Perspectives is the newsletter of the Stanford course,
Perspectives in Assistive Technology.

Spring Quarter Update

This newsletter issue summarizes the recent academic year's course
and describes future plans.

Spring Quarter Update

Greetings to members of the Stanford's Assistive Technology course community

As Summer approaches, I hope you are all doing well. I have wrapped up the eighteenth season of the Assistive Technology course, including reading and marking up students' end-of-term reports, submitting grades, creating a few slideshows posted on the course website, and presenting at a few local events. The course was completely in-person this year except for one class session by Zoom and a field trip to the Magical Bridge Playground. Here is my report on what has happened since the end of the course in mid-March and my thoughts for the future.

Review of this past academic year's course

Thanks - First, I would like to thank everybody who participated in the course as an enrolled student, a guest lecturer, an Assistive Technology Faire vendor, a project partner, or a community member. Your time, interest, and contributions are very much appreciated. Thanks are also extended to the Haas Center for Public Service who provided funding for the student projects, honoraria for several guest lecturers, and sweet treats.

Students - This past academic year, the course enrolled 32 students - of whom 28 worked on 8 team projects. Here is a slideshow of their projects.

Comments - The course went extremely well as reported in the students' comments and Individual Reflections (49 pages).

Presentations - I made several presentations about the course in the past month.

• BayCHI - Disability, Assistive Technology, and Computer-Human Interaction
• Stanford - Quarterly Brunch on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities - Perspectives on "Perspectives in Assistive Technology"
• SciAccess - Reflections and Perspectives on Teaching an Assistive Technology Course

Article - Here is an article authoried by the Haas Center for Public Service: Designing for everyday challenges through community engagement

Plans for next year's course

Activities - In-person course activities to be pursued next year include: team projects, community attendance in class sessions, field trips, in-person Assistive Technology Faire, movie night, and most importantly, chocolate chip cookies.

Classroom - I hope that the classroom I have used the past five years - Lathrop 282 - will once again be assigned to my course. The room's large size and moveable chairs & tables allow it to be easily repurposed for specific class events and is more accessible for wheelchair users.

Schedule - I plan to follow my standard course strategy of re-inviting past guest lecturers. I do not anticipate many new presenters. Contacting them, getting their available dates, and scheduling the class sessions will occur over the next several months.

Project solicitations

In preparation for the upcoming Winter Quarter course offering, I would like to begin to solicit student projects suggestions from community members. Here are some project criteria to follow:

1. Team project suggestions must address a real challenge experienced by an individual with a disability or older adult who lives in the local community. The problem / challenge / struggle must be one that is not adequately served by existing commercial products. (Perform an internet search to verify this.) It is important to identify and describe the challenge rather than imagine a solution.
2. The scale and complexity of the project must be such that it could be pursued by a team of three students in the 10-week quarter, resulting in a fabricated functional device prototype.
3. Refer to Project Requirements webpage for more detailed information.

Please contact me with your ideas, questions, comments, and project suggestions - or just to say hello. Please continue to stay safe & healthy.

Dave Jaffe - Course Instructor