The first resource I will recommend is the Consumers Guide that NCTI created which was a resource used in this webinar. It has a section on alignment that provides questions that administrators should ask vendors and vendors should ask administrators so great solutions can be offered to your classroom or district. Many manufacturers can answer this question regarding the products and curriculums they offer. You can find the consumer guide at http://www.techmatrix.org/, just click on the consumer guide on the top of the page.

Then, let me show you one example from AbleNet. We have an exclusive partnership with Weekly Reader to align the content they deliver to general education classrooms with two of their magazines: Weekly Reader Senior and Weekly Reader Addition 2. We literally rewrite the content to match the learning needs of students with severe/profound challenges and the needs of students with more moderate challenges and deliver the content on-line with lessons, a teacher’s guide, assistive technology solutions to assure all students participate in the instruction, reproducibles, etc.

The alignment becomes even more clear when you go to the Weekly Reader site http://www.weeklyreader.com/correlations. In the section is a wizard that allows you to enter the magazine you are going to use, the state you are from, the grade level content expectation, and the subject you are working on with your student. You then submit your detail and you get a display that tells you skill/goal that will be supported in the lessons you are getting that week in alignment with the standard (such as word recognition, comprehension, etc). Weekly Reader has done all of the work needed to make the alignments clear for every state and then we assure our content and instruction is created in total alignment with goals/skills and standards that Weekly Reader has developed for the specific magazine.

Another recommendation I would make at this time is to look into joining the QIAT listserve and/or the ATA listserve. You could ask this question to a very fine group of people and get see if their expertise would lead to other resources. You can google both organizations and get there quickly.

The last recommendation I would make is to consider buying the Journal for Special Education Technology. There are many great articles on this topic and related topics. The Council for Exceptional Children and TASH may also have resources for you, although I did not thoroughly search their websites.

Here are some questions webinar participants posed:

1. How did you select administrators to interview and are you still in the process of interviewing administrators?

2. Are there good, simple demonstrations that can be used to inform and break down walls to using technologies to help students meet state standards? Michigan is new to the state standards game and many educators are struggling with understanding how alternative delivery and access to the content can be implemented.