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Equity by Design: Delivering on the Power and Promise of UDL 1st Edition

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Equity by Design: Delivering on the Power and Promise of UDL 1st Edition

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From Amazon:
Equity by Design is intended to serve as a blueprint for teachers to alter the all-too-predictable outcomes for our historically under-served students. A first of its kind resource, the book makes the critical link between social justice and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) so that we can equip students (and teachers, too) with the will, skill, and collective capacity to enact positive change.

Inside you’ll find:

Concrete strategies for designing and delivering a culturally responsive, sustainable, and equitable framework for all students

Rich examples, case studies, and implementation spotlights of educators, students (including Parkland survivors), and programs that have embraced a social justice imperative

Evidence-based application of best practices for UDL to create more inclusive and equitable classrooms

A flexible format to facilitate use with individual teachers, teacher teams, and as the basis for whole-school implementation

"Every student," Mirko and Katie insist, "deserves the opportunity to be successful regardless of their zip code, the color of their skin, the language they speak, their sexual and/or gender identity, and whether or not they have a disability." Consider Equity by Design a critical first step forward in providing that all-important opportunity.

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Mirko Chardin (Author), Katie R. Novak (Author)

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Equity by Design: Delivering on the Power and Promise of UDL

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Amazon.com: Equity by Design: Delivering on the Power and Promise of UDL: 9781544380247: Chardin, Mirko, Novak, Katie R.: Books

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Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning

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Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning

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From CAST:
In Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning: Building Expressways to Success, Andratesha Fritzgerald reveals Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as an effective framework to teach Black and Brown students. Drawing vivid portraits of classroom instruction, Fritzgerald shows how teachers open new roads of communication, engagement, and skill-building for students who feel honored and loved.

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1. Home

2. Catalog

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4. Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning: Building Expressways to Success

Author(s)

Andratesha Fritzgerald

Date

2020

About the Book

In Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning: Building Expressways to Success, Andratesha Fritzgerald reveals Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as an effective framework to teach Black and Brown students. Drawing vivid portraits of classroom instruction, Fritzgerald shows how teachers open new roads of communication, engagement, and skill-building for students who feel honored and loved.

Fritzgerald offers very practical suggestions for making inclusion, antiracism, and the acceptance of differences the first and most important step in lesson planning. ... This book gives me hope that in education we can begin to eliminate the violence of academic and social prejudice that kills the spirit of our babies and belittles the needs and experiences of people of color.

from the Foreword by Samaria Rice

Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning by Andratesha Fritzgerald is available in paperback ($29.99, 192 pages, ISBN: 9781930583702) and accessible EPUB ($29.99, ISBN: 9781930583719) format.
Table of Contents

Leadership Implementation Guide for Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning

The free Leadership Implementation Guide supports school leaders in putting universally designed antiracist practices into effect across their organizations.

Created by Andratesha Fritzgerald, Kristan Rodriguez, and Sue Miller Wiltz.

Learn more & download

About the Author

Andratesha Fritzgerald, EdS, serves as Director of Teaching, Learning, and Innovation for the East Cleveland (OH) City School Districts and has been a teacher and leader in urban schools for nearly 20 years.

You can find her on Twitter at @FritzTesha.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Samaria Rice

Prologue: Invitation to Trouble

Chapter 1: UDL: Honor and Transformation

Chapter 2: Just Teach

Chapter 3: Safety Checks on the UDL Expressway

Chapter 4: The UDL Expressway

Chapter 5: Engagement as License to Learn

Chapter 6: Representation: Honoring by Invitation

Chapter 7: Action and Expression: Honoring by Releasing

Chapter 8: Failure as Feedback for Excellence

Chapter 9: Constructing a Universally Designed, Antiracist Classroom

Chapter 10: Conclusions and Invitations

References

Index

Acknowledgments

About the Author

More from CAST Publishing

An implementation and study guide to help school leaders put universally designed antiracist practices into effect across their organizations.

Ralabate and Nelson braid two "hot" frameworks, Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) and UDL, to help teachers address the needs of English Learners in today's classrooms.

P. K. Ralabate & L. L. Nelson
2017

In this lively and fun book, UDL experts Allison Posey and Katie Novak identify elements of what they call "The Unlearning Cycle" and challenge educators to think again about what, how, and why they teach.

A. Posey & K. Novak
2020

Top of Page

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Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning: Building Expressways to Success - CAST Professional Publishing

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Home Catalog All Books & Products Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning: Building Expressways to Success Author(s) Andratesha Fritzgerald Date 2020 In Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning: Building Expressways to Success, Andratesha Fritzgerald reveals Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as an effective framework to teach Black and Brown students.

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Striving to be better communicators

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Actor Alan Alda joins Morning Joe to discuss his new podcast 'Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda.'

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My new favorite website for online activities. Make your own or use pre-made ones. Quick and easy. Just add words and or photos and boom you have a bunch of great activities with lots of bells and whistles! Free but worth upgrading so you can make more activities. Reminds me of BitsBoards Pro app (another fave!) Works on computer or iPad (go through Safari.) Also the spinner works well when you give remote control on Zoom to an iPad user :) Enjoy!

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COVID-19 Infections And Deaths Are Higher Among Those With Intellectual Disabilities

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COVID-19 Infections And Deaths Are Higher Among Those With Intellectual Disabilities

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People with intellectual disabilities and autism who contract COVID-19 die at higher rates than the rest of the population, according to an analysis by NPR of numbers obtained from two states that collect data. They also contract the virus at a higher rate, according to research looking into group homes across the United States.

In Pennsylvania, numbers obtained by NPR show that people with intellectual disabilities and autism who test positive for COVID-19 die at a rate about twice as high as other Pennsylvania residents who contract the illness.

In New York, the state with the most deaths from COVID-19, people with developmental disabilities die at a rate 2.5 times the rate of others who contract the virus.

The numbers in Pennsylvania are compiled by the Office of Developmental Programs of the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services and count people who get state services while living in group homes, state institutions or in their own homes. As of June 2, there were 801 confirmed cases and 113 deaths among people with intellectual disabilities and autism. In New York, NPR calculated data obtained from the New York State Office for People with Developmental Disabilities. Of people who get state services from that office, 2,289 have tested positive for COVID-19 and 368 have died.

The high rate of death "is disturbing, but it's not surprising," says Scott Landes, an associate professor of sociology at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

He's been collecting his own data from state and private research groups and says people with developmental disabilities who live in group homes have some of the highest death rates from COVID-19 in the country.

"They're more likely - four times more likely, we're showing - to actually contract COVID-19 than the general population," he says. "And then if they do contract COVID-19, what we're seeing is they're about two times more likely to die from it."

That's higher than the death rates for Hispanics and African Americans.

Landes co-authored a recent study that used private health records to show that 18- to 74-year-olds with developmental disabilities, mostly those diagnosed with autism, who contracted COVID-19 died at nearly twice the rate as others.

Landes says there are two reasons for the high death rates. People with developmental disabilities are far more likely to have a preexisting health condition, such as respiratory disease, that adds to their risk. They're much more likely, than even elderly people, to live in a setting with roommates and staff like group homes where two or four or 10 or more people live together. About 13% to 20% of people with developmental disabilities live in such settings, Landes notes, compared with only about 6% of people over age 65.

"You reside with multiple roommates, with staff coming in and out," says Landes, "your chances of actually contracting COVID are high. And then if someone in your home gets it, it's like there's nowhere you can go."

There has been a lot of attention to the deaths in nursing homes, and with good reason. About a third of all deaths nationwide from COVID-19 have been linked to them. According to the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, there have been at least 31,782 deaths of nursing home residents from COVID-19 as of May 31. The CMS total does not count nursing home staff who died.

Still, says Nicole Jorwic, senior director for public policy at the Arc, a group that represents people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, there are consequences to paying less attention to people who live in other care home settings.

One result, she says, is that it has been harder for the groups that serve people with disabilities to get personal protective equipment or extra pay for staff workers. In most states, these workers don't get the bonus pay that is sometimes offered to other front-line health care workers and, in some states, the staff who serve people in group homes or their own homes aren't considered essential workers.

"You don't go into a hospital and some doctors have on masks and some don't. Or some are underpaid and some are not," says Antonio McCall, a direct service provider who works with two men at a Philadelphia group home. "No, everyone gets what they're working for. Everyone's covered with protection, because that's what's required."

There have been no infections at the house where McCall works, but there have been some outbreaks of COVID-19 - and even a death - at others. He says his agency managed to find masks for him, and he has received some extra pay.

And McCall is careful. He doesn't want to bring an infection into the group home or his own home, where he helps care for his mother, who has an underlying health condition, and is raising his niece and nephew.

In New York, a direct service professional working in a group home makes little money - "at or below the poverty line," in the mid $20,000s a year, says Tom McAlvanah, president of New York Disability Advocates, a coalition of service providers. He says it has been hard to keep workers healthy and on the job. They're vulnerable not only because of where they work, but because they often rely on public transportation.

McAlvanah says New York's Medicaid program, the main source of payment for group home providers, has failed to increase reimbursements even before the coronavirus pandemic. Now, he says, group home residents have stopped going to work and group home providers have had to pay staff - without government reimbursement - to work more hours and overtime to run the group homes where residents now spend their full days.

That's the case in most states, although Colorado and several others did increase Medicaid resources to providers. The CARES Act, the coronavirus relief act signed into law in March, became a source of extra funding, but only through the end of June.

Provider agencies say that, on average, they've spent a third of their annual revenue on unexpected costs from the pandemic and have cash reserves to cover a month or less of operations, according to a recent national survey by the American Network of Community Options and Resources, a trade association for groups that provide services to people with disabilities.

"For years and years and years, people we serve in group homes like this, they're the forgotten people," says Todd Goodwin, who runs John F. Murphy Homes, a large provider agency in Maine. "Nobody sees them. Nobody notices them. We see that repeatedly through policy, we see that in financing at the state and federal level. It's been an issue for years."

In Washington state, there was a Zoom meeting last month of men and women with developmental disabilities who belong to an advocacy group called People First of Washington. They spoke of their opposition to state budget cuts that, they worried, would cut off public transportation that they depend on to get to work or cut the hours of their state-funded caregivers. And they were worried about the effects of the coronavirus.

Shane Cody Fairweather, who lives in his own apartment in Chewelah, Wash., with support from service providers, said in an interview that he worries that people like him are not getting attention, despite their risks for contracting COVID-19.

"We're part of society. We're more vulnerable," he says. "It should be on equal footing. They should be paying attention to the elderly and the disabled as well."

Fairweather says there have been no outbreaks of the coronavirus in the apartments where he lives. He's healthy and ready to return to his job as a janitor at the local library.

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COVID-19 Infections And Deaths Are Higher Among Those With Intellectual Disabilities

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People with intellectual disabilities and autism who contract COVID-19 die at higher rates than the rest of the population, according to an analysis by NPR of numbers obtained from two states that collect data. They also contract the virus at a higher rate, according to research looking into group homes across the United States.

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Seven Daily Drivers to Support Teacher Effectiveness by Nathan Lang

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Featured Post

Here in the US, we're getting ready for Turkey Day. If you're celebrating Thanksgiving, these resources may be of interest.... [Read More...]

Video of the Week

How can we support AAC users who struggle with executive function? In today's featured video, we learn from Kansas-based SLP... [Read More...]

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teenink.com
This is an online newspaper written BY students FOR students. When students write anything in any medium they can publish their work on this site. Even the most reluctant writer feels success with this tool and it empowers them to be creative and honest in their writing.

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Instant scanning of bubble sheets with phone - great for instant grade. Produces detailed reports. Encourages growth mindset because the timeliness of results encourages kids to sign up for reteach and retest

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The Trouble With Rubrics from Alfie Kohn

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The Trouble With Rubrics from Alfie Kohn

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ENGLISH JOURNAL

March 2006 - vol. 95, no. 4

By Alfie Kohn

Once upon a time I vaguely thought of assessment in dichotomous terms: The old approach, which consisted mostly of letter grades, was crude and uninformative, while the new approach, which included things like portfolios and rubrics, was detailed and authentic. Only much later did I look more carefully at the individual floats rolling by in the alternative assessment parade - and stop cheering.

For starters, I realized that it's hardly sufficient to recommend a given approach on the basis of its being better than old-fashioned report cards. By that criterion, just about anything would look good. I eventually came to understand that not all alternative assessments are authentic. My growing doubts about rubrics in particular were prompted by the assumptions on which this technique rested and also the criteria by which they (and assessment itself) were typically judged. These doubts were stoked not only by murmurs of dissent I heard from thoughtful educators but by the case made for this technique by its enthusiastic proponents. For example, I read in one article that "rubrics make assessing student work quick and efficient, and they help teachers to justify to parents and others the grades that they assign to students."[1] To which the only appropriate response is: Uh-oh.

First of all, something that's commended to teachers as a handy strategy of self-justification during parent conferences ("Look at all these 3's, Mrs. Grommet! How could I have given Zach anything but a B?") doesn't seem particularly promising for inviting teachers to improve their practices, let alone rethink their premises.

Second, I'd been looking for an alternative to grades because research shows three reliable effects when students are graded: They tend to think less deeply, avoid taking risks, and lose interest in the learning itself.[2] The ultimate goal of authentic assessment must be the elimination of grades. But rubrics actually help to legitimate grades by offering a new way to derive them. They do nothing to address the terrible reality of students who have been led to focus on getting A's rather than on making sense of ideas.

Finally, there's the matter of that promise to make assessment "quick and efficient." I've graded enough student papers to understand the appeal here, but the best teachers would react to that selling point with skepticism, if not disdain. They'd immediately ask what we had to sacrifice in order to spit out a series of tidy judgments about the quality of student learning. To ponder that question is to understand how something that presents itself as an innocuous scoring guide can be so profoundly wrongheaded.

Consistent and uniform standards are admirable, and maybe even workable, when we're talking about, say, the manufacture of DVD players. The process of trying to gauge children's understanding of ideas is a very different matter, however. It necessarily entails the exercise of human judgment, which is an imprecise, subjective affair. Rubrics are, above all, a tool to promote standardization, to turn teachers into grading machines or at least allow them to pretend that what they're doing is exact and objective. Frankly, I'm amazed by the number of educators whose opposition to standardized tests and standardized curricula mysteriously fails to extend to standardized in-class assessments.

The appeal of rubrics is supposed to be their high interrater reliability, finally delivered to language arts. A list of criteria for what should be awarded the highest possible score when evaluating an essay is supposed to reflect near-unanimity on the part of the people who designed the rubric and is supposed to assist all those who use it to figure out (that is, to discover rather than to decide) which essays meet those criteria.

Now some observers criticize rubrics because they can never deliver the promised precision; judgments ultimately turn on adjectives that are murky and end up being left to the teacher's discretion. But I worry more about the success of rubrics than their failure. Just as it's possible to raise standardized test scores as long as you're willing to gut the curriculum and turn the school into a test-preparation factory, so it's possible to get a bunch of people to agree on what rating to give an assignment as long as they're willing to accept and apply someone else's narrow criteria for what merits that rating. Once we check our judgment at the door, we can all learn to give a 4 to exactly the same things.

This attempt to deny the subjectivity of human judgment is objectionable in its own right. But it's also harmful in a very practical sense. In an important article published in 1999, Linda Mabry, now at Washington State University, pointed out that rubrics "are designed to function as scoring guidelines, but they also serve as arbiters of quality and agents of control" over what is taught and valued. Because "agreement among scorers is more easily achieved with regard to such matters as spelling and organization," these are the characteristics that will likely find favor in a rubricized classroom. Mabry cites research showing that "compliance with the rubric tended to yield higher scores but produced 'vacuous' writing."[3]

To this point, my objections assume only that teachers rely on rubrics to standardize the way they think about student assignments. Despite my misgivings, I can imagine a scenario where teachers benefit from consulting a rubric briefly in the early stages of designing a curriculum unit in order to think about various criteria by which to assess what students end up doing. As long as the rubric is only one of several sources, as long as it doesn't drive the instruction, it could conceivably play a constructive role.

But all bets are off if students are given the rubrics and asked to navigate by them. The proponent I quoted earlier, who boasted of efficient scoring and convenient self-justification, also wants us to employ these guides so that students will know ahead of time exactly how their projects will be evaluated. In support of this proposition, a girl who didn't like rubrics is quoted as complaining, "If you get something wrong, your teacher can prove you knew what you were supposed to do."[4] Here we're invited to have a good laugh at this student's expense. The implication is that kids' dislike of these things proves their usefulness - a kind of "gotcha" justification.

Just as standardizing assessment for teachers may compromise the quality of teaching, so standardizing assessment for learners may compromise the learning. Mindy Nathan, a Michigan teacher and former school board member told me that she began "resisting the rubric temptation" the day "one particularly uninterested student raised his hand and asked if I was going to give the class a rubric for this assignment." She realized that her students, presumably grown accustomed to rubrics in other classrooms, now seemed "unable to function unless every required item is spelled out for them in a grid and assigned a point value. Worse than that," she added, "they do not have confidence in their thinking or writing skills and seem unwilling to really take risks."[5]

This is the sort of outcome that may not be noticed by an assessment specialist who is essentially a technician, in search of practices that yield data in ever-greater quantities. A B+ at the top of a paper tells a student very little about its quality, whereas a rubric provides more detailed information based on multiple criteria. Therefore, a rubric is a superior assessment.

The fatal flaw in this logic is revealed by a line of research in educational psychology showing that students whose attention is relentlessly focused on how well they're doing often become less engaged with what they're doing. There's a big difference between thinking about the content of a story you're reading (for example, trying to puzzle out why a character made a certain decision), and thinking about your own proficiency at reading. "Only extraordinary education is concerned with learning," the writer Marilyn French once observed, whereas "most is concerned with achieving: and for young minds, these two are very nearly opposites."[6] In light of this distinction, it's shortsighted to assume that an assessment technique is valuable in direct proportion to how much information it provides. At a minimum, this criterion misses too much.

But the news is even worse than that. Studies have shown that too much attention to the quality of one's performance is associated with more superficial thinking, less interest in whatever one is doing, less perseverance in the face of failure, and a tendency to attribute the outcome to innate ability and other factors thought to be beyond one's control.[7] To that extent, more detailed and frequent evaluations of a student's accomplishments may be downright counterproductive. As one sixth grader put it, "The whole time I'm writing, I'm not thinking about what I'm saying or how I'm saying it. I'm worried about what grade the teacher will give me, even if she's handed out a rubric. I'm more focused on being correct than on being honest in my writing."[8] In many cases, the word even in that second sentence might be replaced with especially. But, in this respect at least, rubrics aren't uniquely destructive. Any form of assessment that encourages students to keep asking, "How am I doing?" is likely to change how they look at themselves and at what they're learning, usually for the worse.

