
Brian Norton:
I’ll be honest with you, I don’t write many checks. I know this is off-topic of the question that we’re on, but [inaudible 00:39:07] I don’t write-
Josh Anderson:
Okay, just blew that out of the way.
Brian Norton:
I really don’t write checks very often, maybe a couple of times a year, but I do every Saturday, I’ll spend an hour-and-a half going through and taking everything off of the electronics, I’ll log into my bank account, write everything down, make sure it all adds up, and I know how much money I’ve got left over to do whatever we need to do for my budgeting, so yeah.
Belva Smith:
Wow.
Brian Norton:
Yeah, I’m crazy. I know, I know.
Belva Smith:
Yeah, that’s impressive.
Brian Norton:
Yeah. But anyways, back to the question, this whole computer thing. I would tend to fall into Josh’s boat. I think you need to be an expert at the things you need to be an expert at, right? If you’ve got something that’s being required of you, you should be an expert at that with the computer. So whether it’s a workplace or it’s a school or those kinds of things, I think for a lot of folks who, I don’t know, you’re not in technology, you’re not writing reports, you’re not doing a lot of things, a lot of the basics with the computer, I don’t know, it’s pretty easy to use a computer these days. They’re pretty intuitive.
You probably have had experience whether you’re growing up in education now. My daughters’ got computers when they were in fourth grade and they carried them throughout high school. So you’re being introduced to computers pretty early on. So most of the younger generations probably have a lot of computer experience and they know enough to be dangerous and aren’t afraid of those. But again, I think it was mentioned already, your phones or your tablets can do pretty much everything else. I think a computer is sometimes you can be a lot more productive with a computer than you can be with a tablet or a phone, depending on the application that you’re using and depending on what you’re using it for.
I can probably argue it the other way as well. In some situations, you can be faster with your phone than pulling out the computer. But I still use my computer more than I use either my phone or my tablet, and I’ve got all three, and I still use my computer more. It’s just because I can be more productive when I’m typing messages and doing those kinds of things, but that’s what I do. I type emails, I type up reports. I spend a lot of correspondence with other folks, writing presentations. What I do requires a computer, and so there are things that I need to know and need to do with those.
Belva Smith:
So I think our banking talk there did fall back into this question because I think for the general question of, do we all need to know how to use a computer? My answer to that is we all need to have a basic understanding and not be afraid of a computer. Like you were talking about your daughters. My granddaughter is seven years old, can walk into Taco Bell right up to the computer screen, flip it on to vegan, and tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, order exactly what she wants to eat using that computer. The first time I did it, I was struggling and saying, “Wait a minute, how do I…” She was like, “Oh, just do it like this.” “Okay, I get it now.”
So I do think that having a basic understanding is necessary. Do I think we need to be experts? No. I believe having expertise is only necessary for what you need for your job or your education. I think we learned from the pandemic that computer access, be it a tablet or a computer, is important really as much as the internet is important for all of us to be able to do some very basic daily things like our banking, shopping, whether it’s shopping for pants or clothes, I’m sorry, pants or groceries, and then communications, to be able to communicate with our friends and family that maybe live in different states or whatever.
So when we get that broad recommendation of doing the assessment for an individual to make sure that they know how to use a computer to get a job, that to me, is just so… maybe they’re going to get a job that doesn’t even require they use a computer. We just don’t know. In those cases, is it worth the expense of teaching someone how to do things like make a spreadsheet or a presentation or even a Word document if all they’re going to do is, I don’t even know, do time clocks even exist anymore? I don’t know. I know in my day they did, but do they anymore? I don’t know.
Brian Norton:
I think it’s all electronic. Yeah.
Josh Anderson:
Yeah, I was going to say, a lot of times you might do it from your computer, or if there is a time clock, it’s almost always a tablet. It is just a tablet stuck to a wall with a time management system on there. Belva, I think you brought up a great point there is you need to know it enough to not be scared of it. ‘Cause I feel like if you know just the basics, you can learn whatever you want from there. You know what I mean? If you just know the basics of how to navigate maybe a keyboard and a mouse or a touchpad, and then how to open and close the program and how to do a few things from there, I’m with you, if I’m teaching you how to use a computer to get a job, well, do you need to know how to make a resume in Word? Do you need to know how to attach a document in an email?
Do you need to know how to check your email for if you got a job offer or things? But then also, do you need to know how to navigate the entire internet so that you can find job postings and fill out job… There’s so much that goes into that, and you’re right, that’s a heck of an expense. If you’re looking for a job as, I don’t know, an electrician, a dishwasher, something that doesn’t require being on the computer all day, do you really need that much skill in that? Your boss isn’t going to call you or text you if they need you? You know what I mean? Yeah, you may have a clock-in system or something you have to do, but odds are that’s either, like I said, a tablet’s stuck to a wall or an app on your phone to do it. So I feel-
Belva Smith:
I think it’s important what you talked about with the security piece too. I think we tend-
Josh Anderson:
Sure.
