ATU611 – ATIA Take Aways: 2023 Edition with the Easterseals Crossroads Crew

Hi, this is Blake Allee. I’m the Demo and Loan Specialist with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads.

Hi, my name is Brian Norton. I’m the Director of Assistive Technology here at Easterseals Crossroads.

Hi, I’m Wade Wingler, Vice President at Easterseals Crossroads.

This is Nikol Prieto and I’m the Community Outreach Coordinator of the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads. And this is your Assistive Technology Update.

Hello and welcome to your your Assistive Technology Update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist individuals with disabilities and special needs. I’m your host, Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. Welcome to episode 611 of Assistive Technology Update. It is scheduled to be released on February 10th, 2023.

On today’s show, I am very excited to welcome some of the great folks here at Easterseals Crossroads into the studio as we all go over our experiences at ATIA 2023. Listeners, if you happen to be at ATIA this year, please reach out, let us know your thoughts. You can send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or call our listener line at (317) 721-7124. But for now, let’s go ahead and get on with the show.

Listeners, this year we were finally able to attend the ATIA in Orlando in person as a team. I’ve gathered some of the team here today to talk about their experiences and share all that with our wonderful listeners. So Blake, Wade, Brian, Nikol, welcome to the show.

Hey!

Hey, How’s it going?

Hello.

Hi there.

Let’s start off by just going around the room, both in person and virtually and introduce yourself. Let us know what you do here at Crossroads and go ahead and tell the audience your darkest, most guarded personal secret. Don’t do that last one! Just let us know who you are and what you do here at Crossroads. Nikol, you’re not actually in the room, so I’ll have you go first.

Sure. I’m Nikol Prieto. I’m the Community Outreach Coordinator for the INDATA Project. The INDATA Project is a federally-funded project. It’s there to increase access and awareness of assistive technology and we are the project for the state of Indiana.

Awesome. Thank you, Nikol. And Blake, you are new to the show, new to ATIA and not really that new to the team anymore, but you want to go ahead and introduce yourself to our listeners?

Sure. My name is Blake. I’m the Demo and Loan Specialist. And pretty much what my job is, I get new equipment, old equipment, software, anything and I learn that. And I have people that call in and email me and they ask for different things that they want to try out or situations that they have that they’re looking for something that could help maybe make that situation easier for them. And it’s my job to go out there and show them a couple of different devices and hopefully, I can find something that helps out and show them how it works.

Excellent, excellent. Brian, you’re not really new to this show or new to anything, because you’ve hit, what? Twenty…

26 years this past Friday.

Wow, that’s wild. Well, anyway, what do you do here?

People ask me that a lot. I wonder. I’m the Director of Assistive Technology here at Easterseals Crossroads. And I get the pleasure of overseeing all of our assistive technology service lines, including home modifications, clinical assistive technology, and our INDATA Project, the federally-funded state AT Program.

Awesome. And our last guest probably does not need any introduction as he was the host of this show for the first 380 some odd episodes. But Wade, do you want to go ahead and introduce yourself to the listeners who haven’t heard your amazing voice before?

Yeah, thanks, Josh. It’s great to be back in the studio. It’s a like old home week. My name is Wade Wingler and I am Vice President here at Easterseals Crossroads, which means I mostly sit in my office and worry about things I can’t control.

Well, hey, thanks everybody for taking time out of your day especially because I know we just got back just. It seems like yesterday. But anyway, as we start, Blake, I wanted to start with you just because this is your first ATIA. So what was your first impression?

First impression, it was big. There was a lot of people and a lot of stuff. I thought it was really cool though to just be able to walk around and talk to the different vendors and just see the different products they had and just being my first time just soak it all in. And outside of that, there was a lot of sessions that you could go to and learn a little bit about whatever people were teaching. And I thought that was a really nice touch. And I learned a lot of cool knowledge there and I had a great time.

Awesome. Well, for the rest of us, we’d been there before. It’s been a little while, but Wade, it’s been a long time for you. And I don’t know exactly how many years, but what were you surprised that maybe was different or was there… I don’t know, how did it feel to be back after so many years?

We didn’t go back and look up the records. I think it’s either been nine or ten years since I’ve been to ATIA and my job responsibilities here are a little less assistive technology focused. So in some ways it was the same old ATIA. So David Dichter and Caroline Van Howe were still there at the helm running the show. The vendor hall was still there. But I realized that some of us had more gray hair and there were a lot of younger people there than I had expected. So in some ways it was great. I noticed a little bit, I think a shift in some of the content. ATIA in the past was very broadly focused across the all-disability spectrum, all different kinds of disabilities. And I think it had a little more of an AugCom, maybe a K-12 flavor this time than I had expected.

