Congress awarded students with disabilities extra protections in recent years. Now, the U.S. Department of Education is stepping up its efforts to ensure that schools are following the new rules.

In a letter sent this week to school districts and state education leaders, officials at the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights (DOE-OCR) took pains to spell out the obligations schools have under the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act (ADA).

Though the ADA update took effect three years ago, the correspondence suggests that many schools may not be abiding by it. In light of this, federal officials are offering technical guidance and say that they will be upping their enforcement efforts.

Read the rest of the AlphaOne announcement

Read the Dear Colleague Letter from DOE-OCR

This item also published on Maine CITE News.

The New York Times (NYT) recently published an article about the use of “apps” for children with pervasive developmental disorders like autism. They note:

Anecdotally, teachers, parents and therapists describe the profound difference that apps for Apple and Android products have made in helping autistic children develop skills. IPad programs have provided a means of communicating for some children with autism who cannot speak or have language delays. Other apps help children learn to handle social situations that can be stressful, like crowds at malls. And many programs can help develop fine-motor skills, which promote functions like writing or manipulating small objects.

Several lists of apps are provided and readers are encouraged to add more to the list by making a comment.

Read the entire article: Finding Good Apps for Children With Autism

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Photo credit: Licensed by Creative Commons by Notions Capital

Note: January 30, 2012: Siteimprove.com has just launched a new website. I will update my links in this article as soon as I can find the old article.

I found a link to this report by Siteimprove.com in the Accessibility group on LinkedIn this morning regarding a recent review made of the websites of 25 public universities in the United States. The study covers five major aspects of each website including which content management systems were used, how many broken links (per CMS) were discovered, misspellings, common accessibility issues, and the use of platform independent document formats. I was immediately drawn to the statistics on “misspellings” and was not surprised to see that there were an average of 107 misspelling per website. The most common misspellings were: “Oportunities, Technolgy, Accessability, Chemisty, Acquistion, Coodinator, Sustainabilty.”

I decided to do this brief blog on the topic noting in particular the misspelling of the word “accessibility.” It was about then that I noticed that in MY previous blog entry I had misspelled the word “Assistive.”

In all fairness, the spell-checker in my browser does not know how to spell “assistive” either.

C’est la vie.

Read the whole report…

PS: I fixed the other blog entry and am looking for more typos…

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Photo credit: Licensed through Creative Commons by akachela

When I had the opportunity to meet with one of the focus groups, most of the other faculty were rather traditional types who had graced the campus for many years and appeared to enjoy their roles as “sage on the stage.” There was quite a bit of skepticism about distance learning and even though I had a positive reputation for teaching in the traditional modality at that university, the majority of faculty didn’t really seem to value what I was doing.

When it came my time to talk, I chattered away about my views and how as an institution we needed to get out there and expand out “presence” on the Internet and World Wide Web, that we needed to build more server capacity and in particular, not invest in the large scale college library expansion program that was in the works. I remember the look of disdain on the faces of my colleague, but I pressed forward. I can remember one asking me if I really believed that there would come a time when traditional students would actually take distance learning classes in lieu of the campus-based, terrestrial offerings that then were the norm.

The gentleman who was leading the focus group appeared to welcome my vision and even though I suspect he was not suppose to shape the discussion, he gave me lots of clear messages that he thought my vision was indeed the correct one.

The library project did go forward, but on a much smaller scale. Fortunately, the director of the library was also a very smart guy and he and his staff had already seen the writing on the walls. In fact, he eventually became the vice president in charge of information technology at the university and shepherded through a rather dramatic number of technology advances in the next decade.

With this backdrop, I read the recent news story about the pending closure of the medical library at Johns Hopkins University. While this is a loss of tradition, it is clearly, as the title mentions, a sign of the times. The author makes this clever observation:

People don’t go to Johns Hopkins for appendectomies. They go there with rare and difficult conditions to seek help from the top medical minds in the world. If I’m at Hopkins as a patient and not to visit old friends and colleagues, I don’t want my team of physicians and residents to be searching through the stacks for possible answers or keys to my treatment. I want them to pull out their iPads and have instant access to the information they need to make me better.

Read the whole article “Sign of the times: Johns Hopkins shutters its medical library.”

