AT Blog Carnival Edition #2: My Favorite Post on Assistive Technology

Edition #2: "My Favorite Blog Post on Assistive Technology"

Hello Everyone.
You are about to read something VERY special. If this is your first time here, you are in for a treat. The folks that are sharing their writing below are amazing. Some of these authors have overcome incredible odds just to be able to write what they write for you to read here today. Everyday I am challenged, inspired, awed and humbled by the stories I hear through emails of introduction from folks that have been up against incredible odds but have perservered to achieve incredible things. Some of these authors are therapists and educators to those with special needs, and most amazingly - some are serving the needs of those with disabilities professionally while having their own disabilities. I hope you are just as grateful as I have been for the gift and example they are to us all.

So, with that introduction out of the way, I am very excited to present to you our Second Edition of the Assistive Technology Blog Carnival:

A carnival is supposed to travel around from town to town and set up somewhere different to amuse and entertain the residents of a community. My hope is that this "carnival" will begin to travel around from blog home to blog home different months so we can all visit different places to be educated, encouraged, challenged and maybe even provoked from time to time - that's OK too.

This month I have enjoyed making some new friends as well as communicate with some old ones, and I proudly present their submissions below. Our topic this month is to share a favorite post we have written on our own blogs that involve assistive technology, or to submit a blog post by someone else that we have really found important. I asked also that there would be some commentary on why it was important.
Since I am the host, I will share first:

Lon Thornburg: I have been writing my own blogs since last November of 2007. I started "No Limits 2 Life" to share my thoughts on disability and positive thinking as a catalyst for rehabilitation. I started another blog on children, education and assistive technology called "No Limits to Learning" out of a desire to share a story of a boy that we were working on getting a speech device for around Christmas time. My first post on the education blog was about the "Mystery Spot". I still think that is my favorite blog post and capsulizes who I am and why I do what I do. I don't think I could re-write it today to say anything better than the way it was stated originally.

You can read it at:

http://nolimitstolearning.blogspot.com/2007/11/there-are-no-limits-to-learning.html

I hope you enjoy it!

Now on to a friend I have had the honor to make through this blog endeavor:

Ricky Buchanan: Ricky shared her blog with us last month and this month has a favorite post from Kate Ahern, who is also submitting this month, and 2 posts from her own blog "ATMac". She had a hard time picking one - I know the feeling Ricky! She is a talented user of AT, using it to enhance her life with challenging disabilities as well as inform us on AT. If you are a Mac user you will want to go to her blog often. She has shared:

"This post from Kate is MY favorite one on her blog:

http://teachinglearnerswithmultipleneeds.blogspot.com/2007/09/les-miserables.html

"I think the post is amazing even though it's not really about AT because it educated me hugely about the value of doing something like taking severely intellectually disabled students to a production like Les Miserables. Before I read the post I admired Kate for doing it, but I didn't really see any value in it... after I read the post my mind was completely changed and I can see the enormous value of something like this. And, of course, I admire her more."

Ricky has shared the following two posts that you can visit her site to read. Her commentary is included here:

Post One:
http://atmac.org/2008/02/13/did-you-know-your-mac-could-do-that/ " This post shows some of the more out-there things that assistive technology can make available to anybody who can use even just a single switch. Assistive tech can really be amazing and enable us to do amazing stuff!"

Post Two:
http://atmac.org/2008/01/22/assistive-technology-really-makes-a-difference-dustins-story/ "This one reminds me why it's all important and how far we've come with AT in just 20 years. Without a computer, Dustin has no way to communicate beyond yes/no responses but with the computer he can express what's important to him. It's slow and difficult still, but it's possible and what's possible now is way beyond what was possible in the Apple IIe days. This is one of those posts that I look at when I'm wondering why I bother with all this stuff."

Thank you so much Ricky!

Ron Graham: Ron is an amazing man. He has achieved several degrees, serves the disabled through student support services and is active in informing on access issues. He should know the issues because he is blind and shares his view on his own accessibility issues as well as other issues on his blog, "Access Ability". This is Ron's second month to share with us. We are proud to have him as a "carny" in our AT blog carnival.

