Written Quiz On Chapters 7/8 Definition Vs. Fact

I started my research with a simple question. I just wanted to know how the blind adapt to our ever changing technological world. According to Everything’s an Argument by Andrea Lunsford, “Factual arguments tend to be driven by perceptions and evidence. A writer first notes something new or different or mistaken and wants to draw attention to it.” When I started I considered my topic an argument of fact. I noticed something that I took interest to and that is how I developed my subject.

I was hoping to find out what technologies were out there for the blind, and how they were accommodated in a society where almost everything can be done from the computer. According to Lunsford one of the first steps in identifying a factual argument is to identify the issue and then research the hypothesis. My hypothesis was that digital literacy can actually be a helpful thing for the blind. It was at this point however, that I ran into some trouble defining my hypothesis. What would a researcher consider to be “helpful?” What would a visually impaired person consider to be “helpful?” This is where my argument became more based on definition.

I figured a good place to start was to see what the researchers and experts were saying about the topic. According to Anne Morris and Helena Brading in their article E-literacy and the grey digital divide: a review with recommendations, “Visual impairment, strokes and Parkinson’s disease, for example, can all be barriers to using technology.” While this is true, and many researchers would agree, I wanted to know what kind of technologies were out there that were designed to assist the blind. This is more of an argument of definition, arguably what is helpful and what is not helpful. I found a lot of research that listed pages of different tools designed to help the visually impaired use computers. For example Hasselbring and Glaser stated in their article Use of Computer Technology to Help Students with Special Needs, “Fewer individuals recognize the great number of benefits that computer-based technologies may afford children with disabilities.” They go on to list many different “helpful” technologies that all make using the computer easier for the blind such as Descriptive Video Services that give auditory descriptions of visual words on a screen.

As I start to piece together all of my research, it is obvious to me that I am formulating an argument of both fact and definition. While I can argue just how accurate and encompassing a statistic may be, I can also argue what different researchers consider to be “helpful.” In Multiliteracies for a Digital Age Selber talks about “Functional Literacy.” I want to know if there is anything out there that can help the blind achieve functional literacy in terms of a computer, and being able to perform everyday tasks. With all of this in mind, I am piecing together my argument making sure that I have solid facts and clearly defined terms, because without that research would not be credible.