TRANSCRIPT - APH Tech Update with Stephanie Walker

>>Donna: Alright, welcome all to our last of the year TSBBI Outreach Tech T time. This is our final session of 2023. I cannot believe it's almost 2024 already. Our topic for today is APH update with. Miss Stephanie Walker, so excited she could join us today. And our usual messages. Before we start, our goal is build a community of practice for technology that allows us to support each other and our students. In the spirit of that goal we ask you to unmute and have a conversation. And note that by registering for this session, you grant us permission to publish the contents. Which may include your image and audio. So our meeting norms. Feel free to speak up and ask questions. This will be our last session in this meeting format. We're moving over to webinar format starting the first session in January. So if you unmute yourself to chat, please say your name first. There's only a couple of us in here today, so it won't be as. As crowded when somebody speaks up. So if you have any questions and don't wanna speak up, we'll have the chat open and monitored so that you can put your chats there. For that, I am going to turn it over to Stephanie.

>>Stephanie: Right, I am gonna share my screen. While I tell you a little bit about me, thank you I'll share my screen. It'll let me. Here it is. Alright, I am Stephanie Walker and I am the outreach specialist for the South Central Region for APA H. Outreach is a fairly new area of APH and. I have been with them for a little over a year. I started in October of last year and. Let me see what's going on here. Oh, prior to that I worked with ESC Region 11 in Fort Worth. I was the coordinator for the Texas Sensory Support Network and have since moved to APH. I have around 20 years experience as a TBI and comes and I was also a special education teacher prior to gaining my certification. I am studying for my doctorate currently and I'm leaving out the in-person training process for the new. Monarch coming out through APH. So we have a lot going on. But I'm excited to be here with you all today. And, please don't hesitate to ask questions, put things in the chat. This is your time. To find out your answers that you. You have been waiting to hear. I have quite a few slides of just products and updates that came from product managers that I can give you as well as some tips and tricks on navigating the APH website and some extra tools and things that are that are available there. So in outreach services, our goal is to increase awareness about products and services offered through APH. We do this through offering distance learning. We have access academies. About one to 2 times per month. We do participate in statewide in nationwide training opportunities. We present and do exhibit tables with presentations. And at regional, statewide national conferences. We do have a professional learning community that we are building a national professional learning community. And outreach services that APH also helps with parent connect and the parent and family training opportunities. So some of my roles in responsibilities as an APH outreach specialist because this gets a little sticky sometimes. Especially in Texas. Where things are kind of split up. My roles are to provide networking opportunities amongst fish and professionals to promote the professional learning management system, that's the hive. And to attend regional events and do different types of training at those regional events. It is my job to answer questions about skills, policies, and issues surrounding the education of children and adults with visual impairments. Bring you new information and whether it comes from APH directly or from a conference or another state that I have recently been to. We also promote career awareness. Just a simple plug here. On career awareness that if you've not been to Career Connect, which is a APH website. You might want to visit there. It has some wonderful transition resources as well as some career preparation resources available on it. It's a very nice website and they also host some webinar sessions on meeting professionals in the field. In the field who have blindness or visual impairment. So just to get a few things out of the way early in Texas, if you have a problem with quota reporting, orders, repairs, don't remember your password to get in to order materials. And all of that information comes from TSBBI. It does not come directly through APH. So if you can't get into order your quota, you can contact me, but I'm going to have to put you back towards TSBVI because I don't have anything to do with that. If you have a technical issue with a device or materials that you have ordered through APH. You are also welcome to contact me and I will do my best to support and assist you. But customer service and support at APH keeps a running database of technical issues and problems and ways to solve them. So whereas I have a lot of knowledge about how to use those products in classrooms and in some ideas on how you can implement them or help you select or choose. Appreciate products if you really comes down to a technical issue, your best bet is to contact customer service. If you are in need of a vendor table or booth but no presentation, and that actually comes from our social enterprise department at APH. My job is not to sell things. So I guess that's the most important thing to remember here is that my job is to help and support you use those things that you might purchase. So I kind of come in to play after the fact rather than trying to solicit sales through a vendor booth. That's not to say you won't see me at vendor boots helping out or hosting one. And especially if I'm presenting. It's just, it's better to kill 2 birds with one stone. But that's not our primary role. So you can contact me if you have any training needs related to an APH products or service or if a teacher parent or another service provider needs assistance. Implementing an APH product or service. Again, this is just a reminder that you can always contact me, but customer service sometimes has better answers. And I am on occasion able to help support teachers in learning what the materials that they need to learn alongside their student. An example of this might be if you're taking a chameleon course in the hive and you would like a chameleon. So, so that you can learn in practice and not have to take your students chamilion, that would be a time that you might contact me and see if that we see if we have a loner device available. I can loan out devices to teachers for learning purposes. I can loan out devices. If there's a student you want to try a device on before you purchase, as long as we have those. In our loan library and available for you. The one thing I can't do is give you devices. That supplant quota funds and quota materials. So if the device is for a student, you have to go through the appropriate channels to purchase that device using quote events. But we do have a strong belief here at APH and a strong mission going forward. And that we don't want teachers to be taking devices out of students hands to learn them. Or keeping devices to learn them and not giving them to the student. Our entire team really believes that you can learn alongside your student at the same time. You can practice things. And it is a benefit for you to have the device to practice with alongside your student. In other areas of the country, we do have what's called cat programs. They are centers for assistive technology. Centers for assistive technology and training that's the second T in cat we have one in the northeast at the Alabama School for the Death and Blind. We have one, or that's the Southeast, not the Northeast. We have one in the. Northwest, at Washington School for the Blind. And then we have one in the Southwest at Foundation for Blind Children. So we are working on. Spreading that into all 6 areas. And all 6 regions that we have laid out, but it's a slow process moving forward. And getting those set up. But those centers for assistive technology in training also can help. In doing training on how tech assistive technology and providing support and devices for that.

