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Your weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist people with disabilities and special needs.
Show Notes:
Hope Clausman – Vincennes University www.vinu.edu | certificate program: http://buff.ly/1kied2p
RESNA Annual Conference http://buff.ly/1ftLmMB
For The Blind, Connected Devices Create A Novel Way To Read : NPR http://buff.ly/1ftI9MW
Top Alternative & Augmentative Communication iPad Apps http://buff.ly/1kim8N3
2014 Call for Participation | Closing The Gap http://buff.ly/1ftH7Rb
Sam’s blog post: Accessible Board Games for Blind and Visually Impaired http://buff.ly/1kidNc4
App: Toca Tea Party – www.BridgingApps.org
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HOPE CLAUSMAN: Hi, this is Hope Clausman, and I am the department chair for the psychology, sociology, and social work department of Vincennes University, and this is your Assistive Technology Update.
WADE WINGLER: Hi, this is Wade Wingler with the INDATA Project at Easter Seals Crossroads in Indiana with 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 people with disabilities and special needs. Welcome to episode number 153 of Assistive Technology Update. It’s scheduled to be released on May 2 of 2014.
I’m so excited today to talk with my friend and colleague, Hope Clausman, from the Vincennes University about a new online academic certificate for K-12 educators, rehab professionals, or anybody else interested in adding some academic credentials to their AT resume. Hope and I are both teaching in that program, and we’ll share more information about why this opportunity might be helpful for you. We also have some information from NPR about braille, the top 10 augmentative communication apps for the iPad, and an app from BridgingApps. Check out our website, eastersealstech.com. Give us a call on our listener line at 317-721-7124, or shoot us a note on Twitter @INDATAproject.
Earlybird registration for the RESNA conference in Indianapolis ends on May 10. Check out RESNA.org/conference to register.
I’m a big fan of public radio and not all that long ago, All Things Considered on NPR did a story about the impact of braille in technology. They interviewed Judy Dixon from the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. Judy has been on the show before talked about the services there. They spent some time talking about braille and how refreshable braille displays work, the accessibility and the cost of braille, and then they ask Judy to predict whether or not she thinks braille will last another 200 years. Recently we had Louis Braille’s 200 year anniversary. A very interesting article on NPR. I’m going to pop a link in the show notes over there so you can listen to the interview with Judy, and then call our listener line and let us know what you think about the future of braille. The number is 317-721-7124.
Our friend Andrew Leibs is the guide for assistive technology over at about.com. He has a pretty cool blog post here called “top 10 alternative and augmentative communication apps for the iPad.” We all know that the iPad is being used a lot for all kinds of things, and Andrew does a rundown. On his list includes TouchChat HD, TapSpeak Choice, Predictable Tbox apps, MyTalkTools Mobile, Locabulary Lite, and iPrompts, and a few more. That doesn’t include the number one app for AAC. If you really want to know what that is, you’re going to have to look in our show notes, click the link, and head on over to Andrew’s blog we can learn a lot more about these apps for the iPad for augmentative and alternative communication.
Are you interested in presenting at Closing the Gap this year? That conference on assistive technology is held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and this year in 2014 it’s going to be held October 15-17. It’s the 32nd annual conference. The deadline for submitting your proposal is 2 PM central time on Thursday, May 8, which is just a little bit after the release of this podcast. I’m going to pop a link in the show notes so that if you want to present at Closing the Gap, you’ve got a little bit of time left to get your proposal in. Check our show notes.
So today in studio, I am joined by a friend and colleague, Samantha — do you want me to call you Samantha or Sam for this thing?
SAM SANDERS: Sam.
WADE WINGLER: All right. Sam Sanders is an intern for us, but actually a friend of the family, somebody I’ve known for a while. Sam has been doing a lot of things here at our agency over the last few weeks, and Sam, you wrote a blog post that kind of caught fire and got pretty popular. I want to talk to a little bit about that blog post but tell me the title of your blog post.
