ATU700 – CITES with Mia Laudato

Hi, everyone, this is Mia Laudato, the co-director and senior technical assistant for the Center on Inclusive Technology Education Systems, otherwise known as CITES, at CAST, and this is your 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 Easter Seals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. Welcome to episode 700 of Assistive Technology Update, it is scheduled to be released on October 25, 2024.

On today’s show, we are super excited to welcome Mia Laudato from CITES on. She’s going to tell us all about, well, just all the great things they do, and all the amazing things that they have available, and she’s also nice enough to join us on, you heard that right, our 700th episode. That means for 700 straight Fridays, this show has been coming out to you, me personally, being here for well over 300 of those. So looking back, 700 Fridays, 700 episodes, that is over 13 years, almost 13 and a half years, of our show coming out. A lot of things have changed in 13 years and in 700 episodes. Just think how much technology has changed, how much, I suppose, we’ve all changed.

As I look back, I actually started here at Crossroads right around the same time that this podcast started, although, I did not start in this department, I started in our employment division as a job coach. But that was my first kind of experience with Easter Seals Crossroads, my first experience knowing that we even had a podcast. And I got to admit, 13 years ago, I didn’t listen to podcasts. As we celebrate our 700th episode, I think one of probably the most important things is to celebrate each and every one of you. Without our listeners, we don’t really have a show, and it’s me sitting in this room, which is a closet, essentially, turned into a podcasting studio, talking to myself, which, some days, I suppose it does kind of feel like I’m doing, but it’s really great to know that folks are out there listening.

Hopefully, over those 13 years, whether you’re a new listener or one that’s been here for all 700, hopefully you found something that’s a little bit helpful in your life, in your practice, or maybe it just kind of piqued your interest and really got you out there to figure out some different ways that technology might be able to help individuals with disabilities, their families, their friends, and their providers.

I tried to sit down for this episode and think about what my real favorite kind of interview I’ve had over the time that I’ve been able to do it. And again, not all 700 have been me, but about the last 315, 320, I think, is about how long I’ve been doing this. And I tell you what, I can’t come up with one, but I suppose my favorites are, I swear that almost every single week, I get to learn something new. And sometimes it’s about the technology, sometimes it’s about the way it’s used, sometimes about the motivations for why it was created or why the people that are talking do it, but I feel like I always come away learning something. And that’s what I love about my job, my organization, this podcast, and really, everything I get to do, is that I never have to stop learning. My job has never gotten boring, there’s days I suppose I wish it would, but it really doesn’t.

So listeners, really just, thank you so much, thank you to the guests that have been on this show that really and truly make it what it is. Thank you to Nicole who does all of our scheduling and I’m not even sure listens, but thanks to her for always helping us out, and a huge shout-out to Wade Wingler for starting this podcast some 700 episodes ago. Also, I guess, thanks for when you did have to step away from doing the show, for handing it over to me. You were right, it does take up a whole lot more time than I ever thought that it would, but you were also right, I really love doing it, so thanks for that opportunity, Wade. Thanks to the ATX, to the folks with INDATA, folks on our clinical team on Atlas, and all of our different teams that we have here. And really and truly, listeners, we’re just looking forward to 700 more episodes.

So without any further ado, again, just a huge, heartfelt thanks for being a part of our show for all these years, or if it’s your first time listening, thanks for listening, too. Now let’s go ahead and get on with the show. Listeners, today, we are super excited to welcome Mia Laudato from the Center on Inclusive Technology and Educational Systems, or CITES, to Assistive Technology Update, to learn all about them, what they can offer, how they can assist, and the importance of building and maintaining technology systems that include and empower every single student. Mia, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Josh, so glad to be here.

Yeah, I am excited to have you on. I know we got lots to get into, but before we get into talking about CITES, can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?

Yes, absolutely, so I am first and foremost, an educator. I’ve been an educator for over 30 years, it’s kind of crazy to even think about that, and I have taught everything from pre-K through adult, my favorite population of students being those with more complex needs, and I absolutely love working with inclusive technology and inclusive technology systems. Most recently, I worked in Florida, supporting seven districts, from rural to the eighth largest in the nation, and also, virtual schools, providing professional learning and coaching supports and PLC for districts and families.

And now, I am the co-director and senior technical assistance specialist for CITES, which is totally up my alley. I’m a big, big fan of UDL, have been working, and a big CAST fanatic, basically, so it’s really fun to actually be here. A little unknown fact about me is that, when I was at the University of Miami, I got my undergraduate, not in education, my master’s in education, but do you know who the Rock is? Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson?