Find out what Yahoo DID NOT acknowledge in his post on inaccessable content: http://accessability.blogspot.com/2007/11/yahoo-acknowledges-inaccessible-content.html

He wanted to share with us here why he felt this was a favorite post of his:
"The reason this is a favorite post of mine is that it got a good bit of attention from Yahoo, the company that is the subject of the post, even though the comments do not reflect this. The subject of the post is Yahoo's CAPTCHA technology and its inaccessibility by users of screen readers. I was closely watching my blog traffic numbers and had noticed a distinct spike in my daily traffic the day after I published this post. Upon checking the source of this traffic, I noticed that I had almost 20 visits from different computers on the Yahoo servers. These were in Sunnyvale, CA, Mountain View, CA, and London. Somebody within Yahoo had apparently read the initial post and shared the link with others within the company, as that first visit from Yahoo showed a most of the referrals after that first one were unknown. "

"The reason that makes this post a favorite, even though Yahoo didn't acknowledge reading it, is that something I wrote resonated enough with somebody in the company that they felt the need to share it with others. I kept hoping that somebody from Yahoo would email me or comment on the post, but that never happened. The problems with Yahoo's CAPTCHA continue today, but I know of almost 20 Yahoo staffers who knowof its existence from reading that post. This means that they can not feign ignorance of the problem's existence."

Thanks, Ron.

Dr. Barabara Boucher: Barbara has an impressive resume, holding a doctorate and her license in PT and OT. Her speciality is young children and her blog is "TherExtras". Barbara and I began to email and discuss therapy, blogging, etc. Barbara's post slipped past our March edition and I am presenting it here. Please check out her blog or feel free to contact her as a resource for issues with small children. Her post on "Assistive Technology and Me" is here: http://www.therextras.com/therextras/2008/03/assistive-techn.html

Thank you Barbara and I am so glad to include you...

Robert Martinengo: Robert has been a studio director at Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic, in Los Angeles. He joined the California Community College system and began approaching textbook publishers directly on behalf of students. He is currently the supervisor of the Alternate Text Production Center in Ventura, California. This is his first submission and we are proud to present his article on E Textbooks and Issues for College Students from "Accessible Content Online".

Jason Voiovich: Jason submitted a fascinating post he wrote on the story of David Savill, Naughty Auties, and how Second Life helps people with (and the image of) Autism. "Second Life" is a 3D virtual community. The post is found on this link at the blog, "The State of the Brand" by Ecra Creative Group.

When I emailed Jason expressing my thanks for his submission he replied:

"Thank you Lon, I much appreciate the comment. I have spent significant time working with AbleNet - a company that develops products for persons with disabilities of all types - I would not have been able to write this article without that experience."

You will enjoy reading about this. Thanks Jason for bringing it to us.

Paul Natsch: Paul works for Assistive Gaming.com which has "Assistive Gaming" a Blog for gamers with assistive technology needs in Mac OSX. The post. "Tools of the Trade" is his submission.

Thanks for sending this in Paul. I am beginning to do some home visits to help students with severe disabilities as summer is coming on so they can access receational interests on their computers. So this is a big topic!

Kate Ahern: Kate has the "Teaching Learners with Multiple Disability Needs" Blog which I have been reading and admiring for some time. Kate has what I like to call "Power-house Posts" full of information. I was understandably excited to have her send a submission for the Carnival. Her submission takes us on a trip to order fast food when one of her former students doesn't have his speech device along. Kate's post: http://teachinglearnerswithmultipleneeds.blogspot.com/2008/02/my-voice-is-my-power-part-two-personal.html

Enjoy this post....and thanks Kate, for submitting it.

Dustin Oakley: Dustin submitted a post on AT Blogging on his blog The Crass Pip. Dustin has his own unique style!

Craig Phillips: Craig did not submit a post to this Carnival, but I recently met him through Ron Graham. He has an impressive story of having a traumatic brain injury when young and going on to do what no one thought he should be able to do. He has lots of tips for those with TBI also. Check out his story at: http://secondchancetolive.wordpress.com/2007/02/18/my-journey-thus-far/

There were a couple of submissions that came in as articles from sites that the authors submitted. They had some interesting things to say about learning, resources for etext through itunes University and podcasting in the classroom. You can link to them below:

Heather Johnson wrote on Audio Book College Content Resources from itunes on Learn out Loud.com Blog.