Very cool. Nikol, Brian and myself it’s been, well, since 2020 I think, so about three years since we’ve been. So I’ll let you guys answer. But for me, I felt like, and I talked about this with the team earlier, I saw a lot of younger, bright-eyed folks there it seemed like this time. There was a lot of folks maybe first time or they hadn’t really been to that kind of thing. I noticed in the vendor hall it was a little harder to talk to people. It seemed like there was a line, because everybody was just amazed at all the things. But for you two, Nikol, Brian, was there any glaring differences or anything that you saw that was different from last time we were actually able to attend there in person?

I don’t think there was maybe anything to me that was completely different than last time. I think Wade mentioned a little bit more K-12 focused. That was certainly apparent when you got to the vendor hall. Lots of AugCom. Lots of things that were maybe more education-focused. A lot of sessions that were education-focused and maybe that’s just a part of where the money is at this point. There’s lots of money being funneled into education to get us to be able to support folks with disabilities, but also just make sure things that are accessible in those environments.

I think for me a little bit of the same too, just with the people, I got to see people for the first time in three years. We are a part of several different membership groups here through the INDATA Project and I hadn’t seen them. We’re all on Zoom meetings, but most of the time people’s cameras are off and I just see their name, the state that they’re from, and I never get to really see them or connect with them in a way that was meaningful outside of what the work situation was. And I just think it was so great to be able to again, be in person, make personal connections, network with folks, and really just have a great time in that way.

Awesome. Very true. Nikol, what about you?

So this is my second time going and the first time I was registered as both one who could go to the exhibit hall and to the sessions. And with one of our goals being that we want to educate people about assistive technology, one of the ways we do that are through our tech tips that are on our YouTube channel. And it seems that my time was better spent in the vendor hall doing videos, grabbing somebody at their booth, having them just do a quick video overview of what they’re exhibiting. And so I do did that completely this year, where I was just an exhibit attendee only. And I’m glad I did. To your point, Josh, it was packed in there.

And so for me to be able to get ahold of one of the folks that are just exhibiting and someone who would be willing to talk on video about what they’re showing. I really did a lot of waiting, because there were so many people, which is great, there was so many people there that did seem new that almost took the time, they seemed like they wanted more of a full training as opposed to, “Oh, they’re not giving just their elevator pitch to folks.” And people were moving on and grabbing a brochure. People were really spending a lot of time at the booths.

Saw a lot of people who were new at exhibiting as well. So it seemed like booths that had been there in the past had staffed even more folks knowing how busy that the event gets. The exhibit hall was just super busy. Lots of great information given out. Same thing, AugCom and K-12 was very apparent. But there were a lot of cool other technologies there that we’ll show in our tech tips each week.

Awesome. That was a beautiful plug for our tech tips. I really liked that. But no, and I noticed that too. They really took time. It wasn’t just an elevator pitch. Whenever you walked up and talked to about stuff, if you were really interested, they would really sit down and show you how things worked, let you try them out, which I think is important. You have to. You read about these things and hear about them, but seeing how they can help is always, always a very important thing. Well Nikol, luckily you don’t even have to answer this next question since you were just in the vendor hall. But for those folks who were actually able to go to the sessions, did you have a favorite session you attended? And why? So Wade, since I made you go last time, I’ll let you go first this time.

Lots of great sessions, very informative. One that I really enjoyed a lot, it had a lot of energy and a lot of good content was the app smackdown that happened over lunch on one of the days where they had a room full of people, standing room only and four or five moderators up front. And people would just line up and walk up and talk about apps, or plugins, or different tools that they were using.

And I also appreciated the fact that they had a running Google sheet happening. And so somebody was writing down the names of the apps and the links and all those kind of things. And then that was shareable so that you didn’t have to feverishly try to write down all those apps. It was fun. A guy that I’ve known for years, Mike Marotta from New Jersey was there and trying to help out. And he was being fun and goofy and those kind of things. So I think out of all of them, I really did enjoy that app smackdown.

Nice. Brian, what about you?

I too attended the app smackdown. I thought that was really, really great. If I had to choose a different one, there was one that was called New and Emerging Technologies. And so they were just jumping into all sorts of new and interesting things, talking about different things that are coming out, different technologies, things like the ChatGPT, or GTP, can never get that one right. GPT, yeah, General Pacific Time. I know that’s not what it stands for, but someone sent that to me and I thought, “Okay, well, that’s going to help me remember that.”