What all this means is that improving the design of rubrics, or inventing our own, won't solve the problem because the problem is inherent to the very idea of rubrics and the goals they serve. This is a theme sounded by Maja Wilson in her extraordinary book, Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Assessment.[9] In boiling "a messy process down to 4-6 rows of nice, neat, organized little boxes," she argues, assessment is "stripped of the complexity that breathes life into good writing." High scores on a list of criteria for excellence in essay writing do not mean that the essay is any good because quality is more than the sum of its rubricized parts. To think about quality, Wilson argues, "we need to look to the piece of writing itself to suggest its own evaluative criteria" - a truly radical and provocative suggestion.

Wilson also makes the devastating observation that a relatively recent "shift in writing pedagogy has not translated into a shift in writing assessment." Teachers are given much more sophisticated and progressive guidance nowadays about how to teach writing but are still told to pigeonhole the results, to quantify what can't really be quantified. Thus, the dilemma: Either our instruction and our assessment remain "out of sync" or the instruction gets worse in order that students' writing can be easily judged with the help of rubrics.

Again, this is not a matter of an imperfect technique. In fact, when the how's of assessment preoccupy us, they tend to chase the why's back into the shadows. So let's shine a light over there and ask: What's our reason for trying to evaluate the quality of students' efforts? It matters whether the objective is to (1) rank kids against one another, (2) provide an extrinsic inducement for them to try harder, or (3) offer feedback that will help them become more adept at, and excited about, what they're doing. Devising more efficient rating techniques - and imparting a scientific luster to those ratings - may make it even easier to avoid asking this question. In any case, it's certainly not going to shift our rationale away from (1) or (2) and toward (3).

Neither we nor our assessment strategies can be simultaneously devoted to helping all students improve and to sorting them into winners and losers. That's why we have to do more than reconsider rubrics. We have to reassess the whole enterprise of assessment, the goal being to make sure it's consistent with the reason we decided to go into teaching in the first place.

1. Heidi Goodrich Andrade, "Using Rubrics to Promote Thinking and Learning," Educational Leadership, February 2000, p. 13.

2. I review this research in Punished by Rewards (Houghton Mifflin, 1993) and The Schools Our Children Deserve (Houghton Mifflin, 1999), as well as in "From Degrading to De-Grading," High School Magazine, March 1999.

3. Linda Mabry, "Writing to the Rubric," Phi Delta Kappan, May 1999, pp. 678, 676.

4. Quoted by Andrade, "Understanding Rubrics," in http://learnweb.harvard.edu/alps/thinking/docs/rubricar.htm. Another educator cites this same quotation and adds: "Reason enough to give rubrics a closer look!" It's also quoted on the RubiStar website, which is a sort of on-line rubric-o-matic.

5. Mindy Nathan, personal communication, October 26, 2004. As a student teacher, Nathan was disturbed to find that her performance, too, was evaluated by means of a rubric that offered a ready guide for evaluating instructional "competencies." In an essay written at the end of her student-teaching experience, she commented, "Of course, rubrics don't lie; they just don't tell the whole story. They crunch a semester of shared learning and love into a few squares on a sheet that can make or break a career." That's why she vowed, "I won't do this to my students. My goal as a teacher will be to preserve and present the human aspects of my students that defy rubric-ization."

6. Marilyn French, Beyond Power: On Women, Men, and Morals (New York: Summit, 1985), p. 387.

7. For more on the distinction between performance and learning - and the detrimental effects of an excessive focus on performance - see The Schools Our Children Deserve, chap. 2, which reviews research by Carol Dweck, Carole Ames, Carol Midgley, John Nicholls, and others.

8. Quoted in Natalia Perchemlides and Carolyn Coutant, "Growing Beyond Grades," Educational Leadership, October 2004, p. 54. Notice that this student is actually making two separate points. Even some critics of rubrics, who are familiar with the latter objection - that honesty may suffer when technical accuracy is overemphasized - seem to have missed the former one.

9. Maja Wilson, Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Assessment (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2006).

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Rita Pierson, a teacher for 40 years, once heard a colleague say, “They don’t pay me to like the kids.” Her response: “Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like.’” A rousing call to educators to believe in their students and actually connect with them on a real, human, personal level.

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Get a daily email featuring the latest talk, plus a quick mix of trending content.

By subscribing, you understand and agree that we will store, process and manage your personal information according to our Privacy Policy

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Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

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Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.

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On redefining and retooling math education in the US.

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Today's math curriculum is teaching students to expect -- and excel at -- paint-by-numbers classwork, robbing kids of a skill more important than solving problems: formulating them. Dan Meyer shows classroom-tested math exercises that prompt students to stop and think.

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‎Kwik Brain with Jim Kwik on Apple Podcasts

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‎Kwik Brain is a fun, fast-paced show designed to help busy people learn and achieve anything in a fraction of the time! Your coach, Jim Kwik (his real name), is the brain & memory trainer to elite mental performers, including many of the world's leading CEO's and celebrities.

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A host of helpful tools for reading. Plus bonus resources.

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Great math review app, both iPad and Chromebook, free, can choose grades to practice

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An AR app that can be used to support learning and working.  Attach content, such as videos, to images.  Imagine creating a dynamic AAC Word Wall!

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‎HP Reveal (formerly Aurasma) changes the way we interact with the physical world. Discover augmented reality (AR) experiences, create your own AR, and share the magic with friends. Bring photos, posters, birthday cards, and more. With HP Reveal, print is only the beginning - and we can't wait to s...

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This is a resource for working with teams who support adults who can't speak.  It lives at AACCommunity.net.

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Consider Communication is a special project for those of us who support people with complex communication needs. We will share information and insights.

Consider Communication has several parts.

This April, we will hold 5 one-day learning sessions with direct support staff, family members, therapists and others in Pennsylvania. Speech-language pathologists with a passion for people with complex communication needs will lead these learning opportunities.

Everyone that joined the day-long session, can meet at another time in smaller groups. We will meet in a video chat room and discuss individual needs. We will create a vision, ideas and plan for particular people we support.

In the coming days, important concepts will be posted on this website. Each concept will be in a module. These modules include:

Basics of communication,

Describing how someone can communicate now,

Encouraging someone to communicate more,

Expanding the ways someone can communicate,

Resources and different options available to you and others.

Each person who completes the face-to-face session and the video talk will receive a Certificate of Completion.

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Consider Communication is a special project for those of us who support people with complex communication needs. We will share information and insights. Consider Communication has several parts. This April, we will hold 5 one-day learning sessions with direct support staff, family members, therapists and others in Pennsylvania.

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Love #97- Looking at Phishing.

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Reply All is hosted by Alex Goldman and Emmanuel Dzotsi.

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When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing

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When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing

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Daniel Pink

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when: the scientific secrets of perfect timing

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business & economics / decision-making & problem solving

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dan pink; science; new research; psychology; business; popular psychology; self help; self-help; big idea book; when should i; age; aging; midlife; life planning; financial planning; stop light; agenda; planner; scheduler; planning your life; business books; social psychology; psychology books; science books; leadership books; management books; to sell is human; drive; relationship books; self help books; books for grads; graduation gifts; best sellers list new york times 2018; books bestsellers; caregiving; stress

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When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing

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Instant New York Times Bestseller#1 Wall Street Journal Business BestsellerInstant Washington Post BestsellerThe perfect graduation gift"Brims with a surprising amount of insight and practical advice." --The Wall Street JournalDaniel H. Pink, the #1 bestselling author of Drive and To Sell Is Huma...

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Listens and transcribes in real time everything it hears

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‎Are you deaf and tired of lipreading? Even the best lipreaders follow ~22% of their conversations - imagine what you're missing out on. MyEar App was developed by Gerald Isobe, deaf hall-of-fame golfer and his son, Brandon. Gerald grew up lipreading but became frustrated with understanding only...

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Elaine Biech
"The Art and Science of Training presents the science for learning and development, but it also emphasizes that training success lies in knowing what to do when things don't go as planned."

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Edweek

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Too often, training sessions fail to account for teachers' experience, ignore their expertise, and use tactics that are counter to instructional best practices

Many teachers share a common complaint: Professional development doesn't actually treat them like professionals.

Mandatory seminars often have no relevance to their particular subject area or cover skills that they mastered years ago.

Facilitators from outside groups introduce new instructional practices and don't inquire about, or even acknowledge, teachers' current strategies. "That feels like a slap in the face," said Brittany Franckowiak, a biology teacher at Wilde Lake High School in Columbia, Md.

And some say there's a certain irony to workshops delivered in a way that ignores best practices around teaching and learning. Teachers are asked to sit through hour-long lectures and slideshows, for example, "and then [facilitators] say, 'Well, don't do this with kids, though,'" said Nicole Donato, an instructional coach at Big Spring High School in Newville, Pa.

PD like this, teachers say, doesn't respect their experience, expertise, or time.

"Teachers are the ones that are in the muck with students the most. They know the most about what's happening and what should be happening in their classrooms," said Mandy Flora, a fellow at Teaching Lab, a nonprofit that supports teacher-led PD. But when it comes to school- and district-level decision-making, including around PD, teachers "often have the least amount of power in making decisions," she said.

Some school leaders are trying to change this, offering teachers options that give them ownership over their own PD-from in-house professional learning communities to un-conferences, in which teachers set the PD agenda and learn from each other.

But providing teachers with more choice can clash with another objective: ensuring that PD addresses school and district instructional goals.

At Big Spring High School, Donato is trying to strike a balance between these competing priorities.

"When I first got here, it was not teacher choice at all," said Donato. Teachers were required to meet with her twice a month during their planning periods. Everyone with the same planning period was in the same PD group, with no separation by subject area or grade level.

Cherie Powell, a business teacher and the business department chair there, remembered hoping a session on assessment would introduce evaluation strategies for the project-based learning that she does in her classes. But most of the other teachers in the PD group were in tested subjects. "I was like, okay, this is a waste of my time," said Powell.

Realizing that teachers were disengaged, Donato worked with the school's principal to develop a new system with what she calls "best practice groups." Each semester, teachers choose to work on one area of the school's instructional framework-literacy strategies, for example, or scaffolding and differentiation. They also pick the format for their twice-monthly professional learning. Cross-curricular planning, one-on-one coaching, and group lesson study are some of the options.

Now, Powell is in a group with other business teachers, working on a plan to improve students' collaboration skills. Collaboration is part of the school's instructional framework, and it's also an essential skill in her business incubator class, in which students work together in groups to develop and market a new product.

With best practice groups, PD is more "real time," said Powell. Sessions are focused on problems she's actually facing in her classroom at that time, and she can take back concrete solutions to test out. The work doesn't feel divorced from her day-to-day, she said.

Tim Kireta, a social studies teacher at the school, said the groups also help differentiate PD for teachers at different stages of their career.

Kireta has taught for 19 years-16 of them at Big Spring. But even as a veteran teacher, he still struggled to design project-based learning assignments that his students were able to successfully complete. "I would create these assignments and feel so good about them, and then the results would be like, 'Why can't [students] do this?'" he said. In one-on-one coaching sessions, he's worked with Donato on scaffolding to provide students with supports along the way.

Best-practice groups haven't turned everyone at the school into a PD enthusiast. "There are a handful of teachers that, no matter what option I give them, I can't hook them in on a growth mindset," Donato said, referring to the popular educational approach emphasizing that ability can be improved with effort.

But the personalized focus and ongoing feedback that this new method provides have changed the culture around PD at Big Spring, said Kireta. "It gets people to trust professional development," he said, and it highlights professional expertise.

"Teachers are getting recognition through best practice groups that they weren't getting before," he said.

Still, not all schools have dedicated coaches who can meet with every teacher, drawing on their expertise and targeting individualized goals for growth. And sometimes, school and district leaders can feel like they don't have a choice when it comes to how they deliver professional development, said Flora of Teaching Lab.

Checking the Box

Often, administrators are presented with a state-mandated instructional initiative or given an earmarked set of funds. Finding the time to deliver intensive, ongoing PD isn't easy, and they may not have the bandwidth to develop such a plan.

Selecting providers to conduct one-off trainings "checks that box," Flora said, even if it may not always be best practice.

Barbara Gottschalk, a retired teacher, remembers the "edutainers" that her large district in Michigan used to bring in for presentations at the beginning of the school year.

"You get a little motivated," she said. But the presenters, speaking to a group of about 500 teachers in an auditorium, didn't offer suggestions on instructional practice. Generally, she said, they told stories about their careers and made a few jokes. "Teachers felt a little bit talked down to," she said.

Michelle Blanchet, the founder of The Educators' Lab, a PD consultancy, recalled one especially disrespectful PD experience. Blanchet, who used to teach high school world history in Manassas, Va., was required to attend a day-long professional development on graphic visualization techniques that she already understood how to use. "It was literally circle maps and Venn diagrams," she said.

The PD wasn't tailored to her content area or her students' needs. No one had asked before the training whether she already knew the information, or what she hoped to learn. "No one involves [teachers] in that decision making process," said Blanchet.

When that's the case, said Flora, teachers should involve themselves.

As part of its work, Teaching Lab trains teachers to become professional-development leaders. The group introduces teachers to power mapping-identifying the people in their school or district who teachers could talk to about their concerns, hopes, and priorities for professional learning. In her experience, Flora said, school and district leaders are generally receptive to these conversations.

The question becomes, said Flora: "Who does make the decisions around PD, and can you have coffee with them?"

Published in Print: May 15, 2019, as What Do Teachers Really Want From PD?

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What Do Teachers Really Want From Professional Development? Respect

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Many teachers share a common complaint: Professional development doesn't actually treat them like professionals. Mandatory seminars often have no relevance to their particular subject area or cover skills that they mastered years ago. Facilitators from outside groups introduce new instructional practices and don't inquire about, or even acknowledge, teachers' current strategies.

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PrAACtical AAC supports a community of professionals and families who are determined to improve the communication and literacy abilities of people with significant communication difficulties. I

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Founded on shared ideas and values, tribes give ordinary people the power to lead and make big change.

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Seth Godin argues the Internet has ended mass marketing and revived a human social unit from the distant past: tribes. Founded on shared ideas and values, tribes give ordinary people the power to lead and make big change. He urges us to do so.

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Mike's weekly podcast that talks about assistive and inclusive tech. Short, weekly episodes

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Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. Each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Want to share a comment or resource?
https://www.speakpipe.com/ITSpodcast
Hear it on HomePod and Google Home. Try saying "Hey Siri/Google, play the podcast Inclusive Technology 4 All."

Coming soon: Alexa Skill! Add this podcast to your Flash Briefing (check out the How-to)
Episode 40 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:
Music: The Main Monkey Business by Rush
OK - Let's go:

Microsoft has announced a toolkit for developers of Unity VR systems, which will provide 14 tools to support users with visual impairments while playing the VR games. Some of the features included in this toolkit include a bifocal lens, a magnifier, controls to adjust for brightness and contrast, and the ability to have objects in a scene described aloud. This toolkit is currently only available for Unity UR Developers but since the Unity system is so widely used, the toolkit is expected to be available everywhere before long.

I will include links in the show notes to a YouTube video that demonstrates the accessibility features in action.

Another device has arrived to provide alternative mouse access to the iPad and iPhone. The Sidekick from AbleNet will provide plug and play support for almost any USB mouse alternative. The device looks to be approximately 4 inches long and two inches wide with a lightning adapter on one side and a USB port on the other side to connect the external mouse device. The Sidekick is also equipped with a Lightning pass through port to facilitate device charging while connected. According to the Quick Start Guide on the website, the Sidekick is made for iPhone x, 8 and 8 Plus, iPad Pro 10.5, iPad Pro 12.9 (2nd Generation) and iPad (6th Generation)

The device is not expected to be released until the Fall of 2019 and the price listed on the AbleNet website for the Sidekick is $325. I will include a link to the product page and the Quick Start Guide in the episode show notes.

For those members of my PLN who like in the NJ tri-state area - I want to invite you to an amazing event. SpEdcampNJ happens on Saturday May 18, 2019 at Long Branch Middle School in Long Branch NJ. Modeled after the edcamp unconference model, this event focused on special education topics including inclusion, accessibility and assistive technology. I am sure most of you have been to an edcamp already - and if you haven't - what the heck are you waiting for! This is really the best kind of learning - participant driven, dedicated educators, tons of sharing and learning. It is the recipe for a perfect professional learning experience.

This is our 5th annual event and it is shaping up to be our best ever. To Get Your FREE Tickets, go to spedcampnj.org and click the registration link to secure your free tickets. I look forward to seeing you there.

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

The topic for this week's ATchat was Breaking the Cycle of Dependency. Less focused on a specific type of AT, this conversation really broke down the ideas of facilitating independence for students with disabilities. There are many times that IEP accommodations actually promote dependence on adults which should not be our goal. Many chat participants shared experiences in their professional life where students weren't given opportunities to be independent. We also discussed some short and long term consequences of becoming dependent on others. People discussed how small short term missed opportunities loom large for students over time. Little missed opportunities for independence leads to learned dependence and lack of initiative to be more independent. This was a really great conversation - definitely check out the Wakelet link to read the entire archive at bit.ly/atchat041719 You will not be disappointed.

To stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology, follow me on Twitter @mmatp and visit my website at mmatp.com for Inclusive Technology resources and all the previous podcast episodes. Bye for now!
Episode 39 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:
Music: The Main Monkey Business by Rush
OK - Let's do it:

Superpower Glass is machine learning software designed for Google Glass. The software assists individuals with autism with social interactions through the use of emojis and audio. In order to assist with deciphering emotions, Superpower Glass displays an emoji that represents the emotion of the person they are looking at.

This software was used as part of a clinical trial at Stanford University. The study included 71 children with autism, which included 40 children who interacted with Superpower Glass in addition to their regular behavioral therapy sessions. These 40 children who used Superpower Glass demonstrated an increased ability to socialize versus the children who received standard therapy alone.

There were three activities included in the Superpower Glass software and the study participants completed three 20 minute sessions per week with their parents and one session per week with their therapist. The first activity cues the child to get a family member to show an emotion then review the results. Next, the family member acts out an emotion for the child to analyze and finally, the third activity is free play. The child interacts with someone in order to analyze their emotion.

One of the authors of the study, Dennis Wall, who is a professor of pediatrics and biomedical data science at Stanford, as well as the cofounder of Cognoa, described the next phase of the project. The company is planning to increase accessibility to the software by using it on a tablet or smartphone vs the Google Glass. The user would simply hold up the device to utilize the built in camera.

I will add a link to the journal article in the show notes for this episode.

Eye gaze continues to be in the news related to providing access to individuals with disabilities. This week saw the announcement of the Independence Drive, which enables users to drive their power wheelchair through tracking eye movement. Born out of a Microsoft Hackathon experiment by Microsoft employees back in 2014 who had been challenged by ex NFL player Steve Gleason to create an eye gaze wheelchair control system. Gleason has ALS and is a very vocal voice for inclusion and the use of assistive technology. The system incorporates a tablet and the user controls the wheelchair direction by looking at one of eight points on the screen. There is a safety feature built into the system that causes the wheelchair to stop if the user looks away.