>>Donna: That's awesome, Stephanie. The but getting a device into teachers hands so they can learn with their students is a big one for us. In our loan library, I just don't have the inventory to do that. And I've heard some wonderful things about cat so far.

>>Stephanie: Right.

>>Donna: About meeting great needs with that. So that's awesome that you shared that. Thank you.

>>Stephanie: Yeah. Alright, before we jump into products, I want to make sure I tell you about all of the professional development opportunities and all of the resources that you have at your fingertips. Because I know when I was out in the field. I didn't quite realize how, The depth and breadth of what APH had to offer as far as professional development or just resources to help me learn. As a professional. So I. I really want to share those with you. Of course the first place that I send people is to the hive. And when I do this, I'm going to bring it up on my computer also. So. Donna, can you see the hive behind me here? There we go. Alright. Alright, so the APH 5 and it's AP HIV.

>>Donna: Yes, we can.

>>Stephanie: Org is a wonderful, wonderful community. We have. We have both courses. And we have some professional communities and discussion boards. So we'll start with the course catalog. And when we look at the course catalog, you have quite a few courses available for for you in different areas. I of course am going to skip to expanded core because I know that's where our assistive technology. Classes lie. And so when I click on assistive technology here, you immediately get into a list of courses that align with some of the products and services we offer here at APH. So we actually have 2 million courses. For you to learn how to use the chameleon. We have a getting started with the man discourse. Getting started with zoom text a code jumper unplugged course. And the code jumper and plug is in introductory. Course to code jumper that will help you learn more about what to expect and how how to approach opening the box and getting started. We have some courses on magnification. How to use the Mac connect and then an IT, Mr. Cody, Cody Laplante has done a course for us on teaching screen readers, and the fun way. And I've really enjoyed taking these courses. One thing that I remind everybody of with the course is that you enroll in the course all on your own. So all you have to do is set up. A profile in the hive and then you can log in and enroll in courses. In order for you to get ACVR EP credit at the end of the course, there will be an application assignment. The assignment is submitted. Yes, the assignment is graded by real people on the other side of that submission. And if it doesn't meet the standards that have been set, they will send it back and they will allow you to adapt it and get it up to the standards that they set. But this was put into place. Specifically, to help with one of our main goals, which was to structure professional learning in a way that results with changes to teacher knowledge and practice. And some of the research behind that says that when you learn something, you have to then either have a plan to implement it and write that out and have it documented somewhere. Or you have to turn around and use that knowledge and some way for it to really stick. And so we have taken that and to art and that is how your ACVRIP credit is tied to the completion of those courses. So I try to make sure everybody knows that so that you don't wait until the very last day that you need to recertify as a catast or a comms to go get all of your credit hours because it does take time on the other end of this for us to complete those. Complete the grading process and get you your ACV, EP certificate. I am not going to play this video. In fact, I am going to skip right back to where we were. On the hive and I'm gonna go. Back to the hype home page. And over on the right hand side, we have professional communities in the hive. So there are quite a few professional communities. There is a specific one for assistive technology specialist, but there are also other communities that may be of interest to you like accessible coding. I am gonna go into the resources for AT specialist. We do have a list of resources that are available. You have some training videos that you can watch. Documents that are included in some of the resources in the courses are also included here. So that you can go and get any of those documents. And that you would like. Some links to blogs and different articles and things that may be of interest to you. The one I really wanna focus on is this first one in all of our. Professional communities as well as each course. There is a link that goes out to our discussion board. And our discussion boards are hosted. I'm not gonna remember the name of the platform. It just escaped me. But the discussion boards are there. It is a way for us to connect with each other to ask questions. If you have a question about an APH product, if you have a question about how to use something, this is a great resource. It is definitely new and so we are working on building the amount of resources in there as well as the communications going back and forth. But you do have access to both outreach specialists as well as product specialists at APH. Through your posting in the hide. So if you have some questions or you have an idea for something or you want to figure out the best way to implement a chameleon with a student. You can definitely come in here and you can access all of the information that is here. We have recently started using these on our webinars in events. And so the last webinar that we hosted was on the monarch. And you can see that we have quite a few back and forth conversations there. Anybody that's already on here are a part of the hive and taken a course yet.

