Accessible Instructional Materials This video is posted online with the following chapter markers: Chapter 1. Accessible Instructional Materials Chapter 2. Texas Road Map for Accessible Instructional Materials Chapter 3. Determination of Materials Chapter 4. Resources Description of graphical content is included between Description Start and Description End. Transcript Start [Music] Fade up from black. Animation: Text for TSBVI transform into braille cells for TSBVI. [Music face out] Fade to black. Chapter 1. Accessible Instructional Materials Cecilia: Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to this webinar, entitled Accessible Instructional Materials, what TVIs need to know. My name is Cecilia Robinson and I am going to be talking with you a few topics as related to Accessible Instructional Materials. On the next slide, you will see there are a few topics. What is Accessible Instructional Materials? And then we will talk a little bit the acquisition of Accessible Instructional Materials. How do we get that. And then we will would like to take a look at making decisions. How do you decide what specialized format for your students and for what subjects and a few resources we will be looking at as well. Before we begin, if you can write in the chat and let us know who you are. If you are a TVI or certified orientation and mobility specialist, a parent, an assistive technology specialist, administrator, paraeducator, related services staff or other. And I just want to know who I am speaking to. All right. It seems like we have a combination of TVIs and some orientation and mobility specialists. And we also have maybe an administrator or two. And we have some people from Texas and some from other states. And we have a combination of everybody. So thank you for doing that. I appreciate it. All right. So now that I know who I am speaking to, we are going to go into Accessible Instructional Materials. Accessible Instructional Materials, in special education, we might refer to that as AIM. Which is the short form for Accessible Instructional Materials. However, if you are from another state, you may be using another term which is Accessible Educational Materials. Why do we want to talk about Accessible Instructional Materials or Accessible Educational Materials? The reason is is in the IDEA 2004. And what the law says is that it requires that core instructional materials be provided in a timely manner and specialized format when needed by students with disabilities. So let's take a look at the core instructional materials. That means, your textbook materials and associated materials that go with that textbook. The timely manner means when a student with visual impairment is sitting in the same class, he or she is going to receive the textbook at the same time when other sighted students are receiving their textbooks. In specialized formats, there are four specialized formats. And we are going to take look at that in the next few slides. On the slide, you can see a few pictures. And there is a picture of a large print materials at the bottom. [ Slide start: ] Described by speaker At the top left is-- I am sorry, at the top left is large print materials. Going down is the Braille materials. And then next to it, next to going across from the large print is the digital materials. And then the bottom right is audio materials. So these are the four formats. It is Braille, large print, audio and digital text. [ Slide end: ] So let's take a look at the next slide which says Braille. Braille is a literacy medium. It represents text, numbers, punctuation, signs and symbols. Braille can be provided in a hard copy format or in an electronic format. When it is in an electronic format, that means you can read the Braille using a refreshable Braille display. Whereas in a hard copy format, you can see the entire page of Braille all on one page. So let's go ahead and take a look at large print. Large print materials is enlarged regular print sized materials. It helps a student with low vision with reading the materials frequently. And usually it is about 18 points or larger. However, the readability really depends on the font type, the use of white space and other features such as bolding, underlining, italicizing and a lot has to do with how the materials are being arranged on that page. APH, American Printing House for the Blind has some guidelines for prints document design. In your handout, you can click on the link and it will take you to American Printing House for the Blind site and you can take a look at some of the suggested guidelines for making a print document fully accessible for the ease of reading. And the next resource on that is the APHont, APHont. I don't know if you can see it but the web address for APHont is written in APHont. Whereas the address for APH guidelines for print design is written in just regular Microsoft fonts. And I want to make a point out of this is that APHont is a free download from the American Printing House for the Blind. And it is especially designed font created by people with low vision. So on the screen you can see a little bit of the difference but the biggest impact on the APHont, I think, is when you print it out on a hard copy. You can see the differences. And I want to point this out because sometimes when we TVIs provide large print materials for our students, it may or may not really facilitate their ease of reading. However, if there is a font that is created specifically for people like them, with low vision, you might want to try it and see if it makes a difference for your student. So the slide on there, you have the regular Microsoft font and you also have APHont as a