Bulletin Boards & Chat Rooms:

http://www.abilityhub.com/general/forums.htm

http://www.ldonline.org/bulletin_boards/index.html  

http://www.specialednews.com/forums/

http://e-bility.com/arata/resources_bbs.shtml

http://e-bility.com/arata/resources_list.shtml

http://www.ican.com/channels/resource_links.cfm/Crumb/6,76/

http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Spa/6889/dishotlist.htm

http://www.arcofkingcounty.org/guide/services/online/chat/

http://www.esmerel.org/forums/forum.htm

http://www.lookingglass.org/phorums/

http://www.westmark.pvt.k12.ca.us/add_adhd.html#Newsgroup

http://www.parentsplace.com/messageboards/ At The ParentsPlace.com

http://chronus.waisman.wisc.edu/fv/chat/enter.asp Family Village Chat Rooms

http://www.familyvillage.wisc.edu/discussion.html Family Village Discussion Board (bulletin board)

http://groups.yahoo.com/search?query=disabilities The main link to the Yahoo Groups related to disabilities

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeopleWithDisabilities/ Yahoo! Groups People With Disabilities

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ChallengedLiving/ Yahoo! Groups ~ Challenged Living

http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/disabledjobseekers Yahoo! Clubs disabled jobseekers

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TrachyVentList Yahoo! Groups : Trachy Vent List

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/parentsofventdependentandspecialneedskid  
Yahoo! Groups : parentsofventdependentandspecialneedskid
http://www.makoa.org/chat/index.html Disability Chat Links
The Worldwide Virtual Community of the Disabled  
http://neuro-mancer.mgh.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/Ultimate.cgi
Listservs and Mailing Lists:
http://www.disabilityresources.org/DRMreg.html A list of resources Indexed by state
http://www.familyvillage.wisc.edu/lists/index.html Family Village listservs
http://www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Topic/Diversity/Specific/Disability/Listservs/  
http://www.state.oh.us/olrs/Listserv.htm   
http://www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Topic/Diversity/Specific/Disability/Listservs/dadvocat  
http://www.nas.com/downsyn/dslistserv.html Down Syndrome Listserv
Other AT Links:
http://www.familyvillage.wisc.edu/index.htmlx Family Village: An absolutely Astounding site!!
http://www.makoa.org/general.htm A very good all around information source
http://forums.weta.org/ldonline/phorum/list.php?f=6&collapse=1
http://wayne.k12.ny.us/at/ My own site at Wayne Central School District, Ontario, New York 14519
The presence of the information cited above does not constitute an endorsement of the content, accuracy, nor ease of use of the listed resources. These links have been been tested to assure that they are currently active links. I would appreciate feedback concerning their value (or lack thereof).
The resources from this exercise will be compiled, along with other information, into a database (probably an Excel spreadsheet) at the end of this course as part of my course project; and made available to interested users.
~~Dave
MODULE 3:
 
Case Study 1
 
Question 1 If you were a member of Aiden's team, what words or phrases would you like to see represented on his communication board to ensure that his wants and needs were communicated?
 
Communication Board Phrase Representations: I would include pictures of:
 
A toilet ~ “I want to go to the bathroom.” Or “It’s time to go to the bathroom.”
 
A drink of water (a glass with a clear liquid in it) ~ “I want a glass of water”
 
A drink of milk (a glass with a white/opaque liquid in it) ~ I want something to drink (other than water), milk
Food on a plate ~ “I’m hungry”
 
A happy smiley face ~ “I am happy.” Or “Are you happy?”
 
A sad ‘smiley’ face ~ “I am sad.” Or “Are you sad”
 
A little male child sleeping in a bed ~ “I’m tired.” “I want to go to sleep.” Or “You need to take a nap now.” Or “It’s time to go to bad.” Or “Are you tired?”
 
Toys next to a toy box ~ “It’s time to play now.” Or “It’s time to pick up your toys now.” (possibly two pictures: One with the toys picked up & inside the toy-box and the other picture of the toys on the floor around the toy-box).
 
Pictures of animals ~ Dog, cat, horse, cow, bird, fish, etc.
 
Pictures of people ~ Adult male (“Dad”) Adult female (“Mom”) male & female children to represent siblings, etc.
 
Picture of the outdoors ~ “I want to go outside.” “I want to go for a walk.”
 
Picture of a car ~ “I want to go for a ride.” Or “We’re going to go for a ride.”

Picture of a book ~ “Do you want a story?” “Do you want to read your book?”
 