>>Donna: I have, I'm hoping some other folks are getting on there soon because the courses are really good. I think I've finished 2 or 3 courses now. And they're really I love the follow up because If you just have something that I'm listening to or watching. You can kind of check out at times. And so I really like the follow up activities.

>>Stephanie: Yes, and I'll tell you my experience when I started at APH and it gives away a few a few things about me in that but I'm very much multitask because that's the way my brain works and so I started taking these courses in the background and they're made up of short videos and you watch the video and then you answer some questions about it. And if your mind wanders while you're multitasking and you've missed parts of the video, there is a possibility that you might struggle. And completing the questions and the follow-up activity at the end. And so these things were done. With the thought that you really have to Take in that knowledge and show that knowledge at the end of it. And I can usually pass. Multiple choice tests pretty easily, but. I did have to go back and rewatch a few videos that first week I started at APA.

>>Donna: And Elizabeth says she wasn't aware of the hive, but is gonna look into it. And Julia says she took the course on Braille Legos and got a ton of lesson ideas and that it was very helpful.

>>Stephanie: Awesome.

>>Donna: Awesome, Julia. Thank you.

>>Stephanie: Good, good. I think that it's going to even, it's just going to become a stronger resource as it grows and it's a great way for us to support teachers in the field and learning new technology. As well because you can really take that piece of technology along with the short course and learn it together. So it's really neat. The other thing I want to make you aware of is that we Record all of our access academies. Our partner showcases any of the webinars that we do we record and we archive them on our YouTube channel. One secret is we also record, quite a bit from our annual meeting as well and archive it on the YouTube channel. There are a couple in annual meetings that were held virtually. So if you've never been to an annual meeting at APH and you wanted to kind of see what it's all about. That's a great place to go and see what types of things we share during that. It's a very unique It's not really a conference, but it is at the same time. And so it's a very unique opportunity you have to see. Not only, APH and the products and services we have, but also, be a part of the thought process that goes into producing those products. And as we move forward. So it is a great opportunity. The YouTube channel archives all of our themes. You don't get any credit from watching YouTube recorded content. It is just there for your knowledge and your resource. A couple of things that I thought you might be interested. One was just recorded and it has been uploaded to YouTube. We had a partner showcase. I think it was last week where Elizabeth Whitaker from the Sparrow shared with us the software updates for the Fusion Suite, 2,024. And so that is archived online and available for you to watch. There were some really neat updates that they did to the Fusion Sweet this last time. They've added split. Braille as a part of Jaws. You, they've also added this really neat face view. Camera properties as a part of Jaws where you can use it to center your face. And kind of know what is happening on Zoom and other webinar type. So it's really neat. There's an option now for an inverted mouse pointer and a single wedge cursor in a single wedge cursor is kind of like a big triangle that helps you know where your cursor is. And of course, we also share all of the wonderful training resources that this Farrow and Freedom Scientific have to offer when it comes to looking at the fusion and those updates. So that is one of the big things that has come out and happened recently. Okay.

>>Donna: That is awesome stuff. The new updates. I always worry what's gonna come in those new updates. So that's awesome. That's that is available and the training stuff from Freedom Scientific. I've put that on my site. So if you guys, wanna link to their teaching. Jaws trainings for teachers. Those are available on my site too.

