Surveying the In/Accessible Technology-Mediated Education Assemblage
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Next Book Club THIS WEEK: We’re reading Mind Amplifier, by Howard Rheingold. Join us for a conversation on Tuesday, June 17 at 8:00 PM Eastern Time, led by Tiffany Petricini. Register on our events page here!
July Book Club: We’re also reading The AI Con, by Emily Bender and Alex Hanna. Join us for a conversation on Tuesday, July 22 at 8:00 PM Eastern Time, led by Charles Logan. Register on our events page here!
Bonus Book Club: We’re also reading Empire of AI, by Karen Hao, and we’ll be holding our book club conversation at the end of our first day of our conference: Thursday, July 31 at 3:00 PM Eastern Time. See more on our events page.
+NEW REVIEW: Of Adam Becker’s More Everything Forever
“So, if I’m taking 30 minutes to get an accessible slideshow, they [teachers] don’t just stop the class for me. They’re going to keep going … When it [technology] is inaccessible it affects my work by leaving me behind, but it also affects my learning because I’m not getting the full immersion of a class … If I’m so busy fixing an [accessibility] issue I’ve just lost that whole period of learning and [the chance] to ask questions. The most critical part of learning is to ask questions and to make sure you understand, and to be inquisitive. I can’t do that if I’m trying to fix an accessibility issue that has to be fixed right away. I can’t just postpone it [dealing with the issue] and go back to the class because number one, now I can’t take notes if it’s not working properly and number two, I’m just prolonging the issue.” (Jacob; Shaheen, 2025, p. 5)
Recently, I published an article entitled Blind and Low-Vision Students as Surveyors of In/accessibility in Technology-Mediated Formal Education in Learning, Media and Technology, which is available as open access. The article is particularly relevant to educators in the U.S. who are working to meet the 2026 deadline for compliance with the ADA Title II Regulations pertaining to Web and Mobile App Accessibility.
In the article, I report the findings from a study of 16 blind and low-vision (BLV) youth’s experiences in technology-mediated formal education. To survive at school, the participants’ spent extensive time surveying in/accessibility and then remediating the accessibility barriers they found.
The students’ collectively experienced in/accessible technology-mediated education as a relational assemblage (see Deleuze & Guattari, 1987 for more on assemblages). In/accessibility emanated from six entangled components:
Learning: The act of developing knowledge in community with or segregated from peers.
Access labor: The work participants did to access lessons when their non-normative access needs were not yet accounted for.
Teachers: The individuals who served as classroom teachers or teachers of blind students.
Technologies: The instructional apps, websites, devices, and digital documents used in class, excluding assistive technology.
Temporalities: The clock time and temporal relations in class.
Affectivities: The range and valence of emotions students experienced. (Shaheen, 2025, p. 5)
All six assemblage components are evident in Jacob’s description of technology-mediated AP classes in the epigraph.
This summer, many American educators are focused on compliance with the new ADA Title II regulations, which is important work. However, in the article, I assert that to provide equity and access for BLV students, schools must do more than ensure their technologies comply with the ADA because technologies are only one sixth of the in/accessible assemblage. I recommend that U.S. schools “(1) take collective responsibility for creating born accessible classes, (2) dedicate substantial resources to the work, and (3) trust BLV students who report accessibility barriers.” (p. 13)
References
Deleuze, G., & F. Guattari (1987). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Shaheen, N. L. (2025). Blind and low-vision students as surveyors of in/accessibility in technology-mediated formal education. Learning, Media and Technology, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2025.2462911