reference. The next one will address audio files. Nowadays, audio files are available in several formats. They are basically sound files. And some of the files may not include text. So therefore, when you have a book as an audio file, you may see the chapters listed on the computer if you are using it or on your tablet if you are using a tablet to read the book. But when you click on it, there is no text and it is just sound and it will start reading to you. Nowadays, the audio files, you can use it on different devices such as your phone, your tablet, your computers. You can download the file from the internet and save it on a USB drive so there are many ways for to you use audio files. The next specialized format is digital text. Digital text is usually referred to as electronic text or eText. It has visual and auditory supports and it is available in many formats as well. Such as HTML, EPUB and more. And again, it will work with specialized software and hardware. Nowadays, in the picture on the slide you see a little picture of a cloud. Nowadays you can really do a lot of things, save your information in the cloud and then go to the cloud to get the materials as well. So that is another format for the specialized formats. Chapter 2. Texas Road Map for Accessible Instructional Materials So now that you know about the four specialized formats, the question you might be asking is, now what? What do I do? How do I get accessible materials for my student who may need it? In the next few slides, we are going to look at the Texas roadmap. And in your slides, you will see a little bits and chunks of the Texas roadmap that is on your slide. But there is also a PDF format of the Texas roadmap that you can download as well. The Texas roadmap is created for use in Texas. And it is the Texas process for acquiring Accessible Educational Materials. If you are from another state or you are not from the United States, you may have a similar process. And if you will bear with us and follow along, just know that the next few slides pertains mainly to the Texas process. However your state might have some similar process and guidelines as well. The roadmap is really a visual GPS for Texas folks to navigate through the system to get Accessible Instructional Materials. And there are two routes. One is eligibility. Who qualifies for Accessible Instructional Materials? And then the other way is get the materials directly from the publishers. Let's take a look at the next slide which is the full roadmap. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Texas Road Map for Accessible Instructional Materials Content: Figure 8: Picture of Texas Road Map for Accessible Instructional Materials Description End: And again, if you don't have that map yet, you can also go to the Texas assistive technology network website and download that map. So this is the entire map. And I just want to point out that on the left side is the copyright eligibility. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Texas Road Map for Accessible Instructional Materials Content: Figure 9: Picture of partial Road Map showing Eligibility 1 and 2. Description End: And it goes down the same color, the salmon color, it goes down and in the center is a little bit of description about print disability. The blue that says Braille, large print, audio and digital text, that is the specialized format and then it tells you where to get it. So you see on the Texas roadmap eligibility, the first one is blind persons with visual acuity that is over 200 or less in the better eye. And then there is also the acuity of less than 20 degrees. The second eligibility is persons with a visual disability with correction and regardless of what the optical measurement might be, is certified by the competent authority as preventing the reading of standard printed material. So I just want to make a note of there is a little asterisk by competent authority. [ Slide end: ] So let's go on to the next slide. Let's finish that. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Texas Road Map for Accessible Instructional Materials Content: Figure 9: Figure 10: Picture of partial Road Map showing Eligibility 3, 4 and explanation of “competent authority” Description End: The third eligibility is for the people certified by the competent authority to read or enable to use the standardized printed materials as a result of the physical limitation. So the third eligibility is related to the physical limitation. And the fourth eligibility is related to a person certified by a competent authority. And notice that are two asterisks by that, as having a reading disability resulting from organic dysfunction and so on. So on that slide, if you go across in the case of blindness and disability and so on, the competent is your doctor or your ophthalmologist and others from agencies as well. Disability resulting from an organic dysfunction and the competent authority defined as doctors of medicine who my consult with colleagues in associated disciplines. [ Slide end: ] Just know that the fourth one may not have a lot to do with students you are working with who have a visual impairment. So those are the eligibility that will provide whether a student qualifies for Accessible Instructional Materials or not. On the next slide is the print disability. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Texas Road Map for Accessible Instructional Materials Content: Figure 11: Picture of partial Road Map showing Print Disability Description End: The print disability as defined by IDEA says that children served under this part who may qualify to receive books and other publications produced in specialized formats in accordance with the act entitled an act to provide books for adult blind, and then there is the date. And a citation. [ Slide end: ] If you have a copy of the Texas roadmap, the print disability chunk is in the center. And then it references the act to provide books for adult blind. That one goes back to the top left corner, the copyright eligibility as specified on that Texas roadmap. So are there any questions about eligibility and print disability so far? And we are not done with the Texas map but I just want to see before I go on, do you have any questions or comments about the eligibility and the print disability portion of the Texas roadmap? And you are welcome to type it in chat if you do. I don't think I see anything. So I am going to move on. However if you think of something, please feel free to write it in the chat. Even if I cannot answer it right away today, I will follow through giving you responses after the webinar. On the next slide, you will see the Texas roadmap AIM process. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Texas Road Map for Accessible Instructional Materials Content: Figure 12: Picture of partial Road Map showing process for acquiring AIM Description End: And what you are seeing there are those four blue items that tells you the specialized formats, which are Braille, large print, audio and digital text. For Texas, you can-- if you follow the arrows down, you can contact the Texas Education Agency. The web link is on there. And if the books-- I mean the textbooks, if they are state adopted textbooks, you can contact the textbook division at the Texas Education Agency and order those books for your students. And then if you are doing audio or digital text, you can order it from Texas Education Agency. You can also work with the authorized users which is highlighted in green. Book share and Learning Ally are the authorized users for Texas. [ Slide end: ] You can also access some of their books on their website to see if it is available. So sometimes students may have supplemental reading materials that may not be really-- that came along with the textbook. So for those additional reading materials, you can contact book share or Learning Ally to see if they have those books. Let's go to the next slide. We are still continuing the Texas roadmap. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Texas Road Map for Accessible Instructional Materials Content: Figure 13: Screenshot of TEA website for Accessible Instructional Materials Description End: The AIM process, now-- and when you click on the web link for Texas Education Agency, you will come to that page. And there is a screen shot of what it would look like. And make sure that will you become familiar with that web page for people who are in Texas. Know where to contact Texas Education Agency, if you need any Accessible Instructional Materials. [ Slide end: ] Just a reminder that if you have a student who is using Braille textbooks, please contact Texas Education Agency as early as possible so that they will know that they need to produce the Braille textbooks for your students. And as most of you already know, Braille textbooks takes a little bit more time to create. So as much ahead of time as you give the textbook division at Texas Education Agency, the better it will be. So there is the Texas Education Agency's landing page. And then if you need to contact book share, then you can-- for Texas, there is accessible books for Texas. Texas is so big. I appreciate book share for creating a separate website for our Texas schools and teachers. So there is an accessible book for Texas. If you are from another state, you might-- when you click on the book share website, you might see a different picture. But the picture you have on your PowerPoint that you are seeing is for the Texas website. Let's take a look at Learning Ally. Learning Ally also has a specific page for the Texas schools. So again, this is for the Texas schools. And if you are from another state or from another country, you might be seeing a different landing page when you click on Learning Ally. To recapture what we have gone through so far, so now you know that the Texas-- for the authorized users, you can contact them for the supplemental or additional materials. And then for the textbooks that are state adopted, Texas Education Agency will provide those books to your students. But you need to contact Texas Education Agency as early as possible for Braille textbooks. Let's take a look at the next line. So what if your district is not using state adopted materials, textbooks and things like that, what do you do? An option is you can purchase those materials directly from the publisher. I want to say that sometimes you may need to work with your curriculum department and through your district to find out if the materials that your district is using which are not state adopted, whether they are accessible or not. So there might be a little bit of homework for TVIs for you to do. But make sure you follow the chain of command that your district has with the communication and find out how to make the textbook materials as accessible for your specific students. I want to point out that American Printing House for the Blind is an accessible media provider. And there is a web link on there for you to take a look at what is going on with their accessible media page and what they do. And the second bullet talks about if possible, ask about accessibility prior to a purchase. This is awfully important for you to remember if your district is not going to use any state adopted materials. The reason is, you might want to ask about accessibility of the upcoming purchase if you can to find