2005 Demonstration Event Summaries

The 2005 Demonstration Event presented the entire continuum of NCTI stakeholders, including a balanced mix of vendors, researchers, and developers. Participants were able to try out products in the beta stage of development as well as those that were on the market, and products that dealt with a wide range of content areas and disability needs. High product quality was reflected in the level of engagement and discussion at the well-attended event.

NCTI Demonstration Event Presentations

AirO2bic ™ Mouse

Tom Large, President and Chief Executive Officer, Designer Appliances, Inc.

The AirO 2bic™ gripless mouse is designed to prevent and reverse symptoms of fatigue that occur from using a regular computer mouse several hours each day. The issue is physiological fatigue; it occurs when doing light repetitive work and can go unnoticed because we are busy concentrating on the task at hand. The outcome, with the extent of computer usage today, is the onset of impairment syndromes that have life impacting consequences, such as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. The AirO 2bic™ gripless mouse removes the need to control forearm muscles by using a Universal Design device that can be used by everyone.

Braille Note

Gaylen Kapperman, Project Director, Research and Development Institute

The Braille Note is Phase II of a three-year project designed to develop the means by which students who are severely visually disabled can learn to read and write the Braille symbols which comprise the Braille mathematics code, Nemeth Code. The original research was done in a Stepping Stone Phase I project using the Braille Lite, a device which operated on a proprietary version of DOS. The results of that effort indicated that that software of this type can be extremely effective in helping students who are blind to become mathematically literate. It is the intention of the project staff to expand upon the initial effort to improve upon the software and to develop it for a more up-to-date device, the Braille Note, which is based on the Windows operating system. Research indicates that students who are blind generally experience great difficulty reaching levels of achievement commensurate with their abilities. It is suggested that one of the major reasons for this lack of achievement is their inability to read and write Braille mathematics. There are few resources for teaching students to read and write the Nemeth Code, either for teachers or individuals. Consequently, the staff of Research and Development Institute proposes to develop an interactive software tutorial, in collaboration with HumanWare Group and its American subsidiary, HumanWare U.S.A., to be used by middle school and high school students who are blind to learn to read and write Braille mathematics notation. The interactive software program will be developed to operate on the Braille Note, a portable computer which combines both synthetic speech and an electronic, refreshable Braille display and operates on the Windows platform.

Bridge Builder: MySchoolDayOnline (* NCTI Technology Works Grant Recipient)

Matt Kaplowitz, President, Bridge Multimedia

Wendy Sapp, Director, Visual Impairment Education Services

MySchoolDayOnline, which is in its alpha version, provides a user friendly platform through which anyone with minimal computer knowledge can build accessible educational Web pages and/or Web sites. MySchoolDayOnline is completely 508-compliant as are the Web pages created by the users of MySchoolDayOnline. Using these accessible Web sites, children with visual impairments will be able to more fully participate in all aspects of the school community. Additionally, teachers who are visually impaired can independently build and manage their own educational Web pages and Web sites. Under an NCTI Tech Works grant, Bridge Multimedia, the creator of the MySchoolDayOnline, is collaborating with Wendy Sapp, Ph.D., a specialist in issues related to the education of children with visual impairments, to conduct research on MySchoolDayOnline. The alpha version of MySchoolDayOnline is being field tested at the Tennessee School for the Blind. The research will provide information about the real world accessibility by people with and without visual impairments of the MySchoolDayOnline software and the Web pages it creates that will be incorporated into the product’s beta version.

BoardSpeaker

Ron Hu, President, Afforda Speech

BoardSpeaker is an innovative product that combines old technology--paper--with new technology, two-dimensional barcodes, to create a unique augmentative communication device and learning aid. The uniqueness of the product is that it speech-enables ordinary paper, turning paper into a point and speak medium for communication and learning. Information is encoded on the paper through printed two-dimensional barcodes instead of using the traditional solid-state memory chip or module. The benefits of this marriage of technologies are several: a) It is inexpensive to produce paper communication cards. There are no electronics of any kind on the paper picture cards themselves. Also, speech messages can never become separated from the picture cards because they are imprinted; b) Customizable content can be created to suit individual needs. Teachers and parents can design and print their own paper picture cards with the symbols and speech messages they want; and c) Picture cards are tangible and easy to see and carry, making it ideal for sharing with other people. No programming of any kind is required by the recipient of these picture cards. All they have to do is put them inside the BoardSpeaker and they can be using them right away.