The system was developed in partnership with Gleason's nonprofit, Team Gleason and a tech startup called Evergreen Circuits and Livid Instruments. The system will be distributed by Numotion and will sell for $5000 I will include a link to the YouTube video in the show notes.

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

So this week saw another first for #Atchat. We took the Twitter chat off Twitter! We hosted our first video chat via Zoom Video Conferencing Tool. This provided us with an opportunity to have a free flowing face to face conversation about a wide range of topics. It felt more like an Open Forum but without the character limits of Twitter, people were free to provide more detailed comments. We even had a participant who explained she doesn't participate in the conversation on Twitter but felt comfortable enough with the video chat to join the discussion. This went well and we plan to do this again. To view the recording - go to the link bit.ly/atchat041019

Watch for an upcoming video chat and make sure to participate!

To stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology, follow me on Twitter @mmatp and visit my website at mmatp.com for Inclusive Technology resources and all the previous podcast episodes. Bye for now!
Episode 38 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:

HIPAA Compliant Amazon Alexa Skills

Save the Date! 3rd Annual NJ Assistive Technology Summit

#ATchat Zoom Video Meeting - 4/10/19

Topic: #ATchat Video Chat

#ATchat Archive for 2018-2019

Music: The Main Monkey Business by Rush
OK - Let's go:

I came across this interesting tidbit last week. Amazon announced the release of a set of 6 HIPAA compliant skills for the healthcare industry. Working with CIGNA and Boston's Children Hospital, the new skills will assist with tasks such as setting up doctor appointments, checking on prescriptions and even checking on the status of recent blood sugar reports.

One of the big concerns that healthcare and education have regarding the use of voice assistants is the privacy issue. This is an exciting first step in moving towards a secure voice assistant environment.

I will be keeping an eye on these developments for sure and will make sure to bring them to you as soon as I hear. What are your thoughts about using Voice Assistants in various environments, such as schools and healthcare? Leave a message via SpeakPipe at speakpipe.com/itspodcast I will include your thoughts in an upcoming episode

Thanks to Brian O'Neil from my Ramapo AT Masters class for sharing this tool with me. Synth is a podcasting platform that allows users to record 256 second clips of audio. Whether using the app or the website, users can follow an audio stream to listen to audio content. While a podcasting service is not necessarily new, the one feature that got me really excited was the automatic transcription of those audio clips. Now we can create audio clips that are accessible to all!

I have been playing with the app throughout this past week and I really like the simple interface. I am starting to think of all kinds of ways to use this tool. Now I can post an audio question in a class and have others respond via audio - with transcription! Very cool for sure. The service is still in Beta but check it out at gosynth.com or download the Synth app from the App Store or the Google Play Store.

Save the date! We have just locked in the date for the 2019 New Jersey Assistive Technology Summit. This will be our 3rd event and it is a fantastic opportunity to connect with your Assistive Technology PLN. For each of the past two years have had almost 200 participants each year - with over 20 concurrent sessions throughout the day. Plus breakfast and lunch - all for the unbelievable cost of $0! That's right - the AT Summit is still a free event.

So if you are close to NJ - or can get here! - I hope to see you on 9/24/19.

Registration will open April 1, 2019 but we are currently accepting proposals for sessions. Have an idea you want to share at the AT Summit? Fill out our Call for Proposals form at bit.ly/ATSummit2019CFP I will also put the link in the show notes.

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

This past week we had an in depth conversation about a very important topic related to quality AT services - making great AT / AAC recommendations. People shared their tools they use to match a person's needs to features of technology. Some of the tools mentioned included the SETT Framework, the Innovator's Compass, and more. We also discussed topics related to trial periods and what happens when your recommendations don't align with a school and/or organization's technology initiative. Powerful stuff from outstanding AT integrators. Check out the Wakelet to read the entire archive at bit.ly/atchat040319

To stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology, follow me on Twitter @mmatp and visit my website at mmatp.com for Inclusive Technology resources and all the previous podcast episodes. Bye for now!
Episode 37 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:
Music: The Main Monkey Business by Rush
Are you ready? Let's go:

Last week I attended the AT Act Directors Leadership Symposium in Washington DC. Many of the topics of conversation focused on ways we could work more effectively at a state level to ensure access to assistive technology for anyone who needs it. One of my favorite parts of the Symposium is the One Good Thing sharing session. Each state gets an opportunity to share one exciting innovative thing they are doing in their state to promote AT use. While they were all great, I want to highlight two programs this week. Both MN and AZ worked to develop web modules to support a deeper community understanding of AT and disability.

The Minnesota STAR program developed this web based Guide to Assistive Technology to provide a deeper understanding of AT devices and services. The guide is divided into sections focused on AT for Learning, Working and Living. Then there is a module on Funding Strategies along with a directory of AT. This is an amazing free resource so make sure to share it with everyone. I will add the link to this Guide to Assistive Technology in the show notes.

The second resource I want to share this week is from Arizona's AT Act Program, AZTAP. They developed a web based resource titled Can You Hear Me Now? Understanding Hearing Loss. Divided into 3 lessons, this web based tool walks a user through Hearing Loss 101; AT for Hearing Loss; and, strategies to effectively communicate with an individual with a hearing loss. There are additional resources provided to support individuals with hearing loss. Another really important resource - make sure to share this far and wide. I will add the link in the show notes.

While there are many types of translation apps / services for languages, we are still waiting for a reliable system to translate sign language into text. This week I saw a YouTube video from the Connected Futures Prototyping and Talent Development program which is run by Verizon and NYU. One team has developed a prototype app that uses Augmented Reality to translate spoken language into sign language in real time. Simply speak into your smartphone and the user will see an image of a body producing the sign language superimposed directly over your body. The app will also translate sign language into text. Simply point your smartphone at the person producing the sign language and the text will appear on your screen above the person. While this app is still a prototype, it is a good indicator on the future of technology applications to remove barriers for all. I will include the link to the YouTube video in the show notes.

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

This week was our monthly Open Forum. Always a favorite of mine, this type of chat has no structure, no pre planned questions or topic - just a free flowing sharing of ideas, resources and strategies. There is always a fear at the beginning of one of these Open Forums that nobody will share and then - the flood gates open and everyone starts sharing at once! So many topics were covered in the hour. We spoke about AT supports for higher ed, resources for classroom accommodations and we had a really interesting discussion about the use of monitoring tools for people with disabilities. I really appreciated the insights discussed during the chat from several AT users who shared their feelings about this type of tool. Check out the Wakelet archive at bit.ly/032719

To stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology, follow me on Twitter @mmatp and visit my website at mmatp.com for Inclusive Technology resources and all the previous podcast episodes. Bye for now!
Episode 36 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:
Music: The Main Monkey Business by Rush
Are you ready? Let's go:

I am recording this episode in Washington DC as I attend the Assistive Technology Act Directors Leadership Symposium this week. Capital Hill is the perfect location to share our first topic

Mark it on your calendar - March 27, 2019 is National Assistive Technology Awareness Day. The senate passed resolution 103 which commends

(A) assistive technology specialists and program coordinators for their hard work and dedication to serving people with disabilities who are in need of finding the proper assistive technology to meet their individual needs; and

(B) professional organizations and researchers who are dedicated to facilitating the access and acquisition of assistive technology for people with disabilities and older adults in need of assistive technology devices.

How are you going to raise awareness of the benefits of assistive technology? How about sharing some resources on your social media. Want a great place to start? Check out the Center on Technology and Disability AT 101 page. There are recorded webinars, fact sheets and more that could be useful for introducing the power of assistive technology. I added the link to the page in the show notes for this episode.

Another way to share the benefits of AT could be through consumers telling their stories. Nothing is more powerful than hearing first hand accounts of the power of technology to promote independence.

In a previous episode we discussed the use of eye gaze with iOS devices. Another one of those wishlist inclusive technology dreams has been to have the ability to plug an alternative pointing device into an iOS device and select items on the screen with a pointer. It looks like that device has finally arrived from a company called CSS Micro Systems. The AMAneo BTi is a bluetooth interface that connects to an iPhone 5s or higher, an iPad 4 or higher and the iPad Mini. Once connected via bluetooth, the touch pointer appears on the screen! Now plug any USB alternative pointing device into the device and you have mouse control on your iOS device.

Want to plug a head mouse into your iPad? No problem. How about an ergonomic mouse or joystick Sure go ahead that will work too. Combine the AMAneo BTi with the use of Assistive Touch via the Accessibility settings, and you can also now control the physical buttons on your iOS device.

According to the website, the device will provide 20 hours of operation on a single charge and also has a built in anti tremor filter, click delay and auto click. The website mentions that the device should be available for purchase in March 2019 but as of this recording the device is not available for purchase. When available, the expected price for the AMAneo BTi will be $350.00. I will be keeping my eye on this device for sure and hopefully will be able to get my hands on it for a trial. When I get to try it - I will share with you for sure. Check the show notes from this episode for the link to the website and the YouTube video that shows the device in action.

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

This week saw two firsts for #ATchat. We had our first international chat and we held two chats in one day! We partnered with two guest moderators, Charlie Danger in the UK and Chris Bugaj in the US to deliver #ATchat at 8PM local time in each location. We had the same topic which was AAC and also the same questions. We continued the trend we started a few weeks back and we posted the chat questions on a Padlet prior to the chat so anyone could participate. I will drop the link to the Padlet in the show notes.

It was really exciting to participate in both chats and see how practitioners in the two countries view AAC supports and services. While some questions provided an opportunity to explore best practices for AAC implementation, such as What are the Most Important Factors to Consider when Determining how a User Might Access AAC?, other questions were designed to promote a deeper conversation. Charlie and Chris really shook up the chat with the question - Is Facilitated Communication a Viable Access Method for AAC? Lots of conversation there for sure! Finally we wrapped up the chat with a nod to the future and discussed How close are we to controlling speech generating devices with thought and what does the future of access look and sound like.

Almost 400 tweets across two different hours with many different countries represented. To read the entire archive of this #ATchat, and gather all the shared resources, visit bit.ly/atchat032019.

To stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology, follow me on Twitter @mmatp and visit my website at mmatp.com for Inclusive Technology resources and all the previous podcast episodes. Bye for now!
Episode 35 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:

Save the Date! 3rd Annual NJ Assistive Technology Summit
Music: The Main Monkey Business by Rush
Let's dive in:

How many times have we heard a story about robots coming to take your job or how advances in AI will be the downfall of humanity? While those things could be bad and still may happen - this week brought an exciting, positive development in the use of robots to support individuals with disabilities.

A research group at Georgia Tech developed a robot to assist individuals with significant motor impairments. The wheeled robot can manipulate many daily living aids such as washcloths, electric shavers, water bottles and hairbrush. The robot can be controlled by eye gaze and head tracking. Henry Evans worked with the research team throughout the process and used the robot to provide personal care for a week. He said, "The system was very liberating to me, in that it enabled me to independently manipulate my environment for the first time since my stroke,"

Phillip Grice, a PhD graduate and member of the team said: "Our results suggest that people with profound motor deficits can improve their quality of life using robotic body surrogates. We have taken the first step toward making it possible for someone to purchase an appropriate type of robot, have it in their home and derive real benefit from it."

The findings of the research were published in the scientific journal PLOS One. I will add a link to the journal abstract in the show notes.

Google announced this week the launch of a tool to promote great app accessibility. The open source project is called Accessibility Scanner for iOS. The tool is designed to promote greater accessibility within apps for individuals with hearing and visual impairments. The tool helps discover, debug and fix common accessibility issues in iOS codebases. The scanner's user interface is overlaid on the app and can be moved around the screen - which allows you to perform normal app functions and trigger the scan only when necessary.

I will put a link in the show notes to the Google Open Source Blog post.

Save the date! We have just locked in the date for the 2019 New Jersey Assistive Technology Summit. This will be our 3rd event and it is a fantastic opportunity to connect with your Assistive Technology PLN. For each of the past two years have had almost 200 participants each year - with over 20 concurrent sessions throughout the day. Plus breakfast and lunch - all for the unbelievable cost of $0! That's right - the AT Summit is still a free event.

So if you are close to NJ - or can get here! - I hope to see you on 9/24/19.

Registration will open April 1, 2019 but we are currently accepting proposals for sessions. Have an idea you want to share at the AT Summit? Fill out our Call for Proposals form at bit.ly/ATSummit2019CFP I will also put the link in the show notes.

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

For this week's #ATchat, we had a guest moderator. Hillary Goldthwait-Fowles walked us through the Innovators' Compass. I had participated in a session Hillary facilitated at Closing the Gap 2018 about the Innovators' Compass. This is a powerful tool to assist us with many of the tasks we perform in our professional lives. Whether we use it to frame a conversation around an AT evaluation or to develop a strategy for delivering professional learning experiences, the questions of the Innovators' Compass can help us get unstuck. Developed by Ela Ben-Ur, the Innovators' Compass poses questions within an area of focus we can use to start a conversation. The question include:

Visit the website at innovatorscompass.org to read more about this process. Special thanks to Hillary for bringing this to the group and helping us change the way we think about problem solving

To read the entire archive of this #ATchat, and gather all the shared resources, visit bit.ly/atchat031319.

To stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology, follow me on Twitter @mmatp and visit my website at mmatp.com for Inclusive Technology resources and all the previous podcast episodes. Bye for now!
Episode 34 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:
Music: The Main Monkey Business by Rush
For this episode we are going to be talking about Makers and Assistive Technology.

First up, the Assistive Device Lesson Plan Project was released this week. Developed by PrintLab, in conjunction with Makers Making Change. The lesson plans walk students through the creation of several 3-d printed assistive devices that could be beneficial to individuals with disabilities.

PrintLab is a UK-based 3D printing curriculum developer and global distributor and Makers Making Change is run by the Research and Development Group of the Neil Squire Society. This initiative connects makers to people with disabilities to develop and create inexpensive open source AT solutions.

There are 5 lessons in the curriculum:

An introduction to 3D printed assistive devices through a series a case study videos

A skill-building session where students follow CAD tutorial videos to design a range of example devices

A hands-on activity where students test and analyse a range of example devices, which are created by the teacher prior to the lesson using STL files included in the lesson pack

A human-centred team activity where students identify a user and brainstorm the day-to-day challenges this type of person will face

Unique concept designs are then developed in response to the challenges and a 3D printed prototype is manufactured and tested

Students prepare and present their devices to the rest of the class and peer feedback is given

The assistive devices that are manufactured throughout the curriculum include: an assistive bag carrier, a bottle opener, a button assist, a soda can opener and a key turner.

Jason Yeung, Co-Founder at PrintLab said about the project, "... The Assistive Device Academy is particularly special because we are taking that extra step to encourage schools to connect with real people who have disabilities. There's no better way to bridge the skills gap than by asking students to solve real-world problems and we couldn't be more excited to do this in partnership with the Makers Making Change community."

For more info and a link to the project website, visit the show notes at mmatp.com/it4all

It's almost here - edcampAccess NJ!

EdCampAccess NJ is an unconference devoted to K -12 special education issues and ideas with a focus on assistive technology and reaching all struggling learners. This free event is not limited to special educators - all are welcome!

We expect to have some fantastic conversations around assistive and inclusive technology. Plus, we have some really great prizes to give away - including an adaptive Xbox controller donated by Microsoft! Hope you can join us on March 16, 2019.

In keeping with this week's focus of makers and AT, this week's Tool Time will highlight some of the creative 3-d printed solutions available on Thingiverse from our friend Bill Binko over at AT Makers.org

Included on the Thingiverse page are 24 designs that you can print to provide access to AT tools and supports. Some examples of the designs include a keyguard for an iPad mini to use in conjunction with AAC apps and several different kinds of switch mounts for existing AT switches such as the Jelly Bean, Big Mack, Micro Light and Candy Corn. If you want to take on a more involved project, there are designs to build your own AT switch and even electronics projects like a sip and puff interface. The AT Makers Thingiverse page link is in the show notes for this episode. Check it out and start printing your own AT today!

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

For this week's ATchat we tried something a little different. Our goal is to engage as many people in the conversation as possible. We realize not everyone is on Twitter, or feels comfortable participating in the live Twitter chat. In order to facilitate sharing and conversation, we posted the ATchat questions to a Padlet prior to the live chat and asked people to add their thoughts at any time. We then went deeper on the topics during the live Twitter chat. Our topic this week was Inspirations. We asked a series of questions including:

I have said it before and I will say it again: these are my favorite types of chats. Not focused on tools at all but instead having conversations about the Why. Why do we do what we do and what influenced everyone to be better every day. A special thanks to everyone who participated - either in the Padlet prior to the chat or live during the Twitter chat.

To read the entire archive of this #ATchat, and gather all the shared resources, visit bit.ly/atchat030619. I will also add the link to the Padlet to the show notes for this episode.

To stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology, follow me on Twitter @mmatp and visit my website at mmatp.com for Inclusive Technology resources and all the previous podcast episodes. Bye for now!
Episode 33 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:
Music: The Main Monkey Business by Rush
Let's dive in:

Microsoft recently released a self paced web course called Dyslexia Awareness. This course, which was created in partnership with Made by Dyslexia, is designed to provide important insights into dyslexia. According to the website, the objectives for the modules are:

To empower teachers and parents to understand dyslexia, both it's strengths and challenges

To gain essential knowledge in how to recognize and support dyslexia

How to create a dyslexia-inclusive classroom

To know when and where to seek further help

The modules included in this web course are:

The course is available on the Microsoft website and should take approximately 1 hour to complete. I will add the course link in the show notes for this episode.

I tried out a new backchannel tool this week during a virtual presentation and I am happy to report that the tool was a success. I have been searching for a replacement to Today's Meet since that tool disappeared last year. While presenting, I always like to provide the participants with a space to add their thoughts, resources and insights. We all have something to share and back channel tools give everyone a voice.

The tool I explored this week is called Slido. This web based tool actually provides not only a back channel questions panel, but the speaker can also create polls. Create your Slido page and you will be given a four digit code. Simply go to slido.com and enter the 4 digit code and you are ready to participate!

Participants can post questions throughout the presentation and even give thumbs up to other comments. The polls worked really well too. Ask a question during the presentation and give people a place to leave their vote. I am using the Basic (free) account which allows audience members to ask questions and I can create 3 polls per event. Each event can have up to 1000 people log in simultaneously. The Teacher account costs $75 per year and allows you to create unlimited Polls and Brainstorming topics. In addition, you can create unlimited surveys, collect data, moderate questions and more. Go to the website at slido.com to learn more about this powerful tool for audience engagement.

Do you want to grow your PLN by connecting with like minded educators and participate in an organic participant led professional learning opportunity? If you are in the NJ area - Join us for the 6th annual EdcampAccess NJ in less than two weeks!