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Photo credit: Image licensed through Creative Commons by Brett Jordan

From CBS News-60 Minutes:

(CBS News) Ten-year-old Nuno Timoteo, an autistic child who does not speak, was thought to have the intelligence and attention span of a two-year-old until teachers put an iPad in his hands and learned he loved opera and classical music. Joshua Hood, 27, also non-verbal and autistic, was thought to understand much of his world, but his lack of speech frustrated him and all around him until he began communicating freely with a touch-screen tablet computer.

Nuno, Joshua and others whose autism prevents normal speech have made these breakthroughs with the help of tablet computers and special applications that allow them to communicate, some for the first time. Lesley Stahl reports on this new tool for understanding autism for a “60 Minutes” segment to be broadcast on Sunday, Oct. 23 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

More of this story from 60 Minutes…

A preview of the episode…

Among the presenters at this year’s conference is yours truly, John Brandt representing Maine CITE and the Maine AIM Program. Also there will be my colleague Cynthia Curry, Consultant and MLTI Integration Mentor. Both of these presentations will take place on Friday and require full conference registration.

My presentation, AT & AIM – Tablets and Pods in the Classroom will demonstrate and evaluate several devices and apps used for instruction and as assistive technology (AT). Used with Accessible Instructional Materials (AIM) these devices can be very helpful to students with disabilities. This presentation takes place at 11:00 am (session 2) in the Arnold Room.

Cynthia’s presentation, Text to Speech, Speech to Text, and Screen Readers will discuss “computer programs that talk.” In the presentation she will demonstrate and discuss how these unique applications can be used to enhance student learning. This presentation takes place at 1:20 pm (session 3) in the Washington Room.

Back by popular demand this year is Sarah Herrlinger, Senior Marketing Manager in Apple’s education division. Last year, Sarah presented on the accessibility features built into Apple’s Mac OS X and iOS and gave us a first-hand look at some of the features of the new iPad. This year, Sarah will again talk on this topic and demonstrate some of the new and improve accessibility features of Mac OS X and iOS in her presentation entitled Accessibility Features of Mac OS X and Apple Mobile.

Sarah’s presentation is co-sponsored by Maine CITE and Apple, Inc. and is offered free of charge to ACTEM members. It will take place from 1:30 to 4:30 in the Sagadahoc Room. If you are not an ACTEM member and would like to attend, please contact Maine CITE.

For more information about the conference and to register, please visit the ACTEM Conference website.

We’ve recently made some accessibility enhancements to Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Sites. Improvements have been made in keyboard shortcuts and support for screen readers among other items.

Google Calendar: Google Calendar now has new keyboard shortcuts and better screen reader support for our blind users. Members of the blind community can now use JAWS, VoiceOver and ChromeVox to manage your calendars, create and edit events or simply browse your events.

Google Docs and Google Sites: New keyboard shortcuts and better screen reader support with support for two screen readers: JAWS and ChromeVox.

Read the rest of the report

As reported here, you will recall that Google had gotten into some hot water with the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) last spring. NFB had lodged a formal complaint to the Department of Justice on concerns it had regarding the accessibility of these free applications. We’ll be checking them out and spreading the word.

The Law School Admissions Council (LASC) in the US has agreed to make its website fully accessible to blind and visually impaired users following legal action by the country’s National Federation of the Blind (NFB).

The NFB filed a lawsuit against LASC in 2009 claiming that the organisation’s website – used by nearly every US law school to accept student applications – violated the California Disabled Persons Act and the Unruh Civil Rights Act (a California-based piece of discrimination legislation).

The federation claimed it was not possible for screen-readers to recognise various text on the website, meaning that visually impaired law school applicants who wished to apply online were forced to rely on assistance from a sighted employee – over the phone – at LASC’s customer support service, which was only available at certain times.

Following a two-year legal battle a settlement has been reached whereby LASC will make its website accessible by allowing screen-readers to recognise all text on the site, meaning visually impaired applicants will be able to independently complete applications at a time of their choosing.

The changes will come into effect from September 1 this year, and the NFB will perform semi-annual accessibility testing of the site until September 1, 2012.

From 2006-08, the NFB was involved in a similar case supporting a class action against the US superstore chain Target for the alleged inaccessibility of its website. Target eventually agreed to pay six million dollars and make changes to its site, while not accepting liability (see original story on Headstar).