SAM SANDERS: It’s called accessible boardgames for blind and visually impaired.
WADE WINGLER: And before you wrote that blog post, were you an expert in the field of boardgames for the blind and visually impaired?
SAM SANDERS: Not at all.
WADE WINGLER: But you did some research, right?
SAM SANDERS: Yeah.
WADE WINGLER: And what did you find out?
SAM SANDERS: Just about the blog post? I learned a lot actually, like there’s a lot of the games like monopoly and UNO and Scrabble and stuff like that, they have blind and visually impaired games out there, but they are really expensive. They are 2 to 3 times what they cost for anybody else. They have dice and stuff like that available, but nothing that’s really accessible.
WADE WINGLER: Yeah. And you wrote about a couple very specific examples, right?
SAM SANDERS: Yeah.
WADE WINGLER: What were they?
SAM SANDERS: You mean like —
WADE WINGLER: In your blog post. What did you write about?
SAM SANDERS: I just talked about — a few that they are making accessible would be UNO and Love Letter, Lost Cities the resistance, Dominion, Skip Bo, a lot of games like that.
WADE WINGLER: That’s cool. Why is this important? Why do we need to worry about boardgames that are accessible to people who are blind or visually impaired? It’s kind of a no-brainer, but I want you to say it.
SAM SANDERS: Well, yeah. The creators of 64 Ounce games, they were just talking about how it’s been really difficult for them. They can’t find any games that are accessible for their blind and visually impaired friends. They just found it really difficult to find those games and just sad that they couldn’t play those games, so they wanted to make it accessible.
WADE WINGLER: That makes sense. So your internship is going to be finishing up, and where are you heading off to this fall?
SAM SANDERS: Olivet Nazarene University.
WADE WINGLER: That’s pretty exciting. What are you going to study question what are you for sure yet?
SAM SANDERS: I’m going to double major in business management and marketing.
WADE WINGLER: Excellent. Well, good. Sam, first of all, thanks for your popular blog article. Thank you for being here today. If people want to read your blog article, do you know how they should find it?
SAM SANDERS: Just go on eastersealscrossroads.org, and go to the tab “Blog” and it will be there.
WADE WINGLER: Excellent. Sam, thanks for being here.
SAM SANDERS: Yep.
WADE WINGLER: And now we have some feedback from our listener line.
TOM MADDOCK: Good morning, weight, my name is Tom Maddock, and I have sent you messages before. Just listened to your latest show about Siri. A couple of things. One, I use Siri all the time for everything that she does, calendar, timers, alarms, and everything like that. The one thing that you said in your post that you can do, you said Siri can turn on the flashlight. She can’t. I just double checked it, and she can’t turn on the flashlight.
Great show as always. Great for doing calendars, and I’m always changing my appointments and alarms and timer for lunch, so I don’t stay out on lunch too long because I don’t like that when you take too long a lunch hour, especially when you get into a good book. You can set your timer to stop playback instead of making a sound. Keep up the good work and talk to you later.
WADE WINGLER: Tom, thank you so much for the feedback. You know, you made me double check myself, and I did a little research, and what I learned is you are absolutely right. And iOS 7, you can’t use Siri to turn on your flashlight. Although the list that I was working from, from tech blog.tv indicated that you could, you can’t. A little more digging lets me realize you could an iOS 6, and that feature went away in iOS 7. If anybody has additional feedback about that, let me know. It seems to me that you are covered something that iOS and Siri used to be able to do and has gone by the wayside. If other listeners have questions for our listener line, please give us a call. That number is 317-721-7124. We love to hear your questions, your tips, or tell us what’s in your assistive technology toolbox.
Each week, one of our partners tells us what’s happening in the ever-changing world of apps, so here’s an App Worth Mentioning.