Picture of clothes ~ “You need to get dressed.”
 
Question 2 B) Assistive Technology Research: Develop a list of resources that provide information to parents of young children who are recently diagnosed with a disability. (support groups, etc.) Share your results with the group.
 
http://www.parentsinc.org/
 
http://www.parenttoparentnys.org/
 
http://www.our-kids.org/okmsgarch.html

Band-aids and Blackboards:   www.faculty.fairfield.edu/fleitas/contents.html
This is a site about growing up with medical problems ...any ole type. Its goal is to help people understand what it's like, from the perspective of the children and teens who are doing just that.
Brave Kids:  www.bravekids.org/index.html
Help for children with chronic, life-threatening illnesses or disabilities.
Bridges 4 Kids:    www.bridges4kids.org
The goal of this website is "to provide as much timely, useful information as possible to both parents and professionals regarding parenting concerns, child development, children with special needs, disabilities, and those who are at-risk."

Question 1
A) Question: Select and read an article from the list above. Identify and share strategies that are applicable to consumers and/or existing Assistive Technology devices and services you may work with.

http://www.ldresources.com/articles/alphasmart_ld.html

I chose the article at the url listed above because as I have had a brief opportunity to look over the AlphaSmart keyboard it looks to me to be a device with great potential for use in the classroom and so I hoped to learn more about the AlphaSmart. I can see where these devices could be used for both assistive technology applications for the learning disabled child as well as a great writing device for the typical classroom setting as an alternative to the more expensive laptop computer.

At about $250.00 it is about one quarter the price of an economically equipped laptop. The above article mentioned, under the topic of compatibility, the similarity of the AlphaSmart’s keyboard to that of a conventional computer. In fact the AlphaSmart’s keyboard is very near in size and location of keys to that of a full-size conventional computer keyboard (unlike that of many laptop computers). Additionall, even though the AlphaSmart’s keyboard is nearly the same as a conventional desktop computer keyboard, the over all size and weight is much more compact and lighter than a laptop computer.

The article also offered a great idea for using multiple AlphaSnmarts with multiple students, and that was the idea of having the group type a while and then pass their device to the next person and have them continue the story line of the previous user. (I ‘d kind of like to try that myself J ) Some other useful suggestions for using the AlphaSmart were:

• Put your daily schedule in one file

• Put a name and address list in another

• Put a to do list in another

• Jot down jokes friends tell you in another

• Keep your assignment list in another

• Put course notes in another

My plan for the use of these devices in our school district (we already have about three in use) is to arrange multiple AlphaSmarts into mobile labs in groups of ten, fifteen, or twenty unit groups. We will also continue to recommend them for use with the Co-Writer software for specific learning disabillity needs.
Question 2

B) Field Trip:  
Visit a local program that serves persons with learning disabilities (i.e. after school tutorial programs, community adult literacy programs). Report back on what technology interventions have been introduced in these programs.
C) Assistive Technology Research:  
Locate and identify any statistics of Assistive Technology interventions with relation to learning disabilities in vocational and educational settings.
D) Tech Quest: 
Download, install and evaluate the features of one or two of the following applications:
Case Study 3
 
Question 1 Evaluate your own home for accessibility for a person with a mobility impairment, a sensory impairment, and a cognitive impairment. Describe both the Universal Design features present and obstacles that exist. What steps could you take to eliminate these obstacles?
 
Whew, is this an interesting question considering the house I live in! We just started to look over those aspects of our home because we are nearing the time of life when my eighty year old mother may have to come to live with us in the not too distant future. With that in mind I will do the evaluation (and remediation) as it relates to our home and with her in mind.
 
The style of our house is a ground level entry split-level. The front entrance comes in at ground level (plus the normal one step front stoop). All three bedrooms and the main bath are up a short flight of stairs from the main (entry) level and the other bathroom (powder) and the family room. Probably the first and biggest problem to address would be that of the location of the bathrooms. Either another bathroom would have to be added to the house or a decision made as to which level of the house would be utilized and adapted for my mother’s use. Adding another bathroom is not really an option so the decision of which bathroom to adapt the house around would depend on a secondary consideration of where does the family spend most of its free time and would therefore be the most advantageous for my Mother’s use.
 
Clearly the decision will be to set her up to live in/bear/around the family room. This is the biggest room in the house and therefore offers more options as to its adaptability. In fact, the room is big enough to add a private area (or bedroom) for her right near the entrance to the downstairs powder room. This would give same floor access to her bedroom, the family room, and the bathroom.
 
