Ask the Expert: Mp3 Interview with Dr. Joy Zabala on Copyright and IDEA 2004 Mandates

Dr. Joy Zabala is the pioneer innovator of the SETT process for evaluation and implementation of Assistive Technology. She is also the project manager for the AIM (Accessible Instructional Materials) Consortium for CAST. She shared her expertise on copyright and IDEA with me while at Closing the Gap. When you want advice from an expert she is definitely the "Go-to Gal". (The interview is at the bottom of the post)
We have been bouncing around some opinions on interpretation of copyright here on the blog lately, and I have been sharing methods to get printed text into accessible formats. We have discussed scanning and converting to Mp3, using text to speech readers, Mp3 players, purchased software from Premier Literacy and Kurzweil. We have even explored the new DAISY save as...in MS Word (this past summer). We have had the DAISY Consortium folks jump into the discussion and I have found it all to be educational, informative and challenging to my thinking. There are still gaps in my understanding and I wanted some clarification if at all possible to keep me away from potential legal land mines.
While I was at Closing the Gap in Minneapolis, I sat in on several sessions that addressed RTI, NIMAS, AIM and UDL. In these sessions, there were always questions about how copyright law impacts the implementations mandated under IDEA 2004. Dr. Joy Zabala had some good things to say about it. I asked her if she would sit down with me a few minutes and share some of her thoughts with us. She happily agreed - thank you Dr. Joy!
Even though we are still a long way from having all the lines drawn and grey areas defined about who qualifies in certain instances, who is a "competent professional" to make decisions on who has a legitimate print disability, and what constitutes "fair use for education" in adapting print materials, we do have some experts that can guide us on what we need to consider and how to go about setting legal guidelines at a state level. Dr. Zabala is one of these we can go to for some guidance.
I am proud and honored to present my interview with Dr. Joy on this topic. We intended to go about 10 or 15 minutes, but as we got to discussing the topic, it stretched out a little longer - almost 30 minutes! I think you will find some good advice and information on where we are in the process of implementing access for print disabilities right now.The interview is linked below, and I have also posted the interview on my new No Limits 2 Learning Website main page and under "Archive" where I will be storing all my audio files for free access anytime.

Interview With Dr. Joy Zabala on Copyright Issues and IDEA 2004 Mp3 - recorded at Closing the Gap Conference, 2008

Resources:
Dr. Joy Zabala's Web site
AIM Consortium/CAST

I hope you enjoy the interview.

All the best to you!

Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

The 504 Plan: An under-used Tool in Accommodating Learners?

Is the 504 under-used? Should we give ALL students access to the tools that would be given to accommodate students on a 504 plan? If we did, wouldn't we be covering the needs of everyone?
I was researching these questions and reading up on the implementation of a 504 Plan under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. I know that it gives "legal teeth" to folks that need to advocate for equal access and fight discrimination. That is a good thing and I don't want to sound like this post is advising that we noy use a 504 plan. I just see that there are tools we would use on a 504 that maybe should be considered standard support for anyone. But first, let's look a minute at the 504:
I found a good advocacy resource site, Special Education Advocacy.com. They have a glossary of descriptions that relate to special ed and advocacy. These descriptions are a real help to parents that are new to this whole area and need to find some answers. They shared that the 504 is often an under-used tool in the education arena.
"The 504 protects individuals with disabilities from discrimination from policies or a lack of equipment from recipients of federal funding".
Maybe schools and parents don't take advantage of the power in this tool - instead they either do nothing or go for broke with testing and working on an IEP?
The site's description of 5o4 meetings brought out that the end-result of an effective 504 plan should be equal access for academic success and student achievement in a course of study - not a focus on a disability and why it prevents success. The plan should be developed to encompass not only modifications and accommodations for the curriculum and equal access to the course materials, but also equal access to evaluations, test and assessments of student mastery of content.
The 504 is intended to provide access for those with a disability in the general education setting rather than in special education and an IEP. For those that are unclear (and in my research online I find many professionals and parents alike that are unsure of the actual "legalese") I have a good definition from LD Online - a great resource too by the way...

"A 504 plan is a legal document that outlines a plan of instructional services for students in the general education setting. Students with ADHD often have a 504 plan. While not an IEP, the document usually describes the types of accommodations that will be made for a student in school."

These accomodations can include providing extra support through readers, interpreters or assistive technology such as text to speech tools, special word processing support tools, etc.
If you are a parent sensing that your child has more going on than meets the eye as far as their lack of ability to succeed at school, you might want to explore the 504 as a tool. My thought as to why it is under-used is that possibly it is not commonly presented as an option to parents for fear of over-use. I can hear administrators asking: "What if every parent that thinks their child isn't doing well at school wanted a 504 plan written out and followed? Yikes! What would we do?"
Here is my question: "With all the federal mandates and accountability pieces for average yearly progress staring us in the face and the threat of dropping student achievement, why wouldn't we WANT to identify those with disabilities and accommodate them so they can be successful? "

And then here's another concept:
As well as accommodating special needs for IEP's, special education and 504's, why don't we provide ALL students with the tools they need to succeed, teach them how to use them to self-accommodate, and then no student needs to stick out and be embarassed and we can see the legal mandates for 504's from the Rehab Act and IDEA met in one full swoop.
Seems like a lot easier road to me. Maybe I am over-simplifying it.

For a list of links for tools that can support learning for ALL students - and could be a strong support for students on a 504 plan, see my post here.

All the best to you!

Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

Economic Crisis and IDEA Mandates: Where Are We Headed?