>>Stephanie: In January and of course I did not get the exact date when I pulled this down. I thought it had it on it, but it does not. In January, we have a partner showcase over using the Pix Blaster. Blaster. I believe there are some software updates that are going along with the Yeah, fix blaster. Excuse me, that's a ton twister for me today. And the tactile software suite that comes along with it. And so I wanted to share that with you that way you know that that partner showcase is coming available. In January and be on the lookout. If you can't watch it live and you have a Pix Blaster and you want to know what's going on, you can always be on the lookout for the recording. Usually it's posted about a week afterwards. And for some reason I want to say it's like around January seventeenth maybe. I wish I'd written that down. Alright, some products and I kind of group these according to. Whether they were Braille products, whether they were the vision products and then our coding products or separately. We do have some product updates and some some changes and things that have come out but if you have any specific questions please please ask them. If And if you have any specific questions about a certain product and you. If even if I don't have it in here. We can talk about it. So I wanted to start with Braille buzz and probably less because of the Braille Buzz B. You can order the B. It has content for ages 2 to 5. There are individual alphabet keys. Kind of hard to see, but each heck. Hexagon there has Braille letters in it. There's a Perkin style keyboard. It has 3 play modes. It is kind of, it is, is there to learn and play with Grail for very early Grail learners. But what goes along with it is we have a Braille Buzz app. And so the app has the same content that's on the brow, was B, but it's on a. IOS or an Android device and you pair that device. With a braille display like the chameleon in order to access it. There are 2 major updates that have come, with our apps, especially this app. In the last year. The first update has come recently where all of our apps available in iOS and Android are now available for free. So if you want to check them out, you can go download them all and they do not cost any money anymore. So they are all free. You can download them straight from the app store. There are quite a few out there that you can try and play with. And this is one of those. The other is that we recently did an update to make the Braille bus app available in Spanish. So if you have a Braille learner that is is a Spanish speaker and you need something in Spanish to help support that learning. And you might want to look at the Braille Buzz app to see if it would be appropriate. Then the other new tool that we have out. . For Learning Braille, Early Learning Braille is the poly and the Holly has 2 large Braille cells in the bottom in the top left-hand side. It does have a voice and speakers and it has a standard 6 cell Braille display on the right hand side. Your twin large rail cells actually. You're able to pop them up and down. There are some games involved where you actually. Pop. And pop themselves up and down based on the numbers of the cell as you're learning. It has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It has a standard like the standard Braille keyboard. As well as a digital Braille slate. And so this is something that maybe you haven't had much with but they can actually also practice with the slight and stylus with the poly. The poly comes along with a application called helios and heliosis where you as a teacher have the ability to add in. Words to assign lessons to see a student's progress on let it lessons and to take data. Some of the games that are included are Whack-a-rail, Wakaki, Letter race and bloom pop. Trying to think if there's anything else I've forgotten to tell you about the polity. Has anybody gotten to use the poly yet? If you have a chance, we do have a webinar that has been recorded on POLY and it does feature one of our North Texas students who got to play with the poly and had a lot of fun with it. If you if you end up with one and you have any questions or need some help setting up Helios or any of that, be sure to reach out because we're here here to help support you with that. And then moving along in our in our Braille support, we have the mantis Q. 40. And both the chameleon and the mantis have had a reason. Update. And that they did talk about in a webinar recently. I think it was also last week that they talked about it. And so they have added sticky keys for the mantis which works in one-handed mode. Similar to what you have on Windows. There is now in LS Braille and an additional voice options for the chameleon. So on the mantis, the biggest differences between the mantis and the chameleon is the mantis has a quarti keyboard and the mantis has no audio. We are researching to see if there are ways to add audio, but, right now it has no, it's not made with an audio jack. And the Bluetooth capabilities may or may not be to the standard we need to add Bluetooth audio. But it does have a query keyboard. It can be paired and it has some very paired down note-taker things. Like. Like word in those types of things. To write in, but it does not have all of the apps that a note taker would have. It is very good and in terminal mode when you pair it with another. And then we have the chameleon. Which has 20 piezoelectric Braille keys and router keys. There's 16 GB of storage. It does have an SD in its thumb drive. It also has a paired down note taker in the local mode. And it has terminal modes as well. And the chameleon does have text to speech. And that was part of what was updated in this last update was additional voices. So if you have a student who is using the chameleon. That might be a good activity to go in and look at what voices were added and can you practice wishing those out? Along with, our Braille theme here, we also have a newly released interactive web-based training program. It is a free website. It is meant to train. Adults sighted adults. Or cited individuals in learning Braille. It is not. It is more closely aligned to how we learned Braille when we took Braille as teachers of students with visual impairments. It is not aligned to how you would teach Braille to a student. And so that's the biggest piece. It is fully accessible. It is fully accessible. And Has some instructional best practices in it. It has some resources that you can use. For For your students. It has some assessments and things that are embedded in it. So I know that they are making some updates and changes to it after getting in touch with literacy, but it's another free, wonderful resource. And I like sharing free resources. The other. Thing that I wanted to share and the last thing in the Braille resources area. Specifically, other than the monarch, which is a little bit later in the presentation, I don't know why it ended up later, we can move it up. So the Braille blaster transcription and software has also undergone a major update. So version 2.1 actually launched last week. It isn't a major overhaul of how Braille Blaster functions and it in improves a lot of things including file hand handling and editing. So it is it is the first of many updates I'm sure to begin laying the groundwork for EBRF files or EBRL files. And for the monarch in the future. So I have been told. I have not personally seen. The changes in the update. There have been a lot of updates in the last 2 weeks. And I haven't had a chance to check them all out yet, but Braille Blaster, I have been told that has quite a few major updates. So when you update your Braille Blaster, you might see some changes. If you don't have Braille Blaster, it's something you might want to look into because it's an absolutely free transcription software. And so it is a resource for teachers.

