The Living Schoolbook

I visited the Closing the Gap Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota in October 2003. I put together a web site to share what I learned with others, specifically the faculty and students in the Teaching and Leadership department at Syracuse University.

I went to the conference with a technical perspective, interested in the new tools of the trade in assistive technology (AT) and augmentive and alternative communication (AAC). I was able to sample only a handful of what was there, but I feel like I did a good job of getting the meat out of the conference.

I recently took that web site down and redirected traffic from there to the LSB site in an effort to consolidate.  I will "repost" those pieces back up on this blog...I feel bad about taking down items like that.  Here is what I wrote about the adventure:

Background

I support technology (laptops, desktops, palm and some file servers) for The Living SchoolBook and the Teaching and Leadership Department of the School of Education at Syracuse University. While I am not I am not a classroom teacher, I am periodically asked about the use of some certain educational software beyond the basic Office suite.

When our group began to work with the Support Center for Systems Change to develop their web site, I was introduced to accessibility issues surrounding the web. Their mandate required that their web site meet a number of accessibility requirements that I was unfamiliar with.

The School of Education has recently acquired, by various means, some software titles and hardware related to Assistive Technology (AT) and Augmentive Communication (AAC) devices for use in the teacher preparation program. In the summer of 2003 I was asked if these devices were usable with our existing hardware. As I attempted to evaluate and use the devices, I quickly realized that I had a lack of knowledge about the use of technology of this sort.

Why did I go to the Closing the Gap conference?

I thought the School of Education needed a representative to go to this accessibility conference for a number of reasons:

• The School of Education Inclusive Elementary Education program requires students to come out of the program with some exposure to the technology resources available to make materials available and get students with disabilities actively engaged in the social and academic activities of the inclusive classroom.
• The Living SchoolBook has received a grant to help develop (in concert with four other groups throughout the state) a New York State Education portal. One issue faced by the groups is how to make the content in the portal accessible.
• The Teacher Prep program currently teaches web development to future teachers. Faculty and staff supporting teacher preparation programs need an update on methods to make their content accessible to all students.