EdCampAccess NJ is an unconference devoted to K -12 special education issues and ideas with a focus on assistive technology and reaching all struggling learners. This free event is not limited to special educators - all are welcome!

We expect to have some fantastic conversations around assistive and inclusive technology. Plus, we have some really great prizes to give away! Hope you can join us on March 16, 2019. We look forward to learning with you.

As the Director of the Assistive Technology Advocacy Center, NJ's Assistive Technology Act Project, part of our mission is to share resources to expand consumers knowledge about AT. One way we are doing that is through our YouTube Channel. On this channel, you will find recordings of our Learning @ Lunch webinar series. We hosted a variety of speakers on a wide range of AT topics including Smart Home Technology, Robotics for Students with Disabilities and more. In addition, the YouTube Channel is now the home of the NJCART Hot Topics webinars. NJCART is the New Jersey Coalition for the Advancement of Rehabilitation and Assistive Technology. There have been three Hot Topics webinars, including the most recent webinar discussing AAC tools and implementation strategies. Check out the videos at bit.ly/watchatacnj

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

This week's #ATchat was our first ever Virtual App Smackdown. For the uninitiated, during an app smackdown each person is given two minutes to share a tool they use and describe the features to the group. For our Virtual App Smackdown, we provided categories and people shared features of the tool and ways they have implemented the tool to support students. The categories were AT tools to support struggling readers, and writers, emergent readers and writers, tools for self regulation, content creation and tools to support students with cognitive challenges. This chat was even busier than recent conversations and we had almost 300 tweets for the hour!

Some tools that were mentioned included Seeing AI and Office Lens for on the fly OCR and TEXT TO SPEECH ; Immersive Reader for reading support; Clicker Connect for emergent readers and writers; Book Creator and so many more.

To read the entire archive of this #ATchat, and gather all the shared resources, visit bit.ly/atchat022719

To stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology, follow me on Twitter @mmatp and visit my website at mmatp.com for Inclusive Technology resources and all the previous podcast episodes. Bye for now!
Episode 32 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:
Music: The Main Monkey Business by Rush
Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

At the ATIA 2-19 App smackdown, I learned about the Vitals app. This app works to provide a communication platform between individuals with disabilities and first responders. The user creates an individualized profile that includes all the important information necessary for community interactions, including personal information and de-escalation techniques, which can include audio and video supports to facilitate successful interactions within the community. The goal of this free tool is to promote effective communication and reduce potentially dangerous situations in the community. To learn more about this important service, visit the website at thevitalsapp.com

Do you want to grow your PLN by connecting with like minded educators and participate in an organic participant led professional learning opportunity? If you are in the NJ area - Join us for the 6th annual EdcampAccess NJ! EdCampAccess NJ is an unconference devoted to K -12 special education issues and ideas with a focus on assistive technology and reaching all struggling learners. This free event is not limited to special educators - all are welcome!

Hope you can join us on March 16, 2019. We look forward to learning with you.

NJCART - the Coalition for the Advancement of Rehabilitation and Assistive Technology is hosting another Hot Topics webinar on 2/28/19. The focus of this webinar is AAC and will feature several AAC practitioners each sharing one tool and discussing how they have implemented this tool to effectively support an individual with a disability. Space for this live webinar is limited to the first 50 participants. Get your tickets at bit.ly/aac022819 If you are listening to this episode after February 28, 2019, go to the Assistive Technology Advocacy Center's YouTube channel at bit.ly/watchatacnj for the webinar recording.

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

This week's #ATchat focused on supports for executive function. We started the conversation by asking everyone who are your influences in this area. The group shared some books that are the foundation for their approach in this area - including Executive Function and Child Development, Smart and Scattered Teens, The WATI AT Chapter on Executive Function, and a powerful Executive Skills Questionnaire by Peg Dawson.

We broke the conversation down into supports for different age groups (lower elementary, upper elementary, middle school and high school) - then we discussed areas of concern for each age group and possible solutions for support. This support was across the continuum - no tech strategies, low tech supports and high tech supports. We even had a discussion about tools for transition and providing supports and strategies that become accommodations for living independently.

To read the entire archive of this #ATchat, and gather all the shared resources, visit bit.ly/atchat022019

To stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology, follow me on Twitter @mmatp and visit my website at mmatp.com for Inclusive Technology resources and all the previous podcast episodes. Bye for now!
Episode 31 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:

Tool Time: Interpreter Mode on Google Assistant

Tool Time: Hawkeye Access app (eye tracking for iOS)

#ATchat Update: 2/6/19

Save the Date! 3rd Annual NJ Assistive Technology Summit

Music: The Main Monkey Business by Rush
Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

This week Google announced a Interpreter mode for the Google Assistant. This feature will translate conversations in real time in 26 different languages. To activate this feature on your Google Home, simply say: "Hey Google, be my Spanish interpreter." or "Hey Google, help me speak Spanish" Google has been refining this feature by using interpreter mode at busy hotels and attractions around the world where translation services are critical to provide quality guest services.

With the introduction of the True Depth camera on the latest iPhone, it was just a matter of time before we started to see applications that leverage this feature to provide alternative access for individuals with disabilities. I learned about one such application during the App Smackdown at ATIA 2019. Hawkeye Access provides eye control for web browsing. After completing the calibration, simply look at the desired location on the screen. Users can either smile, blink or dwell to select items. Scrolling is accomplished by looking at the side of the screen in the direction you want to scroll. To learn more about this app visit the website at usehawkeye.com

Save the date! We have just locked in the date for the 2019 New Jersey Assistive Technology Summit. This will be our 3rd event and it is a fantastic opportunity to connect with your Assistive Technology PLN. For each of the past two years have had almost 200 participants each year - with over 20 concurrent sessions throughout the day. Plus breakfast and lunch - all for the unbelievable cost of $0! That's right - the AT Summit is still a free event.

So if you are close to NJ - or can get here! - I hope to see you on 9/24/19.

Registration will open April 1, 2019 but we are currently accepting proposals for sessions. Have an idea you want to share at the AT Summit? Fill out our Call for Proposals form at bit.ly/ATSummit2019CFP I will also put the link in the show notes.

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

Keeping with the trend from the last couple episodes, this week's #ATchat was all about ATIA 2019 reflections. We shared portions of the conference that really resonated with us: from interesting sessions, new / interesting items in the exhibit hall, and poster sessions. We also discussed - what is my personal favorite part of the conference - the extended activities which are EdcampAccess International on Friday night and AT Makers Day on Saturday morning. Both of these events give us an opportunity to apply the great information we learn throughout the week and solve problems. EdcampAccess gives us a chance to have conversations with others about HOW we are going to go back and use the information we gathered throughout the week to make change in our organizations. The AT Maker Day gives us a glimpse of problem solving and partnerships that we can foster in our communities to provide effective AT solutions for All.

To stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology, follow me on Twitter @mmatp and visit my website at mmatp.com for Inclusive Technology resources and all the previous podcast episodes. Bye for now!
Episode 30 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:
Music: The Main Monkey Business by Rush
Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

Wearables could be the next big thing in inclusive technology and recently GUS Communication Devices announced the first stand alone AAC smartwatch called the TalkTablet Speechwatch. This wearable communication device has a 2.2 inch touchscreen and does not need to be teathered to a smartphone in order to function. The TalkTablet AAC app comes pre configured with the device, but the communication boards can be customized via the TalkTablet app on a tablet. Simply make the changes to the communication board and wirelessly transfer the pages to the Speechwatch. The Speechwatch can be equipped with a SIM card to function like a smartphone, has access to the Google Play store to download apps, can be used for GPS navigation, email access, streaming music and more. Very impressive looking device and I hope to be able to get one to trial so I can report back on the functionality. The Speechwatch is currently being offered for an introductory price of $299.99. I will add the link to the website, along with a video demonstrating the Speechwatch in action.

Tiring and Inspiring. My two word summary of ATIA 2019! In this episode, I will share a couple resources from the week AND we will hear from two more friends who attended ATIA and left their reflections on the Flipgrid.

Two of the biggest sessions I participate in during the ATIA conference are the Smackdowns! The idea of a Smackdown is simple: audience members come up and are given a short time to share a tool strategy or resource. These are my favorite types of sessions: participant driven, tons of ideas are shared and everyone learns at least ONE new thing during the hour. There are two Smackdowns at the conference: the App Smackdown and the PD Smackdown.

This year's App Smackdown was bigger than ever. We were in one of the larger rooms and people were packed in. Some people were even in the hall trying to listen! Tons of ideas were shared and there is no way I can go through them all here. Instead, go check out the spreadsheet we compiled during the session. The link is bit.ly/appsmack19 Included in the spreadsheet are the names of tools, a short description, cost and a link to learn more.

The other Smackdown is the PD Smackdown - which might be my favorite session of the whole conference. The setup is the same: audience members sharing ideas for delivering effective professional development. We organize the session around the Four Phases of Learning described by Dave Meier in his fantastic book The Accelerated Learning Handbook. The four phases of learning are the Preparation Phase, the Presentation Phase, the Practice Phase and the Performance Phase. So many great ideas were shared via a Google Form and you can check out the responses at bit.ly/pdsmackdown19responses

OK - Enough from me, let's hear from Rachel and Charlie.

Thanks guys! Appreciate you sharing your thoughts about this amazing event. Want to share your conference reflection? Go to bit.ly/atia19reflections , leave a video and I will include the audio of your thoughts in an upcoming episode.

There was so much information at ATIA 19 that I think this will be a regular feature of the podcast for the next few episodes. Stay Tuned for more!

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

This week's #ATchat had not one but two guest moderators. Our topic was Accessible Math Instruction and our guest moderators were Beth Poss and Tiffanie Zaugg. The group shared challenges with providing math instruction to students with disabilities and then shared tools, strategies and apps to make math accessible.

In addition, another topic of conversation was how communication plays a vital role in this process for ELL students as well as students with complex communication needs.

This week's chat did not disappoint, another example of powerful sharing among dedicated educators working tirelessly to meet the needs of students with disabilities. To read the entire archive of this #ATchat, and gather all the shared resources, visit bit.ly/atchat020619

To stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology, follow me on Twitter @mmatp and visit my website at mmatp.com for Inclusive Technology resources and all the previous podcast episodes. Bye for now!

#ATIA19 Transition Town Hall Bonus Episode - released 1/5/19 ( Listen)

Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:

#ATIA19 Transition Town Hall Session

Panel Members

Sayard Bass - M.S. CCC-SLP/L - ATP, High School & Transition Assistive Technology Consultant; sayardbass@gmail.com

Janet Peters - Project Coordinator Assistive and Educational Technology, Great Lakes ADA Center; jpete@uic.edu ; @JanetLPeters

Dr. Ben Satterfield - Research Associate, Georgia Tools for Life/ Center for Inclusive Design & Innovation, Georgia Tech; rsatterfield8@gatech.edu

Transcript Coming Soon!

Episode 29 ( Listen)

Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:

Transcript

Coming Soon!
Episode 27 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:

Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

There is still time to have your voice heard while helping to shape my ATIA 19 session. The session is called iPad vs. Chromebook: The 10 Round Main Event We are going to take these two platforms - and we are going to battle it out with a whole list of educational tasks that need to be accomplished. Then, the audience will help decide which platform may be best suited to that task. So we need your help- What sorts of activities or tasks would you like us to demonstrate in terms of their completion using either of the platforms.

We set up a Flipgrid for you to leave your ideas - it's bit.ly/atia19mainevent Thanks for your support and I hope to connect with you at ATIA 2019 in Orlando.

CALL Scotland has a wealth of free resources related to technology integration. Recently they released two new resources to support the implementation of effective selection of tools for individuals with disabilities.

Categories of apps represented on the wheel include Cognition, Emergent Literacy, Communication, Self Regulation, Creativity and more.

The second new resource is the Chromebook Accessibility and Learning Tools. This PDF Poster is an excellent companion to their Chrome App Wall which I collaborated on. This new resource highlights the updates to the built in Chrome OS accessibility features.

I will put the link to both of these resources in the show notes.

Instagram announced two new accessibility updates recently that will increase usability for individuals with visual impairments. The first feature is automatic alternative text. By using automatic object recognition technology, alt text is generated so the user can hear via a screen reader.

The second feature is custom alternative text. Users can now go into the post itself and customize the alt text that is presented. This feature is located at the bottom of the screen, under Advanced Settings, as you create a New Post. This will bring up the field where you can type in your customized alt text.

Save the date! We have just locked in the date for the 2019 New Jersey Assistive Technology Summit. This will be our 3rd event and it is a fantastic opportunity to connect with your Assistive Technology PLN. For each of the past two years have had almost 200 participants each year - with over 20 concurrent sessions throughout the day. Plus breakfast and lunch - all for the unbelievable cost of $0! That's right - the AT Summit is still a free event.

So if you are close to NJ - or can get here! - I hope to see you on 9/24/19.

Registration will open April 1, 2019 but we are currently accepting proposals for sessions. Have an idea you want to share at the AT Summit? Fill out our Call for Proposals form at bit.ly/ATSummit2019CFP I will also put the link in the show notes.

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

The topic of this week's #ATchat was Promoting Independence. Topics focused on student's dependence on paraprofessionals & prompts - and more importantly strategies to break this dependence! We also discussed strategies for developing self advocacy skills and promoting student voice.

This was one of those topics I love - not necessarily focused directly on tech, instead focused on strategies and solutions to ensure student success.

To stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology, follow me on Twitter @mmatp and visit my website at mmatp.com for Inclusive Technology resources and all the previous podcast episodes. Bye for now!
Episode 26 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:

Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

Hey everybody, thanks for checking out our video. My name is Mike Marotta and I am an Assistive Technology Specialist and I have my own consulting company called Inclusive Technology Solutions. and I am Bob Cunningham and I am an Occupational Therapist and Program Director of the Occupational Therapy Programat Maryville University. I am also an ATP and I do Assistive Technology consulting.

Today we are going to tell you about a session we are doing at ATIA called iPad vs. Chromebook: The 10 Round Main Event We are really excited about this session-as you can tell. So, what are we going to do? We are going to take these two platforms, two devices - and we are going to battle it out with a whole list of educational tasks that need to be accomplished and to do that effectively, we need your help. Mike and I would like to know What sorts of activities or tasks would you like us to demonstrate in terms of their completion using either of the platforms.

Don't be constricted by the idea of devices and their native apps and extensions and the pieces that come with those. We'll be broad in our approach to this. We will look at the pieces that are part of the operating system We will look at apps and extensions that go beyond and add some flexibility to it. So really, the thing we are asking from you is just the task. What are things that students need to accomplish and you are not sure what device might be "best" I am going to "air quote" things a lot because "best" is all relative I think what we are going to find-if I could be someone that sees into the the future a little bit-is that we can do these tasks on both platforms. It's just the way they get done might be a little different. So that is going to be kind of exciting as we talk about it.

I think an important part to remember about that is that doing it one way might be better for somebody and So the idea is that we can share a variety of ways that the task might be accomplished and help you then make determinations about what platform you may want to get for people with whom you work.

Exactly! So, share your ideas. We want to hear them. We would love to find out things that are important to you. We set up a Flipgrid. You can reach out to that through the website I will give you a bit.ly - it's bit.ly/atia19mainevent We will put that in the show notes or the video notes as well. so you can reach out to that. Leave your idea Even if you aren't going to be at ATIA. Don't worry about it! We will find some way to share this information out after the conference so people that can't get to the conference. can experience what we looked at. That's it. That sounds great. That's what we are looking for. So help us make this session excellent by sharing your ideas with us. Thanks very much. Hope to see you at ATIA. See you there!

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

The topic of this week's #ATchat was AT supports for writing. We started the conversation discussing characteristics of struggling writers and the types of writing tasks we ask students to complete. Want to see the results of this brainstorming? Check out the Padlet at padlet.com/mmatp/atchat010919

We discussed assessment supports for writing and two resources were shared from WATI - the Wisconsin Assistive Technology Initiative. From the Assessing Students Needs for AT Manual - we shared Chapter 5-AT for Writing, Including Motor Aspects and Chapter 6 AT for Composition of Written Work. I will include the link to both of these PDFs in the show notes.

As we discussed AT supports - we moved from low tech to high tech solutions for writing. Simple supports like writing checklists and personal white boards - all the way to complex writing solutions like speech to text. Our conversation about speech to text focused less on the technology and more on the implementation - specifically, how do we provide needed training to reduce abandonment of this tool.

It was another jam packed ATchat with tons of resources shared along with powerful strategies to promote student success.

To read the entire archive of this #ATchat visit bit.ly/atchat010919

To stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology, follow me on Twitter @mmatp and visit my website at mmatp.com for Inclusive Technology resources and all the previous podcast episodes. Bye for now!
Episode 25 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:

#ATchat Update: 12/19/18

Topic: The New Assistive Technology with special guest Chris Bugaj

Transcript
Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

Before we start this episode I just want to share a quick thanks. This is the last episode of 2018 and I wanted to take a minute to thank everyone who listens. I appreciate the messages on Twitter and the kind words when I am out presenting. I am glad that this information is helping to connect individuals with the technology tools they need to be successful. If you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review!

And with that ..... on to Episode 25 of Inclusive Technology 4 All.

For this episode's Tech Tool Spotlight, I have two tools I recently used to support individuals.

First up is the Aida Reminder app. I know what you are thinking - another reminder app, there must be thousands of them. What makes this one different? Well it's all in the features!

The Aida Reminder app allows you to schedule an array of reminders, including recurring reminders, snooze reminders, even Auto Snooze reminders where the app will automatically repeat an alarm at regular intervals. The features that sold me on this tool for the person I was working with allowed us to attach pictures to reminders. This individual is a non reader so when a notification pops up on his phone, he sometimes doesn't know what the reminder is for. Now he gets a visual cue along with the reminder. The second feature we really found powerful was the ability to connect audio to the reminders. Now we can record a voice and connect that audio file to a reminder for added support. The app is currently only available for iOS devices and costs $.99. I will put the link to the website in the Episode 25 show notes.

This past week, I was working with a school based team helping identify Chrome supports that the student could use on a Chromebook to help with research activities. Part of their research involved watching a video and then adding notes to a shared Google Doc. This student was struggling with moving between two open tabs in the browser. I introduced the team to Tab Resize as a solution!

The Tab Resize extension lets a user split the screen in a variety of formats and have multiple pages visible simultaneously. While the student I was working with needed two screens side by side, other formats include two screens stacked on top of each other and a four screen split. This free extension was exactly what we were looking for and the student is now using it successfully to complete his research project. I will put the link to Tab Resize in the show notes.

For this episode I have two resources to share in order to learn more about Assistive and Inclusive Technology.

First up is the new Explore AT website from the AT3 Center. The purpose of the AT3 Center, according to the website, is: to provide training and technical assistance for all AT Act Section 4 State and Territory AT Programs to support quality implementation of state level and state leadership activities and to support a national assistive technology internet site that makes general AT information available to the public and other stakeholders.

