During the current 4th industrial revolution, technology is changing at an ever increasing pace [1]. Thus, it is essential that engineering educators continually adopt and teach new engineering technologies to both keep their technologies relevant for graduates entering industry, as well as to model lifelong learning for their students. In fact, ABET requires faculty to teach relevant tools for modern engineering, as well as equip students with life-long learning skills [2]. However, the time restrictions on faculty are well documented [3 - 4] and can make learning new technologies difficult or impossible. This poster summarizes the preliminary results of an NSF project funded through the Directorate for Engineering, Engineering Education and Centers. It builds on our research that identified potential interventions to promote faculty adoption of new engineering technologies. Participants at a workshop at the IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference were presented with those preliminary results and asked to brainstorm ways the interventions could be implemented on their campuses, barriers to their implementation, and methods to overcome those barriers. The workshop was designed to provide peer review of the research results to determine if they would be considered relevant for institutions beyond the original research focus. An additional workshop goal was to expand on the existing set of proposed interventions by gathering ideas from faculty at other institutions. In this manner, the workshop both confirmed and expanded our data. The poster and this accompanying paper will present results of that brainstorming and will include proposed methods for reducing time constraints on faculty, support structures for faculty technology adoption, and human resources to support learning of new technologies.
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Rethinking Our Approach to Accessibility in the Era of Rapidly Emerging Technologies
Accessibility has always played catch-up to the detriment of people with disabilities - and this appears to be exacerbated by the rapid advancements in technology. A key question becomes, can we better predict where technology will be in 10 or 20 years and develop a plan to be better positioned to make these new technologies accessible when they make it to market? To attempt to address this question, a “Future of Interface Workshop” was convened in February 2023, chaired by Vinton Cerf and Gregg Vanderheiden that brought together leading researchers in artificial intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, computer vision, and VR/AR/XR, and disability to both a) identify barriers these new technologies might present and how to address them, and b) how these new technologies might be tapped to address current un- or under-addressed problems and populations. This paper provides an overview of the results of the workshop as well as the current version of the R&D Agenda work that was initiated at the conference. It will also present an alternate approach to accessibility that is being proposed based on the new emerging technologies
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- Award ID(s):
- 2312370
- PAR ID:
- 10521690
- Publisher / Repository:
- Springer
- Date Published:
- Edition / Version:
- 1
- Volume:
- 14725
- ISBN:
- 978-3-031-61542-9
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 306-323
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- AccessibilitY Regulations Policy Equity
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Cham
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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