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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:
Web accessibility webinar series: Rob Carr | Accessibility Coordinator, Oklahoma ABLE Tech
Settlement Agreement between the United States of America and Ahold U.S.A., Inc. and Peapod, LLC http://buff.ly/1ugBfMt
New Intel-Created System Offers Professor Stephen Hawking Ability to Better Communicate with the World http://buff.ly/1ywaBG2
Library robot project helps autistic kids relate | Technology http://buff.ly/1yw2ysF
App: PillBoxie www.BridgingApps.org
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ROB CARR: Hi, this is Rob Carr, and I’m the accessibility coordinator of Oklahoma ABLE Tech, 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 185 of Assistive Technology Update. It’s scheduled to be released on December 12 of 2014.
Today I’m excited to have Rob Carr on our show, who is the accessibility coordinator at Oklahoma’s able tech project. He’s helping to produce a set of webinars on web accessibility, an ever increasingly important process that people who create online content need to be thinking about.
Professor and Dr. Stephen Hawking is working with Intel to make an open-source computer access system.
We hope you’ll check us out on the web at the www.eastersealstech.com. Shoot us a note on Twitter at INDATA Project. Or call our listener line, give us a comment, or ask a question. The number is 317-721-7124.
Kicking off the top of our show, we have a headline that reads “Department of Justice continues aggressive enforcement relating to website and app accessibility under the Americans with Disabilities Act.” The Department of Justice recently reached a settlement with Peapod, the online grocery service, and dealt with some of the inaccessible portions of their website. I’m looking at the post on ADA.gov which includes the full body of the settlements, and it’s very interesting to go through the details of what happens when the Department of Justice directs a company like Peapod to make their stuff more accessible.
In the details of this, it goes through the fact that Peapod shall appoint somebody on their staff to be an accessibility point of contact, some staff training, some checks to make sure that bug fixes don’t create ADA or accessibility problems, even some internal staff training and other things to make sure that feedback and communication about accessibility is being done well there at Peapod.
Our guest today is going to spend some time talking about ways that everybody can learn how to make their web content. This story helps us remember that this is important because the Department of Justice is becoming more aggressive about making sure that accessibility is part of online information. Check our show notes. I’ll have a link over to the settlement and you can read more about the Department of Justice and what’s happening over there with Peapod.
>> STEPHEN HAWKING: Technology has changed the way we all live our lives, from communication to genetic research, access to information, and much, much more.
>> Really amazing in your office —
>> STEPHEN HAWKING: As technology has gotten smarter, it has opened doors to possibilities that I didn’t ever predict. The technology that is now being developed to support a disabled is leading the way in breaking down communication barriers which once stood in the way. Intel has been allowing me to do what I love every day.
WADE WINGLER: What you’re hearing there is an excerpt from a video on the Intel website. A lot of news this week about how Professor Stephen Hawking has been working with Intel to create a new platform for his assistive technology interface. What they’ve done is they have done some things with switches. They’ve done some work with speeding up the process of entering text by using SwiftKey. They are using some infrared switch technology with cheek movement to help him do the interface. They’re talking about how he’s using his existing speech synthesizer on his Lenovo laptop on Windows. And they get into some of the technical details about this new platform that Intel and Dr. Hawking have been working on. The best part is they are going to create and release this platform free, and they’re going to make it accessible to everybody in the world. Interesting timing that Dr. Hawking’s movie, the theory of everything, is coming out about this time. But I’m really glad that there is some work being done by Intel to make a new set of input technologies available for folks who use assistive technology. I’ll pop a link in the show notes over to the newsroom section of the Intel website. You can check out the video and also read more about what Intel and Stephen Hawking are doing to make education more accessible to the rest of the world.