The Explore AT website is a clearinghouse for an array of resources in the following categories: Computer Access, Daily Living, Environmental Adaptations and Controls, Hearing, Recreation, Seating, Positioning and Mobility, Speech Communication, Vehicle Modifications, Vision, Reading, Writing, Math and Organization. This website will continue to evolve as more resources are added. Visit exploreat.net to learn more.

For professional learning about Assistive and Inclusive Technology, AbleNet offers an amazing free resource called AbleNet University. This resource consists of live and recorded webinars on an array of topics, presented by leaders in the field. New live webinars happen almost every week and by creating a login on the AbleNet website, you will have access to the whole catalog of recorded webinars. Learning about topics that matter to you - on your schedule! I will put the link to the AbleNet University website in the show notes.

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

The topic of this week's #ATchat was The New Assistive Technology. We were thrilled to have a special guest Chris Bugaj. We had a Flipgrid for people to leave questions for Chris prior to the chat and #Atchat co-moderator Karen Janowski left this message for Chris.

Chris well thank you for being willing tomorrow at our chat tonight. I have a couple of questions you are the expert when it comes to District level AT implementation you have written two awesome books so I can put the technology what have you seen that the change for the positive over the years that you've been in the field what are what are some of the things that you've seen that you're disappointed in or your wish that they used some of the things that you wish to change up until this point what trends do you see for our future and of course I always love to hear what would you change what would you change about if you could wave the magic wand at the national level how you would change how a tea is written in IDEA and I know that you are dying to change the name of our field so I'd love to hear what you have to say about any of these things and I'll see you online

Great questions from Karen and Chris shared some thoughts about this including posing one of Karen's questions back to the group. What are some positive changes you have seen in the last 20 years in our field?

Many answers came in - including my answer: We have seen a trend towards built in accessibility features in all our devices. That has been a catalyst for more inclusive opportunities for all.

Judie Schoonover said: I think the most positive thing that resonates with me is that the lines are blurred between assistive and technology, and we're just looking at solutions and bridges to circumvent barriers for all learners. A lot of demystifying has occurred

And finally Shawn Pearson said:

Now I haven't been around for 20 years (I am not THAT old) but in the last 5 or 6 years there is definitely a greater awareness for what AT can do and its benefits in education!

We appreciate Chris spending some time with us to answer questions from the #ATchat community. Check out his podcast Talking with Tech wherever you listen to podcasts!

To stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology, follow me on Twitter @mmatp and visit my website at mmatp.com for Inclusive Technology resources and all the previous podcast episodes. Bye for now!
Episode 24 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:

Tech Tool Spotlight: Google for Education Updates

#ATchat Update: 12/12/18

Topic: AAC Issues and Trends w/ special guest Carole Zangari

Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

The latest edition of the Google for Education newsletter had some interesting pieces of info that can support all learners. One piece that caught my eye was the ability to lock students into a Google Form so they are unable to navigate away on a Chromebook. Similar to the Guided Access feature on iOS devices, we can use this to focus students on the task at hand. This feature is currently in Beta testing phase AND only available on managed Chrome accounts. I have included the link to sign up for this Beta testing program in the show notes. This beta test also includes a Gradebook feature for Google Classroom.

The other piece is a programming lesson you can use to insert a progress bar on Google Slide presentations. This could be a powerful support for individuals to provide cues to determining completion of an activity. This programming lesson is designed for Middle and High School students and should take approximately 45-90 minutes to complete and teaches the skills of coding, using the script editor and code scripting. I will post the link to the lesson in the show notes. I can't wait to try this out!

I have to recommend a webinar recording I watched this week that was sent to me by Nancy Shepardson. The webinar, titled Are Apps Manipulating Kids, was hosted by the Children's Screen Time Action Network. The speakers were from the Institute for Public Representation at Georgetown University. The focus of the webinar was ways that app developers manipulate young children into watching ads and making purchases. The webinar also included some discussion about privacy policies, COPPA compliance and ways practitioners can protect children from these practices. I will post this link to the YouTube recording of the webinar in this episode's show notes.

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

The topic of this week's #ATchat was AAC Issues and Trends. We were thrilled to have a special guest Carole Zangari. We had a Flipgrid for people to leave questions for Carole prior to the chat and friend of the podcast, Cassie Frost, left this question for Carole.

Carole had two suggestions in response to Cassie's question. One involves using goals and the other involves recognizing what it takes for people to actually change their behavior.

Another suggestion from Carole was: One idea is to embed the supportive strategies (like ready access to AAC devices & strategies like aided language input) directly into the IEP goals. Some ppl like to do that in the Accommodations section. I also embed them into goals.

From Twitter use @endeverstar came this response:

"my suggestion on that first q is to make sure teachers have a chance to listen to actual aac users talk about what it feels like to have our device/picture cards/etc taken away or inaccessible

they need to understand the importance of having comm supports at all times"

This was an amazing hour long conversation with tons of great resources. Check out the full archive at bit.ly/atchat121218

Next week's #ATchat will be another Ask the AT Thought Leader discussion. For 12/19/18 we have Chris Bugaj joining us to discuss ideas from his new book The New Assistive Technology: Making Learning Awesome for All. In order to maximize our learning, we will be asking you to submit questions you would like to ask and Chris will answer during #ATchat. So start thinking!

Check the show notes for the link to the Flipgrid and make sure to join us for the chat on 12/19/18!

To stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology, follow me on Twitter @mmatp and visit my website at mmatp.com for Inclusive Technology resources and all the previous podcast episodes. Bye for now!
Episode 23 (Listen)
In this episode:

Tech Tool Spotlight:

#ATchat Update: 12/5/18

Topic: Moving Beyond Technology for Reward and Reinforcement

Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

This past week I have been in Laredo TX working with educators to use Google Chrome as Assistive & Inclusive Technology in the classroom in order to support all learners. As we were exploring Google Docs Add Ons we came across Story Speaker.

This Google Docs Add On allows you to create interactive, talking stories that can be read aloud with a Google Home device or any device with Google Assistant!

Following the formatting described in the help document, you can create a story that can take listeners down different paths. By using commands like "If you say right" , you can program audio responses from the Google Home device. These responses will provide different audio cues depending on what you say. You can basically create your own Choose Your Own Adventure stories that can be read aloud!

I have included the link to the Help Document in the show notes. Install the Add On today and start creating. If you make a story and publish it, let me know so I can promote your stories to other users.

A research team at Boston Children's Hospital Labs of Cognitive Neuroscience have developed an app that is designed to identify students at risk for reading disabilities. The team hopes this app will reduce the amount of lost time that students experience before being diagnosed with a reading disability, which leads to delays in receiving effective reading intervention strategies. Led through a virtual theme park, children are faced with a variety of challenges designed to assess skills related to six early literacy milestones:

Phonological awareness (the ability to manipulate the sounds of language)

Phonological short-term memory

Rapid automatized naming

Knowledge of letter names and the sounds they make

Vocabulary

Oral listening comprehension

The app moves beyond a screener by providing additional "evidence based responses to screening" that can aid students in areas of reading weakness. The app will be piloted in schools starting in Fall of 2019 and is expected to be released to all the following year. A link to the article is provided in the show notes.

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

This weeks #ATchat topic was Moving Beyond Technology for Reward and Reinforcement. We discussed issues surrounding using iPads, for example, as a reward for earning points on a behavior chart. While these devices can be motivating for students, are we sending the wrong message about technology. Is this causing students to see the technology only as a device for play versus a tool for independence? We had alot of conversation about classroom management and how educators approach the use of these tech tools. We also discussed the barriers we face when trying to support educators who are supporting students with technology. All in all - another important conversation about technology implementation. To catch up on the whole conversation, read the archive at bit.ly/atchat120518

For the next two weeks, we are going to try something a little different with #ATchat. We have lined up two thought leaders in the field of AT, Carole Zangari and Chris Bugaj. In order to maximize our learning, we will be asking you to submit questions you would like to ask and Carole and Chris will answer during #ATchat. So start thinking! Carole is scheduled for 12/12/18 and Chris is scheduled for 12/19/18.

Watch the #ATchat hashtag in the coming weeks for a link to leave your questions. Then make sure to join us for the chats!

To stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology, follow me on Twitter @mmatp and visit my website at mmatp.com for Inclusive Technology resources and all the previous podcast episodes. Bye for now!
Episode 22 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:

Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

This week I traveled to Indianapolis to participate in the PATINS Access 2 Education conference. This two day event is attended by hundreds of educators from throughout Indiana and they learn together how to best meet the unique needs of all students in the classroom.

I presented four sessions throughout the conference, but I want to focus on the session I presented with Beth Poss and Mystie Rail. It was titled The Write AT & Apps for Notetaking.

We discussed some of the struggles individuals face with notetaking. From the mechanics of writing to organizing information in order to effectively retrieve the info. We also discussed how processing speed can dramatically impact a persons ability to listen to information, recognize the importance, and then write it down in a timely manner. So what can we do to help people? We looked at 3 main areas of focus: Chrome Extensions, Apps and Creative Tools. A couple of the Chrome tools included Google Keep (of course! I can't do a session and NOT mention Keep!) We also discussed creative ways to use Google Slides as a Note taking tool. Another powerful Chrome notetaking tool is Mic Note. This Chrome app provides a platform for classroom audio to be synced to typed notes. Now I can go back and review specific sections of notes AND hear the audio from that moment of the class.

Some of the apps we explrored included Notability and Good Notes 4. We tried to highlight apps that would provide an array of features that would provide support to all unique learners. For example, using the text to speech feature in Notability or creating sketchnotes using an Apple Pencil. Notetaking apps have really evolved into powerful supports for all learners.

Our last focus area was what we called Creative Tools. This includes tools like the Livescribe Pen and the Rockebook. For those not familiar with the Rocketbook, it consists of a notebook and a special pen. After writing notes on the paper, there is a QR code on the page. Taking a picture of this page will automatically store the page in your selected location - whether that is Google Drive or One Drive or any other supported application. Once the pages are stored digitally, I can erase the book and start again. The Rocketbook Wave erases by heating it in a microwave and the Rocketbook Everlast erases with water.

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

This week was our monthly Open Forum. I always enjoy this free flowing conversation about all types of topics related to AT and inclusive technology. This week some of the topics included using eye gaze for AAC, tools for reading support, and more. Check out the archive at bit.ly/atchat112818

Coming up in the next couple weeks, we are going to try something a little different with #ATchat. We have lined up two thought leaders in the field of AT, Carole Zangari and Chris Bugaj. In order to maximize our learning, we will be asking you to submit questions you would like to ask and Carole and Chris will answer during #ATchat. So start thinking! Carole is scheduled for 12/12/18 and Chris is scheduled for 12/19/18.

Watch the #ATchat hashtag in the coming weeks for a link to leave your questions. Then make sure to join us for the chats!

To stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology, follow me on Twitter @mmatp and visit my website at mmatp.com for Inclusive Technology resources and all the previous podcast episodes. Bye for now!
Episode 21 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this super sized episode:

Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

Working with digital materials for students and adults with disabilities sometimes involves using different file formats. Depending on the person's needs and the tools they are using, a certain file format may be necessary. But where to turn to find out about tools that can help with formatting materials? I found a really nice resource on the Make Use Of website. I will make sure to add the link in the show notes.

The eBook Conversion Guide includes desktop tools, apps and web services that can be used to provide supports with materials. One tool mentioned in the guide is Calibre. This free tool is extremely helpful when looking to change a file format. The tool supports many different file formats and can be used as an effective tool for ebook file management too.

I will often work with teams to create ePub documents from PDFs and websites. ePub is a flexible accessible file format that can support various user needs, including multimedia embedded supports. Many times I am creating ePub files that consumers can use on an iOS device and specifically use in iBooks.

This past weekend was a big one here in NJ for professional learning - it was Edcamp NJ. For people who have never attended an edcamp - pause the episode right now and visit the Edcamp Foundation website at edcamp.org to find one near you. I promise you will not be disappointed. This participant led, organic learning experience will revitalize you and remind you why you do this. A crowd sourced session board filled with engaging conversations on a wide array of topics. Not "sit and get" presentations but conversations involving everyone - what's not to love about that!

Back to Edcamp NJ. With over 800 educators registered for the event, this has to be one of the biggest edcamps and this year it got even bigger - two locations to better meet the needs of educators. The New Brunswick Edcamp consisted of 14 simultaneous conversations across 6 sessions. The Egg Harbor Edcamp had 7 simultaneous conversations across 4 session times. With this many session times, there was for sure something for everyone. I attended the South Edcamp in Egg Harbor and it was a fantastic event. Special thanks to all the organizers - you guys did an amazing job.

One of the things I love about edcamps is how freely resources are shared. Edcamp NJ does a nice job of posting their session boards on line with a shared notetaking document for every session. Now I can review the conversation even if I didn't make the session. I put the links to both session boards in the show notes so you can check out the resources.

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

Last year's shortened Let's Give Thanks chat consisted of 3 questions:

Who is one person you would like to thank for being a mentor? Who was an inspiration to you? Recognize them here.

What are you MOST proud of doing/accomplishing so far this year? Personal or professional.

What was the best training, PD, workshop, or other new "thing" you discovered this year, and who would you like to thank for it?

I asked you to share your best "thing" and who you would like to thank via Speakpipe and you did not disappoint. Let's hear from you!

[Interview Transcription Coming Soon]

When I think about what I am most thankful for - you just heard 5 examples of it. I am most thankful for my PLN. People like Maureen, Chris, Beth, Michael and Hillary - people who make me better every day. Thanks guys!

To stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology, follow me on Twitter @mmatp and visit my website at mmatp.com for Inclusive Technology resources and all the previous podcast episodes. Bye for now!
Episode 20 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:

PD on the Go: The Power of Podcasts

Tech Tool Spotlight: Wonderscope AR iOS App

Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

Even though we are all busy, we still need to carve out some time to learn. For PD on the Go, I have become immersed in the world of podcasts - both as a creator and consumer. I have really enjoyed creating this podcast each week and I hope that you are finding the information valuable. As I develop my plan for each week - I work to explore all areas related to inclusive technology. I have been very deliberate in my strategy to focus on both tools AND implementation. We all know it isn't all about "stuff" but also how we use the "stuff" to meet the unique needs of each individual.

I recently had the honor of being interviewed on two different podcasts related to assistive technology and people with disabilities.

First I was a guest on the Assistive Technology Update podcast from the Indata Project. Led by Josh Anderson, this podcast focuses on all areas of AT. We spent our time discussing AT service delivery and a new project I am working on with a local school district and Raspberry Pi.

Next, I was a guest on the LOMAH Podcast. I spoke with Kim Albrecht about opportunities to learn and grow in this ever changing world of AT. Kim titled the episode Pep Talks and Twitter Chats - and I feel very happy about that description of our conversation.

I added the links to both these episodes in the show notes. If you haven't listened to these podcasts, I can't recommend them enough. Speaking of listening to podcasts ...

Want to learn more about AAC? Check out the new website from PRC-Saltillo Explore AAC. In addition to walking you through a roadmap towards AAC Implementation, including a section where you can download some low tech AAC boards and explore AAC through an interactive web based module. Check it out at exploreaac.com

There has been lots of talking recently about Augmented Reality and now we have the Wonderscope AR app for iOS. This interactive story book app unfolds with characters coming to life in front of you. While this alone would make this a pretty engaging tool, the company also announced that they are planning to release a development tool called Storymaker. This tool, when released, will allow anyone to create their own Augmented Reality stories. This is the really exciting part for me - giving anyone the opportunity to create and tell stories with AR components.

The app is free and comes with one book, A Brief History. A second book is available now called Little Red and costs $4.99. Other titles will be released in December. Check out the show notes for a link to the website and a video showing the augmented reality portions of the book.

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

This week's #ATchat topic was Tech for Students with Intellectual Disabilities. Some of the topics we discussed included tools we use to cognitively rescale materials and strategies people use to modify/develop and create flexible curriculum to support all learners. As with every chat - tons of info was shared. Both suggestions for tech tools to support learners and resources to learn more information.

Want to read the archive of this week's #ATchat - go to : bit.ly/atchat111418

To read all the #ATchat archives from this entire school year, go to bit.ly/atchat18-19 or Check out the show notes for the link to the spreadsheet.

Do you have an idea for an #ATchat topic, or do you want to moderate the chat? Drop me a line and let me know. We love learning from each other and are always excited to have new voices in the chat.

To stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology, follow me on Twitter @mmatp and visit my website at mmatp.com for Inclusive Technology resources and all the previous podcast episodes. Bye for now!
Episode 19 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:

Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

Are you using video to promote digital storytelling? Have you tried We Video? This web based video editor is perfect for use with a Chromebook and has plenty of features to help your vision become a video reality! This tool is really powerful - in fact, it has become my video tool of choice for creating and editing accessible video projects.

We Video has just announced a new digital storytelling toolkit to help promote creativity in the classroom. According to the WeVideo website, the toolkit includes:

The toolkit is free and I will include the link to sign up in the show notes.

Have you used digital storytelling to promote inclusion and accessibility? Share your story via SpeakPipe at speakpipe.com/ITSpodcast and I will feature you on an upcoming episode.

Time management. Just the thought of it can make people start to sweat! How can we best manage our time effectively and provide flexible supports that are helpful for all - whether it is a paper or digital calendar. Enter the Slice Planner. This schedule planner offers the best of both worlds. This paper planner allows you to visually organize your schedule in a paper notebook and then sync that information with your digital calendar app.

The analog component of this package is a small notebook that is approximately 8" x 6". Open the book up, write your appointments on the left page, and add additional notes on the right page. The Slice Planner app with sync that information directly into your calendar app for you and set reminders or alerts. Check this tool out at sliceplanner.com or visit the show notes for links to the webpage and a YouTube video showing the Slice Planner in action.

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

This week's #ATchat topic was the AT + Maker Connection. We discussed ways AT professionals can get back to our roots as Makers! Tweeters shared creative solutions they recently created to meet a unique need - such as keyguards for tablets, 3d printed pencil holders, battery interrupters and much more.

Bill Binko from AT Makers shared some of their recent updates including a 3d printed, Adafruit interface for using AT switches on the computer. The best part about this solution - it only costs $12 to make! I will include a link to the directions and a YouTube video in the show notes.

We also had a great conversation about strategies to connect with High School STEM / Robotics clubs to create AT Solutions. Partner with these creative students who are searching for problems to solve. Sounds like a perfect partnership between Makers and AT professionals. Want to read the archive of this week's #ATchat - go to : bit.ly/atchat110718

To read all the #ATchat archives from this entire school year, go to bit.ly/atchat18-19 or Check out the show notes for the link to the spreadsheet.