Understanding Media Blog submitter, Nick, presented a post on podcasting in the classroom.

I hope you take some time to visit the blogs of our twelve presenters this month.

Our next AT Carnival will up on Monday, May 26th. The deadline for submissions will be Friday, May 23. If we wait until the last Friday in May to submit, the next Monday puts us in June.

If you have any ideas for a May theme, please let me know as a comment here or through my email at: lonthornburg@nolimits2learning.com

All the best to you!

Lon

A Clarification on Topic for Edition 2 of the AT Blog Carnival

A Clarification on the Topic for Edition #2 of the AT Blog Carnival Coming Monday, April 28, 2008
Call for Submissions...
Topic: "My favorite Post"

I have been asked to clarify the topic a little for everyone.
I apologize if I have been vague - I don't mean to be - I shouldn't assume everyone is on my wavelength!
Here is what I would like to ask you for when I say "My Favorite Post":
Do you have a past post on your blog - and I assume if you are interested in this carnival topic that you have written posts in the past on A.T. - that was a favorite post you wrote? Can you share the post link with us within a new post with a little about why you liked it? Was it because it inspired others, challenged thoughts on something, had really useful information, got a good discussion going, was your best writing to date?
I think we would all enjoy reading our best posts because we gain a better understanding of each other, our styles, get some great information and learn about writing by other's examples.
If you don't have a past post that is a favorite on A.T. - that's ok. Go ahead and share with us a post on a favorite aspect, device, topic, etc. on A.T. and remember, this isn't just for "experts". It is open to anyone with an interest in AT - even if you are just starting out.
I am trying to be a little more broad as we start out so we can get more generalized posts. Maybe I shouldn't be doing it that way. You tell me - it's our blog carnival - not just mine. If you have an idea that would make a great focus for a future edition, send it my way by a comment or email. If you are interested in hosting (I plan to see this carnival appear on your blogs as host more than here, down the road) let me know that too.
If something still seems unclear on this months edition, let me know. I took the blog carnival updatable widget off my No Limits to Learning Blog because it wasn't updating and showing a new edition - it was something I wasn't doing right on their site to post the new edition info. Once I get it right, I will try again.
I hope the unclarity doesn't stop folks from submitting. If you will be patient and give me input, we will get this project off the ground and going.
Thanks for caring enough to email, comment and share.
All the best to you!
Lon

If you would like to submit an entry, please submit by Friday, April 25, 2008. Please keep your submissions specific to assistive technology if you want them included.
Any level of user is welcome - this is not just for "experts". We are all in a constant state of learning!
Please submit your blog post link or links to: lonthornburg@nolimits2learning.com or on the actual Blog Carnival site at: http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_3810.html

Upcoming Editions List

Second Issue of the AT Blog Carnival Coming Monday, April 28, 2008

Call for Submissions...

Topic: "My favorite Post"

If you would like to submit an entry, please submit by Friday, April 25, 2008. Please keep your submissions specific to assistive technology if you want them included.

Any level of user is welcome - this is not just for "experts". We are all in a constant state of learning!

Please submit your blog post link or links to: lonthornburg@nolimits2learning.com or on the actual Blog Carnival site at: http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_3810.html

AT Blog Carnival Edition #1

Assistive Technology Blog Carnival: Edition #1

Welcome to the first ever Blog Carnival on Assistive Technology!

The first edition deadline sneaked up on us pretty fast, but I would like to share some great posts by folks that are becoming good friends in the AT blog arena. Before I do, as the host, I would like to share a little about myself and how I use Assistive technology.

This Week's Host: Lon Thornburg

Since I have decided to start this blog carnival, I will host it here until someone else wants to guest-host. The idea is that you can be a host and share all the links we get in from your blog so you get all the visitors and they can find out how great your blog is too if they haven't discovered it yet. I envision lots of great blogs and posts and friendships coming out of this as time goes by. I would release this on my home blog, but since this is the carnival home, I will do it here.