But all the new things that are out there and just what’s coming down the pike, what we should be keeping our eyes out for. And I thought that was just a really interesting thing to think forward a little bit about. Obviously, we’re in and amongst a lot of the tools that we’re using today. But what we need to keep our eye on as we think forward and what’s going to be coming out in the years to come.

Nice. Blake, what about you?

One that stood out to me was on a program called Morphic. And what it is, is let’s say you’re at home and you have a computer with something like JAWS or some other type of software that you may not be able to use on another computer. And what the idea is, is that if you have a Morphic account, you can sign into a library computer if that’s at your school or at another library. And by signing into that account you can access all the software that’s on your home computer. So I thought that was a unique idea.

It’s in the beginning stages, but I think that that’s a cool thing, because if somebody is used to using a specific computer and then they’re forced to use a different computer for school or something, a lot of times they’re going to be in the dark on how to use it. It may be completely set up a whole different way. It may have programs and things that they’re not able to use that they’re used to using. And this was a bridge to be able to access those different programs.

Nice. We’ve had Morphic on the show. Oh, it’s been years. I think probably last time we actually went to ATIA in person. So we’ll definitely have to have Greg, I believe his name. I can’t remember his last name for the life of me that runs that. But very, very cool stuff. I’d say personally, and it’s hard to pinpoint which one because we focus so much on the equipment there, but really some of my favorites were, there was one from University of Pittsburgh and one of their masters programs where they were doing a lot with smart home technology to help individuals. There was one with a gentleman from Ireland and some things they were doing to help their hard of hearing students. And it was amazing, just the similarities as you see, we always talk about the equipment, but really it’s the people that see these needs and then try to find a way to bridge that gap.

And then it’s funny because they always end the, “And this program really well, and if we can ever find a way to fund it can help a whole lot of people.” But it’s always, where’s that funding hit? But at the same time it’s so many great ideas and so many great things out there that you just, well, you don’t hear about. It’s impossible to keep up on all those things. But I saw a lot of presentations that brought some of that stuff out and those really great ideas using all the different tools that are out there and I thought it was very, very cool.

Well, Blake, you kind of already answered my next question, but maybe we’ll have another one. And Nikol, you can get in on this one too since you were in the vendor hall. But what was the coolest thing that you saw in the vendor hall? And just tell us a little bit about it and maybe more than on. But Nikol, since you didn’t get to answer at all in that last one, what was the coolest thing you saw in there?

Oh, that’s hard to say. One of the things that I did note is that’s interesting that I always love to see in hear is that some of the vendors would mention a lot of them there are the ones who are developers. So they are there and a handful of them said, “This wasn’t meant to be a piece of assistive technology. And then we learned how it could be.” So a lot of them were learning and developing as they’re there learning people’s needs. And so I thought that was a really cool piece of it. Gosh, one of the cool ones, I mean, I still think to me OrCam is one of the coolest devices I’ve seen. And that’s the glasses that give you the visual cues or what’s in front of you and reads printed text. We’ve talked about that a lot through our program and we have some in our library, but I still am so awed by that.

There were things like a puck device, something simple. And that vendor or that developer indicated that wasn’t intended to be assistive technology and then they saw the need. But it’s a puck, it looked like a hockey puck. And it creates this network where everything is operated by that. So you have a universal remote control for your television, and your fans, and your lights, and things like that. But he was interesting to talk to from another country and like I said, coming there more to get the Puck 2.0, I don’t know that that’s what he was calling it, but designing it more with the thought of assistive technology in mind.

Awesome. And he’s been on the show before too when that very first came out. But I do remember. But it was good to see him there, because at first he was like, “I didn’t know what assistive technology was when I made this thing. And then suddenly I got people reaching out to me that are like, ‘Hey, this can really help folks.'” He’s like, “Well, I never even thought about that!” So I was very glad to see him there. Brian, what about you?

I don’t know. I think my favorite thing in the vendor hall is just being able to see the bigger tech companies be there showing their wares. Microsoft was there. They’ve got a lot of new accessories that they had brought with them and were talking about at the show. You’ve got Google and other folks. I don’t know, I feel like technology, assistive technology in general, is being adapted by the bigger tech companies and becoming more and more a part of what they offer. Thinking about baby boomers as they get older, making sure that they still have access and that their software and the things that they’re selling are accessible to folks with disabilities. Age-related disabilities would be vision, intellectual, cognitive, hearing, mobility, all those kinds of things affects folks who are older.