Next, the downstairs powder room would have to have a tub or shower facility added to it. The powder room itself isn’t large enough to accommodate the addition of a tub or shower, but fortunately there is a relatively unused room right next to the powder room. Probably the best thing to do would be to remove the partition between this room and the powder and then enlarge the door into the combined room with a door large enough for a wheel chair. We decided to install a four foot wide shower stall instead of a tub (easier access) and the shower also built-in seats in the back two corners. Handrails could be added on the wall adjacent to the shower and the toilet.
 
The only two remaining problems that I see are access to the dining area on the first floor and wheel chair access at the front door entrance. The dining room access could be resolved with the addition of a basic wheelchair lift or small elevator. There is adequate room for this type of device right against the header wall (below the floor of the dining area) and right below the dining room table. The elevator would open out to a location right at the dining room table. With the addition of a ramp up onto the front stoop then access can be gained to both the first floor (entrance level) and the lower level where the family room is.
 
Question 2
 
Case Study 4
 
Question 1 1) Required Question:     Select an article from the Supplemental Materials listed above and provide a brief synopsis to your fellow participants.
 

121 hours (not counting project time or live training) ~ I think that actually the course requires much more than 100 hours as presented.

Yes, I found the online approach easy to get used to both the html content of the online study and the Hypernews program for the application exercises. This is a remarkably efficient approach when coupled with broadband Internet and some form of online file storage.

I have a cable modem service that provides a 1.5 megabit per second connection (average) and our school has a Xerox Docushare service provided by the local BOCES. This setup allowed me to keep my files for the course in the DocuShare and then access them from either my computer at work or home. I kept my notes for the course in a MS Word XP document and used the Windows clipboard to copy/paste information from the study sources (mostly Internet) to my Word doc. This leaves the information in digital form and therefore easy to reuse again in posting to the web, e-mailing friends with questions, or training purposes (or my next AT course~ ;) Just kidding~ J I was also able as I studied online to remotely access my Assistive Technology website at the school where I worked and update it with hyperlinks to resource sites as I came across them in my study.

The two day live training was definitely very beneficial, although I think I would have preferred the five day tract for a number of reasons: There is more material to cover than fits in the two days. Five days would give the time necessary to work more closely with a greater variety of hardware and software, especially since voice recognition and text to speech software are really starting to come into their own. The other aspect of the live training that could be better utilized with the five day tract would be the resource of the members of the class. I was amazed at the variety of skills and experiences of our class membership. I would have loved to have more time to interact with the group members. Lastly, another basic benefit of the five day tract would be having more time to adjust to the time change (for those of us who traveled from the East coast), more time to enjoy the Los Angeles area.

Although the cost of housing would be increased, I think I would like to see the ATACP course precede the CSUN conference by one week, so that I could take the course and then stay a second week and make full use of the conference.

Yes. Although I am a technician and much of my ongoing learning takes place through reading technical information online, this was my first chance to do a prolonged and organized study using the Internet. I feel that it was a very successful approach, but I have to say I enjoy the personality(ies) of the live teacher(s) and a textbook/workbook is hard to beat.

Yes. Because of getting such a late start on the online portion of the course I loaded the Microsoft Word alternative format onto my laptop and studied on the plane trip from New York to LA. My work on the two flights was probably the most useful ‘online’ sessions of the course. I’m also becoming very interested in the MP3 audio format for instruction and would like to take more time to try it and compare its effectiveness as an instructional medium. As an FYI, I ran into a new program that makes it Very easy to create MP3 files from ASCII text. TextAloud from NextUp software www.NextUp.com works very easily with the Windows clipboard to create MP3 files and also screen reads anything copied to the Windows clipboard. Also, Adobe has just released version 6.0 of what used to be called Adobe Acrobat Reader (the free part of Adobe Acrobat). It’s now called Adobe Reader. It has a Read Out Loud text to speech feature built in and it now reads the Adobe e-books making it unnecessary to install a separate e-book reader program. I think both of these formats offer great promise as instructional media.

I would change very little. Perhaps the volume of material for the online part of the course could be reduced and more of it placed in the supplementary material. I found myself, (despite a fair warning at the beginning of the course) with more time accumulated than was practical. Other than the suggestion above to have a five day ATACP the week preceding the CSUN conference and coffee every morning ;) I wouldn’t change anything. I’ve recommended the course to another group in our county and I think they’re already making plans right now for Washington in August. Hope things are well with Mike. I had a great time, learned a lot, and loved the group. I’m hoping to see y’all in LA next March.
 

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