DARYN OFCZARZAK: This is Daryn Ofczarzak with BridgingApps, and this is an App Worth Mentioning. Today I’m going to talk about Toca Tea Party by Toca Boca. This app allows you to have a virtual tea party on your iPad. You set the table, you pick what you want to drink, you pick your snack, either a cookie or a piece of cake or a donut. There are three places that you set. You can play with two players and a stuffed animal or an imaginary friend, or you can have three kids. Share the iPad and have a tea party together.
This app is great for developing language skills and encouraging imaginative play. You can have a kid work by themselves and they are playing with a stuffed animal and they have to pretend and they are talking with the animal. Or you can focus on the social aspects of learning, talking because there are three kids sharing this experience in this iPad and they are talking to each other and interacting with each other. For example, you can work on sequencing the steps of the tea party. You can ask or answer questions. You can develop conversation. You can ask for more or you can tell a story.
This is an incredibly fun. The kids absolutely love it. Every child that I’ve used this app with is 100 percent engaged. It’s one of our favorite apps. It’s one of my go to apps. I use it with just about anyone who would remotely like it.
We use it with kids from the ages 2 to 8 years old with a variety of diagnoses such as down syndrome, autism, speech and language delays, as well as typically developing siblings and peers. It’s a nice way to kind of bridge the gap between children with disabilities and their typically developing peers, because everybody loves and iPad and everyone wants to play with this really fun app.
You can find this app on the iTunes store for $2.99. It is compatible with iPad, iPhone, iPod touch is. For more information on this app and others like it, visit BridgingApps.org.
WADE WINGLER: Okay, audience, this is true confession time. I have something that I’m incredibly excited to talk about today. It’s something that I’ve kind of kept under wraps for about a year now. As you know, I am the director of assistive technology here at Easter Seals Crossroads in work on the Assistive Technology Act project or the INDATA Project. But I have been working for about a year with Vincennes University on developing an online certificate program for people who are interested in learning more about assistive technology.
I typically don’t talk about things on my show that I have a financial interest in, but in the interest of full disclosure, I need you to know that today we’re going to talk about a program, university-based program, where I teach. I’m an adjunct instructor in this program and I do get paid to teach in this program. However, this program is so interesting and so appropriate for what we talk about here on Assistive Technology Update, that I couldn’t let it pass us by. I think you guys need to know about this.
Joining me on Skype and telephone is my friend and colleague, Hope Clausman, who is the department chair and professor of psychology, sociology, and social work at Vincennes University. Hope, are you there?
HOPE CLAUSMAN: I am here. Thank you.
WADE WINGLER: Good. Hope, thank you so much for spending some time on the show today. You and I have been working kind of diligently and behind the scenes for a while getting this thing off the ground. I’m excited to be part of it. But before we talk about the program, I thought you might introduce yourself a little bit and tell me why a professor of psychology and social work is interested in assistive technology.
HOPE CLAUSMAN: Well, that’s a good question. I could leave some people with confusion if I didn’t answer that all-important question. I’ve actually been teaching with Vincennes University for about 22 years now. But my entire adult career, even all the way back to when I was in college and I was working my way through college, has really been devoted to serving individuals with disabilities. I’ve done that through a variety of different roles. Even to this day, I still facilitate on a weekly basis an advocacy group here in Vincennes, Indiana, and that group is called Friends Who Care and Count. It’s a group of individuals who are self-advocates. We spend time doing a lot of different things together. I have an interest in assistive technology because I know it can be the difference in the lives of people with disabilities.
WADE WINGLER: Absolutely. And I have a very similar interest and feeling about that. Hope, I’m in Indiana and I’ve been here all my life. When you say Vincennes University, I know exactly what that means. We have an international audience here, so can you tell us a little bit about the institution?
