Towards a Systemization of Accessible Instructional Materials

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 of districts linked together though a special education cooperative.  The goal of this group has always been to provide some guidance in the establishment of similar practices with regard to AT service delivery within the region.  Not a small feat!

Over the past year, discussions have been gearing up related to effectively providing Accessible Instructional Materials (AIM) to students, both who do and do not receive special education services.  As awareness of AIM grew over the past year (and yes...we know that IL is behind the times on this), the need for a plan began to emerge.  Using the model of managing complex change in systems, a vision was set to work towards a system that would provide AIM to all students that needed it.  The group sat down and began developing a plan, realizing that development of knowledge and skills with regard to AIM would be critical to moving any change forward.  Several key groups were targeted for knowledge and skill development:

• Curriculum Purchaser/Decision Maker
• General Education Administrators
  
• Technology Directors
• Special Education Administrators
• AIMS Implementation Leaders
• Special Education Teachers
• General Education Teachers
• Families
  

Specific knowledge and skills indicators were then developed for each of these groups.  The only group that didn't currently exist was that of the AIMS Implementation Leaders.  This group was created to represent a group of individuals who would serve as a key contact for issues related to the provision of AIM.

While this is in the planning stage, I think the group may be onto something that may prove effective and, even, replicable in other systems. 

What are your thoughts?

Towards A Checklist Manifesto for Good Instruction

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, which I am in the process of reading, describes the process of developing the checklist to be used by surgeons and a study that evaluated the impact of using checklist within the operating room. The idea for the checklist was borrowed from the aviation industry referencing the checklist that pilots use to prepare the plane for takeoff. The idea was to develop a checklist that surgeons could use in the operating room to ensure that key steps were not omitted. After the checklist was developed and implemented, the study to examine the effectiveness of the checklists found significant drops in postsurgical complications and deaths. For more information on this book, I will refer you to the New York Times article entitled, A Hospital How-To Guide That Mother Would Love.

After watching the interview and beginning to read the book, I began thinking about the instructional planning process that teachers go through as they prepare their lessons. I believe that all teachers want their students to learn. I also believe that there is a pragmatic aspect to lesson planning and that, sometimes, even the best teachers may fall into a routine of using certain strategies or techniques repeatedly due to comfort, the pace of planning and implementing learning experiences, etc. I know, at least, that from time to time I have fallen into that trap. I have also experienced putting together and executing really good lessons where all students were engaged and 'got it' and other lessons that I felt 'if I only did these things differently' the precious time I had with the students would have been better spent. As I talk with other teachers, this phenomenon seems to be a shared experience.

In addition, teachers are bombarded with so many, well intentioned initiatives and models - Response to Intervention, Differentiated Instruction, Universal Design for Learning, Understanding by Design, Direct Instruction, 21st Century Learning, and so on. These initiatives and models have both similar attributes and some differences. Some have greater degrees of efficacy research supporting the initiative/model and others have less. Teachers also have different awareness and understanding of these initiatives and models and may or may not ascribe to one or more of these. Put in the words of one of my K-12 teaching colleagues as we were sitting in the start of the year meeting, "I wonder what the model for instruction will be this year?"

Suffice to say, the instructional planning process for teachers is complex.

So, that brings me to thinking about what a checklist might look like for good instruction. Would a checklist - say no more than 5-7 items - that teachers would consult every time they plan be a good thing? The checklist would contain the 'must haves' for each and every learning experience for which they are planning. The items on the checklist would result in learning experiences that allow every student to learn and be successful.

What would be the components of such a checklist?

Technorati Tags: instructional planning, checklist, UDL

Get the word out!

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 purpose of this project is to examine the experiences and needs of parents having young children with disabilities with a focus on technology tools that can support them. We hope to learn about fathers' experiences and needs to help us develop recommendations and guidelines for professionals who work with parents of young children with disabilities.

They are looking for parents of young children with disabilities to complete this survey. This is a good opportunity to ensure that the voice of families with young children with disabilities can be heard and, potentially, have influence over policy and practice.

The link to the survey is https://forms.coe.ilstu.edu/sed/TakeSurvey.aspx?PageNumber=1&SurveyID=86L1872.

Please share this link with others to get the word out!

Intel Reader...accessiblity in the palm of your hand?

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 bulkier, there are some really nice features. Check out the video below:

What are your thoughts?