Yeah, I sure do.

Yeah, so my little unknown fact is that I was the on-camera director for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Yeah, a student on-camera director for that class, there was like, 10 of us in that class. So The Rock, if you’re listening, you were great, he was always the nicest guy, so there you go.

That’s awesome, that’s awesome. Yeah, and, well, we’re glad that you kind of stayed out of film, I guess. It would’ve been great, and I’m sure The Rock would’ve liked to work with you again, but we’re kind of glad, especially with the experience that you had, that you decided to go this way. But before we get into talking about CITES and all that it can really offer, I guess we got to start with the big picture. So could you tell us about CAST?

Absolutely, so as I said, I was a big CAST-y from the beginning. I definitely am a lover of all things Universal Design for Learning, and CAST is the non-profit education, research, and development organization that created UDL and the UDL framework and UDL guidelines, which just had an update 3.0, I’m sure you know that just came out. Super excited about that. And the Universal Design for Learning guidelines are now used all over the world to make learning more inclusive, and who doesn’t love that?

Oh, definitely, and I know that you and I know this, and probably some of our listeners, but why is Universal Design for Learning important?

Well, there’s a couple of reasons why it’s important, but truly, if we want to create a world where all learning experiences, not only in school, but the workplace in life, are intentionally designed to elevate strengths and eliminate barriers, so everyone has the opportunity to grow and learn and thrive, then we need research-based framework. And people like those at CAST, using applied research to investigate solutions from basically, cradle to the grave, including answers related to equity, access, and outcome, are completely necessary to help us reach that goal, and that’s what they do.

Nice, nice, and I guess as we talk about CAST, what all assistance with Universal Design, Universal Design for Learning, can they offer?

Well, CAST is multifaceted, and I don’t know if people actually realize that. They offer lots of professional learning opportunities to their professional learning department and technical assistance through the grants that we support, like CITES, and practical resources, online platforms that support UDL implementation. There are Canvas courses for UDL and accessibility implementation and research on best practice solutions for many of the issues we face, like the CITES Grant for Inclusive Technology Integration.

Awesome, awesome, awesome. And I guess, on to CITES, just because we keep talking about it, so I guess, let’s dig into it. What exactly, big picture, is it?

Well, CITES, as you and I have both said, is the Center on Inclusive Technology and Education Systems. It really is a mouthful, right? We were joking about that earlier. And actually, if you know anything about CAST, if you look into the grants that CAST has, a lot of them have C names, they start with C names, like CITES, Corgi, Cool, CAST. I don’t know why that is, but we all have these C name acronyms. So the Center on Inclusive Technology and Education Systems, we are in our second round of grant funding from the Office of Special Education, and we are really here … The mission is to bring together edtech-inclusive technologies, assistive technologies, and information technology, and get them to work together to benefit all students.

Excellent, excellent. And you offer a lot of great resources, so we’re going to try to dig into them sort of one by one, at least some of them, as time kind of allows. So can we start with your AT Guidance for the Myths and Facts that were released this past January of ’24?

Yes, weren’t you excited about that, Josh? As someone in AT, were you not like …

Yes, yes, I was super excited, and then, I was super excited that you made a tool to explain it to everyone else, because I feel like a lot of people that knew about AT were like, yes, it’s exciting. They’re telling people, hey, this is important, hey, definitely do this. And then, for some folks, it’s like, oh my gosh, there’s something else I have to do, what do I do? How do I do it? How do I do it right? So you made such an easy tool, but anyway, I don’t want to talk about it, let me let you talk about it. So tell us about the help for that.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, I’m so glad that we can geek over it, and I know that a lot of your listeners were super excited like me. At the time, I was not with CITES at CAST, at the time, I was in Florida and supporting those districts and AT specialists and edtech specialists. And when it came out, it was like, wow, the US Department of Ed had a partnership between the Office of Special Education Rehabilitative Services, or OSERS, and the Office of EdTech, which is a huge deal. If anybody knows about the history of all of this, that partnership was a big deal, to have collaboration at that kind of level, to say, hey, for the first time ever, here are guidelines and guidance for assistive technology. And then, what CITES did is, CITES was christened or tapped as a dissemination partner for the AT guidance, and so, we took that AT guidance and we created graphics based on those AT Myths and Facts.