Cell-Phone Locker

Benjamin Banneker Academic High School FIRST Robotics Team: Gilbert Castillo, Tiffany Robinson, Ivory Scarceno, and Timothy Thomas

Advisors: John Mahoney, Edna Mills, and Sharon Sorrels

FIRST robotics was founded by Dean Kamen and Dr. Woody Flowers of MIT. It stands for “For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Technology.” Students at Banneker, an inner-city high school in Washington, D.C., design and build a 120-pound robot each year, in just six weeks. Last year, the robotics team at Banneker welcomed a student with a significant learning disability. Banneker recently received an award from the Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams competition that provides funding to design, develop and prototype Banneker’s invention: a cell-phone locker. Students at Banneker are prohibited from bringing cell phones into the school, and this invention would enable the students to deposit their phones in the lobby, before they pass through the security system. Students work on these projects after school and during school in the engineering and robotics class, which uses the Infinity Project’s curriculum.

CosmoBot and Cosmo's Learning Systems

James Drane, Mechanical Engineer, AnthroTronix

Suzanne Frentz, Biomedical Engineer, AnthroTronix

Charlotte Safos, Project Director, AnthroTronix

CosmoBot™ and Cosmo’s Learning Systems™ are interactive, fun, and motivating tools for children with disabilities. Both tools were developed through five years of user-centered design and have been tested in clinics and schools in the Washington, D.C. area. CosmoBot™ is a fully functional robot that allows children to explore and control their environment. For education, therapy, or play, children control the 12-in.-high fully interactive robot, CosmoBot™, through body movement, buttons and a joystick, or through voice. Cosmo’s Learning Systems™ consists of Mission Control™ and Cosmo’s Play and Learn™ software, Playground Discovery. Mission Control™ is an accessible computer interface with a built-in microphone that enables children to access their favorite computer games while working on developmental goals such as receptive and expressive communication skills. Therapists, children, parents, and engineers worked together over five years to design and create this unique product. Playground Discovery focuses on introducing and reinforcing pre-literacy and pre-numeracy skills and encourages children to participate in educational activities. An assessment tool is embedded in Playground Discovery that collects and analyzes data during use. Educators, therapists, and parents can use both tools in the school, clinic, and home environments.

EnvisionIT

Steve Jacobs, President, IDEAL Group, Inc.

Margaret Izzo, Program Manager, Nisonger Center, The Ohio State University

The EnvisionIT technology, developed through a Steppingstones Phase I project, is a 21st century standards-based system designed to increase reading achievement, Information Technology (IT) literacy, and transition outcomes of students with disabilities. EnvisionIT assists students with disabilities to pass state-mandated assessments, complete high school, and successfully enter postsecondary education and/or employment. Currently, project staff at The Ohio State University are utilizing online collaboration services provided by IDEAL Group, Inc. to help students at the Ohio School for the Blind complete components of the EnvisionIT curriculum by navigating multiple Web sites. As technology continues to change the skills needed to navigate the 21st century, schools are being challenged to promote technology supported learning; integrate technology-based assessments; and ensure that both teachers and students are literate in information technologies. This session will demonstrate how students, teachers and researchers interact via online collaboration through a Web server. The system provides immediate feedback to the student; allows student-teacher communication via the school server; asks students to apply the new knowledge in activities and unit assessments; and reinforces the value of IT literacy to students’ transition goals. EnvisionIT culminates in the completion of a self-directed transition plan.

Interactive Learning Tools in American Sign Language

Jose Hernandez, Research Professor, The George Washington University

The Interactive Learning Tools in American Sign Language (ASL) project developed interactive software for improving the English proficiency of native signers of ASL and their ability to communicate with the hearing world. Two interactive finger-spelling games are played by wearing an instrumented glove that captures the 26 postures of the American Sign Language alphabet. The first game challenges the user to spell back at a spelling character using the sign language glove. The second game asks the user to spell out the English word corresponding to an ASL sign shown on the screen.