out what is accessible too. See if you can get a sample from the publisher to see what their files might be like or if your district is ordering the hard copy, what is the hard copy like? Is there any way to make it accessible for your students with low vision or for your student who is totally blind? So if possible, I want to suggest make friends with your curriculum department. Find out who those folks are who are making decisions about purchasing of instructional materials. So you can work with them to see before a purchase whether the materials will be accessible or not. So something for you to think about. It is easy for me to say but I know sometimes it is a little bit more work on your side when you are in a district. Chapter 3. Determination of Materials Let's take a look at the next slide. Determination of materials. Now that you know the formats and you know where to get the books, how do you make determination of what type of format is needed for particular student for particular subject? Here is a question for you to think about. You can write it in chat or you don't have to. But I just want you to take a few seconds and think about what do you currently do to make decisions about the types of formats your student might need for a particular class or a set of classes? So why don't you take a few seconds to think about it. Jot a few notes for yourself. You don't have to write it in chat if you don't want to. And you are welcome to write it in chat if you want to. I see a response there that says, you used a learning media assessment to determine the type of materials that your student may need. All right. I hope you have written a few things down for yourself. So let's take a look at the next slide. The determination of materials. There are a few things to consider. The number one consideration is your student's needs. Can they use the materials? And then what about the recommendations from the ARD committee. In Texas, it is the ARD committee. And in other states it is the IEP team or the IEP committee. What does the IEP team or the ARD committee recommend? And then availability of the materials. Implementation and support. Most of our TVIs are working on an Itinerant basis. To use a certain format of materials, how do we do that? And when you are not physically there, can the student use the materials? And if the student comes across a challenge, will there be some help for the students? Parental involvement, always, is more successful if you can involve the parent in to helping the child access the materials at home as well. And then in different environments that the child has to be in, is the book going to be portable? Can the child use it on different devices? And then what are the available technologies for the child? Nowadays, many students have their own devices. I see a lot of student reading materials using their phones, on their tablets and so on. And because there are so many choices, I think sometimes we may want to think about whether it is the best for them to do to work in a most efficient way. But number one, going back to the slide is the first bulleted item, is your student's need. They are the center of the attention. The materials should be something that they can use. And that is accessible and useful for them. So with all of these things that I just mentioned, how do we do this? Let's go to the next slide and look at something called the AIM navigator. AIM remember it stands for Accessible Instructional Materials. And the navigator is an online tool to help you make some decisions. When you click on the web link, you will come to the landing page and it has a lot of information about the AIM navigator. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: AIM Navigator Content: Figure 17: Screenshot of AIM Navigator website Description End: What it does is it provides information on what each file format is like and also what does it do for your students. But most importantly, it gives you a way to document what the child's needs might be before you make decisions about what specialized format you will be using for your students. [ Slide end: ] If you are clicking along on your computer, which I am not going to do, you can get all kinds of information about the AIM navigator. And then what it does is after you fill in the online tool and if you have entered a working e‑mail address, then a summary of what you have entered online will be sent back to you. So you will have a summary of the needs and how you make decisions about the type of file formats that your student may need. My recommendation about using the AIM navigator is maybe use it as a self learning tool first. Find out what it does. And learn a little bit more about it if you are not completely familiar with it. Another way to use it is get a team together. I have come across several districts that would use this tool to get their IEP team together and then they together learn about the tool so that they can support one another. And also support the student when one is not on campus with the student. So it is a good tool to learn more about what these specialized file formats are and how do we know what we are choosing is actually appropriate and also useful for the student. So that is very quickly what the AIM navigator can do. So let me go to my computer and share with you a Word document that looks like this. On the AIM navigator, there is a way-- all of these forms are on the AIM navigator website. [Screen start:] AIM documents described by speaker On this form, you can see that it is titled appendix A, the student summary worksheet. So you can download this worksheet, write a few things about the student and write the