Wrapping Up? I know several schools this year are in session into the first and second weeks of June, but many wrap up in the next week so I wanted to make sure I mentioned some things before you all leave your classrooms for the summer.
- 8 current UDL Pilot Teams are successfully exiting the program this Spring, which means new teams will be selected in the Fall! Watch our website for UDL Pilot Site Applications to be available in August, and likely due the first part of October. I highly recommend thinking and planning a little now, if you hope to submit an application in the Fall. Please feel free to contact us to find out more about this incredible opportunity to have the PATINS-Project assist you with incorporating Universal Design for Learning into your school building. Learn more here: www.patinsproject.com/udl.html
- Keep in mind that we’ll be doing some professional development online next year in Second Life and other applications.
- If you still have any lending library items please contact your Site Coordinator as soon as possible to make arrangements to get those back as soon as possible.
- For those interested, I plan to continue blogging on Fridays as possible over the summer.
Newsletter Accessibility? Is your school’s weekly or monthly newsletter accessible? I had nice discussion this week with a lady by the name of Lori who brought up several ready good points about accessibility and also introduced me to several new tools. One thing we discussed was school newsletters. As a parent myself, I know how valuable the information in the weekly and monthly newsletter can be as we are trying plan and organize our weeks! Something I took for granted however, (even doing what I do for a living) is that I can visually see the paper newsletter and read the information on it. Lori is blind, so her plan was to take her child’s newsletter home, scan it into her computer and perform an OCR on it to have it read (text to speech) to her. HOWEVER, because the school used very fancy fonts and odd formatting of boxes and spacing on the paper newsletter, her OCR software was unable to recognize it. My initial thought was that the school probably thought it looked very pretty and likely never even considered the accessibility of their paper newsletter for parents. I thought this to be worth mentioning here on the blog not only for the purpose of paying attention to the fonts, spacing, and placement of text boxes on your communications for parents and the general public, but also in hopes that schools will begin to think about alternate (more efficient) ways of distributing your newsletters and public communications including, blogs, podcasts, and wiki’s. Ideally, your newsletter would be distributed in multiple formats for ultimate accessibility. (Thanks Lori).
System Access To Go: The other thing Lori introduced me to was System Access To Go. A screen reading application that has some free options, but is based online, which means no need to carry your software with you! www.satogo.com
Search The NIMAC Yourself: Did you know that you can search the NIMAC for yourself to see if a particular textbook is in there before submitting a request to the ICAM? http://nimac.privatereserve.com/Inventory-Search.asp
Have a safe holiday weekend everyone!