Do you have an idea for an #ATchat topic, or do you want to moderate the chat? Drop me a line and let me know. We love learning from each other and are always excited to have new voices in the chat.

To stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology, follow me on Twitter @mmatp and visit my website at mmatp.com for Inclusive Technology resources and all the previous podcast episodes. Bye for now!
Episode 18 (Listen) Episode 17 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:

Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

Let's talk about the Shortcuts app from Apple. This app, while not marketed as an accessibility tool, really fits nicely into our world of inclusive technology.

This app is designed to be a productivity support by automating certain actions in iOS. Think about the series of actions you need to string together to perform certain tasks on your iOS device. Now you can complete these tasks with one single tap instead of multiple steps. A big plus in our world of inclusive technology - this app is fully VoiceOver compatible!

The app comes with a Gallery of pre-made shortcuts such as Email Schedule to Yourself or Remaining Reminders. How about listening to a playlist? Simple, just activate the shortcut. Another powerful feature is the ability to run shortcuts in other apps.

Download this app today and start playing around with shortcuts. Did you find a solution to promote accessibility? Leave me a message via SpeakPipe at speakpipe.com/ITSpodcast and I will feature you on an upcoming episode.

I was working with a school based team this week and was asked a familiar question. Is there an Android version of iOS Guided Access? We were working with a student using an Android tablet and we needed to lock him into a screen so he would complete his task. After some research, and some trial and error downloading of many apps! - I found one that worked for us.

Touch Blocker is a free app that will prevent unwanted touches on the screen. Open the desired app, swipe down to access the notifications panel and activate Touch Blocker. Now the user will be unable to exit the app until you unlock the app. This solution will really be helpful in this classroom because there are only 2 ipads with Guided Access. Now, the teacher can use the other 3 Android tablets and provide the same level of support to students.

Check out the Episode 17 show notes for a link to the Google Play Store to download this app. Do you have another Android app you use for this function? Leave me a message via SpeakPipe at speakpipe.com/ITSpodcast

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

This week's #ATchat was live from the International Dyslexia Association Conference which was held at Foxwoods Resort in CT. Karen and I, along with Jamie Martin and Jackie Hersh, presented a full day workshop on AT tools for students with dyslexia. We also participated in an AT Lab set up in the exhibit hall to give conference attendees a chance to get their hands on AT.

With that as our backdrop, the topic of the chat this week was highlights from the conference, along with a conversation about tools and strategies people have used to support individuals with dyslexia. Part of the chat focused on educating professionals on the power of AT and dispelling the myth that AT is somehow cheating or would reduce student's desire to learn to read. These statements continue to pop up and we need to be strong in our message that AT is not cheating! AT does not make students lazy! In fact, during the chat Hillary came up with what I think will be our AT chat slogan: Until Remediation Clicks, AT Sticks. Love it! The second part of the chat focused on some examples of tools that people use to support students with dyslexia.

To read all the #ATchat archives from this entire school year, go to bit.ly/atchat18-19 or Check out the show notes for the link to the spreadsheet.

Do you have an idea for an #ATchat topic, or do you want to moderate the chat? Drop me a line and let me know. We love learning from each other and are always excited to have new voices in the chat.

Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review! Do you have an idea for a future episode? Leave an audio message via SpeakPipe at speakpipe.com/ITSpodcast with your suggestion. It may just appear on an upcoming episode. To stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology, follow me on Twitter @mmatp and visit my website at mmatp.com for Inclusive Technology resources and all the previous podcast episodes. Bye for now!
Episode 16 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:

Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

Released last week from the Google Accessibility team, Voice Access is a new Android app that provides hands free access to your Android smartphone and tablet. Users can navigate through apps, enter and edit text, and much more. Voice commands let you achieve greater control over apps and functions - like scrolling through app screens and access to app control buttons - all hands free. For access to apps with multiple text fields, the app will display numbers next to each text field. Simply announce that number and start dictating text directly into that text field.

Check out the Episode 16 show notes for a link to the Google Keyword Blog article about the Voice Access app as well as a link to the list of commands available within the app.

Accessibility at a Glance is a series of videos produced by Microsoft that promote the creation of inclusive, accessible digital experiences for people with disabilities.

Check out the Episode 16 show notes for a link to the YouTube Playlist of all the Accessibility at a Glance videos. Each short video focuses on another aspect of accessible, inclusive digital design. From captioning, to text alternatives, to a 4-part series on User Interface Automation - this video series offers powerful information in a short, easily digestible format.

One video I really enjoyed was the Inclusive Presentation Skills video. It started with the essential question: Is my presentation accessible to everyone? Several tips included: providing audio cues to support visual items, and the effective use of accessible multimedia within a presentation. We must ensure that our presentations are inclusive to all participants and this is a great place to start.

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

The topic for this week's #ATchat was Designing for Accessibility with POUR. Our special guest moderator for the chat was Luis Perez from the National AEM Center.

Think about all those educator created materials - how do we ensure that they are accessible. That's where POUR comes in! POUR is an acronym for Perceivable, Operable, Understandable and Robust. Let's dig into each area a bit.

Perceivable focuses on making content accessible visually and or auditorily for all. Fonts sizes and styles, colors, audio cues, captions for videos all fall into this area.

Operable focuses on the ways learners interact with the content and does it provide structure / support throughout the learning experience.

Understandable focuses on providing cues and supports to ensure that all learners can move through the materials successfully through directions and learning models.

Finally, we have Robust which focuses on the ability of your content to be used with current, and future, technologies that the learners may employ during the learning experience.

We had a lively conversations about tools and strategies related to POUR and providing an inclusive learning experience to all students. To read the archive of this week's #ATchat, go to: bit.ly/atchat101718

To read all the #ATchat archives from this entire school year, go to bit.ly/atchat18-19 or Check out the Episode 16 show notes for the link to the spreadsheet.

Do you have an idea for an #ATchat topic, or do you want to moderate the chat? Drop me a line and let me know. We love learning from each other and are always excited to have new voices in the chat.

To stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology, follow me on Twitter @mmatp and visit my website at mmatp.com for Inclusive Technology resources and all the previous podcast episodes. Bye for now!
Episode 15 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:

Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

A couple episodes back I mentioned that auto captioning feature for Google Slides that is coming in an upcoming Chrome OS update.

For this episode, let's talk about Presentation Translator for Powerpoint from Microsoft. This add in provides real time captions which are displayed directly on your slides. As a presenter - you can speak in any of the 10 supported languages - Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish - and provide subtitles in any one of over 60 text translation languages.

I will add a link to the information in the Episode 15 show notes. Once you try it out, let me know what you think. Let's talk about ways you could use this. Share your ideas via SpeakPipe at speakpipe.com/ITSpodcast and I will include them in an upcoming episode.

When we think about inclusive technology tools, look no further than your smartphone! So many features are already embedded into your phone to provide accessibility and promote inclusion. For this episode, I thought I would share the audio from a video I created with the Cerebral Palsy Foundation to encourage everyone to use what they already have to promote accessibility. Enjoy!

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

The topic for this week's #ATchat was Curriculum, Modifications and Accommodations. What made this conversation so powerful was the fact that many of the ideas shared were not about tools but instead about strategies which will lead to student success. We also had a conversation about the important difference between Modifications and Accommodations. These two terms are not interchangeable. I will share a link to the show notes to a post from Understood.org that talks about the differences. Some of the tools mentioned included Readtopia from Don Johnston, News 2 You, and MeVille to WeVille from AbleNet.

To read the archive of this week's #ATchat, go to: bit.ly/atchat101018

To read all the #ATchat archives from this entire school year, go to bit.ly/atchat18-19 or Check out the Episode 15 show notes for the link to the spreadsheet.

Do you have an idea for an #ATchat topic, or do you want to moderate the chat? Drop me a line and let me know. We love learning from each other and are always excited to have new voices in the chat.

To stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology, follow me on Twitter @mmatp and visit my website at mmatp.com for Inclusive Technology resources and all the previous podcast episodes. Bye for now!
Episode 14 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:

#ATchat Update: 10/3/18

Topic: If I Could Change One Thing About ...

#ATchat Archive 10/3/18 - bit.ly/atchat100318

Transcript
Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

I am excited to share today's podcast episode with you. This was part of a keynote panel that was presented at the 2018 New Jersey Assistive Technology Summit. Just a little background - in addition to the consulting I do with my company, Inclusive Tech Solutions, I am also the Director of the New Jersey Assistive Technology Act Project. Under that position, we created and deliver an annual assistive technology conference. So at this year's conference, we has three users of assistive technology share their story as part of our keynote. So today I am going to present to you one of those stories. I am going to share with you the story from Nick Foley. Nick is an 11th grade high school student with dyslexia and he was able to share some really great information about how he uses assistive technology to be successful. I especially like the questions the audience asks at the end and how Nick steps up and gives some fantastic answers about AT. Enjoy!

Hi, I'm Nick. I'm 16 years old and I'm a junior. I am a Learning Ally YES Ambassador. YES stands for Youth Example for Self Advocacy.

I knew I was different when I was in third grade because I always needed extra help. In 5th grade, I never read any of my library book. I would always put them in my backpack and pretend to read them. I would always try to find books with audio to them. I found out I was dyslexic in the third grade. When I found out I was dyslexic I was confused. I didn't know what dyslexia was. So my parents and my teacher explained dyslexia to me.

Dyslexia doesn't mean that you're dumb or stupid. It means that it takes longer for you to process information. You might need a little extra help. But but you can do what everyone else can do. The easiest way for me to learn is by doing things hands on. That is why I really like science.

I learn how to take better notes a couple years ago and now I use those notes to study in class. I use Quizlet which is an app with digital flashcards. So it's easier for me to go over my notes. I have to find ways to make the information stick and I need extra time to have the information click in my head. Instead of having it go right through.

The accommodations I use on my iPhone and my laptop. My Learning Ally audiobooks. I get extra time on tests and assignments if I need it and I have questions read out loud to me if I need it. Assistive Technology I use on my laptop and iPhone apps are Learning Ally Audiobooks and my Google Classroom and Google Extensions. The assistive technology I use are Quizlet, Grammarly and sticky notes. Other apps are used by other students are Mic Note and the Livescribe Pen. I hope to use these this year in school. I hope to use them in college.

Being a dyslexic is like going to Cape May. Most people take the Garden State Parkway which is a pretty easy and free way to get there. There might be few traffic jams during the busy times this summer. But it is a pretty easy and free way to get there. That's how most kids learn. In school they might have a couple bumps in the road along the way but it is a pretty easy. It's pretty easy in school.

Being a dyslexic is like going to Cape May with my grandparents. Instead of taking the Garden State Parkway which is an easy way to get there, we take a lot of stops and it takes us twice as long. I get really frustrated because I just want to get the Cape May. But we go to new places and learn new things. That's just like being dyslexic. I don't get the same place as everyone else because it takes me a little longer. But I make new stops and pick new things up other people probably don't know. For example, I know a lot more about assistive technology and what works best for me. In the end I get to Cape May and I have a great time. So it doesn't matter how long it takes me to get there. I feel the same way about how I learn. It might take me a little longer and I might not get to the same place as everyone else at the same time. But in the end I get there and I have a great time.

Does anybody have any questions for Nick?

Thanks Nick. A question about your Learning Ally Audiobooks. Do you use a synthesizer or do you use human read Audiobooks and does it make a difference?

Learning Ally has the biggest selection of human read books, over 80,000. I use for my school work, my required reading and my textbooks. So it is all human read and you can change the voice and the speed and everything if you want. It helps me better instead of sounding like a robot or automated. You have a real human reading it out loud. Honestly, it works better for me. I am not sure about other people but it's more real so you understand it. Not like a robot reading it to you. It's fluent and you can understand the information easier.

Hi Nick. That was really great. My grandparents took me to Cape May that way too. I really like that. You mentioned a couple of apps I heard you mention a pen. Could you describe them a little bit more?

So the Livescribe Pen works with special paper that has really small dots on it. You can use that pen to, say you are in a class in his lecture. You can use up his record your teacher and write down whatever your teacher is writing down. You can write key words that your teacher wrote down. Then you can go back and click on that word and it will go back to the exact part where your teacher was talking. My teacher was talking about a homework assignment and we had to do 3 paragraphs. He was telling us to write down a bunch of notes on the screen. So I can just sum it up in a couple words and sentences and have the teacher be recorded by what they are saying when explaining it. Then I can go back later and listen to what the teacher was saying so I can listen to the teacher in real time and then later go back and listen to my notes. Instead of only focusing on my notes. So it works with special paper that has small dots on it and then the pen records the teacher.

So I have a question in relation to that. When my son was in school, we had difficulty with our school district because the teachers didn't want to be recorded. I am wondering if that is something you had to deal with and how you dealt with that.

So far I haven't used the Livescribe Pen in High School or in Middle School because I have things on the laptop like Google Classroom. So I can go back home and it is all there. I did email my case manage and my teachers about a policy if I am allowed to record them in class. I have other friends in different schools that have used the Liverscribe Pen, the other Ambassadors, and they have signed a contract. It is a non- disclosure contract about they only use that information for school work. So they can't share that with anyone else. So it is strictly just for school. If they are recording a teacher, they are the only ones who are allowed to use that recording and it is not spread to anyone else.

So Nick. This is great. Can you share with us how you learned about all these different tools? How were you able to get these tools that are helping you. Have you ever needed the purchase any of these on your own?

Luckily, I have a great support team and a great family who is able to, and willing to, help me any way they can. It started - my grandma she had a little reader. I am not sure what they call it. They go through the paper and read it out loud to you. My mom and dad looked at Learning Ally and she downloaded that for me in third or fourth grade. Then I finally started to listen to books, read books and understand them. From there, my mom and dad found different tools that would help me in areas of school. I use Quizlet now which is a digital flash cards I get on my laptop or iPhone and you can ear read and eye read at the same time. So you can look at the flashcards and it reads them out loud to you. That is one I really like and I was able to use that.

Others I use are sticky notes just like any application on the laptop that you can get. I use those for reminding and. I use a bunch of other ones. I know other Ambassadors use different ones like the Livescribe Pen. Some use the Mic Note. So I just had to find one that fit me - and we have gone through a lot that I haven't used, I have used. Like Dragon Dictation - we had that, we tried it out and it didn't really work. But then we found, when I have to type up essays I just use the microphone on my iPhone and I just say whatever I want. That's like a free one on your iPhone. I say whatever I want and it types out for me. Then I can go back and edit it.

My mom and dad also got me an iPad and a laptop. So I can use my laptop in class, or my Learning Ally, for typing up essays. My iPad I used a long time ago for Learning Ally and different stuff. So my parents didn't have to buy that stuff themselves. Some schools do give out laptops, depending on what school district you are in. My school didn't do that so we got our own but I guess if I asked I would have been able to.

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

This week's #ATchat was called If I Could Change One Thing About. Participants shared their thoughts about making changes to: school,

IDEA, AT Consideration, your role in schools, how educators integrate technology into the classroom, and changes to delivery of professional development. Finally, we discussed if you could change the term Assistive Technology, what would it be?

Such an interesting conversation. To read the archive of this week's #ATchat, go to: bit.ly/atchat100318

To read all the #ATchat archives from this entire school year, go to bit.ly/atchat18-19 or Check out the Episode 14 show notes for the link to the spreadsheet.

Do you have an idea for an #ATchat topic, or do you want to moderate the chat? Drop me a line and let me know. We love learning from each other and are always excited to have new voices in the chat.

To stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology, follow me on Twitter @mmatp and visit my website at mmatp.com for Inclusive Technology resources and all the previous podcast episodes. Bye for now!
Episode 12 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:

Accessible Educational Materials (AEM)

National Center on Accessible Educational Materials
Designing for Accessibility with POUR

Want to share an idea/strategy? Leave a message via www.speakpipe.com/ITSpodcast

Transcript
Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

With the school year underway, it is a good time to discuss accessible educational materials.

According to the National Center on Accessible Educational Materials, " Accessible educational materials , or AEM, are materials and technologies usable for learning across the widest range of individual variability, regardless of format or features. Whether a material or technology is designed from the start to be accessible for all learners or is made accessible for learners with disabilities, it is considered AEM"

AEM includes instructional materials provided in specialized formats and accessible digital materials and technologies.

For specialized formats, many educators will utilize Bookshare or Learning Ally for qualified students. Each of these services is available to individuals with a print disability. What about students that don't qualify? Check out other available services like Project Gutenberg (for digital text to use with text to speech tools) and Librivox (for human narrated audio books).

With the explosion of digital creation tools, educators are making more of their own materials than ever before. When creating these materials, we need to make a conscious effort to ensure that the materials are accessible to everyone. The National Center on Accessible Educational Materials recently released "Designing for Accessibility with POUR".

The acronym POUR highlights the accessibility of a learning experience.

Perceivable focuses on making content accessible visually and or auditorily for all. Fonts sizes and styles, colors, audio cues, captions for videos all fall into this area.

Operable focuses on the ways learners interact with the content and does it provide structure / support throughout the learning experience.

Understandable focuses on providing cues and supports to ensure that all learners can move through the materials successfully through directions and learning models.

Finally, we have Robust which focuses on the ability of your content to be used with current, and future, technologies that the learners may employ during the learning experience.

Check the show notes for a link to the POUR information on the National Center for AEM website.

The State Educational Technology Directors Association recently released a web based technical assistance manual called Guide to Quality Instructional Materials. According to the website,

"This guide provides guidance to state, district, and school level leaders in the selection of high quality instructional materials that are aligned to standards, address education goals and are accessible for all students."

The topic areas with in the guide include:

Under the Considerations section, there are some resources shared related to accessibility of digital materials.

For more information, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the Episode 12 show notes and a link to the guide.

Want a resource for integrating Open Educational Resources into your teaching AND want to relive the glory of the 80s? Check out the guest post on Matt Miller's Ditch that Textbook website written by Stephanie DeMichele.

The post is titled, Mixtape Your Curriculum: Using Open Education Resources to Customize Your Teaching and Their Learning. The idea of a mixtape fits nicely when we consider our approach using UDL and providing options for learners. A mixtape can be a very personal solution, providing customized learning experiences focused on meeting that student's specific learning need. Stephanie breaks this process down into three steps.

1. Curate your tunes. This is where we explore online resource repositories to find materials. For OER materials, check out oercommons.org. Want more? Check out the show notes for a reference site from the University of Pittsburgh titled the OER: Big List of Resources. Remember accessibility during this discovery phase. Make sure that the materials you select will work with any specialized technology tools the student uses to aid in their learning process.

2. Record your music. In this phase we deliver the content to the student. What tools do you use to deliver content? Google Classroom, Schoology, Pear Deck are just a few of the options.

3. Get Your Listener's Reaction. What strategies do you use to give and get feedback? Utilize something like Google Forms or Flipgrid to provide options to amplify student voice.

