Post doc profile: Navigating in a digital world

by Nicole Findlay

Compulsive scanning through Blackberries, shooting off emails, while ostensibly participating in meetings have led PDA users and abstainers alike to rue the day the devices were invented. But, rather than slaves to the machines, Ann-Louise Davidson sees in the technology a form of liberty for intellectually disabled adults.

“I wanted to work with real people, who were facing real problems because I was convinced that I had something that could help them,” said Davidson, a post doctoral fellow in the department of sociology and anthropology.

It was during her doctoral research in the field of education that Davidson realized digital technologies had potential for learning applications. She is currently working on a project that will improve the way intellectually disabled adults solve daily life problems.

Davidson is collaborating with Live Work Play, a charitable organization that helps intellectually disabled adults progress as self-advocates and become active citizens. Using her mentor and anthropology professor Jacques Chevalier’s concepts and tools – designed to support collaborative research and social action, Davidson is working with 50 intellectually disabled adults face daily challenges. They are all participating in a housing and community integration project.

“The underlying assumption for this project is that the use of PAR (participatory action research) and ICT (information and communication technology), such as a personal digital assistant (PDA), will serve as tools in promoting self-advocacy,” said Davidson.

The adults participating in the project will use the devices as a tool to store and retrieve the information that will help them organize their lives. Digital recorders are among the devices they will use to keep notes of the daily problems they encounter. Using Spkentext.net, the will convert text into audio files. The resulting information will be transferred to an iPod for consultation and used with Chevalier’s research tools to diagnose the problems the participants are facing. The devices will allow them to describe obstacles in their own words, understand how these interrelate and finally address possible solutions.

From her research, Davidson hopes to demonstrate how digital technologies can help the intellectually disabled with social integration in the digital era, while creating a self-advocacy model that the pilot project participants can assist their peers with.

Digital technologies can also be used to assist the social integration of other marginalized communities. This fall, Davidson will travel to Guatemala where she will work with groups of HIV-positive women who need to connect with the digital world to sell the products they make.