team members, the role, contact information and so on. And determination of need. It has information to guide you to think about what the student's need might be. For example, number one, the student can gain information from print‑based educational materials used across the curriculum by all students. And number two, needs materials in a specialized format. Or number three, needs modified content or alternative materials. Then you go down and choose the statement that describes the student. And then you can write some information that led to the decision. This part is important. A lot of time as a TVI, we might be asked a question, how did you make that decision? I think it is better if we have documentation of how the decisions were made. And then I always like making the decision at least with one more person. So I am not the only person making that decision, just in case I am not seeing something that my colleague is seeing. So make sure you write some information down that leads to that decision, just in case you need to refer back to that later on. And then the selection of print materials. And then there is a space for you to write the subject and the title, the ISBN number and so on. The ISBN number, make sure you enter the student number because the number for the teacher edition and the student's edition might be a little bit different. And then the instructional content. And then it will help you to think about the text there-- the text there will help you think about the student environments and the tasks that the team needs to understand how the materials are going to be used so that you can help support the student. So now the next chunk is writing down the student's current needs, skills and preferences. The next chunk is environments in common the specialized formats will be used. Know that a lot of our older students may be changing from classroom to classroom. Or some of them may go to a different site all together during their school day as well. And then the task for which the specialized formats will be used. So what are they doing-- what are they required to do as compared to their sighted classmates? So you can write some information down and continuing on. Then you will write ‑‑ choose one of the radio buttons and keep going. And then if Braille is selected, which features will the student need to use to accomplish the task? And so on. I am not going to read through everything. And it will ask you the questions about each format. This is a good worksheet for you to use if you want to start practicing on what this navigator is all about. So now that you have to work sheets and so on, I am going to show you another Word document. This is a sample student summary. If you fill out the information online, this summary will be sent back to you if you have entered a working e‑mail address. A word about confidentiality. Some districts have very strict guidelines on how much information you can use when you go out to the internet and so on. So on this report, the sample student summary, you have Johnny Jones, grade 7, age 13. That part can be considered confidential information. So if you are doing this, using this tool online, make sure you come up with a way that you can still know which student it is without giving out all their confidential information about the student. But if you are working offline using to worksheets, then you can write down the information and not to share with the world about what you have entered on the worksheet. There is also information on the AIM website on how to do this offline as well. After you fill out to worksheet and so on, you can generate a report. And I am going to scroll down at like it has a chunk on the needs, what are the student's needs? Information that led to the decision and it will give you a summary and then the selection is talking about the student's current skills, needs and preferences. And then there is a narrative on the environment and task. If I am moving the text too fast on the screen, don't look at it in case I make you dizzy. Digital text audio. There is the information. Since large print is not needed and Braille is not needed, there is none. And now there is this part about the different subject areas. What is going to be digital, what is going to be audio. And if you have picked more, it will show up as well, like what subject will the student be using large print or Braille in and so on. The acquisition and it will tell you how to, where to get the materials. In Texas, a lot of the materials you may be able to get it from the Texas Education Agency. And then the use of the technology. What is the student going to use in order to access the materials? I am going to continue to scroll down a little bit. It also highlights a little bit about training. And then the last chunk is modifications and accommodations. So this is information that could help you generate a report if you have used to worksheet or if you have filled out the online tool. I am going go to one more Word document. And this form is also on the AIM navigator website. It is a to do list. You know, how many times have we walked out of a meeting and we don't have a to do list? But the AIM navigator is so complete that it will help you come up with a to‑do list form. Here is a to‑do list. And again, you write down the student's name and then you have action items. You write down what action and then who is going to be the lead for that action and follow‑up with that. And then by when. Usually by whom, I would want to suggest writing the lead person or highlighting the lead person for that task and follow through with that by when so that you will have a timeline. I want to suggest