ATU686 – Laura Medcalf Tribute

Hi, I’m Josh Anderson, director of Assistive Technology Services in the INDATA Project here at Easterseals Crossroads, and welcome to a very special episode of Assistive Technology Update.

Hello and welcome to 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 686 of Assistive Technology Update. It is scheduled to be released on July 19th, 2024.

On today’s show, folks, we’re going to do something just a little bit different. Normally we have a guest on here and we interview them, find out all kinds of great things about assistive technology. But here, about a week ago, we got the news that we lost a very important member of our team, Laura Medcalf has been with our INDATA Project team here at Easterseals Crossroads for over 10 years.

If you’ve ever read one of our blogs or listened to Accessibility Minute, then you’re aware of Laura’s work. She’s an amazingly important member of this team. Again, she wrote most of our blogs, usually up to three per week every week for about the last 10 years. She was also the host of Accessibility Minute, one of our sister podcasts.

Laura had continued to write our blogs up until about a week ago, and then we got the news that she had passed. So we haven’t even really probably had time to process exactly what that means. But Laura, for those of you who were lucky enough to know her, know that she just had an absolutely amazing smile, a personality, sense of humor. She was just an absolute kind of joy to be around, a very talented writer, and as you’ll kind of hopefully be able to hear throughout the rest of the show, just had one of the most amazing podcast voices you will ever, ever hear.

Laura was just such, again, a joy to be around. She’s going to be greatly missed by our program, by us all as individuals. And again, I don’t even know if we’ve really had time to kind of process it at all really at this time. But since we won’t be able to hear Laura’s voice on Accessibility Minute anymore, I thought I would just go through… And for those of you who’ve never heard Laura or Accessibility Minute, I put together a bit of a compilation of a lot of the show.

So Accessibility Minute is a much shorter show than this, about a minute or maybe a little bit longer, but what’s coming up right after this is just a compilation of many of the shows, starting with Accessibility Minute 125. That was back in April of 2015 when Laura took that show over, all the way to Accessibility Minute 556, which was the last one that she was able to record back in December.

They’re in no particular order except for that the first one’s on there first, but they are all put together so that you can listen, and you can always go check out the rest of them at eastersealstech.com.

So our thoughts and prayers go out to Laura’s family, friends, and our team as we kind of mourn this loss. And she will be very, very missed around here. And also to all of her listeners that I know looked forward to hearing her voice each and every week. So it was an absolute pleasure to get to work with Laura, to get to work with her on podcasting, on other things. We collaborated a lot on the blog posts, on a lot of the other things. I went to her for a lot of things and relied on her a lot here as a member of our team. So she’ll be greatly missed. As always, listeners, thank you so much for listening, and let’s go ahead and get on with the show.

Hey, there, welcome to Accessibility Minute, your weekly look at assistive technology, those clever tools and devices designed to help people who have difficulties with vision, mobility, hearing, or other special needs.

Welcome to the relaunch of the Accessibility Minute podcast. My name is Laura Medcalf, and I am so excited to announce that I’m the new host of this weekly 60 second podcast airing every Friday.

In each podcast, I will cover everything accessibility, from Apple devices to services for individuals with disabilities. I’ll cover a variety of topics for individuals who face challenges in vision, mobility, hearing, or other special needs. There will be a transcript provided for every Accessibility Minute podcast, making sure it’s accessible to all.

Hey, there, welcome to Accessibility Minute, your weekly look at assistive technology, those clever tools and devices designed to help people who have difficulties with vision, mobility, hearing, or other special needs. Welcome to episode number 200. Woohoo.

What? Episode what?

200.

200.

I figured, what better way to celebrate the big 200 than to bring back the man who started it all? Hey, there, Mr. Wade Wingler.

Hey, there, Ms. Medcalf. How are you, host of Accessibility Minute?

Yeah, I’m well, how are you?

I’m okay.

So I’ve hosted the show for over a year now, and I’m just wondering how the show got started.