From Longmont, Colorado, the headline reads, “Library robot project helps autistic kids relate.” You guys know I am always a sucker for a robot headline. Well, there is a project headed up by a person named Jalali Hartman who is one of a group of engineers that gather on Sunday afternoons at this public library. They have a group of kids that — they are called the innovation team, and they are a group of kids, 10 of them, from grade 7 through grade 12, mostly composed of kids on the autism spectrum, and they get out and talk robots on Sunday afternoon. One of the things that they do is just going with one another around this centralized topic, and they focus on the robots and not the behaviors related to the autism spectrum. It’s sort of an inclusive environment which is great for these young people who are interested in technology.
Then they are also working on robotics projects where they have robots help them with emotional and social skills. One of them confesses, “I’m not too good with social skills,” and they like to use robots for interactive medium. The other thing they are working on as a robot product where a robot will roam the halls with an RFID reader looking for misplaced books and also streaming a WebCam back to some displays in the library so patrons in library can get a robot’s eye view of what’s happening there in the library. This is a fascinating little project that’s happening in Colorado. I learned about it from News Observer, and I’m going to pop a link in the show notes so that you can read more about this library project that helps kids with autism relate.
Today we’re excited to have a special visitor on the show. Santa Claus has a message for some of the folks here at Easter Seals Crossroads: for Brian Norton, the manager of our clinical assistive technology; for Anna Long, who heads up our iPad for Seniors project; and then for our friends in college over at BridgingApps and over at AppleVis.com here’s a message from the jolly old elf himself.
SANTA CLAUS: Ho, Ho, Ho, Wade, it’s Santa Claus! I just wanted to stop by and say hello to all of our friends who listen to the Assistive Technology Update all over the world. Now, what you might remember is last year, Santa had a list of naughty and nice, and Mr. Brian Norton last year was on the naughty list, but Santa has gotten some good reports that Brian has now moved off the naughty list. So no coal for you this year, Brian.
But Santa’s got some other things to talk about, Wade, with Assistive Technology Update each week. I’ve learned a lot about great gifts for individuals this year, and those iPhones sure are popular. Speaking of iPads, Santa senior, Anna, has been driving all over the state of Indiana with the INDATA Project and training seniors on the use of those iPads. So Santa thinks that Anna should get a new set of tires for her little sleigh as she travels all over the state of Indiana. And Santa says to our friend Wade Wingler, Santa suggests that Wade, Jenny, and your family give you a nap every day at 2 o’clock during the holiday season.
And Santa wants just one last thought here. With Scott with AppleVis and our friends from BridgingApps, please don’t create an app to replace ol’ Santa. I hope everyone has a happy holiday season. And best to all from Santa and the North Pole. Ho, ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night — or day!
WADE WINGLER: 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.
AMY BARRY: This is Amy Barry with BridgingApps, and this is an app worth mentioning. Today’s app is called PillBoxie. Establishing a home-based pill program and medication routine can be complicated and confusing. With many people taking multiple medications, prescribed by multiple physicians, dispense at multiple times, and containing multiple instructions, medication management is a common source of stress for patients and caregivers.
The PillBoxie app can be a part of simplifying and organizing the process. PillBoxie has several features that make it stand out from other pill management apps. The first feature is its user-friendly interface. Organized in two sections, one side is dedicated to the current day’s pill schedule, while the other side has been cleverly designed to look like medicine cabinet shelves. These shelves visually house the user’s various medicine containers. Tap on each individual labeled pill bottle to access its specific information including scheduling, dose history, reason for taking, and a general instruction box. The general instruction box allows for needed flexibility to add more information. It’s a great area to include the pill dosage, the prescribing physician’s name, refill date, and any precautions.
Perhaps one of the strongest features of this app is its ability to include the actual appearance of each medication. This is done by either using a photograph or by selecting a pill shape and color from a provided list. Each medication’s picture then appears both on the label of the container in the medicine cabinet and next to the drug name on the daily pill schedule list. This visual connection is critical in helping persons with memory and cognitive challenges self-manage their pill program. Changing or updating the pill picture is easy and an important ability if using generic medications that often change in appearance at every new refill.
Other well-designed features include push notifications organized into one notification by dispensed time; an excellent email exporting ability using a very clear template list; multiple profile options; a lowest price shopping search using GoodRx; and short how-to videos accessible within the app.
