Our plan
The Ontario Ministry of Education offers an Assistive Technology (AT) Laptop Program for students in elementary and secondary schools. This program provides computers and AT software to students with identified learning disabilities. By the end of 2009, tens of thousands of students in Ontario will be the recipients of these grants with a total value of approximately $5K each. Unfortunately, many students receiving the laptops do not receive the training and support they need to use their computer and its software, particularly as it applies to meeting their curriculum requirements. Because of this, the Ministry’s significant hardware and software investment is not having the impact that it could. There was an urgent need for AT trained volunteers, however Volunteers in Education (VIE), an organization devoted to volunteers in education and supported by Ottawa Carleton Learning Foundation, could not find any.
What we did
OCRI’s Volunteers in Education (VIE) program, in partnership with Nortel LearniT, four Ottawa school boards; OCSB, OCDSB, CECLFCE, CEPEO; and the Learning Disabilities Association of Ottawa-Carleton, are creating an online environment to host learning content that will better enable the use of computer-based AT. The content will be created in both French and English and designed for the use of students, teachers, parents/guardians, volunteers, and community members. The core training material will consist of a suite of online videos containing in-depth knowledge of AT subject matter experts . These videos will demonstrate learning strategies on how to apply AT technologies in an educational context, using actual curriculum as the focus. A Web2.0 social environment will also be used to support peer-to-peer communication including a means for teachers to create and contribute lesson plans. Volunteer-led workshops will introduce students and their parents/guardians to the training material after which ongoing training will take place independently in a self-paced manner using the online videos and the social networking environment. The training will provide a resource for the students, parents and teachers to return to and review or augment their knowledge. There will also be a separate stream of content designed specifically for educators. Workshops are also being considered as a marketing and enhanced delivery method for educators. We need additional AT partners to share and add to the online resources and we need to find new sources of funding. Your help is appreciated. Please contact Lee-Ann Scott lscott@ocri.ca for more information.
Our results
The AT training program fills a unique gap in this emerging field. Meant to inspire and educate AT users, the program will provide actual curriculum based examples on how teachers and students can use the AT tools to complete school work, tests, homework and research. Universities, Colleges, school boards, libraries, and other agencies, as well as the community will have free access to the AT training via an interactive web site and all content will fall under Creative Commons licensing. This project has local, provincial, national and global scope making AT training available to thousands of students across Canada and the United States ensuring academic success and leveling the playing field for students with language learning challenges.
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