Artificial Intelligence has captured imaginations and enabled new realities. People are leveraging it to reshape education, work, and communication. Will we harness it to enhance accessibility, agency, and social inclusion for people with disabilities, or reinforce existing inequalities? Through storytelling and an intersectional lens, Lawrence Weru explores the crucial roles we play in ensuring AI fulfills its promise of improving lives for everyone.
Learning Outcomes
- Identify and analyze at least three potential opportunities and three potential challenges of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for people with disabilities across different domains such as education, employment, and social services.
- Explain the significance of an intersectional perspective in understanding the impact of AI on people with disabilities, recognizing how the intersection of disability with other identities (such as race, gender, and Indigenous status) can lead to compounded advantages or disadvantages in the context of AI technologies and their deployment.
- Articulate at least two concrete actions that professionals in the disability field (including educators, employers, healthcare professionals, and policymakers) can take to promote the inclusive and equitable development and implementation of AI technologies for people with disabilities, mitigating potential harms and maximizing benefits.
Discover how free AI tools can revolutionize K-12 education by giving educators more time with students and enabling individualized instruction. This session explores practical applications of AI to enhance teaching efficiency and student engagement, addressing ethical considerations and providing resources for effective implementation. The session is based on extensive research and practical experience in AI integration in education, including projects like Magic School AI, Diffit, BriskAI. iKNOW, and Boodlebot. It highlights AI tools' benefits while addressing privacy, bias, and misinformation concerns. The presentation draws on insights from over 15 peer-reviewed publications and numerous presentations on innovative technology in education. Come see how AI tools can streamline administrative tasks and engage students in personalized instruction, allowing educators to focus more on meaningful interactions with their students.
Learning Outcomes
- Participants will explore free AI tools that enhance teaching efficiency and student engagement.
- Participants will effectively implement three free AI tools to individualize instruction for their students and support diverse learning needs.
- Participants will accurately identify and understand the reasons behind the ethical considerations of AI use in the classroom.
This session equips parents, service providers, and educators with strategies to support individuals with disabilities transitioning from school to employment. Participants will explore evidence-based practices and free AI tools that facilitate successful transitions, focusing on personalized support and community collaboration. The session emphasizes the importance of tailored approaches and technology integration to enhance transition outcomes. Drawing from over 20 years of experience in special education and 10 years of research on AI and XR technologies, this presentation includes findings from projects like iKNOW, which uses XR scenarios to deliver individualized instruction, and over 100 national and international presentations on evidence-based practices for diverse learners highlighting the role of personalized, innovative supports and tools to ensure successful transitions for individuals with disabilities.
Learning Outcomes
- Participants will be able to demonstrate effective strategies for supporting individuals with disabilities in employment transitions using Artificial Intelligence and other forms of innovative technology.
- Participants will be able to leverage community resources and free technology to enhance transition outcomes for individuals strengths and learning needs.
- Participants will understand the role of personalized support, prompting, modeling and timely encouragement in successful transitions.
Effective communication is essential when developing programs, evaluations, and documentation across various settings. This panel explores how AI tools can support professionals in assessing and addressing their constituencies’ needs. The discussion begins with a broad overview on AI’s potential role in providing guidance across various fields with different communications. Then the panel will illustrate how AI can help teachers reduce workload while ensuring accuracy, personalization, and ethical considerations by presenting an example of AI-generated IEPs, highlighting usability, benefits, and limitations. Though IEP-focused, this discussion benefits all professionals involved in preparing plans and reports.
- Attendees will learn how AI tools can assist in drafting individualized plans and documentation by improving coherence, reducing workload, and ensuring alignment with legal requirements.
- The session will highlight how AI tools should be integrated as a supportive tool rather than a replacement for expertise, emphasizing the importance of professional engagement when using AI-assisted processes.
- The session will outline both the advantages (efficiency, clarity, consistency) and concerns (bias, ethical considerations, over-reliance) of using AI tools.
Generative artificial intelligence (genAI) has the potential to influence all aspects of life, including education and supports for people with disabilities. To realize these benefits, it is incumbent on educators to both understand this emergent technology and know how to make informed decisions about its use. However, recent surveys indicate that fewer than half of all educators have received any professional development on using generative AI.
Through lecture, demos, and hands-on activities, AT consultant Shelley Haven will provide attendees with the foundational knowledge, practical skills, and (just as importantly) confidence to effectively apply genAI tools to teaching and learning tasks, with a focus on disabilities and assistive technology accommodations. Participants will use selected generative AI tools to better understand key concepts and applications.
Learning Outcomes
- Explain the fundamental concepts behind generative AI, such as what generative AI is (and isn't), how it works, and its built-in shortcomings.
- Differentiate between the ever-increasing plethora of genAI and AI-enhanced tools.
- Demonstrate the ability to create effective text prompts and image prompts.
- Describe at least four best practices that address genAI issues such as equity and access for all students, privacy, bias, and ethical use.
- Apply a methodology for determining whether a task is best supported by generative AI tools or traditional "fixed function" assistive technology tools.
- Explain how schools, agencies, or organizations can identify their genAI needs and make plans for improvement.
The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has quickly become commonplace in all aspects of life, including the workplace. In recent years, the usage of AI in pre-screening job applicants has come under scrutiny and criticism, as having a negative impact on candidates with disabilities and other protected classifications. There may also be pros with the application of AI to provide workplace accommodation.
This session will provide an overview of reasonable accommodation protections for job applicants and employees, a summary of the downfalls of AI to pre-screen applicants, and will explore the ways in which AI can provide beneficial assistive technology tools and resources to help workers and job applicants, from the perspective of employment attorneys and a Vocational Rehabilitation advocate with Disability Rights Arizona.
Learning Outcomes
- After attending the session, participants will be able to: (1) Identify workplace reasonable accommodation rights.
- (2) Assess both positive and negative usage of Artificial Intelligence in the workplace.
- (3) Evaluate options for usage of AI driven technology as a workplace reasonable accommodation.
- (4) Identify Al tools that support accessibility, mental health, adaptive learning, and job readiness for vocational rehabilitation clients.