The caregiver that we trialed PillBoxie with loved its use as a teaching self-management tool for her cognitively challenged loved one. Each Sunday, her loved one sits down to fill his morning, noon, and evening pillboxes for the entire week. PillBoxie replaces her handwritten medication log guide that included her attempt at pill sketches and descriptions. Now, a mobile device sits next to his pill work area where the PillBoxie app serves as a real visual guide to help him complete this week the task with fewer errors. This a true example of a real pill program in action.
The PillBoxie app is $0.99 at the iTunes Store. This app can be used on iOS devices. For more information on this app and others like it, visit BridgingApps.org.
WADE WINGLER: On our show, we always talk about how to access assistive technology, how to access information, and how technology can help people with disabilities to be more independent. Quite frankly, a lot of that information is available on the web in an electronic format; but if it’s not accessible, it’s basically not available and probably not all that helpful. Today I am excited to have Rob Carr who is the accessibility coordinator at Oklahoma’s ABLE Tech to talk with us about an exciting accessibility webinar series that’s coming up. Before we get into that, Rob, how are you today?
ROB CARR: Fine, great, Wade. How are you?
WADE WINGLER: I’m doing well. We’ve been fighting some weather here in Indiana so I am glad that I am here in the city of safely and glad that you were flexible with your schedule today so that we could talk. Thank you again for that.
ROB CARR: No problem. You’re very welcome.
WADE WINGLER: So, Rob, before we jump into the interview here, I think it probably is worth doing a note of disclosure. You and I are both involved with the federally-funded Assistive Technology Act Projects. And the thing we’re getting ready to talk about today is in ATAP-sponsored program. ATAP is the Association of Assistive Technology Act Projects. I am on the board of that organization. Neither one of us are getting paid for our interview appearance, but I think it’s worth saying that this is an ATAP thing, and we are both involved in ATAP.
As we jump into this, tell me a little bit about you. Let’s paint a picture of who you are, what you do day to day in your job at Oklahoma ABLE Tech and why you became interested in this whole accessibility seen.
ROB CARR: Sure. So my responsibilities at ABLE Tech primarily surround technology accessibility. So making sure as you mentioned that technology resources, whether they are web-based are installed on a computer or mobile apps, whatever they might be, are accessible to people with disabilities. Within ABLE Tech, I do quite a bit of work both with institutions of higher education here in the state of Oklahoma, trying to help them get a handle on accessibility throughout the campus. We have a project with about 23 or 24 different institutions who are participants. It’s an ambitious target, and we’ve got some pretty good traction with several of those schools. I also do quite a bit of work with state agencies in trying to help coordinate the state’s accessibility efforts within the agency side.
Very similar sorts of things, typically very high-level, but I do offer quite a few different training, high-level, low level, mostly dealing with document accessibility. As you know, being in a state AT program, there are a lot of PDFs floating around in the state environment and higher education. Some of the training is focused on kind of the nuts and bolts of creating more accessible digital documents and such.
The way that I ended up getting into technology accessibility, I’ve been in information technology my entire career, and my wife and I actually did some volunteer work and then staff work at a school for kids and adults with disabilities out on the Navajo Indian Reservation. That was really my first exposure to assistive technology, my first time working with people with disabilities. It took a little while, but several years removed from that I started to see that all the AT in the world, and the most sophisticated AT in the world, won’t help if the web resource or if the software resource isn’t accessible. So I started to see a need for the developers, the designers, the document creators, the content authors, the people who work with technology to really begin to focus on accessibility. I’ve been really fortunate to take that on as a career.
WADE WINGLER: There’s a lot of work to be done in that area. That’s one of the most common questions that I get from the IT world, is how do we make the stuff accessible. I’m glad that the resources are out there and that you and others are working to fight the good fight.
Rob, this webinar series is coming up. It starting, I think, in January. Tell me, what’s it called and what’s the goal for this series?