>>Donna: Real Bluster is very handy along with the tactile image library, my favorite 2 tools.

>>Stephanie: Yes, and what we're while we're here, we will just bring up the tactile image library and talk about that as well. So in order to get to the Tacto Image Library, you will go down to Tacto Literacy Tools under Educational Resources in the APH homepage. That will lead you to where it says search image library. When you hit search image library, it will bring you up. Into the tactile graphic image library. You do need to log in to sign in to the tactile graphics image library. But it is free and it is easy to sign up. So you would just hit register account, fill out the information and get your own login for it.

>>Donna: And I didn't mean to rush you there, Stephanie. That is just That is just one of my favorite tools and anytime I can mention it.

>>Stephanie: There's no rush, I just don't wanna forget.

>>Donna: Is a benefit.

>>Stephanie: Well, and it's one of my favorite tools to only because I I have this deep. Deep embedded hatred for recreating the wheel. We have enough to do as teachers as students with visual impairments that we do not need to do again with somebody else's already done. And so, it is that big thing. That it's just a way that you can really try to save some time and we can share resources. I expect to see the tactile image library grow as we began to develop and create resources specifically for the monarch. Moving forward. And for those of you that may not know, the monarch, which I have and can show you today. Has the ability to immediately access the tactile image library without going through the login process, you can bring up any image in the tactile image library. And see it immediately on the monarch. I will say some images. Translate to the monarch better than other images. So be prepared for that. We're still learning all of these specific specifications we need. To get the best image on the monarch. So when you get into the tactile in graphics image library, you have several resources. One of them is threed models. And one way you might use this if you don't have a threed printer yourself. At which most teachers, visually, teachers of students with visual impairments do not have their own threed parenters. Typically, your CTE center at your school or somewhere in your computer science area will have some sort of three-D printer. And so you might reach out there. And then again, you may have to reach out to your ESC to see if they have a three-D printer and they might have one as well. But these are threed files to print off. That go along with different resources from APH. So you can print a slate, a Death Line pocket communicator. There are parts and pieces that may go missing from different different kits or different products that we have that you could just print a piece. So there is a digital talking book cover. I'm not that we use this a whole lot, but there are joy player buttons. That you've been threed print those types of things it's really neat

>>Donna: If the, this is Donna, if. There's CTE department doesn't have one. There are maker groups. That are sometimes clubs within the school. And local libraries a lot of times have maker spaces. Or local community centers.

>>Stephanie: Yes. The libraries as soon as you said makerspaces, my mind went, oh yeah, I forgot to tell them. Now, sometimes you can go to the library and get something threed printed in your area too. It's just going to depend on where you are. And what resources are around, but it's getting easier and easier to find those resources. For me, I have to go across the street and take my neighbors and cookies and say, could you pretty please print this for me because believe it or not people actually play with them around the house too. And other areas that you might want to explore are activities and games. So. This leads great into the monarch. There is a chessboard, chess pieces. There are bingo boards, different things like that that you can use. And let's go into the chess board. And when we view the chess board, you can see what it looks like. And you have the ability to create a PPF. Which is something that you could print and use the thermoform. Or a. Donna? Peter, thank you.

>>Donna: Yes, P off. Picture in a flash or for those of us that are old school toaster. Yeah. It's the Braille toaster.

