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Accessible Educational Materials …in the Era of Mobile, Ebooks , Cloud, and Common Core Standards. …Or a Perfect Storm for Accessibility?. A Moment of Opportunity. Mobile : screen sizes, touch screens + Ebooks : multi-media, everyone a publisher +
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Accessible Educational Materials …in the Era of Mobile, Ebooks, Cloud, and Common Core Standards
…Or a Perfect Storm for Accessibility? A Moment of Opportunity Mobile: screen sizes, touch screens + Ebooks: multi-media, everyone a publisher + Cloud: new platforms, “built-in” accessibility + Common Core: Everything is now Mobile: access anywhere, reduced stigma + Ebooks: now born digital, new EPUB3 standard + Cloud: online learning, easily updated + Common Core Standards: new curriculum & assessments, increased similarity across states
It’s Both! So What Should We Do? • Embrace change as an opportunity • Attack successively harder problems • Actively leverage new technology to make accessibility cheaper, faster, and easier than ever before • Engage in scalable outreach • Form strategic partnerships across education, commercial technology, publishing, parent groups, disability services, and student groups …to achieve all of these objectives
OSEP-Funded Initiatives • BI4E • October 2012 • Bookshare and Innovation for Education
Emerging Opportunity: Mobile Access • World is [going] mobile • Access anywhere anytime
What We’re Doing about Mobile Access • Android Reader (Go Read) • iPhone/iPad Reader (Read2Go) • MP3 & DAISY Audio Downloads
Emerging Opportunity: eBooks • Born digital • Opportunity for new tools and processes • New platforms and formats • New players: OER, small publishers • Uncertainty, Experimentation, Diversification • Content beyond books: learning objects • Challenge: images and graphics • Image-rich content is increasingly pervasive • Science Technology Engineering Math (STEM) content conveys core information in images
What We’re Doing about eBooks • >150,000 eBooks (Bookshare) • >200 publisher partners (Bookshare) • Working with digital distributors (Bookshare) • Images and Graphics: • Standards: DIAGRAM Content Model • Tools for creating accessible content (DIAGRAM) • Best practices and guidelines (DIAGRAM)
Emerging Opportunity: Cloud • Online learning and assessment • Multiplying platforms • Personalization opportunities • Cloud content storage and management
What We’re Doing about the Cloud • Leveraging it to the hilt! • Scalable storage (Bookshare) • Cloud-based bookshelf (LIT) • Future access to image descriptions (DIAGRAM) • Forming strategic partnerships with platform providers for built-in accessibility….
Emerging Opportunity: Common Core • Common Core = Change = Opportunity • Digital from the Start • More commonality across states • Leveraged Impact from Accessible Images • Well-defined Math standards • English Language Arts Standards:– Emphasize research, analysis, vocabulary • New digital assessments
What We’re Doing about Common Core • Image descriptions (LIT) • Volunteer corps (LIT) • Math tools - descriptions and tactile output (LIT) • Common Core content (Bookshare)
Scalable Outreach • Parents • Educators • K-12 and Higher Ed Institutions • Publishers • AEM providers • Students
Mentor Teacher Program Created a network: 400 current mentor teachers 100% growth in 2 years Allows Bookshare to Scale Training Customer Support Pilot Programs Beta Testers Advisors Special Projects
Strategic Partnerships A sampling of our hundreds of partners: • AIR, USFDAISY, NCAM • NIMAC, Don Johnston, Humanware, Learning Ally, NLS • MeTRC, VDRDC • CAST, PACER, Internet Archive • Google, Barnes & Noble, Moodle Rooms • 200 publishers • DIAGRAM Advisory Board: 27 members, 20+ working group members • Bookshare Advisory Board: 17 members
40 Excited DIAGRAM’ers, 3 Bewildered Dogs, 1 Flying Cane Photo credit: Jim Fruchterman
Nagging Challenges • Interactive content • Accessibility in assessments • Research on effectiveness of new approaches • Full federated search implementation across all image repositories • Universal identifiers for images…
How can we work together to better serve students in this Moment of Opportunity? We Can’t Do It Alone: YOU