Mathematical Automaticity for Students with Disabilities (* NCTI Technology Works Grant Recipient)

Ed Murphy, Chief Technology Officer, IntelliTools

Mathematical Automaticity for Students with Disabilities, IntelliTools, and the Pacific Institutes for Research are co-sponsoring a project which seeks to measure and improve mathematical automaticity in students with physical disabilities. The study measures these students’ cognitive latency in isolation from their physical disability. The result is projected to be a breakthrough in educational intervention for these students, wherein a teacher can deliver instruction that matches the student’s cognitive level rather than their physical response latency. Generally, the body of research clearly points to two indicators for mathematical success. The first is that a student must internalize conceptual models for basic mathematical operations. The second is that these operations in their simplest forms must be automatic, residing in working memory where they can be retrieved quickly and accurately. The resulting retrieval is known as automaticity. The study involves making enhancements to the IntelliTools Classroom Suite to measure automaticity and introduce conceptual models to build greater automaticity. Study subjects with physical disabilities will use the product with a mouse, an IntelliKeys, or a switch interface. Further studies in related research projects will focus on struggling students who are falling below basic in math, including students with individual education plans, English language learners, and those who are unidentified for special services.

MathPlayer

Paul Topping, President and Chief Executive Officer, Design Science

Neil Soiffer, Senior Scientist, Design Science

MathPlayer is a free plug-in for Internet Explorer that displays MathML in Web pages. In 2004, Congress enacted legislation that endorsed a national file format (NIMAS) based on the DAISY Digital Talking Book format. The legislation requires publishers to create a NIMAS version of their K-12 textbooks and submit it to a national repository (NIMAC). The DAISY consortium is adding support for mathematics to the DTBook format and this will automatically be part of NIMAS. The support is based on MathML, the W3C recommendation for representing math in XML. The inclusion of MathML into NIMAS means that publishers can submit math and science textbooks to NIMAC that are easily converted to various formats, such as Braille and speech, as well as Web pages with accessible math content. Unlike image formats, MathML incorporates mathematical structure. The information in MathML allows MathPlayer to implement a wide range of accessibility features including magnification, speech, synchronized highlighting, and keyboard navigation. MathPlayer works seamlessly with JAWS, Window-Eyes, and other screen readers. There are many applications that can generate MathML, including Microsoft Word together with MathType. Design Science has received follow-on NSF funding to make math accessible in Word and PDF documents.

Project SOLO (* NCTI Technology Works Grant Recipient)

Gretchen Hanser, Project Director, Center for Literacy and Disability Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Penny Hatch, Research Associate, Center for Literacy and Disability Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Project SOLO™ is a collaborative effort of the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Don Johnston, Inc. The purpose of the proposed project is to investigate the impact of SOLO™ software on reading, writing, and self-efficacy outcomes for students in middle grades who struggle to read and write. Ten 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade classes are participating in the quasi-experimental study. The student subjects include students with identified disabilities, students without disabilities who perform below the mean on the Test of Written Language, and students who are not struggling to write. SOLO™ is a software package that includes: Read:OutLoud, Write:OutLoud, Draft:Builder, and Co:Writer. The four applications work individually to support reading, writing, planning, revising, and editing. Together, they are believed to have a more substantial impact on student outcomes. To test this belief, students in 10 third, fourth, and fifth grade classes have been assigned to a SOLO™ or no-SOLO™ condition. Across one 9-week grading period, the students and teachers in three separate treatment conditions are being observed during their writing instruction. Student and teacher outcomes are being measured with quantitative and qualitative variables including standardized tests, interviews, work samples, and writing attitude surveys.

Read&Write Gold

Katie Gilligan, General Manager, Texthelp Systems

Read&Write Gold is a literacy productivity tool for students who require extra support in reading and writing. The software acts as a personal coach and levels the playing field for those students who struggle with reading, have learning disabilities such as dyslexia, have mild vision impairments, or are English Language Learners.