>>Stephanie: Okay. Toaster. There we go. Yes, and you can send that through, you know, if you printed on that paper, you can send it through, and have it raise it for you. You can also, download it. As the original, which is typically a PDF, I believe. You can download a preview, you can download a thumbnail of it. We downloaded the chessboard PDF. And there it is. And there are also, I believe, embossers that will print from the tactile image graphics library as well. That information when you need it. Comes down to Production method page and it will go through how you can use the tactile image library. It with the different types of embossers or doing collage graphics and those types of things. So just know that that information is there under the product. Production method page. Vendor contact APH. You can contact TG feedback if there's a tactile graphics or image. That you would like for them to add to the library, you can request that certain images be added to the library as well.

>>Donna: This is Donna. I know we're running. We've got about 15 min left, but there's the math section in the science section of the graphics library that I used a ton because those are images that we use. All the time and we're having to remake them. So I loved the science and math section. I spend a lot of time there.

>>Stephanie: Yes, yes, I would definitely recommend that if you have some something that you are really looking and some different things that you might need coming up to go go explore this resource. It really does have quite a few things that you can look at. Alright. We are gonna quickly jump back and I am gonna go through. The road to code. With APH resources because there are some very neat opportunities becoming available in as we build our coding products. So on the screen we have a chart and it starts with early childhood and all the way through late adulthood with some ideas of how you might embed coding at which age levels. In early childhood, we look at code and go mouse as well as the codequest app. Middle late childhood, we look at code jumper. Coach jumper puzzles and then we are working on the tactile electronics builder. I do not believe that it is out yet, but it is in its final stages. Then as you get older, we have the Stapino. The RC snap road over the brick structures and then I have a little a little sample I can show you of the coding module that is going to be going with code jumper. It is an update to the code jumper application that allows you to take what they. Code and code jumper and translate it into Python so that you can take that very tangible code that they put together in code jumper and using block coding and see what it looks like. Python. And of course the tactile electronics builder. And then finally we're working on the coding box and of course tactile electronics builder encoding box may not be their final name when they're ready to come out for the public. But we are working on building things to really advance. And keep kids coding because we have recognized that that is definitely an area in which we could improve. The employability of our students and our adults. So let's start with code and go mouse. Coding go mouse is APH adapted a commercial material so it is something that may already be used in a classroom for early childhood coding. So it lends itself very, very much to UDL practice, but along with it it has some diagrams and, very much to UDL practice. But along with it, it has some diagrams and some supports that you can use. Codquest is an application in the app store. I will tell you that it also has a set of diagrams that you can order or emboss yourself, I believe. And that makes it fully accessible if you're. Completely blind. The app itself is accessible, but it's kind of hard to map it out without the actual tactile graphic that goes with it. Wow. Sorry about that, guys. I'm gonna go through these very quickly because I know we're running out running at lower on time. The RC snap rover access kit is another, another commercially available. Product that has been adapted by APH and then our own we actually had a Texas teacher share at coding symposium which you will be able to find in on the YouTube channel. And share how she uses the Snap Rover access kit when she works with students who are working on their orientation and mobility. Using the grid to really work through and track and and kind of combining some map skills with the process of going through and making this rover. And then driving the rover and completing things rover and then driving the rover and completing things with it later. So it is a very neat kit in itself. Going along. Awesome.

>>Donna: Stephanie, we have a question in the chat. That what it what have you had the best luck with for a student that's blind and deaf Elizabeth are you asking about coding in particular?

>>Elizabeth: And you know, just in general.

>>Donna: Just in general.

>>Elizabeth: But the student that I've had, we use a lot of smells. Obviously, in addition to attack, Kyle and Grell, would expose them to and stuff of that sort, but. We want to smell so they could associate like maybe a person or a routine activity with it. And I was just kind of curious with all the tools and other stuff you guys. Been exposed to which it sounds like much more than myself if there's something you've come across that maybe I haven't used that you've had good luck with. That's some rich to students life in some way or helped with lesson planning.

>>Donna: Well, I will let Stephanie answer some of that, but I will let you know that in March we are having 3 sessions specifically on ketos who are blind and deaf so deaf blind. Sessions that are going to be 3 of our Death Fund Outreach team. So definitely sign up for those in March and we'll cover a lot of Cool stuff on those 3 days, but I'll let hand it back over to Stephanie for, any APH. Type questions there.