Now, a lot of people, if they go to the OSERS website, which we are linked to on our website, we link right back to them, you’ll notice that the descriptions are deep and wide, and they are so beautiful for the Myths and Facts. And what we tried to do was, we tried to make them in bite-sized pieces, and graphics were created on each one that visually represent them. And then, of course, we have to be accessible, so we have alt text, that we have a nice Word document where you can cut and paste the alt text for every graphic, so that we make it accessible. So it’s really, really nice and neat. That’s just one of the things that we offer around the Myths and Facts.

Oh, most definitely. What are some of the kind of other ones? And I guess really, and I’m probably going to say this wrong, but who would benefit most from this information, as well?

Okay, so that is a great question, I’m going to answer that first, and then ,go over our other resources that we have, which are super exciting. So the AT Myths and Facts were intended to support administrators, educators, and families, and give them tools to help avoid misconceptions regarding AT, and they provide examples of the use of AT devices and services for children with disabilities. And you know and I know that oftentimes, these barriers arise in the field due to misconceptions, that lead to a lack of consideration, and the biggest problem, which is the underutilization of assistive technology. So we are trying to combat that by providing different size graphics that everybody can use, whether they are using it on socials, we have the square graphics, whether they are using it in professional learning, they could put it in a slide deck, so that maybe you’re talking to families and you want to update them.

Actually, CITES has a partnership with CIPR, C-I-P-R, and they work with families all over the United States, and they’re super excited about using those AT [inaudible 00:15:14] and graphics in their professional learnings that they provide for parents. Then we have like, AT specialists that are working with schools and districts, and they’re using it. And then, the most exciting thing that we just came out with is the AT Myths and Facts game. And that game is what people are really excited about to use with families, with district level people, with administrators, with AT specialists, edtech specialists, because it really gamifies the AT Myths and Facts. And you don’t have to use all of the AT Myths and Facts, you could just use one category of the AT Myths and Facts, because there’s those five categories, and so, you can just concentrate on what you want that group of people to learn or to experience and really scaffold that.

So that’s really exciting, we’re super excited about the AT Myths and Facts game that we just came out with on our website. So we talked about the AT Myths and Facts, and who they were important for, and what’s great about the AT Myths and Facts on our website is that we also address some very specific examples of frequently asked questions from a webinar that we did with OSEP and OSERS. And one of the questions was surrounding myth and fact number six, which describes how IDEA requires documentation to be included in the IEP. Specifically, the myth is, AT decisions don’t need to be documented in the IEP, and the fact is, IDEA requires documentation of AT decisions on the IEP.

And this is an excerpt from one of those questions that was answered by our friends at the department, and they said that some of the low tech items, timer graphic organizers, are accommodations we include in the accommodation section of the IEP rather than the AT section. This was the question that was asked, do they need to be listed in both sections? And the answer from our friends at the department was this, please note that IEP paperwork looks different in different districts, including different sections, even though the same requirements are met. In addition, this is an area where confusion is understandable, since the word, quote, “accommodation”, unquote, is not defined in federal law.

However, in general use, accommodations or tools or instructional strategies that provide students with disabilities with equal access to instruction. For example, an accommodation can be a change in timing, formatting, setting, response, and/or presentation. And the individuals with Disability Education Act, IDEA, defines AT as, quote, “an item, piece of equipment, or product system, whether acquired or commercially off the shelf, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of a child with a disability”, unquote.

There is legitimate overlap across these categories. The accommodation or AT may fit in multiple categories of an IEP, depending on the student, the need, and the application. What is important, they continue to say, is that the AT is represented in a way that documents how and when the student needs a device or product system to access educational materials without barriers, period. AT often builds independence, as it is more frequently leveraged by the child or student, whereas accommodations are often controlled by the adults supporting the child/student. I thought that was a really helpful answer to a question that people ask all the time, and there’s a bunch of these on our website under frequently asked questions based on the webinar about the AT Myths and Facts Guidance, so definitely go check that out.

Oh, definitely, definitely, we could probably spend most of the rest of the time just talking about that, but just so that we can get a little bit better idea of everything … Or, not everything, but at least a lot of things that CITES offers, I guess next, tell us about the CITES framework. First, I guess just, what is it? What’s the idea behind it?

Well, the CITES framework was aligned to the 2017 National Edtech Plan, or the NETP, and what that NETP is, is pretty much a bible for anybody in information tech and edtech. And so, the CITES framework aligned to the 2017 NETP in the areas of leadership, infrastructure, teaching, learning, and assessment. And then, what we do is, we surround all of that, all of those areas, with family, because family touches each of those areas, right? Now, the important thing about the CITES framework, which is for districts to use, is that the NETP gave us the what. They gave us the what in all of those areas of leadership, infrastructure, teaching. Those are all great practices, and then, we have some sub practices.

