By Margaret Moore, PRC-Saltillo Blogger
In mid-February, the Conference on College Composition and Communication, the world’s largest conference on writing, rhetoric, and composition, will take place. This international convention is typically attended by around four thousand graduate students and professors. I have been accepted to present at it seven consecutive times, my first presentation occurring when I was just an undergraduate sophomore at Fairfield University. For the second year in a row, I am the chair of my panel.
Selected as an on-demand, recorded session, my panel is centered on promoting disability accommodation and accessibility across college campuses and composition classrooms. For my individual presentation, I addressed accommodation in graduate writing programs with nontraditional course schedules and structures, investigating the mandates set forth by Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, how they are implemented in institutions, and potential improvements that would make implementation practices better suited for nontraditionally structured programs. As panel chair, I also had the pleasure of introducing my co-panelists at the beginning of our recording.
As my Accent 1000 AAC device functions as my Windows 10 computer, I used my joystick to input my research into my slides. Switching to my eyegaze for more efficient typing, I keyed my scripts into my NuVoice speech software. I composed my individual presentation script directly in a NuVoice notebook, saving it as a speech file as I went, and also transferring it to a Microsoft Word document to provide as an access copy handout for attendees. For my chair introduction, I had my co-panelists email me their credentials, which, along with my own, I copied into Word, saved as a .txt file, and loaded into NuVoice without having to retype anything. Saving the notebooks in their own keys, I was able to quickly and easily access them during our session recording.
I am very pleased with my introduction and presentation and am blown away by my co-panelists’ scholarship. By sharing the process of putting my chair introduction and presentation together, I hope to inspire other AAC users to chair panels and become involved with leadership roles.
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Communicators In Action