The recent federal money bail-outs of financial institutions and the subsequent stock market slide, deemed an "Economic 9/11", has me asking some serious questions about where our funding sources for schools and special education are headed. As I drove to work, Public Radio had a piece on the Secure Rural Schools program and efforts to get it re-authorized.
In the past, rural schools in Oregon and Washington State have been able to qualify for supplemental federal support through the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act passed in 2000. The financial support amounted to over 200 million dollars to Oregon rural schools where there were a lack of other economic factors to offset costs, i.e. closed lumber mills, federal lands without industry surrounding a community. It also provided support to many other rural programs in the states that qualified.
Congresss did not feel the Act should be permanent and final legislation closed/terminated the program in 2006. Blue Oregon posted a guest column by Congressman Peter DeFazio, (D- Eugene, Oregon) about the battle to re-authorize the Act. The challenge has been coming up with the resource avenue that will fund the program. As the program has been tried to be re-authorized through write-ins on energy bills, evidently big oil and energy has resisted and lobbied against inclusion. The column by DeFazio takes us through the maze of attempt after attempt to get this funding resource back into the hands of our rural schools.
What does this have to do with assistive technology?
While polticians play their games and work for or against re-authorization, school programs falter. Through IDEA 2004, we have a mandate to provide assistive technology to students. Some of the districts in my region do not pay into a pot for AT services because they don't have a budget to pay for it. They bring me in on a case by case basis - which doesn't happen very often. I have had visits with district SLP's that will "wish" I could help and I can't. I can refer them to OTAP (Oregon Technology Access Program) for an AAC device, but I can't loan equipment from my center or do evaluations, etc.
As our economic situation worsens nation-wide, I ask myself, "Where are our funding priorities going to fall as budgets tighten? What ramifications will this have on special education and the staff number, assistive technology support etc.?" Just because the feds mandate something, doesn't mean it will get funded. Our schools are burdened with all kinds of mandates when there is no money to support them. My job security is not determined by the fact that what I do is federally mandated somewhere. The dire needs of individuals with disabilities will not necessarily be met because of mandates either - when push comes to shove. This makes our advocacy efforts more important than ever.
My only answer right now is to stay involved. We need every federal and state program we can get to support schools right now. We also need administrators in school districts that will allocate dollars to keep our special education and support services running. Let's work together to continue to push and be vocal for our students with disabilities.

All the best to you as we "hang in there!"

Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

Accessible Instructional Materials: Shift Happens

I was reading a post on EdTech Solutions by Karen Janowski on paradigm shift occurring (or not) because of IDEA 2004 mandate for accessible instructional materials (AIM). Reading through IDEA 2004 section 674 (e) (2) (B), it says:

"To provide access to print instructional materials, including textbooks, in accessible media, free of charge, to blind or other persons with print disabilities in elementary schools and secondary schools, in accordance with such terms and procedures as the National Instructional Materials Access Center may prescribe." (674/c/1/D includes postsecondary and graduate schools as well.)

Karen referred to an article by Skip Stahl on the TRLD Site stating that getting this trend going will jump start the adaptation of curriculum into accessible formats for all students. He believes that is the shift that will be taking place in education in the future. You can read her commentary on it to get more of the information.
Reading this related closely to what I was doing yesterday and I wanted to share:
I spent a half-day yesterday doing an in-service training at a high school for several teachers and administrators on developing accessible materials. We scanned text book pages, copied them into a closed blog for one student to access and used a text to speech engine and an Mp3 converter. We dragged Mp3's onto a jumpdrive Mp3 player and listened back to the text. We built teacher blogs with odiogo and set up student emails and invited them to join. It was exciting for them to paste widgets into the code side of their blogs and see videos play in and see the text book come alive on the page as they listened to it. They were having some ah-ha moments. The lights were turining on for them.
We were accomplishing great things and as the superintendent of the district sat and watched what we were doing, he too was excited to see the potential. He was ready to see his staff use these blogs and link them on the school site. (Of course then we have to be careful of what text we are scanning and posting - we have to watch out for the copyright violations).
The amazing thing was... I saw that shift happen. The students that these blogs were prepared for will get to have some fun exploring how to do this too.
I asked the teachers to let the students pick some content online and paste it into a blog post and hear it or let them find a video to embed. Let them explore content they are excited about to learn the process of using the tools. Once they use the tools to access what they want to read, hear and see, they will buy in and then they will use the tools for their schoolwork too. If we don't develop the real-life correlation to the use of the tool, we can build all these cool methods for access and then put the most boring thing on earth there and the student will hear "blah, blah, wah, wah, wah".
Here is an example: We had scanned the first page of chapter one of a business english text book. It was exciting to use OCR and see the text ready to hear, but we had some cleaning up of the text to do since the scanning is never 100% perfect. They did some of the editing and I asked them to listen back to what they had. It was the most awful, boring text I had about ever heard or read."If I were the student supposed to use this new way of access and my first introduction to it was this passage, I would tune out just like that - snap." I said. "Why not let the student listen to or find something they want so you get the excitement and buy in?"
A teacher found a horse polo video and embedded it. She also found a short story on Gutenberg.org to add. The creative juices were flowing. We were on our way to getting buy-in from the staff and the administration. The student is next - and that is who this is all for!
So...the shift can begin to take place for this school and this staff, but the shift also has to take place for the students. They have to adjust to the change so they know what they can expect and how they are allowed to access the material - and maybe what they are allowed to access. When the students arrive there, then things really begin to take off.
I will be eager to see what happens in the weeks and months ahead.

All the best to you!

Lon

Assistive Technology Blog Carnival is taking posts on a "Back to School" topic. The deadline is Friday, September 26. If you would like to share a blog post with us, check out the details at http://atblogcarnival.blogspot.com/

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!