My home blog is http://nolimitstolearning.blogspot.com/

I am a teacher, administrator and an assistive technology specialist. I work for the Umatilla Morrow County Education Service District in Pendleton, Oregon. I cover about a third of the state of Oregon as the only AT specialist. I work with OT's, PT's, Autism, Speech, Vision and Hearing and Eary Intervention and Early Childhood specialists. I do a lot of professional development and teach at the occasional State-wide conferences - usually doing lab workshops on interactive applications for software, helping teachers and specialists design and build their own activities.

My wife and I own and run a small retreat center that is a little mountain hotel built in 1897 for the Union Pacific Railroad. We have groups (quilters, scrap-bookers, church groups, planning meetings, teachers groups, etc.) that come stay for many different kinds of meetings and weekend retreats. We have a boy who will start first grade in the fall of 2008.

I LOVE working with AT. I feel like I am really making a difference for children and helping classrooms and families get things together to improve life for their kids. I had a stroke last year that put me in the hospital and I experienced some disabilities that have been subtle but have meant some adaptation on my part. That experience has made me look at AT in a different light. I have put together things so that if something happens again, and I would be permanently disabled I have things ready to go - just in case.

For AT, I personally use Dragon Naturally Speaking, Read Please as a text reader sometimes - and like using Odiogo on my blog. See "My Reading Chair" blog to see how I have used Odiogo there. (I will have to try the application suggested by Larry Ferzallo in his submission below.) I have a Track IR camera eye and a reflective dot on a baseball cap I can use with the free Click-n-type Keyboard from Lakefolks. I use a Virtual Magnifying Glass free software also for looking at certain things and using when doing professional training and workshops where I want people to see close up on the screen with a data projector.

Well, that gives you an introducation to me. Now I would like to share the contributors for our first carnival...

Ricky Buchanan is an amazing user of AT in Australia. We first communicated in January I think, when she sent me a nice email after reading my No Limits to Life blog that is for adults, perspectives on life, disability, etc. She has some wonderful artwork she has done and my son has been inspired to paint her a picture in return sometime. Check it out as the art is on a page that is linked from her personal site space. You can get there from her ATmac blog. I have enjoyed getting to know her and browse her blog. If you have a Mac, you will want to get her blog posts. She shares how she uses AT.

Larry Ferlazzo submitted his post on a new text to speech tool... Read the Words. He has a site dedicated to ELL and language learners and education onEduBlogs. I am just getting to know him and we have exchanged some emails. I am going to spend some more time browsing and reading there for information for the ELL,ESL folks I work with. I will be referring them to him too.

Since our submissions are just starting, I have listed below a few people that are doing work I admire. Their blogs are timely and full of great information:

Dr. Brian Friedlander was one of my college professors in my Masters Program and he has left some nice comments on my blog. He was very encouraging to me when I was starting out and he was gracious enough to announce my blog on his which has increased my visitors. I want to link to him here: Assistivetek Dr.Friedlander has some wonderful posts and up to the minute new release info as things occur. Check him out.

Paul Hamilton has a blog on Free Resources. I have gone there to find some great help and information. When looking at his picture on the "About" page, I was thinking that MAYBE we met at an ASHA conference on Assistive Technology in Seattle, WA a few years ago. He looks familiar and He is from Vancouver, BC. I remember visiting with an AT specialist from Vancouver when I was there. We will have to figure that one out.

Another blog that I go to frequently is Special Education Law Blog By Charles Fox. I wrote a series on parent advocacy and he was gracious enough to comment on it and post a section block quote from it on his blog. We were both online writing our blogs that day and had a great interchange of conversation and introduction. I look forward to future contributions he makes to his blog. His blog is also a great archive of legal information if you need to research something.

Kate Ahern has Teaching Learners with Multiple Needs . I recently discovered her blog just as she stopped posting indefinitely because of care for her sister. Her sister passed away from critical complications to a brain injury. Her blog was nominated for an award for top educational blog of 2007. Quite an honor. There is a HUGE list of links to vendors, associations, free tutorials, activities, etc. I hope to visit with her and get to know her one day.

I hope you enjoy this first edition of Assistive Technology Blog Carnival. Next month, the deadline for submissions will be the last Friday of April and the blog will come out on the next Monday. I hope some of you that read will submit.

Thanks for visiting and all the best to you!