That’s a good question, and there’s a little bit of a funny story related to that. So I started Assistive Technology Update, the weekly news program that I’ve hosted for, gosh, over five years now. About the same time, I started Accessibility Minute, which is a show that you have inherited and improved greatly. But I started that one because somebody thought the other show was too long. A friend of mine and colleague who I know and trust said, “You know, that’s a great show, but not everybody has a half an hour to listen to the news of assistive technology, so maybe something shorter,” which I didn’t know how to take initially. I’m like, “Oh, less of me talking. Maybe that does sort of make sense.”

So anyway, we kicked off the show with just short versions of… they started off as one of the stories covered on Assistive Technology Update in a one-minute snippet kind of format, and it tended to go pretty well, and then it went on sabbatical for a little while, it lied dormant, and then you picked it up and have been running with it ever since. So my question for you, Ms. Medcalf is what does the show mean to you?

Well, Accessibility Minute is a fast way for me to get quick facts out about different assistive technologies for different special needs, and I think that that’s really important to put that information out there quickly. It’s like everybody’s weekly dose.

And plus you’re a writer by trade and by training, and I think it stretches you a little bit because it gets us in the studio with some awkward giggles and…

Oh, yeah, definitely awkward.

… interactions and stuff like that, but it’s amazing because when you get behind the mic, I think what you do is great.

Oh, thanks.

So some of the stories we’ve covered lately, just give me a couple of examples of things that we’ve talked about lately on the show.

So recently there’s been a companion robot called Buddy, and also the REST horse therapy, which is a device that…

It sort of simulates riding a horse without a horse, right?

Right. And it’s ideal for individuals with ADHD, autism, PTSD. It helps relax them and calm them down anytime a day or night, which is really helpful.

So if people are new to this show on episode 200, I would encourage you all to go back and look at those previous episodes where Laura covers these cool topics. And I would also encourage you to check out her writing because you write almost every day on our blog, right, eastersealstech.com, new topics every day, this podcast, once a week. You’re swimming in the waters of assistive technology 24/7 and constantly cranking out amazing content.

And it’s a lot of fun and it’s all for you guys, so thank you.

No, thank you.

Hey, there, welcome to the 500th episode of Accessibility Minute, your weekly look at assistive technology, those clever tools and devices designed to help people who have difficulties with vision, mobility, hearing, or other special needs.

Before diving into today’s episode, I’d like to first thank you for hanging out with me all these years. I’ve had a ton of fun exploring the world of assistive technology with you.

Traditional smartphones can sometimes be too complicated for individuals aging in place and more. If you’re looking for an easy to use phone, check out the RAZ Memory Cell Phone. The RAZ Memory Cell Phone makes easy to place calls. Simply touch the picture of the person you’re trying to call. Contact names are found below pictures. The combination of pictures and names makes this phone ideal for users with memory loss.

Whenever the phone rings, two large buttons will appear. A green one that says answer and a red one that says hang up. If the caller is a contact, a large picture and the name of the caller will show up.

Other features include ability to set reminders that will appear as sticky notes on the phone. You can also create audio reminders. Caregivers can receive a text message when the battery of the phone is less than a specified amount. You can track your loved one’s location by tracking the phone at no additional cost. The location will be updated every 15 minutes, and much more. Visit razmobility.com to learn more.

Hey, there, welcome to Accessibility Minute, your weekly look at assistive technology, those clever tools and devices designed to help people who have difficulties with vision, mobility, hearing, or other special needs.

I am always searching for means of relaxation. Meditation is always a great way to calm my mind. Meditation Oasis is an app that makes meditating easy. According to the app’s description, the app provides easy access to over 30 powerful and relaxing guided meditations. Whether you’re new to meditation or a seasoned practitioner, this app has meditations that will work for you.

Features of Meditation Oasis include over 30 guided meditations available at all times, streaming audio, safe storage space, background play option, high quality audio, PDF on how to get the most out of meditating, and much more. Visit meditationoasis.com to learn more.