I’m seeing them build all those things. And being able to learn more and more about those and then being able to bring those back to the folks that we serve. And so I think always seeing those bigger tech companies be a part of the show like this and to be able to share what they’re doing and their technology is super, super helpful.

Nice. Wade?

There was all kinds of cool things. But one thing did jump out at me. LVI America, that does some video magnifiers, has a product called the MagniLink AIR Duo. And I bumped into an old friend of mine, Kimberly Klein, we worked together in Vegas for years, and she was demonstrating this product. And it’s cool because a CCTV or a video magnifier is usually something that a particular individual or a student has on their own and it has to go with them. This MagniLink AIR Duo replaces a ceiling tile. So you take a ceiling tile out of the classroom and the student directly under the ceiling tile has a camera that can zoom all the way into their desk and magnify whatever’s on their desk.

And it also has a movable camera that can be pointed at different places around the classroom so the student can see on their laptop whatever they need magnified on their desk. Or also, the chalkboard, or the whiteboard, or what the teacher is doing. And I thought it was pretty cool that you could have a CCTV that wasn’t a big box on a student’s desk. It’s just a ceiling tile replacement above them. It looks like a wifi adapter or something else. And it was just a cool thing. I thought it was interesting.

Nice. Blake, I know you talked about Morphic a little bit, but is there something else that caught your eye?

Yeah, it’s also another LVI product. It was the MagniLink S Premium 2. And I’ve seen these in the past, but I had not actually been able to use one hands-on. So it was cool to be able to see that hands-on. And what it is, is like Wade was saying, instead of a huge CCTV, it’s just a portable one that you can bring around and you can hook it up to your laptop or computer. And I thought that was a nice way to be able to, and I’ve seen these in the past of other companies, but it’s just a nice way to not have to lug something as huge as a CCTV around, because that’s not really something that most people want to do.

And it’s very easy to connect to any computer. You don’t have to download any drivers or anything like that. And you just plug it in and it sets up right away. And it gives you a couple different options of things you can do magnify, change the contrast, your typical settings of a CCTV, but I thought it was a nice compact way to be able to bring that with you.

Nice, nice. And then just personally, I’ll go along with Brian. Definitely some of the new accessories from Microsoft seem cool. In one of the presentations I went to, we know about Immersive Reader and have used it for a lot of folks in a lot of different programs, but for schools they actually have through Teams something where you can really track people’s progress, your students’ progress and the way that they read. And I thought that was really, really neat that they built that in. And I believe it’s free for teachers to use as well. And you can use video, which I guess the kids love making videos and really track how they’re reading and where their weaknesses are to really help folks meet them where they’re at. And it’s not just for kids with disabilities but just to help kids with literacy.

So I thought that was really, really cool that they built that into their platform and program. And then as far as other stuff in there, APH, the big full page braille display I thought was very, very cool. And I hope that they continue to build that and other ones are built just to help with those kind of things. Another presentation that I went to was talking about a study about AT use of individuals who are blind and low vision and how that affects their job readiness and how they’re employed. And even though they weren’t studying it, they found that those folks that were most successful were also fluid in braille. So I think that’s an important thing coming down. Hopefully, they’ll figure out that it is very important to be braille literate, so hopefully, more technology will make it a little bit easier for them to do it.

But tons of cool things in there, to all kinds of new wearables, not just for folks who are blind or visually impaired, but I saw some for helping with communication in different ways. So I thought there was all kinds of awesome stuff in there. So Brian, is there something that sticks out that maybe could make your experience better or a suggestion if the folks run ATIA are listening to this, a suggestion for something that might be able to make it just a little bit, I don’t know, easier to navigate, more enjoyable or just something you can think of that could make it a little bit better?

I don’t know. I always enjoy the experience. I feel like it’s really helpful as someone who lives in this world of assistive technology working with folks, it’s a great experience to be able to go down and be with folks who are like-minded. I realize I’m a part of a bigger world, that there’s a bigger picture that I often don’t see when I’m living here in Indiana doing my Indiana thing with the Indiana folks. It’s always really good to be able to see that. I don’t know if there are opportunities to be able to just hold special interest groups. I don’t know, those kinds of things where you can get together with folks who are in your world just to collaborate and to be able to talk. I don’t know if that would be something that could be done.