The link to the full post is included in the Episode 12 Show Notes. Follow Stephanie on Twitter @sdemichele or on her website stephaniedemichele.org .

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

This week's #ATchat was monthly Open Forum! It was a wide ranging conversation covering many different topics - including updates to Bookshare, developing AT Implementation plans with district teams, using Raspberry Pi as an AT support and more.

To read all the #ATchat archives from this entire school year, go to bit.ly/atchat18-19 or Check out the Episode 12 show notes for the link to the spreadsheet.

Do you have an idea for an #ATchat topic, or do you want to moderate the chat? Drop me a line and let me know. We love learning from each other and are always excited to have new voices in the chat.

To stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology, follow me on Twitter @mmatp and visit my website at mmatp.com for Inclusive Technology resources and all the previous podcast episodes. Bye for now!
Episode 11 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:

IEP in the Workplace (that's Inclusive Employment Practices!)

#ATchat Update: 9/12/18

Topic: Siblings and Peer Support for AT

#ATchat Archive 9/12/18 - bit.ly/atchat091218

Transcript
Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

Two weeks ago, I had the privilege, for the 3rd straight year, of participating in the Arizona Dept of Ed, Exceptional Student Services Transition Conference. This annual event, which has over 700 participants, focuses on strategies and tools to promote successful transition. The theme for this year's event was Ignite the Future! Transition Resources to Spark Engagement.

I presented two sessions focused on integrating technology supports into transition services. One on those sessions focused on IEP in the Workplace. I know what you are thinking, IEPs don't apply to employment. And you would be right! I was speaking about Inclusive Employment Practices in the Workplace.

The focus of the session was design - specifically inclusive design - both architecturally and with the addition of assistive technology tools. Using the 7 principles of Universal Design from Ron Mace as a jumping off point, we discussed tech solutions (both low tech and high tech) that can make the workplace more accessible to individuals with disabilities. Let's explore the 7 principles and some quick examples.

Principle 1: Equitable Use. The design is useful and marketable to people with diverse abilities.

While there are many examples of this from a physical access perspective, with tools such as standing desks, I shared the example of Google Chrome meeting this principle. With the development of browser extensions, we no longer have to be tied to a specific computer to access tools we may need to be successful. Now we can log in to any computer and our specialized tools come to us. This makes EVERY computer our computer.

Principle 2: Flexibility of Use. The design accommodates a wide range of individual preferences and abilities.

This principle is showing up in classrooms all the time in the form of flexible seating. Providing different options for workstations for task completion - find the one that works for you! I shared an example of a worksite accommodation I created for a young lady working at a fast food restaurant. She uses a manual wheelchair for mobility and was not able to reach the tabletop. A sliding shelf was built and installed to provide her an appropriate height work surface. Well, guess what happened. It became a favorite workstation for many employees who could not comfortably use the existing table! So much so that the restaurant built sliding shelves for every table to provide flexibility

Principle 3: Simple and Intuitive Use. Use of the design is easy to understand.

Think about it - you get a new phone. Did it come with directions? Probably not. Thanks to intuitive design you were able to get up and running in no time at all because the designer eliminated unnecessary complexity. How about the built in accessibility features available in every device we use today? Whether it's voice input for dictation, Siri to answer questions, or listening to text read aloud - our technology tools have become easier to use and more flexible to meet the unique needs of each individual.

Principle 4: Perceptible Information. The design communicates necessary information effectively to the user, regardless of ambient conditions or the user's sensory abilities.

We see this principle represented in multiple modes of relaying information through design. Picture, audio, text - provide options to ensure that information is conveyed to each individual. Now we have apps, like Seeing AI from Microsoft, that allow us to take pictures in our environment and the app will relay information back to the user. This free app can read text, identify money and colors and also describe a person to you.

Principle 5: Tolerance for Error. The design minimizes hazards & the adverse consequences of accidental or unintended actions.

For individuals with disabilities, this is where bad design can become dangerous. Make sure that any potential hazards are removed in order to provide access. This could be an area where Virtual Reality crosses into the world of AT. Think about offering a virtual training experience to an individual with a disability so they can move through an environment and navigate hazards without the risk of being hurt. This type of training tool could better prepare individuals for the workplace and potentially reduce the need for job coaching, making them more independent quicker.

Principle 6. Low Physical Effort. The design can be used efficiently and comfortably, and with a minimum of fatigue.

For this principle, I showed a job accommodation I created for a lady working in an office environment as an Information & Referral Specialist. She takes phone calls all day and provides callers with information to assist them. She is very petite and uses a wheeled walker for mobility. She needs to have a reclining chair to support her while using the phone and computer. Her employer purchased a VERY nice electric reclining office chair - and the matching power desk. This allowed her to position herself in a comfortable spot to complete her work. The issue was that her chair was very heavy and did not have a rotating base so once she was positioned in the chair, she was unable to independently move the chair to get out!

The solution was to take a non-rotating chair and make it rotate! An industrial size lazy susan was purchased and attached to a plywood base that was customized to support the chair. Now, by released a lever, the chair would rotate 90 degrees and lock in place to enable her to get up and move around the office. Once she returned to the chair, the lever was released again and the chair would rotate back under the desk. A simple solution to provide a workable job accommodation.

Principle 7: Size and Space for Approach and Use. Appropriate size and space is provided for approach, reach, manipulation, and use regardless of user's body size, posture, or mobility

This principle brings me back to the concept of flexible seating and workstations. Providing options allows everyone to find a spot that works for them. Think about providing adjustable shelves and worktables. Employ an open concept workspace to accommodate mobility devices. Look at alternative computer access tools like adaptive keyboards and mice. Different sizes, shapes can provide equal access to everyone.

This was just a sampling of the tools and strategies we discussed during the session. For more information about this session including a link to the presentation slides, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the Episode 11 show notes.

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

To read all the #ATchat archives from this entire school year, go to bit.ly/atchat18-19 or Check out the Episode 10 show notes for the link to the spreadsheet.

Do you have an idea for an #ATchat topic, or do you want to moderate the chat? Drop me a line and let me know. We love learning from each other and are always excited to have new voices in the chat.

To stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology, follow me on Twitter @mmatp and visit my website at mmatp.com for Inclusive Technology resources and all the previous podcast episodes. Bye for now!
Episode 10 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:

Quality Indicators for Assistive Technology Services

#ATchat Update: 9/5/18

Transcript
Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

Are you still looking for a replacement to Today's Meet? That replacement tool may have arrived. Yo Teach! From Palm provides a backchannel location to share resources or ask questions. With Today's Meet, we could only insert 140 characters of text, with Yo Teach! that limit has increased dramatically. Not sure how much text you can insert in a note, but I was able to copy/paste the entire transcript of this episode into one note!

In addition to text, we can also insert pictures and drawings into notes. After creating a room, add a password to activate the Admin controls. You can manage notes by muting the speaker or removing the posts, download the entire chat to a PDF, and delete the room.

This looks like a powerful tool and I am excited about trying this in my next training. Want to try it out? Visit the link in the show notes to access the room I created for the podcast. Leave a comment and share an idea of how you might use this tool in your practice.

For more information about Yo Teach! and a link to create your own rooms , visit mmatp.com/it4all for the Episode 10 show notes.

With the start of another school year upon us, it is a good time to review our procedures to make sure that we are providing quality Assistive Technology services for all students with disabilities. A powerful resource available to teams is the Quality Indicators for Assistive Technology Services.

For those not familiar with QIAT, the Quality Indicators for Assistive Technology Services is a grassroots organization comprised of hundreds of professionals who continually develop a set of Indicators that school based staff can use to provide effective AT services to students with disabilities. These indicators, available on the QIAT website at qiat.org, provide guidance throughout the entire process to ensure that quality services are being delivered to students with disabilities.

The indicators available include:

Consideration of AT Needs; Assessment of AT Needs; AT in the IEP; AT Implementation; Evaluation of Effectiveness of AT; AT in Transition; Administrative Support for AT; and, AT Professional Development.

These best practices indicators can help guide teams throughout the process, plus there is a matrix for each indicator area that allows teams to evaluate where they are in the process.

If you haven't explored the indicators, take them for a test drive with your team and see how you can improve AT service delivery for students in your school.

For more information and a link to the QIAT Indicators, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the Episode 10 show notes

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

This week's #ATchat focused on AT supports for students who have a 504 plan. Keeping with the theme of this episode, we framed the conversation around the recently released QIAT Indicators for 504 Plan AT Services. The areas of focus for the 504 Indicators include:

Awareness of Reasonable 504 AT Accommodations; Determination of AT Needs as an Accommodation; Plan and Implementation; Evaluation of Effectiveness; Administrative Support; Professional Development and Training; Student Instruction about AT

The link to the Indicators is included in the show notes for this episode.

To read the archive of this week's #ATchat, go to: bit.ly/atchat090518

To read all the #ATchat archives from this entire school year, go to bit.ly/atchat18-19 or Check out the Episode 10 show notes for the link to the spreadsheet.

Do you have an idea for an #ATchat topic, or do you want to moderate the chat? Drop me a line and let me know. We love learning from each other and are always excited to have new voices in the chat.

Thanks for listening. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @mmatp to stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology and visit my website at mmatp.com/it4all for all episodes of Inclusive Technology 4 All. Bye for now!
Episode 9 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:

Start the School Year by Thinking Inclusive
Transcript
Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

The podcast is back after a summer break and I am looking forward to diving into new episodes. The focus of this episode is Back to School & starting the year off right with inclusive practices.

In fact, I recently wrote an article for edsurge.com titled "Tips, Tricks and Tools to Build Your Inclusive Classroom Through UDL" In the article, I shared some practical ideas for promoting an inclusive environment via the UDL principles of Multiple Means of Engagement, Representation, and Action & Expression. I will add the link to the article in the show notes for this episode.

One area of focus in the article was the fact that building an inclusive classroom for all learners doesn't have to be a daunting task. There are simple steps we can take to promote learning, both with and without technology. Provide text to speech support for all students to promote reading via audio. Encourage students to use Voice Typing in Google Docs to complete a writing assignment. Provide opportunities for students to engage in conversations about learning and empower them through self advocacy to learn in ways that work for them.

While I will discuss this week's #ATchat coming up in a later segment of this episode, one of the exchanges relates to this topic. We discussed the idea of Accessible instruction and the fact that people sometimes mean different things when they say accessible. When discussing accessible, some people really mean available. As in, electronic copies of materials are available. We need to continue to remind all educators: Digital makes it available; Usable by ALL makes it accessible.

I wrapped up the article talking about immediate steps you can take to promote an inclusive learning environment: Be intentional as you design learning experiences. Ask yourself: Am I providing options during this learning experience? You won't be able to infuse all areas of UDL into every lesson. That's OK. Start small. Find ways to infuse UDL into learning activities. Build on your successes. And keep moving in a positive direction and watch your students succeed.

Do you have an inclusive strategy you want to share? Share your expertise via Speakpipe. This web based tool allows you to record audio I can use in future episodes. Go to speakpipe.com/ITSpodcast to leave your ideas.

The Center on Technology and Disability recently announced the availability of the AT Keyring. Share these with co-workers, parents, and employers to demonstrate the range of assistive technology, from no tech to low tech to high tech, that is available to support people with disabilities. The AT Keyring is free and available by completing the form on the CTD website.

For more information and a link to the form, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the Episode 9 show notes

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

This week was the first #ATchat of the new school year and the topic was Welcome back! We had a spirited conversation about summer learning and plans for starting the year in a positive direction. There were many powerful ideas about ways to start the school year and this thought was from co-moderator Karen Janowski. "Embed UDL principles. Make the technology available to all. Build students' metacognitive skills so they can identify what they need for independence and success."

To read all the #ATchat archives from this entire school year, go to bit.ly/atchat18-19 or Check out the Episode 9 show notes for the link to the spreadsheet.

Do you have an idea for an #ATchat topic, or do you want to moderate the chat? Drop me a line and let me know. We love learning from each other and are always excited to have new voices in the chat.

Thanks for listening. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @mmatp to stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology and visit my website at mmatp.com/it4all for all episodes of Inclusive Technology 4 All. Bye for now!
Episode 8 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:
Transcript
Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

Looking for a way to engage learners with audio? Have you wanted to create your own podcast? Join me and use Anchor to create podcasts on the fly. It is a simple tool that allows users to record sections, upload audio, add transitions and, most importantly, distribute your podcast across multiple platforms. This simple, free tool got even better this week with updates for the iPad app.

Some of the new features include new audio editing tools. Trim and split audio files to customize clips. Split view allows users to keep recording notes visible on screen while recording. But the most powerful new feature is the ability to drag and drop audio files from any app that supports split view on the iPad.

We all have something to share-take the plunge and start your podcast today. Anchor makes the whole process so simple. If you create your own podcast, let me know so I can highlight it here. Leave an audio comment via SpeakPipe at speakpipe.com/ITSpodcast

For more information about Anchor, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the Episode 8 show notes

Microsoft made big news this week on two fronts. First, they acquired Flipgrid and promptly made the service FREE! If you haven't heard of Flipgrid, you must not be on Twitter! This student video response tool has been been all the rage this past year with educators catching "Flipgrid Fever". I have used this tool throughout the past year from two perspectives. I really like this as an option for learners who struggle with writing. Now they can respond via video and demonstrate their knowledge of a subject. I have also found Flipgrid to be a simple tool to use for reflection and group activities during educator professional learning experiences. For more info, check out flipgrid.com

The second bit of news this week from Microsoft is their continued commitment to the inclusive technology field with the creation of the Inclusive Classroom Microsoft Community. This community aims to connect educators with Microsoft engineers and product managers to foster conversation about strategies to meet the needs of all learners. Join the conversation and work collaboratively to effectively meet the needs of all learners.

For more information, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the Episode 8 show notes

Big news! This summer we are proud to announce that the #ATchat crew will be leading not one but two Book Chats. We will change our traditional chat schedule for the summer and move to a Twitter Slow Chat. Instead of meeting every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern, we will post one question per week on a Monday morning and people can share responses throughout the week.

So what are we reading? For the month of July, we will be reading The New Assistive Tech: Making Learning Awesome for All by Chris Bugaj. For August, we will be reading Dive into UDL: Immersive Practices to Develop Expert Learners by Luis Perez and Kendra Grant.

We have also heard from the authors and are happy to report that they have all agreed to participate in the chats! We are really excited about this opportunity to learn with our ATchat family throughout the summer. Hope you will join us.

For more information about the books and how to order them, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the show notes

Are you in the NJ tri-state area? Do you want to increase your knowledge about AT and network with other professionals? Well do I have the event for you! I am happy to announce tickets are now available for the 2nd Annual New Jersey Assistive Technology Summit on September 20, 2018. Sponsored by The Richard West Assistive Technology Advocacy Center, this FREE event will offer over 20 concurrent sessions and an opportunity to connect with almost 200 AT professionals from the tri-state region.

For more information and a link to get your FREE tickets, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the show notes

Finally, a quick preview of next week's episode. I was fortunate enough to participate in #picademy this week in Jersey City, NJ. Sponsored by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, this experience brought together dozens of educators for two days of hands on learning about physical computing and the use of the inexpensive Raspberry Pi computer to teach computer science. Next week we will dive into Raspberry Pi and more importantly, hear from some of my colleagues who have completed the course and are now Raspberry Pi Certified Educators.

Thanks for listening. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @mmatp to stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology and visit my website at mmatp.com/it4all for all episodes of Inclusive Technology 4 All. Bye for now!
Episode 7 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:
Transcript
Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

Apple introduced some updates to the Pages iOS app this week that could be beneficial for creating engaging materials for all learners.

Users can utilize pre-made templates to create interactive ePub books. Similar to iBooks Author, this app now gives users some powerful features for engaging their learners. Now users can record, edit and play audio directly in the book. This feature can support struggling students by providing additional support for text. Pair this audio with the built in iOS Speak Selection or Speak Screen feature, and learners now have auditory access for the entire book. New annotation features, along with Apple Pencil support, gives users another way to infuse creativity into their books. If you haven't tried free this app yet, download it today from the app store.

For more information, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the Episode 7 show notes

Want to learn about Open Educational Resources and how you could create a open course? Check out the Making Sense of Open Education course. This course is available on the Open Learn Create platform and consists of 15 learning modules covering everything from Types of OER, How To Search for OER, Inclusive Design and Anatomy of an Open Educator. This course was developed as part of a research project and had a synchronous component, which unfortunately has concluded. However, participants can still access the course materials.

For more information and a link to the course, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the Episode 7 show notes

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

This week was the last #ATChat of the school year. We typically take the summers off to recharge and regroup! This chat focused on a really important topic: AT tools and Student Data Privacy. Our guest moderator this week was Kelly Fonner and she led the group through a series of questions related to using apps and browser extensions that safely manage student's data. Other questions focused on the system that schools put in place to protect data. Many participants commented that they didn't really have a system in place and they were searching for guidance on how to build that system. Tons of resources were shared and more importantly, thanks to Elisa Wern, we started a collaborative Google Sheet to document AT tools that are in compliance with COPPA and FERPA. This real time collaboration showed the true power of Twitter. Check out the Episode 7 show notes for the link to the spreadsheet. To read the archive of the entire chat, go to: bit.ly/atchat061318

To read all the #ATchat archives from this entire school year, go to bit.ly/atchat17-18

Big news! This summer we are proud to announce that the #ATchat crew will be leading not one but two Book Chats. We will change our traditional chat schedule for the summer and move to a Twitter Slow Chat. Instead of meeting every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern, we will post one question per week on a Monday morning and people can share responses throughout the week.

So what are we reading? For the month of July, we will be reading The New Assistive Tech: Making Learning Awesome for All by Chris Bugaj. For August, we will be reading Dive into UDL: Immersive Practices to Develop Expert Learners by Luis Perez and Kendra Grant.

We have also heard from the authors and are happy to report that they have all agreed to participate in the chats! We are really excited about this opportunity to learn with our ATchat family throughout the summer. Hope you will join us.

For more information about the books and how to order them, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the show notes

Thanks for listening. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @mmatp to stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology and visit my website at mmatp.com/it4all for all episodes of Inclusive Technology 4 All. Bye for now!
Episode 6 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:

Transcript

Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

For more information, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the Episode 6 show notes

I just installed a powerful new Chrome Extension called Lip Surf. Once activated, users can now navigate around the browser window through voice commands. Offering similar support to Dragon Naturally Speaking Mouse Mode, this extension can provide a hands free browsing experience. There are currently 3 plugins: Reddit, Google, and Browser. With over 50 voice commands, users can open a tab, scroll up and down the page, click links, play video and more. But the most valuable voice command is Annotate. Say that command and instantly, every clickable item on the page is highlighted with a two letter code. Now just say the code and that item will be activated. Wow. Hands free access to the Chrome browser. The LipSurf Pro extension is currently a Beta version. After the 1 month trial of the Pro version there will be a free version, but not sure which features will remain free. Stay tuned for updates!