HOPE CLAUSMAN: Yes, I will be happy to do that. Vincennes University is the oldest college in Indiana. Actually, it’s one of the oldest in America. It was founded in 1801 by President William Henry Harrison. I think what VU is known most for is that it is a comprehensive two-year college which offers more than 150 associate degree programs. I think it’s important to note that in addition to those associate degree programs, VU also offers seven baccalaureate programs. VU is recognized in not only for technical instruction and technical programs but also transfer programs as well. We are located, for those of your audience that don’t know where we are located, VU’s main campus is situated about 120 miles southwest of Indianapolis in Vincennes, Indiana.
WADE WINGLER: And it’s right there on the river.
HOPE CLAUSMAN: It is right here on the river. That is correct.
WADE WINGLER: In fact, from your office, I think I can almost throw a baseball into the river.
HOPE CLAUSMAN: That is correct, almost.
WADE WINGLER: So, Hope, I have the inside track in this and have been involved with it. But tell us a little bit about the AT program, the certificate, why it is needed, where the idea came from.
HOPE CLAUSMAN: Well, I knew you’re going to ask that question or had a pretty good idea. So I had to really go back in my own memory and try to recall all the events that led up to it and mainly try to recall the chronological order of events.
Back in the mid to late 90s, I was working with — part of my contract here at Vincennes University included working with the then state Tech Act project, which was called the Attain Project, standing for Accessing Technology Through Awareness in Indiana. While working through Attain, a consortium of professionals came together to address the need for more formal training of paraprofessionals and professionals in assistive technology. It was clearly noted that many folks at that time were just learning simply on the job. There was a clear need for professionals to be prepared and were not knowledgeable about assistive technology earlier than entering the workforce. That was one thought, that people needed to become skilled or knowledgeable before entering the workforce.
But then it was also thought that people needed to be able to acquire more knowledge and skills in a more formal way and obviously higher educational institutions present that opportunity. So VU at that time decided to aggressively address the need for assistive technology training with the development of two academic options. Now, VU offers about a 28 credit hour assistive technology certificate program like you mentioned. Also we even have a 60 credit our associate of applied science degree.
I think in terms of what we’re talking about here, most people that would be interested in these kinds of academic options are probably folks who are looking to maybe build a resume or complement other work experience or other degrees. So probably the certificate program is what is going to be most the interest to those folks who are maybe already out there working. Am I making sense here?
WADE WINGLER: Absolutely. That makes a whole lot of sense. The certificate program is kind of dubbed the ATCPC so that there’s an easier way to talk about it than the assistive technologies certificate program at Vincennes University. We’ve got some initials for it. Tell me a little bit about the admission requirements and what’s involved in the coursework if you’re going to go for the certificate.
HOPE CLAUSMAN: Well, a few of the courses do have some prerequisites. I guess I can mention that right up front. But first of all, a student just needs to be accepted to Vincennes University. So they go through the application process. By the way, that is available online. Once they are admitted to VU, then it would only require them to meet any prerequisites for the courses that are required in a curriculum.
WADE WINGLER: And some of those prerequisites are just sort of regular academic sort of course?
HOPE CLAUSMAN: Yes. They would be. Or let’s say a student displayed the need for some remedial work, then they might have to take some remedial courses or developmental courses before they could enter into a college level course.
WADE WINGLER: I see. That makes sense. And the format of this training is online, right?
HOPE CLAUSMAN: It is all online. The entire certificate can be completed from anywhere because it’s available through our distance education office online delivery.
WADE WINGLER: I think that’s pretty unique and pretty remarkable, because it is an Indian a program come and of course I’m here in Indiana, but the fact that literally anyone in the United States or in the world could participate.
HOPE CLAUSMAN: Correct. At any time of the day, our distance education classes are available 24 hours a day, so any point in the day that a person wants to work on the course, it’s available to them.
WADE WINGLER: And from the instructor perspective, I had to kind of chime in and say that’s been unique and really pleasant for me, because I teach right now the fundamentals course, and I’m geared up to teach a couple of the other courses as well, and the fact that I can interact with students kind of on their timeframe and to meet their needs has been good.