Hey, there, welcome to Accessibility Minute, your weekly look at assistive technology, those clever tools and devices designed to help people who have difficulties with vision, mobility, hearing, or other special needs.

Children need to practice good dental hygiene for several reasons. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cavities can cause pain and infections that may lead to problems with eating, speaking, playing, and learning. Children who have poor oral health often miss more school and receive lower grades than children who don’t. This is where Rainbow Smart Toothbrushes by VIGILANT come in. Rainbows Smart Toothbrushes connect to Android or iOS devices via Bluetooth and help children learn the perfect brushing technique dentists recommend.

They are manual toothbrushes that feature motion and 3D sensors that track brush positions and movements inside the mouth, while the app calculates variants and guides the brusher. The app allows parents to view their child’s brushing habits as well as how well they’re doing with the task.

Other features include interactive smartphone or tablet game that models great tooth brushing behavior for children available in seven different colors, free Rainbow App available on the iTunes and Google Play, it’s rechargeable, and more. Visit just4teeth.com to learn more.

Hey, there, welcome to Accessibility Minute, your weekly look at assistive technology, those clever tools and devices designed to help people who have difficulties with vision, mobility, hearing, or other special needs.

Many individuals with mobility challenges may have difficulty preparing food on a standard stove independently. Fortunately, there are products like the Nostalgia MyMini Personal Electric Skillet and Grill that can help said individuals prepare their own food. The MyMini Personal Electric Skillet and Grill is both compact and lightweight, making it the perfect fit for any kitchen, apartment, dorm, RV, and more. With this electric skillet and grill, users can cook scrambled eggs, omelets, rice, cookies, noodles, hash browns, cakes, virtually anything.

To use it, simply plug it in, wait one to three minutes for it to preheat, and when the indicator light shuts off, you can start cooking. Other features include a quick and healthier way to cook, easy to use cool touch handles allow users to keep their hands safe when opening and closing the lid, the power and preheat indicator light will let you know when it’s time to start cooking, makes a great holiday gift, and much more. Visit nostalgiaproducts.com to learn more.

Hey, there, welcome to Accessibility Minute, your weekly look at assistive technology, those clever tools and devices designed to help people who have difficulties with vision, mobility, hearing, or other special needs.

If you’re looking for a product to help your loved one with dementia maintain their independence, the Alzheimer’s Store has several products to offer. One of their available products is the Relish Day Connect clock. The simplified day clock makes it easy to stay on top of your schedule and regain control of your day. This clock is guaranteed to keep the perfect time even if the device is accidentally unplugged.

Other features include tailor the day clock screen to suit your personal needs and preferences as they change over time, automatically updates for daylight saving time, automatically dims to ambient light levels, which is ideal for evenings, HD display with unrivaled contrast, and clarity is perfect for individuals with visual impairments, and much more. Visit the alzstore.com to learn more.

Hey, there, welcome to Accessibility Minute, your weekly look at assistive technology, those clever tools and devices designed to help people who have difficulties with vision, mobility, hearing, or other special needs.

Marshmallow games is a multi-award winning game studio that develops apps used by millions of children worldwide. The company is a team of educators, developers, artists, and designers. One of their available apps is Smart Tales. Smart Tales is an app full of stories and educational games for children that stimulate the imagination and passion for STEM subjects.

While it helps ignite children’s passion for math and other STEM subjects, it also helps with reading, letter formation, and other early literacy skills. Additionally, many of its stories touch on social and emotional learning themes. Smart Tales uses plenty of narration in both stories and activities to help individuals who might be unable to read instructions. This feature may also benefit users with visual impairments and dyslexia.

There is also an option for a dyslexia-friendly font, as well as built-in color blindness filters. Other features include, it was designed in collaboration with education experts. Personalized learning path adapts to each child’s learning pace and preferences. Over 100 games of logic, math, coding, and creativity. 80 plus interactive stories to help children fall in love with reading. 300 plus printable worksheets. Parents’ area allows parents or caregivers to set the usage timer and check on their child’s progress in real time. New features help improve the readability of text and the user experience for children with special needs, available for both Android and iOS devices. Visit smarttales.app to learn more.

