"I've always been interested in gadgets," confesses Andrew Downie at the start of LearnScope's interview with this dedicated educational technology buff. One look at his workstation is enough to confirm this fascination, littered as it is with all manner of electronic wizardry and machines that go beep.

OTEN-DE's resident adaptive technology expert, Andrew traces his interest to growing up on a farm and the secret men's business of tinkering with greasy machinery that comes with the territory. After all, it's not such a leap from rotary hoes to RAMs.

As a university student confronting the twin challenges of being blind and taking notes at lectures, Andrew began his foray into adaptive* and mainstream technology. While other blind students were, as he bluntly puts it, "buggerising around with cassettes, recording lectures which they never listened to again," he used a dictating machine to great effect - lecture notes recorded in confidential whispers later being committed to Braille notes.

Later, he became the first person in Australia to own an electronic Braille machine, which was crucial to his Honours work - although at $7,000 dealt a fatal blow to the bank balance. Relying on plastic pins, representing Braille dots which are driven electronically, "paperless" Braille has made much previously inaccessible information readily available to blind people. Nowadays, when used in conjunction with screen reading software, electronic Braille displays allow blind people to perform a range of computing tasks such as programming, word processing, and sending and receiving electronic mail.

Another first for Andrew was discovering electronic travel aids such as the sonic torch. As a dedicated trailblazer, he was also the first person to use the SonicGuide, a device he continues to use to negotiate a clear path. "These days though I have to use it sparingly," he laments, "as parts are unavailable".

Another technology that became a reality at around the same time was optical character recognition (OCR). Early machines cost a cool $50,000 and could only read fonts as long as they weren't proportional. "They looked like washing machines, and made similar noises," recalls Andrew.

These days, all that is needed is a computer equipped with synthetic speech output and a scanner. Permanent storage of scanned material is therefore easy. They can also read a range of print styles so blind people are now able to independently read a wide range of printed material.

Whilst all this was going on, Andrew was seconded to the Disability Unit of TAFE and as a result of a submission to OTEN's then Director, was eventually employed as an adaptive technology consultant

It was about nine months before I heard from OTEN," Andrew muses, "although I suspect this was due to TAFE putting itself through one of its regular disembowelments, commonly known as a restructure".

In his role as an adaptive technology consultant Andrew has worn a number of hats with equal panache. He made a major contribution to the work of a multidisciplinary team, which looked at the use of Braille; audio and large print options in producing learning materials friendly to students with a disability. The team was rewarded with a Silver Quality Award for its achievements.

Another highlight was setting up an email list for students with a disability way back in the dark ages, using systems, which Andrew describes as "very clunky". The email list has come of age in the intervening years with at least five or six messages a day, including photo and sound file swapping.

"This email list provides students who wouldn't otherwise have this interaction with ongoing support and contact," says Andrew.

More recently, Andrew has been working on the Option Keys project funded by TAFE Online. This project focused on showing the developers of online materials how to make websites available to the greatest possible range of people - not only those with disabilities.

Writing items on adaptive technology, testing the site and delivering workshops to online teams across TAFE, were just a few of the roles he took on as part of this important project.

"The project went way beyond political correctness, which I think is what a lot of people were expecting," comments Andrew. "For example, one teacher had a video on how to clip a dog and was in a quandary as to how that could be 'translated' for a student with vision loss. "

It just wasn't possible, of course, but as Andrew observes, care must still be taken to ensure the rest of the site is accessible.

Check out the Option Keys project site on http://www.oten.edu.au/optionkeys/index.htm- it provides a wealth of invaluable information about ways to overcome web access barriers

In general, Andrew considers the accessibility standard on the Internet is quite good, although a few are "awful." When I asked him to nominate a favourite, his only comment was that he gets the Drive Section from the Herald everyday! Well, what do you expect from a tech/mechophile?

Another project about which Andrew is enthusiastic is a series of books he has written on technology options available for people with disabilities.

Dealing with hearing loss and Dealing with vision loss are already available with two more publications on physical and neurological disabilities to come.

"The rationale behind these books was to go beyond the catalogue, " says Andrew. "I wanted to highlight the types of options available and break them down into meaningful categories."

The books concentrate on resources, which specifically apply to educational and vocational situations rather than those relevant to daily living and are available from OTEN Direct Marketing on (02) 9715-8222.

To close the interview, I asked Andrew for his thoughts on future directions.

"Obviously, technology will keep evolving. Speech input technology for people with severe physical disabilities will improve and I would like to see even more automated processes for getting material in the format people want it."

"There's still a long way to go but we've certainly come along way from the days when we shuffled stuff around from disc to disc."

Just as he himself has come along way from mucking about with combine harvesters.

*Adaptive (also called assistive) technology is equipment designed for use by people with a disability. It may be purpose-built or it may be equipment that is generally available which has been modified.