ROB CARR: We call it the ICT Accessibility Webinar Series, a really straightforward name. The goal is really to get people a good foundation in understanding what accessibility is in the digital space and then start to move towards nuts and bolts. How do we make things more accessible? Our original audience is the AT Act Programs themselves and to try to help the AT Act programs come in and be able to do more with technology accessibility within their states. But this is a topic that is, I think, more brought in terms of audience than a lot of people might think. Like I said, document authors are a big piece of its. Really for the first four webinars, half of those do focus on document and presentation accessibility. There are tools that people commonly use, and they are tools that are used to put a whole lot of information out there on the web. We are aiming to kind of hit the broad base of folks up front and begin to move into more narrow and specific topics as the webinar series progresses.
WADE WINGLER: People who would attend might be developers, might be users of assistive technology. How technical is the information going to be?
ROB CARR: For the first four that we have right now, we’re not going to get to a really low level of technicality. We are setting out with a basic introduction, moving into document accessibility and the Word 2010, then we’ll bounce over into a discussion about PowerPoint presentations. We’ll round out this first set with a webinar on considerations for multimedia accessibility. So we’re hitting the broad strokes now, again with the goal to make it much more useful for the people who are doing design and development work as we move forward. But right now, these beginnings are just to set a foundation. And really for our designers, our developers, the concepts that come out of creating an accessible Word document or an accessible PowerPoint presentation apply very much to the web as well. So I wouldn’t say that designers and developers won’t get anything out of these preliminary webinars.
WADE WINGLER: Excellent. It sounds like a really broad audience might be applicable. Tell me. I know that we have the first part of the year trained. Why don’t we go one by one to these trainings and what they are and when they are going to be held.
ROB CARR: Sure. Our first training will be on January 14. We are aiming for 3 o’clock Eastern time for each one of them. On 14 January, right after the first of the year, right after everybody gets back in and get going, we will start out with an introduction to technology accessibility. This is going to be really the high-level picture of what accessibility is, what it means for people with disabilities and people without, and look a little bit at some of the applicable laws that are out there in the United States. We are really focused more on the practical side, what accessibility is in the digital space and why it is so integral and such a benefit to such a broad audience.
So we’ll move then on into February, 25 February. Again, at 3 o’clock Eastern time in the afternoon. That’s when we are going to take a look at document accessibility and Word 2010. This would be an introductory look at how to make your Word documents more accessible. Pretty basic. In an hour, you can only cover so much, but this would be really good foundation to be able to send people away with a very few concrete steps to take to make their Word document more accessible.
The great thing about that is that if you create a more accessible Word document, if you convert it into a PDF, then you have a more accessible PDF. So there’s a trickle-down effect there that we’ll be able to speak to a little bit as well.
The next month, coming up on March 25, at 3 o’clock Eastern in the afternoon, that’s when we’re going to talk about accessible PowerPoint presentations. And again, take an introductory look at how to make your presentations more accessible using PowerPoint 2010. There are some sneaky things that are actually relatively easy to do that can make a much more accessible presentation using PowerPoint.
And then we’ll wrap up this first series in April, on April 29, again at 3 o’clock Eastern in the afternoon, where we will take a really high-level look at multimedia accessibility, audio and video that is put out through the web. How do we go about making the content more accessible? High level with each one of these. We’ll kind of set the foundation here after the first of the year and begin to look at some of the broader strokes in these different tools. And it’s really going to set us up to be able to get into much more low levels of details as we move forward.
WADE WINGLER: And it does sound like great topics. Those hit some of the most common problems that I have requests for, so I glad we are starting that way in building a foundation. Rob, are you presenting all of these or do we have other presenters lined up? Who are going to be the other speakers?
ROB CARR: I get to kick us off with the introduction to accessibility in January. But we have TJ Schlouski from the Illinois Assistive Technology Act Program talking about document accessibility and PowerPoint. Those are the February and March webinars. And then the multimedia accessibility, we have Carolyn Phillips from Georgia’s Assistive Technology Act Program presenting the last of this first round of webinars.