Belva Smith:
… to overlook that. If you’re going to be using any kind of technology, you need to understand the risk and know that you’ve got to be very careful with where you click and what information you give. One of the things that I’ll do whenever I’m on a website that I may be interested in ordering something or getting more information is I’ll look at the form that they’re going to require me to fill out before I go all the way, because I want to know what kind of questions they’re asking. ‘Cause if they want my social security number and my checking account, they’re not getting it. I’m done. I don’t need their information. I know people that still don’t own a computer. Do you guys know people that don’t own a computer?
Josh Anderson:
Yep, I sure do.
Belva Smith:
And they still get everything done.
Josh Anderson:
Yep.
Belva Smith:
So I don’t know. I just think nobody has to be, or everybody doesn’t have to be an expert. We just need to, whether it’s going to be a tablet or a computer or on our phone, know how to do certain things and how to protect ourselves from the dangers because we all know it’s very dangerous out there.
Brian Norton:
I think it’s just as important to note as we talk about this, it doesn’t matter what your abilities are, if you’re blind or visually impaired, you have an intellectual disability, a mobility disability, the differences what you can still do on a tablet or a phone, the accessibility is built in. They’re as accessible as a computer is with adaptive software. So whether you’re using an iPhone with voiceover or a computer with JAWS, you can still accomplish a lot and pretty much most of what you need to do. So the accessibility is there for everybody as well. So that’s a really great question. Really good question.
Josh Anderson:
That’s a really good question.
Brian Norton:
Sorry we had to go down the rabbit trail with my checkbook, but no, that was super good.
Belva Smith:
But if you do that all online, Brian, it’s so much quicker.
Brian Norton:
Or maybe not.
Josh Anderson:
Maybe, I don’t know, a spreadsheet, maybe, something. Just saying there’s less human error when you’re not just putting them all in a… but I get it. I get it, man.
Belva Smith:
Hey, that used to be one of the big things that I would teach people when I first started doing this 20 years ago, you guys. Everybody wanted to know how to make an electronic check register because they couldn’t see their regular check register because they were blind or visually impaired, but we could do that in an Excel spreadsheet so that they could do what Brian does and every Saturday sit down and balance everything.
Brian Norton:
Maybe I need to spend some time with you on Saturday, Belva.
Josh Anderson:
No, it’s funny, though. I do still remember the first days of having a debit card and yeah, keeping receipts from everything you use it for and going home and making sure, ’cause you only really looked at your bank statement if you went to the ATM-
Brian Norton:
Right.
Josh Anderson:
… or to the bank or once a month when your statement came. By then you’d already spent other money and things, so no, I get it. It’s weird, though, my bank tracks all that stuff for me and…
Belva Smith:
And they’d let you know if weird stuff happens.
Brian Norton:
That’s right.
Josh Anderson:
They really and truly do. I don’t know if Brian is just using National Bank of George down the street or something holding on to his money or what, but it’s fun to talk about.
Brian Norton:
Fun, fun, fun. Well, hey, enough about my checkbook. Hey, I just want to open this question up to our listeners, if you guys have any feedback about that, using the computer, or do you have to be an expert at doing that? What are your opinions on that? I would love to hear from you. You can give us a call on our listener line. That’s 317-721-7124. Send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or send us a tweet with the hashtag ATFAQ. All great ways to get us your feedback. Well, that’s our show for today. Hey, I want to give Belva an opportunity to say goodbye and Josh gets an opportunity to say goodbye as well. So Belva, thank you for all your contributions today. Do you want to say goodbye to folks?
Belva Smith:
Yep, next time, everybody.
Brian Norton:
Excellent, and then Josh?
Josh Anderson:
Look forward to seeing you back here next time. Thanks for listening.
Brian Norton:
Excellent. Excellent. Well, hey, take care, everybody, and we’ll see you next month. Take care. Information provided on Assistive Technology FAQ does not constitute a product endorsement. Our comments are not intended as recommendations, nor is our show evaluative in nature. Assistive Technology FAQ is hosted and produced by Brian Norton, gets editorial help from Josh Anderson, Belva Smith and Tracy Castillo, receives support from Easterseals Crossroads in the INDATA Project. The show transcript is sponsored by InTRAC, the Indiana Telephone Relay Access Corporation. To learn more about InTRAC, go to indianarelay.com. Assistive Technology FAQ is also a proud member of the Accessibility Channel. To find more of our shows, go to accessibilitychannel.com.