>>Stephanie: So that is that is definitely a difficult question and it's difficult because it really depends on the amount of vision and the amount of hearing that this student has. If they are a student that that is operating at a lower level. And they have a good amount of. You might look at the joy player. But it is an auditory based device. So if their hearing is not, fairly well that they can access this device, then it may not be the best one for them. But it really depends on whether they're primary, primarily textual primary. Primarily not. To tell you the truth I have not done a lot of research yet about AP H's products, specifically for Deaf Line. When I was out in the field, I would do my learning media assessment and really determine, what they needed. And then I would carefully choose products that would allow them to access materials. Based on their individual needs. So it might be something like a mantis and that you can pair with an iPad and the reason I say a Mantis is a Mantis has a quarti keyboard which lowers the the threshold a little bit for teachers in the classroom. And so you could open a notes document on an iPad or another tablet and a teacher could type something and then the student could read it and they could type back and you could have a back and forth communication using something like that. We of course saw the deadline pocket communicator in the threed image library that also exists as a product I believe that you can purchase. It's pretty simple in that it is a static device that doesn't it doesn't change or move it's just used to communicate very clear. Very clear communication back and forth when there is that communication level. Donna, can you think of anything else that I might have forgotten there?

>>Donna: You covered that so well and what I will say is that in March those 3 sessions with Hillary Rachel and Casey are going to be phenomenal sessions. So definitely Elizabeth sign up for those sessions and come visit us on those 3 days.

>>Stephanie: And I will vouch, Hillary and Casey, I both worked with very closely and they would be who I would call. For my questions. So definitely go listen to them. So one of the things I wanted to show you because this is kind of a preview that came out of annual meeting. Is the code jumper module that is about to go into field testing. This is part of why I wanted to show it to you right now. Is that on the left hand side of the screen you can see the block coding that happens when you put the code jumper pieces together. If you haven't seen a code jumper pieces, they are pods that you can't see the coach jumping pieces they are pods that you connect together to build code and so each podcast, they are pods that you connect together to build code. And so each pod, you have your base pod and in each pods is a block of code. And so each pod, you have your base pod and in each of the other pods is a block of code. And so students have the tactile coding pod that they can use. Along with it puts the code on the screen and you can navigate it. Along with that, what they're working on is a translation. So on the right hand side of this screen, you can see, let me see if I can zoom in. Here's my tools. You can really see. And that it has taken and it shows the words for like Playpod, Pospod, Loop Plaid. But when you actually put those pods in, it translates it into Python. And if you go anything about Python coding, it matters where you're indents are and all of those different things. So they have really worked very hard. On making that translation from block coding to Python. So that students can really make that transition in their knowledge base and take that very tactical hands-on approach to coding and then see what it looks like. On the other side of things. And then our hope is that at something like the monarch, which we'll talk about in just a minute. And can allow students to actually see those lines of code. Multiple lines of code on one device. And see the structure of that. And spacing that happens with Python to help them better understand those skills. It really is a neat update that we expect. To see. And along with that, I want to tell you about it's an opportunity that goes with it. And I like taking people back to the homepage because I never knew where to find anything at all ever on AP H's homepage. That is, I own that. It was difficult for me and I never knew and the search never took me to the right spot. So I want to make sure I show you some of my favorite spots and I have to say probably my favorite tab is the R&D tab. Because I'm a geek and I like the research and development part of things. And so the very first link under that is get involved. And this is where you are going to see. All of our calls for field testers. You're gonna see all of our surveys that are coming out typically the surveys will give you a clue as to what products or what areas of the products we are looking at developing. APH is charged by the federal government with developing a certain number of new products every year. And our products have to be unique. They can't be commercially based. They can't be available out in in the wide open world. And so you unless we make it and have them make it special for us. It's it's not something that we can sell. So something like the chameleon, which is also sold by human wear. The chameleon actually has specifications that have been put forth specifically for APH. So we're actually collecting right now in the deadline is December 20 eighth. It is the code jumper. Interest form to be a field tester for this new Let's go back. For this new. This new part of code jumper, which takes it and turns it to Python. So I'm gonna drop that in the chat so that if you are interested in doing that, you can be a part of it. You do not need to have code jumper or any experience with code jumper in order. To apply to be a field tester.

>>Donna: Sometimes it's better to have those non experience with so you get that. Beginning feedback.

>>Stephanie: Yes, we try to really get a good spattering of people so we get lots of feedback. So we have experienced and not experienced. All at the same time.

>>Donna: We've got about 5 min.