Nice. Blake? I know it was your first one, so that makes it a little harder, but I don’t know. Any suggestions or anything you can think of?

Really not offhand. I had a great time. I thought it was really cool. Like you said, being my first time, there’s not a lot that I can really compare it to. But I thought overall it was a really cool event. I like that there’s the different sessions you can go to and try to learn a little bit more from a speaker. And then also there’s the vendor hall where you can see the products hands-on and get a demonstration right there. I can’t really think of anything offhand that I would change though offhand.

Nice. Wade?

A couple of things and I’m not even sure that they’re strong recommendations. I like, because we are very broad here in terms of the kinds of assistive tech, if we would’ve had a little more representation from other kinds of assistive tech, more vision, more spinal cord, those kind of things instead of the K-12 and AAC focus. But some people might really like that. They may really enjoy a conference that’s a little more tailored to the niche that they’re in. So I sort of missed the breadth a little bit and would love to see more sessions from some more areas of assistive technology. And then the other thing is more moderately priced coffee. $3 for a little cup of coffee all day long. But other than that, it was a great time. It was so good to be with you guys and to reconnect with old friends.

Yep. And Nikol?

So I was in the exhibit hall all day and I would second what Wade said, so many AAC apps or K through 12 services or software learning software, that type of thing, which is fantastic. But to me, there were times where it did have that feel of that it was just completely geared to K through 12 and that kind of thing. So I would’ve loved to seen more vendors there that would have different assisted technologies that would cover all types of disabilities as we serve. I would’ve loved to see, and I know they had some breakout sessions where vendors did go talk to the folks, I think that I would’ve thought it was cool to see if we had each vendor go up. I don’t know if they just had a time where each vendor goes up and does a little spiel about what they do.

I know that’s a lot of folks and I don’t know if there’s a time where they could have had a couple sessions where the vendors just go up and give a five-minute spiel about who they are. There were some booths that you couldn’t get to or couldn’t talk to someone. Again, that just might be a nightmare as far as there’s so many folks there and where do you just fit that in the time? I think I personally would’ve loved a way to email as a whole to the vendors.

I know that could probably be a nightmare of all of the folks getting emails and people bombarding them. And I do think you can purchase an extra way to get an email list or send an all email to vendors, but I wanted to reach out to folks to see if I could schedule a time to do video with them. And so I would’ve loved to have been able to shoot an email to all of those folks explaining who I am and what I was wanting to do.

About the actual event, the only thing I would say about the planning of things is that I thought lunch was super confusing. It was wonderful that that’s provided. But it seemed like a lot of people were wandering around trying to figure out what room to eat in. And some days, if there was lunch, and where can we go to get lunch, and is there coffee and all those things. So I think just a little more clarity on where you’re going for things would’ve been helpful to some folks that I saw wandering around the vendor hall.

See, and I’ll kind of go along with you guys, it’s a lot to pack in. And Brian, I agree, it’d be great if you could, but at the same time you want to connect with your team, you want to see things and everything else. So it makes it a little bit difficult. Wade, I definitely agree with you. You used to have free coffee at least during the first sessions. And I always complained that it was only during the first sessions. And now, it’s gone and it costs all the time. And I want my first session coffee back. And then really the only other thing is just once I’d like to not be the last person to present on the last day during the last time slot. But we’ll see if maybe next year I can come up with an idea worthy of not the last day during the last time slot, while the whole maker thing’s going on and everybody’s at it.

But all in all, I know at least from me and I know from my team and the feedback I’ve got from them, it was a great conference. It was great to get a reconnect and it was great to get to see people in person. So guys, thanks for taking time on our first day back to actual work to come on the show and talk about our experiences at ATIA. And I look forward to being able to do it all again with you guys next year. So thanks again.

Thanks, Josh. Thank you!

Have a good one.

Thank you, [inaudible 00:26:06].

Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on an Assistive Technology Update? If so, call our listener line at (317) 721-7124. Send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or shoot us a note on Twitter at INDATA Project. Our captions and transcripts for the show are sponsored by the Indiana Telephone Relay Access Corporation or INTRAC. You can find out more about INTRAC at relayindiana.com. A special thanks to Nikol Prieto for scheduling our amazing guests and making a mess of my schedule.

Today’s show was produced, edited, hosted and fraught over by yours truly. The opinions expressed by our guests are their own and may or may not reflect those of the INDATA Project, Easterseals Crossroads, our supporting partners or this host. This was your Assistive Technology Update. And I’m Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. We look forward to seeing you next time. Bye-bye.