to use this as well. Just because sometimes we are all very busy and after you go to a meeting and make some decisions, you may not remember what has been talked about. But this will at least give you a summary of what actions need to be followed through and who will be the lead and by when. And I would also put a plea to the TVI, the teacher of students with visual impairments to be the lead for‑to be the lead to make sure that this whole form called to‑do list is being followed through and everybody is completing the tasks by the timeline which is by when. TVI you are that unique information to head up this effort and make sure everybody is doing it and following through with what is needed for the student. [Screen end:] So let me ask, are there any questions so far about the AIM navigator? The AIM navigator has a lot of information. What I am giving you is really a quick overview of what it can do for you. The nice thing about the AIM navigator, when you are stuck at a certain point, its will give you further information. If that is not enough, it will give you web links to go out and find more information. So it is really a very comprehensive tool and at the end of it, if you use it, it will give you a summary and written documentation on what is need for the student in the area of specialized formats and textbook materials for the child. So let me see. You are welcome to write in the chat if you have any questions about the AIM navigator. I see a comment about the Texas roadmap, acquisition of instructional materials for the chart. The most current version. Cecilia: The most current version. On the assistive technology network website is the-- it has the most current version. And the most current version that I could download when I was creating the PowerPoint was the one that was provided in the slide and was revised in April of 2013. That is it the most recent version I could find online. Are there any other comments or questions? Have you used the AIM navigator before? Either with somebody from your district who might have mentioned it to you? Okay. If you are not familiar with it, go ahead and take a look at it. I think you will find it very interesting. And it is a cool learning tool. Okay. Let's go back to the slide show. And we looked at the AIM navigator landing page and on the next slide, it is just a summary of what you have looked at. It is a lot of information but what you have looked at is an interactive tool that will facilitate the decision‑making for Accessible Instructional Materials. And it will highlight four major decisions. How do you determine the need? And how did you get together and select the formats? And how do you get those formats? And the last one is how do you get the support for the use? Chapter 4. Resources Let's look at the resources very quickly. I just want to point out a few things. Texas education agency has an Accessible Instructional Materials page. On that page also is the contact information. If you have any questions about AIM. The state leadership services for blind and visually impaired for Texas also has a web page. Talking book program has a lot of books as well. TSBVI, we have a library of Braille materials and some of those books are available formats that you can download and take a look at what we have as well. And all those materials are free for everyone to use. And then on the next page, on resources, is the national center on Accessible Educational Materials, which is the center behind the AIM navigator. They have a lot of videos. By the way, if you are in a position that you need to educate your supervisor or your curriculum department folks about educational materials that are accessible, take a look at the AIM website. They have a bunch of videos that you can look at. And they have also student videos that show why Accessible Educational Materials is important. And it is really from the students themselves talking about it. And then the next one, American Printing House for the Blind has accessible media guidelines. If you want to take a look at that. And then the last resource there is American Printing House for the Blind has Louis and Louis plus database. They have a database of materials that they have created an alternative format or in specialized format. And make sure you look at Louis plus as well. Louis plus has all the books that are compliant and every time you are not sure if a book has been created in the specialized format, go to Louis and Louis plus and take a look at it. Chances are you will find information on the materials that you are searching for. So I am almost at the end of the webinar and I just want to let you know that our upcoming events, we have the Texas symposium on deafblindness conference upcoming in February and it is going to be in Austin and I hope you can join us for that. And then the next webinar related to assistive technology is going to be on self‑determination. And be the boss of your assistive technology. And we are going to share a little bit about helping your students to grow skills on self‑determination when they are using assistive technology and we will provide a few sample lesson plans for to you take a look at. If you are interested, please register and join us on March 7th. And then with that, are there any questions? And if you don't have a lot of questions, you can write it in chat or send me an e‑mail. And if I don't have the answer, I can find it for you. And I just want to thank you for joining us for this webinar. And I hope I will get to work with you in the near future. Thank you very much. [Silence] Fade up from black. Animation: Text for TSBVI transform into braille cells for TSBVI. Fade to black.