>>Stephanie: So we are gonna skip. I'm gonna encourage you when you leave today to look at this research and development tab because it's awesome where you can put in ideas for new new products. As well as where you can put in information about a product that may not be working flight so well. Let's go back real quick and talk about the monarch. Because this is something that everybody is super excited about coming up. So the monarch is a refreshable Braille display. It has 10 lines of 32 Braille characters. Depends on the refresh on the monarch are actually equal distance in low in location so it's a little different from your polytechnic pins. That you see on the other devices. These are equidistants, which means it really looks like a grid. It changes some of this facing just a little bit. Pakes a little bit to get used to as a Braille reader. But it also allows you as a teacher some additional options like increasing the spacing in between lines and it's increasing the spacing in between words or letters. So it's really neat that we have more options with this. It does have Touch sensors@single.heights a Braille keyboard input and I. I am going to switch real quick because I'm sure that everybody really just wants to see. The monarch in action if at all possible. So we are going, oops, I close the meeting chat. So if I missed something, let me know, Donna. So I'm gonna take this back to the home venue. Right, and I'm going to switch my camera. So that you can kind of see the monarch on the screen and you can see that I have it zoomed in. It is about the size of a gaming laptop. Weighs about 5 pounds. It has a wonderful awesome battery that lasts all day. We have tested it. It not only lasts all day to power the monarch, but it will power the monarch and an external screen. What you're seeing in my video is the picture of the monarch display and what you're seeing on the screen is the virtual display. It is built off of the Braille note touch. Interface and so all of your shortcut keys and everything that you know with brown that touch they all carry over to the monarch. And the newest feature that I've gotten to play with. And that everybody really asked about lately is is the math feature and it's brand new and I have not turned on the lines yet but I would like to show you a little bit about it. So I'm going to press in. Because M is the first. Is the first letter in map. And that's going to take us into key math. On the screen you will see. A background of several different equations as well as a gridded line with graphs. On the right hand side. On the monarch, you can only see the equations right now. So there is a green box. Around the equation that is highlighted and that green box is goes along with your cursor on the monarch. So it actually will take you right back to where where that focus is on the mon monarch. And in order to see the graph on the monarch, I'm going to press a G and enter. Yeah. And now you can see the graph. Here and we have the opportunity to scroll up. Scroll down. I don't have my grid lines, my X and Y accesses or my grid lines turned on yet. I actually just did this update on my monarch this morning and have been playing with it enough so that I could show you how the math function works. It was, I think, Wednesday of this week. That was just yesterday, wasn't it? That we discovered that there was an update. So fought off the press. The neat part about this is actually that it, is It's hosted off of the Des most platforms. So it really is a neat opportunity for us to integrate and have some new tools available for students. And of course I talked the whole time and so I'm sorry. I hope We don't have too many questions.

>>Donna: Well, while we're getting to those questions or we give folks times to type into those questions. I've put where your handouts and this recording will be. Once we get all that finished and wrapped up also links for suggestions for an upcoming, T times if you have any suggestions. There is a new 9 month virtual program for college aspiring high school students. Through Perkins called Compass. So there's information on that. And there's also a link for TAER Awards and scholarships. So if you want to. Nominate anyone. For an award or scholarship through TAR or come check us out and join us. You know, shameless plug for, board members of TAE right now. Come on to that quick mark your calendar January is going to be CVI months. So we have 3 CVI or 2 CBI sessions including a parent TSBI perspective, which is pretty cool. We've got Belinda coming in. She is a TSBI and a parent of a student with visual impairments. So we're going to get kind of that dual perspective. In February, we're going to talk behavior with Lane Pethick, Emily Leeper. We have Texas focus that month and then we're gonna talk about mammoth curriculum. So mark those times for you. Let's see. And did we get that question?

>>Stephanie: We didn't get any questions, but you said something that reminded me. I put a link in there.

>>Donna: Okay.

>>Stephanie: We actually have an award opportunity open from the National Coating Symposium for students. So it's a scholarship opportunity if anybody's interested.

>>Donna: Awesome. And there is a new scholarship opportunity from AE R that just hit my mailbox. So definitely check out AE R and TAER and those who want the code for today. It is 3 4 1 3 3 7. That's 3, 4, 1, 3, 3, 7. Thanks again, Stephanie, for coming in and filling us in about what's going on at APH. And everybody have a wonderful holiday.

>>Stephanie: Thank you to those of you that spent your time so close to Christmas with us. I hope that you have a great holiday.

>>Donna: That ARE just hit my mailbox. Oh, it went through the STEM post. That's why it hit my mailbox. The Posby STEM. Thread