Main+Focus

We will look at and discuss materials relevant to the premise of our in-service, making the classroom lessons accessible for the visually impaired. How can we use the information we will read to improve your lesson plans? Here are some articles I found to start you on your way to learning about accessibility for visually impaired students. Browse through the articles and read the ones you think will be most helpful to you and follow any links or sites you find that are different than these. We will use this information to produce a class project
 * __Focus of this In-Service:__**
 * __Information for In-Service Project__**

1. Center for Applied Special Technology: [|www.cast.org] A non-profit organization that specializes in research and development of ways to support all learners according to their individual strengths and needs.

2. Teaching Every Student, TES. Model lessons and tutorials supporting teachers learning about UDL, Universal Design for Learning.

3. http://www.washington.edu/doit/Faculty/Strategies/Universal/ Universal Design for Instruction, By [|Sheryl Burgstahler], Ph.D. 4. http://www.doe.k12.de.us/programs/specialed/isi/udl.shtml A wonderful website about Universal Design for Learning. 1. http://zonebbs.com (games, blogs, Information Boards) 2. http://www.L-works.net (site developed by a blind person) 3. http://www.JFWlite.com (identifies computer software that has accessible scripts for JAWS- a screen reader 4. American Foundation for the Blind: http://www.afb.org 5. Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, http://www.tsbvi.edu/Education/index.htm
 * __Other sites of interest:__**


 * __In-Service Project__**: Making lessons accessible

To take what you learned from the readings/websites we will work on the following projects to address incorporating a visually impaired student into your classroom. We will be using the information about blogs, and other technologies from the previous in-service.

1. After reading some articles each person in the group would report how they would change their lessons and make them accessible. Let’s organize some good pages for ourselves and others to use throughout the year to support our integration of the visually impaired into our classrooms. We’ll use del.icio.us to enter our sites and create tags that will organize the information for us. Our username is … and password is …. So that we have community resource at del.icio.us/…. Of course, you might also want to use this for your own set of resources. Assessment will be through observation of the teachers, the making of their lessons and the use of del.icio.us.

2. Given two digitally recorded classroom lessons, the group will view each, one at a time. After the first video (which will be set in a regular classroom without a VI student) each person will comment using a blog that has already been set up and write their thoughts about the lesson and how they could make it more accessible for the visually impaired. Then watch the second video lesson (this lesson will have a VI student in the room). How can we take this to your classroom? Is there room for improvement? Taking these questions the teachers will blog and also comment on each others thoughts on making a classroom assessible for the visually impaired. Writing and commenting will be used as a form of assessment through participation.

3. Using UDL, Universal Design for Learning, we will divide into two groups and create two lesson plans. Feel free to collaborate among yourselves, even between groups. We want to make good lessons that you can use in your classrooms. Each lesson will then be posted to a blog, so that we can read them and make comments on each of the lessons. How can we get feedback from people who are visually impaired, to find out what they think of our lessons?

This is what I would like to lead them to do: Make a copy of your lessons and place them on the following website where many visually impaired students and adults go, and ask for their feedback. Here’s the site: zonebbs.com and you will go to the section labeled “The Boards” and post your lessons and then gather the feedback. We will discuss the feedback through our blog and make comments, when or if we get some feedback. Assessment will be through participation in the blog and comments and from the feedback we receive from "The Boards" in zone.bbs.com.