SOLO™ and Access to General Education Curriculum (* NCTI Technology Works Grant Recipient)

George Peterson-Karlan, Associate Professor, Special Education Assistive Technology (SEAT) Center, Illinois State University

This SEAT Center examined the outcomes of using SOLO interventions designed to increase access to the general education curriculum for students with learning and academic disabilities. Cohorts of teachers (intermediate elementary, middle school, and high school) who had previously received training in the use of portable keyboarding devices, voice output, word prediction and/or text-to-speech reading software received training in the use of the integrated literacy software and in the use of a systematic set of writing outcome measures. Finally, these teachers participated in user groups to support integration of the software into writing activities and use of systematic outcome measures. The outcome measures provided for classroom-based evaluation of the effects of assistive technology upon students’ abilities to complete key aspects of the writing process. Of interest were the students’ abilities to write across the range of tasks related to the general education curriculum at their grade level. In addition, students’ attitudes toward writing was also assessed. The effectiveness of the assistive technology was evaluated using a quasi-experimental Concurrent Time Series Measurement design. Teacher and student attitudes and feedback concerning the use of the Solo product were also determined.

Strategy Tools

Kevin Koury, Professor, Department of Special Education, California University of Pennsylvania

Gail Fitzgerald, Professor, Information Science and Learning Technologies, University of Missouri-Columbia

Strategy Tools is a collection of cognitive-behavioral self-regulation, learning strategies, and transition-planning tools that allow students to enter content into electronic templates, store tools in a database, and revise and re-use tools from the database. These electronic performance support tools were developed for youth, in order to support success in school and transition planning. The comprehensive system includes: a) Strategy Tools – software tools for secondary youth; b) Strategy Resources – an information base for adults to learn about the tools and approaches; and c) Strategy Coach – an interactive Web site for youth to learn how to use the tools. These programs have been developed for students with mild-to-moderate disabilities with Phase 1 Steppingstones funding. Results of Strategy Tools and Strategy Resources usability testing will be shared. Data has been collected from three sources: a) expert feedback from online discussions of the Project’s Advisory board regarding screen design and functionality; b) questionnaire and focus group discussion involving administrators, teachers, related-services personnel, and parents using prototypes; and c) ongoing field testing of the software in two school systems in Pennsylvania during the fall of 2005. Current dissemination plans through the project Web site will be discussed.

TalkTiles™

Shannon Mayhew, Senior Instructional Designer, Intelligent Automation, Inc.

TalkTiles™ is a research-based multi-sensory device that provides opportunities for word-play activities which foster phonemic awareness skills. TalkTiles was developed and field tested by Intelligent Automation, Inc. (IAI), with funding from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), under the Small Business Innovation Research grant program. The device consists of a set of textured letter tiles that appeal to children’s kinesthetic learning styles. Children place letter tiles into a “cradle” that holds a row of letter tiles to form words. By pressing on the letters or buttons, children can hear the names of the letters and the phonetic sounds of the letters. By pressing on the word button, children can hear the speech-synthesized pronunciation of the words they spell. TalkTiles can also be connected to a computer and used with accompanying instructional software. Under this program, IAI built several prototypes and field-tested prototypes with children with developmental delays. It was observed that children responded positively to TalkTiles with smiles, laughter, repeating of letter names and sounds, and they could readily understand how to use TalkTiles without instructions. Findings indicated that TalkTiles can be used to effectively foster phonemic awareness skills among children with autism.

WebAIM Initiatives

Cyndi Rowland, Technology Director, National Center on Disability and Access to Education (NCDAE), Utah State University

Jared Smith, Technology and Tool Development Coordinator, National Center on Disability and Access to Education (NCDAE), Utah State University

WebAIM, in partnership with the National Center on Disability and Access to Education, will engage participants in multiple items. Information will be provided on the work of the National Center and on new WebAIM training initiatives. Also, the tools and technologies that are being developed under this cooperative relationship (WebAIM/NCDAE) will be demonstrated. A low cost captioning tool has been developed that streams the remote caption feed in real time and places it onto the Web. New development is also occurring within the WAVE evaluator (a free, open source, online accessibility evaluation tool). Soon, individuals will be able to use this valuable tool from their desktops, as a client-side version is being developed. This will enable reviews of Web content behind secure sites and off-line, which will be helpful in education.