When I first began working in our field as a teacher of the visually impaired, around 2011, I quickly learned that adaptability wasn’t just part of the job, it was the job. Every student, every team, every school brought something different. Over time, I grew comfortable with that rhythm of constant adjustment. It became familiar, and I learned, like so many of us, to “live on my toes”.
Then the pandemic came, and, like all of us, I adapted again, working virtually, meeting
students on front porches, rethinking what instruction could look like when everything felt
uncertain. That period felt like a clear disruption, a moment in time we could all point to and say: this is different.
This past year has felt different in another way. Not disruptive in the same visible sense, but
quietly, steadily pulling at the edges of how I do my work. The shift has been technological, and not just in tools, but in expectations.
I find myself working alongside two distinct currents in education right now. There are teachers who are intentionally stepping back from technology, returning to pen and paper, seeking focus and simplicity in classrooms that have felt overstimulated for years. And there are others who are fully embracing new tools, integrating them fluidly, adapting as quickly as the platforms themselves evolve.
So where does that leave us?
For many of my students, especially those in middle and high school, their access is deeply tied to the environment around them. Their needs don’t exist in isolation, however individualized they might be. They are shaped by what their peers are using, what their teachers expect, and how information is presented in real time. I’ve always believed that our role as TVIs is not just to teach tools, but to help students navigate their environments, whatever those environments look like.
Years ago, I remember the shift to increased Chromebooks in classrooms. For many of my low
vision students, it was transformative. Suddenly, accessibility features weren’t something separate or stigmatizing. The same device their peers used could be adapted to meet their
needs. Everyone was getting materials in an accessible electronic format. There was a quiet relief in that less self-consciousness, more independence.
Now, I’m seeing a pendulum swing
There’s a renewed interest in limiting screen time, in encouraging handwritten work, in reducing reliance on devices in some of the classes I am in. In many ways, it makes sense. As both a professional and a parent, I understand the concerns. Classrooms are navigating attention spans, social skills, and the very real effects of constant digital input.
Within that shift, I find myself advocating more than ever. My students still need to find what
works best for them, regardless of the broader conversations around technology in schools.
What’s changed is that advocacy now takes more time, bringing people together, working
through different viewpoints, and building the kind of shared understanding that leads to real
buy-in.
I work with a high school senior in a school with a strict no-phone policy. And I understand the
reasoning behind it. Truly. But I also spend time working with that team to explain why, for this
particular student, a phone is not a distraction, it’s access. It’s magnification, it’s text-to speech, it’s independence. These conversations are meant to be thoughtful and collaborative, but they are also delicate. These conversations don’t always lead to full understanding.
Advocacy in this space has become a balance.
Even when teachers are supportive, they are also weighing the needs of the entire class, and I have to consider how certain supports may affect the flow of instruction.
I think about all of these technology factors often when I push into classrooms. While many of
my lessons happen in pull-out settings (quiet spaces where we can focus on specific tools) I
find it just as important to be in the classroom itself. It helps me understand everything at stake here and how to best advocate for students. I watch how quickly instruction moves. I see where technology helps, and where it distracts. I observe how students manage, or don’t manage, the constant flow of information.
And then there are the tools themselves
This year, one in particular made me pause. A student I work with, a high school junior, recently
lost their vision. Their academic ability is strong, but their screen reader skills are still developing. They were enrolled in a pop music course; content-heavy, text-heavy, and, at
times, inaccessible. The teacher, eager to support them, began using a tool that could convert
PDFs and presentations into conversational audio, essentially turning course materials into a
podcast.
The first time I listened, I was struck by how seamless it was. Two voices, natural and engaging, discussing the material as if it had been intentionally recorded that way. It didn’t feel like assistive technology. It didn’t feel like a workaround. It felt…polished. Easy. For a student who works so tirelessly, usually twice as hard as their peers, was it so bad for them experience an assignment as “easy”?
And I found myself wondering: What is our role here?
For years, we’ve worked to build foundational skills, screen reader navigation, braille literacy,
strategies for accessing complex text. Those skills still matter. They always will. But when tools like this can bypass some of those barriers so quickly, so efficiently, it raises new questions. I don’t have clear answers. I have spoken with other teachers at the same high school who are adamantly against any form on AI in their classrooms; they do not use it their planning, they do not want students using it in any form in their work, and they are not open to it being used as an accommodation for a disability by extension. These viewpoints are thoughtful and rooted in genuine concern for students, and navigating them has required more listening, more conversation, and more shared problem-solving than ever before.
I’ve been noticing that this moment feels different. Not because technology is new, we’ve
always adapted to new tools, but because of how quickly things are changing and how seamlessly they’re becoming part of everyday instruction. I still believe in advocating for what
works best for each student, but this past year has required more time in conversation, with
teams and families, to understand where everyone stands, especially when it comes to AI.
Keeping up now means more than just learning new tools. It also means understanding how
comfortable people are with using them, and what they’re open to trying. There isn’t one clear
path forward. Each option, from a human reader, to magnification, to digital text, to AI-
generated supports represent a different way of providing access. And each step feels like a
shift from what school used to look like.
We are not just choosing tools, we are navigating change. And with each decision, there is a
small step into something new, whether we feel ready for it or not.
Thus, I find myself, once again, adapting. Listening more. Asking more questions. Sitting with teams and acknowledging that we’re all figuring this out together.
And in the end, my students are still at the center of it all.
They are navigating classrooms that are changing in real time. They are balancing tools, expectations, and their own developing skills. And my role, as it has always been, is to help
them find access within that space, whether that means advocating for a phone in a no phone school, supporting a return to paper-based work, or exploring a new tool that didn’t exist even a year ago.
Maybe that’s what this work has always been about. Not having the answers but staying
willing to move with the current, even when it shifts. And in that movement, I hope we continue to lean on one another as a field, sharing perspectives, asking questions, and supporting each other as we adapt, not only for our students, but for our own sustainability as educators.
Postscript: The podcast-style tool referenced above is a free Google extension called
LMNotebook. There are likely others with similar capabilities. Rather than focusing on the tool
itself, the more meaningful reflection for me has been how we, as a field, approach decisions
around when and how to use these types of technologies and how those decisions are shaped
by the perspectives of the teams we work with.