Hey, there, welcome to Accessibility Minute, your weekly look at assistive technology, those clever tools and devices designed to help people who have difficulties with vision, mobility, hearing, or other special needs. There are several GPS tracking devices available on the market to help individuals keep track of their loved ones aging in place. A majority of these devices are wearables like watches, pendants, and bracelets.

Another type of GPS tracking device that is available is the GPS SmartSole. The GPS SmartSole device is similar to an orthotic that slides into any size shoe. It contains a tiny GPS tracking element centered into the pad. While the user is wearing their shoes with the SmartSole, their whereabouts are being tracked using cellular and satellite technology. Once the GPS device is activated, you’ll be able to monitor the location of the wearer from your computer, tablet, or smartphone.

Other features include insoles run on a rechargeable battery that lasts two to three days, they charge on a wireless charger, pads last up to 30 months, depending on normal wear and use, comes with an added basic tracking service plan for 29.95 a month with no activation fee. Access to online tracking of your GPS SmartSole will enable you to receive email or text message alerts to let you know when your loved one has wandered out of your designated geo zone boundaries, and more. Visit gpssmartsole.com to learn more.

Hey, there, welcome to Accessibility Minute, your weekly look at assistive technology, those clever tools and devices designed to help people who have difficulties with vision, mobility, hearing, or other special needs.

Bedtime stories are a great way for your child to wind down before bed. There are several apps that feature magical bedtime stories, one of them being SmartDreams. The SmartDreams Bedtime Stories app is a unique bedtime story app that transforms your child’s bedtime routine into a spell-binding journey of imagination. Unlike other bedtime story apps, this one is powered by artificial intelligence. Each tale is a one-of-a-kind journey crafted around your child’s preferences.

Other features include, the app fosters a love for reading and enhances your child’s literacy skills, each adventure offers more than just a captivating narrative, it teaches invaluable life lessons that stay with your child long after the final page is turned. Children can read the stories by themselves or have the app read them aloud. With offline mode, you can keep the magic going anywhere at any time. Share your child’s creative stories with family and friends effortlessly and securely. Children can customize different narrative elements such as heroes, sidekicks, animals, foods, locations, and more. Visit smartdreams.ai to learn more.

Hey, there, welcome to Accessibility Minute, your weekly look at assistive technology, those clever tools and devices designed to help people who have difficulties with vision, mobility, hearing, or other special needs.

If you’re looking for an affordable app to help keep family to-do lists, calendar, shopping lists, and more organized all in one place, check out the FamilyWall app. FamilyWall helps manage your family’s everyday life by sharing everyone’s schedules and activities, tracking grocery lists, planning for dinner, managing to-do’s, as well as locating children when they’re outside.

One of the built-in features is the shared calendar that helps organize everyone’s schedules, activities, and appointments in one place that’s accessible anytime, anywhere. It syncs with your phone or favorite calendar, so you’ll never miss a birthday or a special event again.

Almost all features are free to use. However, some features are only available with Family Wall Premium. With the premium plan, you can enjoy the following benefits, easily manage and share your finances, sync with Google and Outlook calendar, locate family members, plan your meals ahead for the week, enjoy audio and video messaging, and much more. Visit familywall.com to learn more.

Hey, there, welcome to Accessibility Minute, your weekly look at assistive technology, those clever tools and devices designed to help people who have difficulties with vision, mobility, hearing, or other special needs.

Learning and mastering mathematics can be challenging for individuals with or without special needs. Fortunately, there are resources like the Komodo Math application to help. According to Komodo’s website, fluency in math is the perfect foundation for future success. Tailored to your child’s needs, Komodo develops fluent math skills at home through short practice sessions. The app was developed by qualified teachers for families, and is an effective and rewarding way of helping your child learn math at home.