AT Blog Carnival Host General Guidelines and Information:

Here are a few notes to guide potential and actual hosts of the Carnival.

1. We always need volunteers to host, so don’t be shy about stepping up. Hosts get great exposure and extra traffic that week - and many new readers will stick around if they like what they find. To qualify, you will need to have submitted 3 posts to the Carnival. When you are on board with that qualification, to volunteer as a host email me at lonthornburg@gmail.com or at mailto:lonthornburg@nolimits2learning.com.
If you have a topic that interests you that you would like to suggest and host that would be great. You might have a topic you would like to see information or support on, or know of a topic that would stimulate some interesting posts. I don't plan to think up all the topics for new carnivals by myself. Your input and ideas are very welcome.

2. At this point, the carnival will be posted on the Monday after the last Friday of the month as a monthly edition. As we grow and more people contribute we will move to bi-monthly and eventually weekly if we have too many contributors. Monthly seems OK for now.

3. We want the Carnival to adopt the character of the host site every week, so we will try to avoid being micro-managers. All we ask is that you feature at least 10 submissions from entries being submitted by other bloggers. If there are not 10 submissions for a carnival, list the sumitted links you have and then share more of your own expertise for everyone else. You may want to link to some other blog posts you have found on the topic or some articles, etc. While this carnival is in the formative stages we will need to be creative and make it worthwhile for people to want to go there and refer it to others. That will be a way that it will grow.

4. Procedure for your Carnival:
Hosts simply obtain the entries links sent to them via the carnival service and then write their Carnival as a post on their own blog. Once I know a topic and host and have the hosts' email and web address, I will post that information as a new edition link to our blog carnival on the carnival service site. As a host, you should receive all referred posts through them. No one will see your email address, it is for the service and I to coordinate with you only. It is up to you to let people know your address.
• Entries should arrive by the deadline of 12.00 pm PST on the last Friday of the month, but we do get late ones too. It would be good if you accommodate them.
• If you get a lot of entries, it’s up to you how you deal with these. It’s nice if you link to them, even better if you link and describe them. But we appreciate that your time is limited and you may be restricted as to how much more work you can do.
• One post in your Carnival should be your “Best Post of the Month”.
• If possible, try to choose and highlight a newcomer to the Carnival.
• Your job as host is to “sell” the reader on visiting individual contributors’ sites, NOT to summarize the entries so that a visit isn’t needed. Therefore, don’t tell the whole story - get the reader to want to read the whole post. You are just posting in one blog entry the name and number of the Carnival, the topic and then list the post links to other blog with a brief "teaser".
• Please finish your post by telling readers where the next Carnival will be held. See this blog's home and calendar for this information.
• You should aim to get the Carnival up and running on your site by Monday of the next week after post submission deadlines.

IMPORTANT: The purpose of this carnival is to provide constructive and positive information on assistive technology and it's use and other RELATED information. A side benefit is that you get to invite others to your blog and increase your traffic. Please do not abuse this opportunity by putting up unrelated links and ads to try and create sales of something. If your blog sidebar has ads or links to information, services or products you sell, that is fine, but keep them out of the actual posts please.

Traffic
Once the Carnival is up on your site, everyone who has been featured should link to you and send you lots of their traffic. If you notice that someone isn’t playing the game, it’s ok to gently remind them to announce it, but generally people are very good about doing this. However, there are also a couple of other things you can do to get more quality traffic and promote your hosting. We recommend you do these, but it’s your decision:
Use other blogs and social bookmark sites to post links to your blog for the Carnival post. You can repost your Carnival post on forums (as a new topic) but without individual links to the posts BUT do link to your site. The idea on all of these is to give people a flavor of what the Carnival is about that week, but they have to come to your site to get the links to the stories.
You can announce the Carnival is at your site. Something along the lines of:
“Carnival # is Out.
Check out the latest Assistive Technology Blog Carnival , which is at [name of your site] this month. Please pay a visit to read this month’s best writing about AT on the web. Watch out for [write a sentence about a story that will pull people in].”
Finally, don’t forget to email me that the Carnival is up. If you’ve just hosted a Carnival and can think of anything that you’d like to see here that would help future hosts, please let me know.
Good luck. May your traffic counters begin to spin!