Sidewalk cut-ins. Elevators. Buttons that open doors. If you’ve ever been out and about in a wheelchair, used a dolly to move furniture, or pushed a baby stroller, you know to look for and use these things. But the fact is these innovations are relatively recent and were not mandated until the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) became law in 1990.
While the aim of the ADA is to prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities and provide for their access to public places, the effects of the law have impacted a broader segment of the population. This broader impact includes empowering individuals to take legal action to end disability bias to ensure a more inclusive environment for everyone.
After students watch an online lecture, what do they know? What do they think they know? How do you know what they know?
For the first time in my working life, I am going to be out of the office for three consecutive weeks. Planning for this time away has not only forced me to be as efficient as possible in the time leading up to my vacation, but also has gotten me thinking about the importance of a great team.
Alignment is a core guiding principle in the 
When I was an undergrad, my “intellectual conversation crutch” was bringing up something from Jon Stewart’s Daily Show. After moving to Chicago, that crutch morphed into inserting something I read in The New York Times or New Yorker.
Recently I purchased a wheelchair for my mom on Amazon. I love shopping on Amazon. It’s quick, easy, and my packages come straight to the front door. I read the reviews to see what other buyers have to say about the product, and usually make up my mind whether or not to buy based on those reviews. Generally, I never have an issue.
I’ve always loved Rube Goldberg’s drawings. They lent a certain sense of the absurd to everyday tasks, creating a ridiculously complicated machine to handle something most of us could do without even thinking about it. Like many young people, I also delighted in building machines similar to Goldberg’s, using every toy at my disposal to produce something that, let’s be honest, may have been more satisfying to design and build than to actually deploy most of the time. A few hours’ work for ten seconds of payoff? Not a big deal, when you’re a kid.