tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16910876352196286622012-01-26T21:22:11.996-05:00Assistive Technology Tools, Tricks, and Tips (and Talk!)Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.comBlogger261100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1691087635219628662.post-61313779972717991892010-08-30T13:58:00.001-04:002010-08-30T13:58:11.025-04:00

Just got the following email:The National Center of Accessible Instructional Materials is pleased to announce that the AIM Navigator, the latest in a series of tools developed under the auspices of the AIM Consortium, is now available at the National AIM Center website!  Please share this information with others. The AIM Navigator is an interactive online tool that facilitates the process of

Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1691087635219628662.post-22930641152866609262010-08-01T16:17:00.001-04:002010-08-01T17:04:45.217-04:00

I received this from a colleague recently:TechAmerica Applauds Illinois Governor Pat Quinn for Digital Textbook LegislationGovernor signs legislative measure to encourage use of digital textbooks and materials in schoolsNaperville, Ill. – TechAmerica applauds Governor Pat Quinn and the Illinois Legislature for signing into law Senate Bill 3547, which expands the definition of textbooks in all

Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1691087635219628662.post-25722859076148429622010-06-23T13:28:00.004-04:002010-06-23T17:42:44.447-04:00

Anyone who has been around education knows that there are always initiatives....always. Some make sense while others don't. I have the privilege of working with a number of different future and practicing education professionals in helping them understand the role that technology could - or should - play in the education of students with disabilities and other diverse learning needs.About three

Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1691087635219628662.post-71784525497047270392010-04-13T13:00:00.001-04:002010-04-13T13:00:00.871-04:00

I have the privilege of working with a great group of AT Coordinators in the local region.  This group is made of people who are truly passionate about using technology to meet the needs of students both with and without disabilities.  It is a bit of a unique group since they are comprised of several different entities, some of which are unified school districts and some of which include a number

Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1691087635219628662.post-22412588122869299542010-02-26T23:51:00.002-05:002010-02-26T23:53:37.154-05:00

Every once in a while, in between coding and writing for my dissertation, I actually have time to work on cleaning off the DVR. Actually, the DVR many times threatens to explode and take my house out with it unless I clear some things off. Well, anyway, I was watching an episode of John Stewart and he had a guest - Dr. Atul Gawande - who authored the book, The Checklist Manifesto. This book,

Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1691087635219628662.post-34756190380175026802009-11-19T10:44:00.002-05:002009-11-19T10:46:01.507-05:00

As some of you know, I work at the Special Education Assistive Technology Center (SEAT) Center at Illinois State Univeristy. A couple colleagues of mine have been engaged in research related to using technology with young children who are either at-risk or have been identified as having a disability. They have recently launched a survey to further this line of research. From their survey:The

Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1691087635219628662.post-54033921882557916612009-11-10T09:59:00.002-05:002009-11-10T10:00:35.866-05:00

At ATIA a couple weeks ago, the Intel Reader created a bit of a buzz. A number of people now know about the KReader and KNFB Reader from Kurzweil which allow a person to use a Nokia phone to take a picture of a piece of text, process the picture using OCR, and then use text to speech to have the text read to the user. The Intel reader does all of that and a bit more. While a bit bigger and

Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1691087635219628662.post-13358846724021833462009-08-07T16:36:00.002-04:002009-08-07T16:36:41.044-04:00

I just got back from Disney World and, while I was there, I went to "The Land" in EPCOT (which incidentally stands for Every Person Comes Out Tired).  While I was in line waiting for one of the rides, I was reading a bunch of quotes on the wall that all had to do with saving the environment.  One quote, in particular, got my attention:While I know this quote is not about the landscape of

Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1691087635219628662.post-75726936887191496492009-07-23T13:59:00.002-04:002009-07-23T14:01:05.842-04:00

I was presenting to a group of higher education faculty the other day on Universal Design for Learning and how they could move forward on creating creating course that were more aligned with the principles of UDL.  The morning was presented largely by a colleague of mine and she worked to establish the foundation of UDL in higher education settings specifically focusing on Multiple Means of

Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1691087635219628662.post-64851125922206382762009-07-10T16:43:00.003-04:002009-07-10T16:48:23.486-04:00

I was in a meeting the other day and a colleague of mine had shared something that she had heard a teacher say.  "I don't want to write down that the student needs AT - its available in my class.  If I write it down, then I will have to do one of those forms!"  Let me pause to explain something here - The district...about a year or so back...had implemented the use of an AT Implementation Plan '

Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1691087635219628662.post-55814199722150837162008-06-13T12:18:00.003-04:002008-06-13T12:27:59.121-04:00

I was coming into work today and was met with a ton of graffiti. I thought to myself. 'Here, we go again!' You see, working on a college campus, there is always 'sidewalk art' as well as various other messages appearing everyday. It was not until I read the messages there were so largely placed in front of my building that I became intrigued. Take a look for yourself:I knew that a colleague

Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1691087635219628662.post-64468855848351733422008-05-28T22:39:00.003-04:002008-05-28T22:51:25.328-04:00

I just downloaded the ZAC Browser. This browser has been designed with children with autism in mind. Quoting some from their website:ZAC is the first web browser developed specifically for children with autism, and autism spectrum disorders such as Asperger syndrome, pervasive developmental disorders (PDD), and PDD-NOS. We have made this browser for the children - for their enjoyment,

Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1691087635219628662.post-90503578843558648602008-05-28T13:51:00.001-04:002008-05-28T14:19:05.300-04:00

I was just reading an article written by Steve Lee enititled "Mozilla Firefox helping to make the web accessible to all". It discussion many different accessibility features that are built into Firefox that are aimed at providing access to the web as well as different extensions that can be added to Firefox (at no charge) to improve the accessibility of the browser. There is ongoing committment

Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1691087635219628662.post-9337526721336527812008-03-24T21:45:00.001-04:002008-03-24T21:45:32.160-04:00

We have been conducting fresh installations of Office 2007 on Windows XP systems. As I went to test things to make sure everything was OK, I noticed (despite the many layout changes in Office 2007) that the 'Speech' option (formerly located on MS Word 2003 under Tools) was no where to be found. I went through many different blogs and tech forums to conclude that Office 2007 does not have speech

Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1691087635219628662.post-81904614656663000302008-03-21T16:07:00.002-04:002008-03-21T16:11:15.993-04:00

I came across a great little video featuring a song that was sung by a young man describing his experiences with ADHD. Honestly, I am not sure it was based on his experience but the song makes some nice points anyway. It is captioned with English subtitles so, be prepared. This could be a great introduction on ADHD for students as well as educators!

Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1691087635219628662.post-60183501606445810622008-03-18T13:56:00.001-04:002008-03-18T14:02:16.040-04:00

I love new applications of technology...especially when they are free. In my surfing over lunch, I discovered a new web service that enables users to access text to speech support for a variety of documents. The web service is readthewords.com. Basically, the web service allows a person to take written text, a word document, a pdf document, a web page or an RSS feed and have it converted, using

Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1691087635219628662.post-44274939688617572402008-02-29T10:31:00.001-05:002008-02-29T10:31:13.133-05:00

I love aimless surfing! It always seems to result in finding something that I never expected to come across...In this episode of aimless surfing, I came across the website "Fantastic Flexible Foldables" by Carol DeFreese. This site contains seven different foldable activities for math. The one that I had a chance to explore in depth was the Fraction Mini Book which provides a number of hints

Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1691087635219628662.post-64589879091610063342008-02-26T12:24:00.001-05:002008-02-26T12:24:40.709-05:00

Find more videos like this on Illinois Technology Conference For EducatorsI just came across this video and thought I'd share...I have to say the video makes an important point. There has been much discussion on issues of differentiated instruction, 21st Century Skills, and Response to Intervention...all of which are important. However, each of these requires our schools to have the necessary

Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1691087635219628662.post-74751129829997316732007-10-01T21:11:00.001-04:002007-10-01T21:11:02.934-04:00

According to their website, Bookshare.org, which is a repository and supplier of digital texts for individuals with print disabilities will no longer be charging schools for access to its repository. A Department of Education grant in the ballpark of 32 million dollars over a 5 year period allows for this to occur. This funding will support all students in K-12 schools that qualify as having a

Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1691087635219628662.post-36076804943449151752007-09-21T14:30:00.000-04:002007-09-24T01:21:27.799-04:00

I was approached by an administrator the other day who asked me to explain 'UDL' to him. I began explaining that UDL is a shift in thinking and curriculum material design that allows teachers to meet students at the individual level and offer tailored scaffolded instruction while hooking into those things that engage the each student. I gave some brief examples, all of which, involved some

Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1691087635219628662.post-51223634919920100032007-09-19T17:18:00.000-04:002007-09-19T17:29:29.771-04:00

I was surfing through my RSS feeds (do we surf through these, roll through these, drown in these...not sure what is most accurate...lol) and I came across this video of an individual who is an avid blogger and who uses assistive technology as part of the blogging process. Check it out!My colleagues at the university and I have been discussing the need to focus on 21st century skills within

Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1691087635219628662.post-64394288439226849452007-09-13T15:43:00.001-04:002007-09-13T15:43:36.427-04:00

I am attending Kelly Fonner's workshop entitled "Technology Toolkit for Reading", which is a part A of a two day workshop that will conclude with Scott Marfilius on October 12th. I was really impressed that the presentation began with a differentiation between assistive and instructional technology. This tends to be an overlooked area in many other presentations that I have attended. Quoting

Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1691087635219628662.post-88214213218709934202007-06-25T09:04:00.000-04:002007-06-25T09:16:50.425-04:00

One of the first sessions I attended unveiled the ISTE NETS for Students. This version of NETS-S focuses on using technology for learning rather than just learning technology. This is extremely exciting! I do wonder what impact this will have on the education of diverse learners, including those students with disabilities. This version seems much more inline with the 21st Century Skills that

Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1691087635219628662.post-22363916489260019552007-06-25T07:59:00.001-04:002007-06-25T12:13:31.301-04:00

Sean Smith, Kathleen McClaskey and I had the privilege to work together for a SETSIG sponsored preconference session. It went very well! We covered topics related to strategies to differentiate instruction using tools that are readily accessible. There were a few technology glitches but what is a technology workshop without a few glitches?!? The thing I found most amazing during the

Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1691087635219628662.post-28652407965659109802007-06-22T23:25:00.000-04:002007-06-25T07:53:29.427-04:00

Tonight is the night before the SETSIG preconference session at NECC 2007 on Differentiating Instruction for Students with Diverse Learning Needs with Readily Accessible Technology...now that's a mouthful! It is being co-presented by Sean Smith, Katheleen McClaskey and myself. Specifically, it is focusing on technologies related to reading, writing and math.The workshop is coming together well

Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1691087635219628662.post-85473188995720394282007-06-20T06:46:00.000-04:002007-06-20T06:54:33.821-04:00

Well...I am starting this new blog...a personal one of sorts.A little about me. I am an assistive technology specialist that works at the Special Education Assistive Technology Center at Illinois State University. I have been working in the area of AT for a little over a decade.I am very interested in all things related to using technology to meet the needs of diverse learners. I am hoping

Brian Wojciknoreply@blogger.com2