Hope, folks are going to want to know. If I participate in this program, what does a coffin what do I get out of it? So can you speak a little bit about the cost and then some of the things that folks get in terms of knowledge gained in addition to the certificate?
HOPE CLAUSMAN: Yes. For tuition, for the 2013/2014 academic year, tuition has been $159.78 per credit hour for Indiana residents. VU is one of the most affordable universities in Indiana. So depending on what a student chooses to do, if a student wanted to go full-time, a full-time load would maybe be about 15 credit hours, that’s going to be about $2400 for a full-time load.
But again, this particular certificate option is designed to complement other degrees or to give individual professionals the opportunity to build their resume. So they may choose to just take one or two credit classes at a time. I think I should mention that the courses are available every semester even during the summer session. So I believe just about every course in that certificate option is offered online fall, spring, summer sessions.
WADE WINGLER: So that means someone could start whenever they want and then complete sort of at their own pace and do it sort of quickly, right?
HOPE CLAUSMAN: Exactly. Thank you. That is absolutely correct. They could start — at the end of May, we start our summer session, so if an individual wanted to get started, then they could do so and of May, first of June during our summer session. I think the second part of the question was what are the results or what is the knowledge gained for people.
WADE WINGLER: Right.
HOPE CLAUSMAN: Certainly the information is going to be updated and current. Obviously our world of technology changes as we are talking right now, so we’re going to emphasize the need for instructors to stay current in the field of assistive technology. So people are going to learn, students are going to learn current information. So knowledge gained about universal design for learning and assistive technology is going to be current and accurate.
Also skills are going to be acquired as individuals move along and participate in the program. For example, one of the courses is an internship or a special project in assistive technology. So when the student gets to the point of taking that particular class, there’s going to be some hands-on learning there. They’re going to actually be out in the field or working on a special project where they are going to acquire some actual skills.
WADE WINGLER: I know that that section is set up so that they will be paired with another institution or organization in their area so that they have opportunities to have real experiences with people who are currently working in the field.
HOPE CLAUSMAN: Wonderful way to build a resume.
WADE WINGLER: Absolutely. Hope, we could talk about this all day, and sometimes we do, before the interest of the interview, we only have about a minute or so left.
HOPE CLAUSMAN: Okay.
WADE WINGLER: If people want to learn more about the program, where would they go online to see the courses and to contact you to learn more about how to get involved?
HOPE CLAUSMAN: Well, first of all, I can be reached at Vincennes University by email or by telephone. You can find my direct contact information on the VU website which is vinu.edu. You can go to the area on the website entitled “Majors and Courses” and once you click on that, you can put in the search, assistive technology. That will take you to the section of the website that shows you the full curriculum for the certificate program.
WADE WINGLER: Excellent. I’ll pop a link in the show notes so that folks can just click directly on that and not have to the searching part.
HOPE CLAUSMAN: That would be great.
WADE WINGLER: Okay. Hope, again, we’re out of time for today, but I certainly appreciate you taking some time out of your afternoon to talk with us about this a little bit. I appreciate having worked with you over the last year to get this program together because it’s so exciting and I’m excited about what’s going to happen to it and look forward to seeing where it goes.
HOPE CLAUSMAN: Thank you for your opportunity to share some information.
WADE WINGLER: Hope Clausman is the department chair and professor of psychology, sociology, and social work at Vincennes University and heading up the new ATCPC online assistive technology certificate. Thanks for being with us today, Hope.
HOPE CLAUSMAN: You’re welcome.
WADE WINGLER: Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on Assistive Technology Update? Call our listener line at 317-721-7124. Looking for show notes from today’s show? Head on over to EasterSealstech.com. Shoot us a note on Twitter @INDATAProject, or check us out on Facebook. That was your Assistance Technology Update. I’m Wade Wingler with the INDATA Project at Easter Seals Crossroads in Indiana.