This project will transcend both physical handicaps and physical distance. Simultaneously, it will provide a unique setting for mainstreaming. The advantage of mainstreaming through telecommunications is that the differences between the able-bodied and the disabled disappear. During the summer of 1990, the New School for Social Research in New York City is offering an online course on adaptive computer technology for the handicapped. One teacher is blind and the other is both blind and wheelchair bound.
Telecommunications permits their teaching from their homes in different cities.
Class members are both handicapped and non-handicapped. Several computer bulletin boards devoted to providing materials and assistance for teachers include items related to special education. These systems are of special value in thinly populated rural districts. Both the state of Montana in the western United States and Saskatchewan in Western Canada are examples of networks which give special attention to the teachers of the handicapped. Data telecommunication promises to reduce barriers to information for persons with a variety of handicaps.