Other features include, it can conveniently be used on smartphones, tablets, and laptops, requires just 15 minutes about three to five times per week. The app reports back on your child’s progress as frequently as you’d like, and allows you to set real-life rewards to motivate them along the way, helps develop concentration and a great attitude towards learning. Komodo’s adaptive system allows users to skip an appropriate level once they’ve mastered a topic, so everyone should be able to find it constantly rewarding and challenging. Ideal for children ages five and up. Visit komodomath.com to learn more.

Hey, there, welcome to Accessibility Minute, your weekly look at assistive technology, those clever tools and devices designed to help people who have difficulties with vision, mobility, hearing, or other special needs.

With so many video magnifiers available on the market, it’s hard to decide which one may be best for your particular needs. One option for you could be the Traveler HD by Optelec. The Traveler HD allows users to enjoy reading anywhere, at the table, in the bed, or even on your favorite chair. With the Traveler HD, you can read letters, newspapers, and other materials with magnification up to 30 times.

One of the more unique features of this product is that it provides a more natural reading experience with its uniquely engineered handles and movable screen. It also features a 1080P high-definition camera, and can store up to 1000 images. To learn more on the Traveler HD, go to optelec.com.

Hey, there, welcome to Accessibility Minute, your weekly look at assistive technology, those clever tools and devices designed to help people who have difficulties with vision, mobility, hearing, or other special needs.

By now, I’m sure you’re at least a little familiar with wearable technology, such as the Apple Watch, Fitbit, and much more. Now there is a whole other type of wearable in development coined Horus that is being referred to as a wearable assistant for blind individuals. Horus is designed to help said individuals navigate through their environment. According to the website, Horus uses bone conduction, so the hearing of a person is in no way affected.

The headset can be used for reading, object identification, mobility assistance, face recognition, and more. To learn more about Horus, visit horus.tech.

Hey, there, welcome to Accessibility Minute, your weekly look at assistive technology, those clever tools and devices designed to help people who have difficulties with vision, mobility, hearing, or other special needs.

If you haven’t done so yet, go ahead and check out my blog on different grocery delivery services. I also recently discussed these services with the wonderful Mr. Wade Wingler on episode number 299 of his ever popular Assistive Technology Update podcast.

One service we discussed was Amazon Prime Now. If you have an Amazon Prime membership, you’re already eligible for the Prime Now service. Prime Now allows users to choose from thousands of items and have them delivered within a two-hour window. That’s right, with Prime Now, you can have virtually any item shipped for free directly to your door within two hours. Need an item sooner? No problem. Eligible service areas also offer a one-hour shipping option for an additional 7.99. To see if you live within a Prime Now service area or to learn more, visit primenow.com.

Hey, there, welcome to episode number 250 of Accessibility Minute. Woohoo. This is your weekly look at assistive technology, those clever tools and devices designed to help people who have difficulties with vision, mobility, hearing, or other special needs.

American Printing House for the Blind offers so many tools and services for individuals with visual impairments. They even offer a handful of apps. One such app is their Draw2Measure Protractor app. The app is free to use and is fully accessible for students who are blind or who have visual impairments.

Other features include ideal design for students with or without visual impairments, allow students to measure angles by tracing sides instead of reading measurements, reports measurements in both degrees and radians, includes detailed instructions, and much more. Check it out on iTunes for free to learn more.

Folks, thanks for taking this little trip down memory lane, listening to some of the shows that Laura made for us and some of the great contributions that she was able to make to our team and our lives. I do apologize for the kind of choppy nature between each one just with the background music. It just kind of happens that way. But thank you so much for listening.

You can always check out all of Laura’s recordings of Accessibility Minute at eastersealstech.com or anywhere that you get your podcast. Here, sometime in the future, we’ll probably get Accessibility Minute back up and running, but for the time being, we are going to go ahead and take a break from that show in honor of Laura, who was just such an amazing part of this team and will be greatly missed. So as always, listeners, thank you so much for listening, and we will see you back here next week.

Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on 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 @INDATAproject. 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 relayindiana.com.

A special thanks to Nikol Prieto for scheduling our amazing guests and making a mess of my schedule. Today’s show is 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. 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.