Now, the CITES framework gives us the how, and those are the action steps of how are we going to get there. And that’s what’s super exciting, because if you go on our website, you’ll see under leadership and under infrastructure, teaching, learning, and assessment, that it is drilled down. And if you’re an administrator, you can click on that and find out, what are the things that you need to do in all those areas? If you’re an IT professional, same thing, if you’re an AT professional, same, and if you’re a teacher or if you are a parent and family member, same thing. So it drills down all of those practices and action steps to help get you to where you can help co-create and collaborate with everyone to create that inclusive technology system in your district.

Nice, and that’s so great, because I know sometimes that’s such a missing piece. I mean, maybe you have a great team in place, one of them leaves, and you maybe don’t even know what they were doing, or some of the things that were needed from them, so just having a framework and having those pieces you can go back to and stick with can really keep everything moving, even when the unexpected happens. Again, it may be, a team member leaves or has to take on more districts, more areas, you’ve still got all that stuff in place to be able to really assist folks, so I love that you make that available for them.

Josh, we were actually talking about it when we first met, I think as we were going through the website, and we even have a resource that, if you need to do an interview for an assistive technology specialist, which, I mean, some people were looking for.

That was so sad, I’ve never seen that before.

Right, and that’s okay, but what’s exciting is, now people know that it actually exists as a resource on our website. So I mean, you don’t have to do the work, the work has been done there for you, you can just use it to post for your AT professional and to have the questions to ask your AT professional. Now, I will admit, I will admit and be completely transparent, that our website is very deep and wide, and it can be a rabbit hole. So I highly suggest things that I mention here, you may just want to go to the search bar and search for, because that’s how you’re going to find it, like AT professional interview process, or something like that. That’s going to be what you’re going to want to do, because there’s lots of information on the site.

Yeah, you can get very deep there. And looking at it, and I will say, I did kind of go look at it, I was like, oh, okay, well, I’ve asked some of these questions and looked for some of these things, so at least I know I’m on the right page. But again, it’s great to know that those resources are there, because for some, I mean, especially, I always think of smaller districts. I mean, especially in kind of school systems who maybe don’t have the resources, or not even financial resources, but just in the people capital, as far as having folks around and being able to know what to look for, or even what to ask, or just so many unknowns.

And especially when you’re presented with students with disabilities, or those that maybe have some different kinds of needs, it can be a little overwhelming, because you’re there to help, you’re there to help, you’re there to get folks the best education, so anything where you can go and, like you said, readily available, find that information without having to do your own research, without having to reinvent the wheel, is just such a great tool, because that’s more time you can spend, well, being an educator, which is probably why you got into it in the first place. So I love that those tools are available.

We just want those just in time resources. I know I was a big fan, as a teacher of things that I didn’t have to reinvent the wheel for. And everything on the site’s website has been research-based, and it’s all aligned to evidence-based practices. And that’s really important for people to know, because you know, when you go back to your school district or your school itself, the first question they’re going to ask is, is this research aligned? Are there evidence-based practices? And everything we do on CITES has evidence-based practices, and there’s research behind it.

And you brought up a really good point, the CITES framework and practices can be approached step by step or as just in time resources to focus on specific areas. So I just want to remind people, because it is large and overwhelming at times, we don’t want people to be like, oh my gosh, I can’t do it because it feels so big. Really, we’re just going to meet you where you’re at, and then, you’re going to do the whole, you can’t eat an elephant all at once, right? Have you heard that saying? You just got to do it bite by bite.

Oh, yeah, that was the first thing that popped in my head when you said that, I was like, one bite at a time, just got to get it one bite at a time.

That’s right, 100%.

Oh, that’s perfect. Listeners, that is all the time that we have for today, make sure to come back and listen again next week for the rest of our interview with Mia from CITES to hear all the great things that they do. And once again, thank you so much for being here and for helping us celebrate 700 episodes. So whether it’s your first one or your 700th, we thank you so much for listening, and we’ll see you again 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 at relayindiana.com. A special thanks to Nicole 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, Easter Seals Crossroads, our supporting partners, or this host. This was your Assistive Technology Update, I’m Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easter Seals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. We look forward to seeing you next time, bye-bye.