WADE WINGLER: That’s great. Carolyn has been a guest on our show several times so it’ll be excited to your talk about that.
So tell me a little bit about the action items. If people are listening to this and say, oh my gosh, I got to sign up for this, how do they sign-up? What is the platform going to look like in terms of the webinar? And if there are accessibility requests, how would they handle those?
ROB CARR: All of the information is actually going to be on the ATAP website. So that is www.ATAPorg.org. The platform itself is one that ATAP has used before. This is something that they are going to bring to the fore and try to account for more accessibility in the plot from itself. That’s one of the challenges that we see when we look at Adobe Connect in some of the other package products that are out there. That may or may not really be functionally accessible as we would like. So ATAP is actually working to embellish the platform a little bit and bring something out that is hopefully more accessible than the bigger names products that are out there.
All the details, registration and everything, will be available from the ATAP website, so we’re routing everyone into that funnel, if you will, to make sure that we don’t leave anybody out in that we don’t route folks to a bunch of different places to get confused or have information need to be updated across several sites. ATAPorg.org is where everybody can go and get more details, get signed up, and participate.
WADE WINGLER: Excellent. This is part of the interview where I wish I had a big, cheesy drum roll sound effect because my next question is how much does a cost?
ROB CARR: It’s free, Wade.
WADE WINGLER: That’s the great parts. There’s no cost to attend these.
ROB CARR: Right. The idea is that these go out as a resource and a tool for as broad an audience as possible. It is really important information. It’s really good information. We have some of the best trainers out there, not only for this, but as we line up more content moving throughout the rest of the year, however many we are able to do, we just don’t put up any barriers that cost might bring.
WADE WINGLER: Are they going to be archived?
ROB CARR: Yes. They’ll be archived. Some of the details are going to be hashed out as we go, but yes, we do plan to have them archived and available as far as I know right now.
WADE WINGLER: Excellence. Six months from now, this is all gone swimmingly, what does success look like for this webinar series?
ROB CARR: I think that in a really big picture sort of way, we have more people; we create more webinar content, we put it out there; we have an audience that is really interested and engaged and motivated to continue to come back and learn more. I think that’s one of the big picture ways to measure success.
The other thing is that we have folks who know how to use these tools a little bit better. One of the things that I emphasize when I talk about accessibility, especially in tools like Word or PowerPoint — and when we talk about multimedia is very much along the same lines — there are tools out there that make this a relatively easy thing. I think one of the biggest challenges that we have when we talk about accessibility in the technology space is that people think it’s this very large elephant and there is no way they can possibly consume it. It may be that folks have really complex content and there are a lot of extra steps that need to be taken to make it more accessible.
What I really hope people come out of this webinar series with is a better idea that it’s not necessarily a huge thing. You can begin to take steps to create more accessible content. In fact, one we talk about Word and PowerPoint, it may be that you’re actually going to have an easier time using the tool when you make an accessible Word document. So in many cases, I think we’ll try to draw the thoughts together that yes, you can create and need to create more accessible content, but doing that is actually easier on you in many times. I think there are several things that will be able to do with the series to make accessibility more approachable and a little bit less of an ominous thing for people.
WADE WINGLER: I have to tell you, I’m excited for the webinar series. We plan to have a little crowd here in Indianapolis tuning in and learning each month as this goes ahead. One more time before you wrap up, if folks want to sign up or if they want to reach out to you, what kind of contact information would you provide?
ROB CARR: Sign-up and registration information will be at the www.ATAPorg.org. All of the registration information will be there. But if folks to have questions, they are more than welcome to send me an email to my email address is rgcarr@okstate.edu. I’m more than happy to field questions and route people go to the website. For some reason if I can’t answer the question, the good thing is I know who to for the question onto to make sure that we take care of it.
WADE WINGLER: Rob Carr is the accessibility coordinator at Oklahoma ABLE Tech. Rob, thank you so much for being on our show today.
ROB CARR: You are very welcome, Wade, thank you.
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.