For more information and a link to download the extension from the Chrome store, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the Episode 6 show notes

Now for a PD tool! I have been searching for a replacement to Today's Meet for some time and I explored the use of Dotstorming with several groups this week and had great success! With Today's Meet closing down on June 16, 2018 - this search was becoming critical. I needed a tool that was easy to use, provided a forum for back channel discussion and was FREE. Dotstorming checked all the boxes and more! Simply sign in using a valid email address and you can start creating boards. Not only is there a back channel chat feature, you can also create cards to post information to a wall, similar to padlet. Participants can comment on each card, which is a nice way to engage participants while organizing the conversation threads.

I used this tool twice this week and the reviews were all positive. The chat feature, along with the ability to provide discussion prompts via cards makes this tool a big win. Check it out for your next PD event.

For more information, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the Episode 6 show notes

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

This week's chat focused on Inclusive Strategies for Year End Reflections. Questions focused on tools and strategies professionals use to enable all students to reflect on their learning AND for their own professional reflection. Other questions focused on moving from reflection to action and providing feedback to administration on your own progress throughout the year. Want to catch up? Check out the link bit.ly/atchat060618 For the archive. To read all the #ATchat archives from this entire school year, go to bit.ly/atchat17-18

Big news! This summer we are proud to announce that the #ATchat crew will be leading not one but two Book Chats. We will change our traditional chat schedule for the summer and move to a Twitter Slow Chat. Instead of meeting every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern, we will post one question per week on a Monday morning and people can share responses throughout the week.

So what are we reading? For the month of July, we will be reading The New Assistive Tech: Making Learning Awesome for All by Chris Bugaj. For August, we will be reading Dive into UDL: Immersive Practices to Develop Expert Learners by Luis Perez and Kendra Grant.

We have also heard from the authors and are happy to report that they have all agreed to participate in the chats! We are really excited about this opportunity to learn with our ATchat family throughout the summer. Hope you will join us.

For more information about the books and how to order them, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the show notes

Thanks for listening. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @mmatp to stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology and visit my website at mmatp.com/it4all for all episodes of Inclusive Technology 4 All. Bye for now!
Episode 5 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

Show Notes: In this episode:

Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

Researchers at Carnegie Melon University demonstrated a process called Electrick which turns any item into a touchscreen. By applying Conductive spray paint to any surface and then connecting electrodes to the item - researchers were able to sense a finger touch on the surface. This technique is called electric field tomography. At this point, they have gotten the accuracy to within one centimeter which is accurate enough to activate buttons or slider control. This technique could have positive applications for individuals with disabilities as an alternative access solution.

For more information, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the Episode 5 show notes and a link to learn more about this research project.

The Office of Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education announced a new technical assistance initiative to assist schools, districts, state education agencies, libraries, colleges and universities aimed at making their websites and online programs accessible to individuals with disabilities. Through a series of webinars, information will be shared about website accessibility, including accessibility tips for online programs.

For more information about signing up for these webinars, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the Episode 5 show notes

This week, I finished teaching a yearlong hybrid learning experience called Spreading the Word about AT and UDL with Jennifer Edge-Savage. We worked with 30 educators from Massachusetts and New Hampshire to expand their knowledge about AT devices and services, UDL and Accessible Educational Materials. This course consists of 3 full day in person training experiences, synchronous webinars throughout the year, application projects customized to meet the needs of each participant and personalized coaching to cement the learning.

In future episodes, I will highlight some of the exit reflections from course participants. But for this episode, I wanted to quickly share a couple tools I learned about during our final class meeting.

First up is Flippity. Flippity is a tool that takes any Google Spreadsheet and turns it into a set of online flashcards. Some of the templates available on the website include a trivia game show, a random name picker, a memory game and mad libs. There is also an add-on for Google Sheets. Check out flippity.net for more info.

Touch and Learn Emotions is an app to support students with learning about emotions. Several faces are shown and the person must identify the emotion listed on the screen. While the app comes with over 100 pictures of various emotions, users can insert their own pictures in order to provide concrete examples for students to use. This app works on iPhones or iPad and costs $1.99
For more information about the tools described above and to see the flyer to sign up for the 2018/2019 Spreading the Word About AT and UDL course, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the Episode 5 show notes

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

This week's chat was led by our guest moderator, Chris Bugaj. Our topic was Designing Educational Experiences to Make Learning Awesome for All. So many great ideas were shared throughout the hour - check out the chat archive at bit.ly/atchat053018

Want to catch up on all the chats from this year? Check out the link bit.ly/atchat17-18 For the archive

Big news! This summer we are proud to announce that the #ATchat crew will be leading not one but two Book Chats. We will change our traditional chat schedule for the summer and move to a Twitter Slow Chat. Instead of meeting every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern, we will post one question per week on a Monday morning and people can share responses throughout the week.

So what are we reading? For the month of July, we will be reading The New Assistive Tech: Making Learning Awesome for All by Chris Bugaj. For August, we will be reading Dive into UDL: Immersive Practices to Develop Expert Learners by Luis Perez and Kendra Grant.

We have also heard from the authors and are happy to report that they have all agreed to participate in the chats! We are really excited about this opportunity to learn with our ATchat family throughout the summer. Hope you will join us.

For more information about the books and how to order them, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the show notes

Are you in the NJ tri-state area? Do you want to increase your knowledge about AT and network with other professionals? Well do I have the event for you! I am happy to announce tickets are now available for the 2nd Annual New Jersey Assistive Technology Summit on September 20, 2018. Sponsored by The Richard West Assistive Technology Advocacy Center, this FREE event will offer over 20 concurrent sessions and an opportunity to connect with almost 200 AT professionals from the tri-state region.

For more information and a link to get your FREE tickets, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the show notes

Thanks for listening. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @mmatp to stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology and visit my website at mmatp.com/it4all for all episodes of Inclusive Technology 4 All. Bye for now!

Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:

Virtual training opportunity from The National Center on Accessible Educational Materials

New apps from Google to support individuals with disabilities

#ATchat update

Announcing the 2nd Annual New Jersey Assistive Technology Summit

Show Notes

Transcript

Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

The National Center on Accessible Educational Materials is offering a five module virtual training opportunity, titled Making Your Everyday Curriculum Materials More Accessible for All Learners. This course is designed to improve your knowledge and skills for increasing curriculum access for all learners, including students with disabilities.

The modules include:

Module 1, Introduction to Accessible Educational Materials and Technologies

Module 2, How to Make Your Documents Accessible

Module 3, How to Locate Captioned Videos and Make Your Own

Module 4, How to Find Specialized Formats of Print Materials

Module 5, How to Select Accessible Digital Materials

Registration is open from 5/1/18 to 2/5/19

For more information, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the Episode 4 show notes

At the recent Google i/o event, several products were announced focused on providing support to individuals with disabilities.

Lookout is an Android app designed to provide auditory cues about objects, people and even text. By using the camera on a Pixel device, the user can independently move through a space using auditory announcements. The app uses AI to bridge the virtual and physical world. One important feature of the app is that the core experience is processed on the device, which means the app can be used without an internet connection.

Another highlighted tool was the addition of Morse code access to the GBoard virtual keyboard. Developed in partnership with AT user Tania Finlayson, who has been using Morse code as a computer input method, this feature provides a unique access solution for individuals with alternative access needs. This feature works in conjunction with the Android built in accessibility features Switch Access and Point Scan.

One other announcement at Google i/o was increased features available for developers to produce accessible experiences via You Tube Live Automatic Captions.
For more information and links to these tools, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the Episode 4 show notes
Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

This past week's chat was titled: If You Could Change One Thing. Questions included- If you could change one thing about IDEA, what would it be? This question brought out lots of conversation! Participants were very interested in changing the term and / or definition of Assistive Technology and finding a way to be more inclusive with the term.

Another question was If You Could Change One Thing About Built in Accessibility Features, what would it be? Many ideas were shared about adding additional features and settings, but the one response that really struck a nerve with me. Make these features ON by default! Wouldn't it be nice to have these features providing support right out of the box.

Read the whole conversation at: bit.ly/atchat051618

Want to catch up with other #ATchat conversations? Check out the link bit.ly/atchat17-18 For the entire archive

Are you in the NJ tri-state area? Do you want to increase your knowledge about AT and network with other professionals? Well do I have the event for you! I am happy to announce tickets are now available for the 2nd Annual New Jersey Assistive Technology Summit on September 20, 2018. Sponsored by The Richard West Assistive Technology Advocacy Center, this FREE event will offer over 20 concurrent sessions and an opportunity to connect with almost 200 AT professionals from the tri-state region.

For more information and a link to get your FREE tickets, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the show notes

Thanks for listening. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @mmatp to stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology and visit my website at mmatp.com/it4all for all episodes of Inclusive Technology 4 All. Bye for now!
Episode 3 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:

Global Accessibility Awareness Day

Bookshare introduces Word format downloads

Tobii leads way for plug and play eye tracker hardware

Show Notes:

Transcript:

Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

May 17th 2018 is Global Accessibility Awareness Day and there are many opportunities for learning about digital accessibility. Some highlights include:

The Great Lakes ADA Center is hosting a free webinar on Using WordPress for Accessible Web Development May 17th at 2PM Eastern.

The ISTE Inclusive Learning Network is hosting a free webinar featuring an international panel of inclusive technology experts on Handmade Learning Materials For Students with Disabilities on Thursday, 5/17/18 at 8PM ET.

Also on Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Microsoft will release a short film titled Empowering Every Person: Reimagining Accessibility. The film highlights ways to ensure productivity for your diverse workforce or to increase your organization's reach and provide services to customers with disabilities

For registration links to these events, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the Episode 3 show notes and make sure to follow the #GAAD hashtag on May 17th for all things digital accessibility.

Bookshare is a repository of digital books available for students with print disabilities. This week it was announced that members can now download books in Word format. Now students can open their book directly into Word and use the built in Learning Tools to provide accessibility support. From changing the visual display of text to using text to speech support for reading, this new format provides another option to provide accessible text to students with print disabilities.

To learn more about Bookshare visit bookshare.org

Once an expensive alternative access method, Eye tracking is moving towards the mainstream. Tobii is leading the way, along with support from Microsoft, Intel and Eyetech DS, and eye trackers have been approved for a USB Human Interface Device standard. This is the same standard used for modern gaming mice. This will lead to simple plug and play hardware that doesn't rely on specific vendor supplied software drivers.

For more information, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the Episode 3 show notes

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

Want to catch up? Check out the link bit.ly/atchat17-18 For the archive

Thanks for listening. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @mmatp to stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology and visit my website at mmatp.com/it4all for all episodes of Inclusive Technology 4 All. Bye for now!
Episode 2 (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:
Microsoft introduces AI for Accessibility
Google Docs add-on Kaizena
#Atchat update

Show Notes:

Transcript:

Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

Microsoft announced this week a $25 million investment in a program called AI for Accessibility. The goal of the initiative, according to the website, is

Amplifying human capability

AI can empower people with disabilities with tools that support independence and productivity, as technology rapidly changes the way we live, learn, and work.

The Program aims to provide seed grants to developers, universities, inventors and NGOs. The focus of their projects needs to be on "creating solutions that will create new opportunities and assist people with disabilities with work, life, and human connections."

For more info, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the Episode 2 Show Notes

Next up, a slick add-on for Google Docs. We all love the collaborative features of the G Suite tools, especially the ability to add comments into documents. Now there is an add-on that allows us to leave Audio Comments in Google docs. Check out Kaizena, available in the add-ons store for Google Docs. Activate this add-on and a side panel will appear to let you record audio and leave comments directly into the doc. A really simple way to leave feedback and engage all learners in the writing task.

For more info, visit mmatp.com/it4all for the Episode 2 Show Notes

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

Thanks for listening. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @mmatp to stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology and visit my website at mmatp.com/it4all for all episodes of Inclusive Technology 4 All. Bye for now!
Episode 1: Introduction (Listen)
Each episode of Inclusive Technology 4 All will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence.

In this episode:
What to expect with this podcast
#Atchat update

Show Notes:

Transcript:

Hey now! Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. I'm Mike Marotta and each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone.

Let's dive in:

My goal with this podcast is to create short 3-4 minute episodes that keep you up to date with the ever changing world of inclusive technology. Each episode will highlight 2-3 resources to provide support for individuals with disabilities. From education to work to community living - technology tools and strategies can benefit everyone!

Want to find other people interested in inclusive and assistive technology? Join us on Twitter every Wednesday night at 8PM eastern for #ATchat. Each week, Karen Janowski and myself lead an hour long discussion about tools and strategies for inclusion and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

Thanks for listening. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @mmatp to stay current on all things Inclusive and Assistive Technology and visit my website at mmatp.com/it4all for all episodes of Inclusive Technology 4 All. Bye for now!

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Welcome to Inclusive Technology 4 All. Each episode will bring you information about Inclusive and Assistive Technology to increase independence. Whether it's technology for inclusive classroom learning or tools for community success, inclusive technology has become more mainstream and available for everyone. Be part of the episode!

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Rachel Madel, Lucas Steuber and Chris Bugaj
Podcast focused on Speech, Language and AAC

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Talking With Tech Podcast - XceptionalED

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How do people with complex communication needs learn to use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC)? Join speech-language pathologists (SLPs) Rachel, Lucas, and Chris as they answer your questions, discuss relevant research and give you updates on the latest and greatest developments in the field of AAC!

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Does Use of Text-to-Speech and Related Read-Aloud Tools Improve Reading Comprehension for Students With Reading Disabilities? A Meta-Analysis

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Does Use of Text-to-Speech and Related Read-Aloud Tools Improve Reading Comprehension for Students With Reading Disabilities? A Meta-Analysis

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Sarah Wood

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Todd Henry (the guy behind Herding Tigers!) has two podcasts. The Accidental Creative which tend to be longer episodes focused on strategies to facilitate creative work. The Daily Creative is short episodes with simple tools / strategies to promote creativity

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Our Podcasts

With more than ten million downloads, The Accidental Creative podcast has provided weekly tips and interviews with top thinkers, leaders, and artists since 2005.

Want access to the entire back catalog, exclusive episodes, and additional bonuses and deep dives? Subscribe to AC Premium.

Want to ask a question to be answered on the show? Record your voice message here.

Listen To The Accidental Creative On:

Herding Tigers

Based on the book of the same name, the Herding Tigers podcast offers tips for leaders of creative people and interviews with brilliant leaders and change makers.

See all episodes

Listen To Herding Tigers On:

Liz Wiseman on Impact Players

Everyone desires to make an impact through their work. But, there are some creative pros who seem to constantly separate […]

Pushing Through The Second Wall

There are two distinct walls that we encounter in the creative process. The first is what Steven Pressfield calls Resistance. […]

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Similar to Seeing AI - big difference is this app is available on both iOS and Android! BUT... there is a fee for this app after the 2 week trial ends.

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Articulating visual information into speech.

Envision Glasses

Envision Glasses brings our award-winning software to smartglasses, enabling the unprecedented experience of unobtrusive access to the visual world.

With features ranging from real-time text recognition, to voice controls and even hands-free video calling, Envision Glasses open the door for the future of wearable assistive technology.

Envision App

The free app uses your smartphone's camera to speak out written information, describe surroundings and objects, and even tell you who's nearby.

Excelling in all kinds of text and object recognition, Envision can read text in over 60 languages. Be it handwritten notes, text on food packages or the pages of an entire book.

Envision Ally

The Envision App and Glasses open up a world of independence, but every now and then we all need a little human help.

With hands-free video calling from your Envision Glasses, get the assistance you need from trusted friends and family members, in real-time.

The first time I used Envision was to describe my own living room. Tears came to my eyes. I finally knew what my living room really looked like and I didn't hear it from somebody else. That was such an overwhelming experience. I felt it gave me back a part of me.

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Envision AI is fast and it just works. It's very easy to use, but that doesn't mean simplistic. I'm happy to say Envision does what it says on the tin and performs extremely well.

Tonight I ordered Chinese for dinner. As usual they put a bunch of sauce packets in the bag, all of which feel the same. I was able to use my Envision Glasses to identify what they were, which ones were soy sauce and which ones were duck sauce. Thanks Envision.

@LetsEnvision This App is amazing. From scene descriptions to text recognition - (yea, even handwriting!) This type of applications are those that really allow us to increasingly remove little by little the barrier of our disability. Keep up the excellent work!

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Envision empowers people people who are blind or have low vision to access everyday visual information for themselves. Because it isn't just information. It's knowledge, independence and possibility.

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Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling

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Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling

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Matthew Dicks
From the Amazon website: Matthew Dicks presents wonderfully straightforward and engaging tips and techniques for constructing, telling, and polishing stories that will hold the attention of your audience (no matter how big or small). He shows that anyone can learn to be an appealing storyteller, that everyone has something “storyworthy” to express, and, perhaps most important, that the act of creating and telling a tale is a powerful way of understanding and enhancing your own life.

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and change your life through the power of storytelling

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business communication - meetings & presentations

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biography & autobiography / personal memoirs

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business & economics / business communication / meetings & presentations

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business & economics/business communication - meetings & presentations

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public speaking; how to give a speech; how to tell a story; how to entertain; narrative therapy; performance anxiety; self-reflection; scriptwriting; creative writing; autobiography; memoir

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Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling

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A five-time Moth GrandSLAM winner and bestselling novelist shows how to tell a great story - and why doing so matters. Whether we realize it or not, we are always telling stories. On a first date or job interview, at a sales presentation or therapy appointment, with family or friends, we ar...

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Timeless Learning: How Imagination, Observation, and Zero-Based Thinking Change Schools

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Timeless Learning: How Imagination, Observation, and Zero-Based Thinking Change Schools

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Ira Socal, Pam Moran, and Chad Ratliff
From the inside cover: Children are enthusiastic, natural learners. They yearn to actively participate in learning experiences fueled by their questions, curiosities, and interests in and out of school. However, the cookie-cutter assembly line that pervades much of the public education system drains the passion for learning from our students. As the authors of Timeless Learning explain, there are no actions more important in school than developing, supporting, and reinforcing children's sense of agency, the value of their voices, and their potential to influence their own communities.

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Todd Rose discusses the jagged profile of all people and the fact that the idea of "average" just isn't true

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The Myth of Average:  Todd Rose at TEDxSonomaCounty

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Use this web tool to remove the background on any picture. Upload to the website; mark background to remove.

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PhotoScissors comes to the rescue when you find yourself in need of swiftly isolating a person or object to seamlessly paste into another picture or remove the background from a photo. You can achieve a flawless image clip without the requirement of any specific skills or professional software. Simply upload the image, and our algorithm, powered by deep neural networks, will automatically remove the background, ensuring a perfect result.
Read the Tutorial

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Remove Background from Image | Free Background Remover

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Automatically remove background and replace it with a transparent, solid color or background image with just a few clicks!