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Over the past few years increasing number of universities – including the University of Maine – and more recently an increasing number of public school systems have adopted Google Apps for Education and G-mail as their mail system. On the Google Apps for Education home page, they claim “more than 10 million students” use the service.

But there might be a problem.

Last week, amid the news surrounding various world crises, the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) posted a press release indicating that they had “requested that the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, investigate civil rights violations committed by” two major universities for using Google Apps for Education. They state that this is “because the schools have adopted technology that is not accessible to the blind.” A similar request for investigation has been filed against four Oregon public school districts that are using Google Apps.

The press release cites the fact that “United States Department of Justice and the United States Department of Education have specifically warned all university presidents against the adoption of inaccessible technology.”

NFB has included links to videos they prepared showing the inaccessibility features of the Google Apps in question.

It should be noted that there are probably other mail systems and applications used in schools and universities that are not accessible to people with disabilities, but now that Google Apps for Education have been called on the carpet, it would be pretty hard to defend their use now. That is unless Google puts their tremendous technical skills and considerable wealth into fixing the Apps immediately.

Read the entire Press Release from the National Federation of the Blind.

• The education (K-12) textbook publishing business is very different from other forms of educational publishing (e.g., college textbooks) or general commercial book publishing. In many ways things have not changed in K-12 textbook publishing industry as dramatically as they have elsewhere. They had better get moving.
• There are 22 U.S. states called “state adoption states” where the curriculum is selected by a single statewide board of education and all schools use the same books. The remaining states are considered “open territory states” where the curriculum is selected by local school boards. In state adoption states, textbooks are chosen and remain in classroom use usually for a minimum of seven years because of the large replacement cost to the state. Many of the “state adoption” states actually have a customized set of textbooks geared specifically to their state curriculum and state learning standards. Texas is a “state adoption” state; Maine is an “open adoption” state. Here is a nice resource about textbook adoption process from the Association of American Publishers.
• The economics of school textbook publishing industry are complex and starting to change as pedagogy changes. I suspect, but I don’t have the data, that instructional materials are now more likely to be workbooks and thinner modular sets of content rather than the large, thick and heavy books of my youth. Most social studies textbooks are probably out of date by the time the ink dries. Math and Reading textbooks probably have the longest shelf life.
• The movement to experiential learning and project-based learning, particularly in the middle and secondary classrooms has dramatically changed the types of instructional materials used.  The increased attention to students’ individual learning styles and the principles of universal design for learning have transformed the practice of teaching in many classrooms with teachers moving away from the use of traditional textbooks.
• The internet has changed the world, albeit somewhat more slowly in our American classrooms than in our homes and businesses.
• Contrary to the predictions made in a Forrester article from 2000, the e-book is not dead. That may have been true in 2000, but not 2011. Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com now sell more e-books than paper books. Check out this data on e-book sales.

In my opinion, many of the folks publishing K-12 educational textbook are scared because things are all changing so fast and they fear that what happened to the music industry will happen to them. They have probably been reading things like this which looks like it was published 2-3 years ago.

If K-12 textbook publishers continue with the same old business plan, they will be gone.

I personally think the future for educational publishing never looked brighter – if they do it right. Here’s someone who agrees:

Peter C. Davis, president of McGraw-Hill Education stated last summer, “We are making content more usable and parsable so it can be targeted to create an individualized and personalized learning experience for students and produce desired learning outcomes.  We need to stop thinking of e-books as transformative.  They are not. Adaptive and interactive learning tools are where education needs to go and where the real opportunity lies. Bring on this new world. The quicker it happens the more exciting it is for us.”  (Source citation)

Whether you call them 21^st Century Learners or Digital Natives, today’s students in K-12 classrooms have been and continue to be exposed to information sources and delivery systems radically different from the ones that existed even a decade ago. The idea of going to a shelf to get a dictionary or an encyclopedia to find information is archaic. The idea that a textbook can hold all of the information a student needs to know, even for a semester, is almost as obsolete.

Rather than asking about where to get a digital textbook, we should be asking: “What are, and how do we acquire, the instructional materials needed to help students learn and to help teachers facilitate learning?

Some things to look at…

• Educational Publishing blog from the Association of Educational Publishers (AEP)
• From xplana: “How” Is More Important that “What” in the Future of Educational Publishing — Services, Tablets, and Mobile Expectations

Have a thought on this…comment please!

Photo credit: Licensed by Creative Commons by Crystal