Introduction to Disability and Accessibility_Part 4

This is Part 4 of the "Introduction to Disability and Accessibility" webinar archive.
What is a Disability? How does having a disability impact an individual's life? If you are new to the world of disability and would like to learn more this is the webinar for you. You'll walk an hour in the shoes of someone with a disability and experience some of the frustrations and solutions.
Presenter: Jim Tobias

So the Accessible Technology Coalition is a program that was developed by the Center for Accessible Technology.

The Center for Accessible Technology is the parent organization, they received a large grant to launch the Accessible Technology Coalition.

And our mission is to develop a consumer-driven grassroots program that provides people with disabilities, and those that work with them,

Accurate answers to their technology questions, allowing them to identify appropriate solutions.

And what I'll do real quickly is go to our website.

And you should see that up on your screen right now, I'll make it a little bit larger.

This is the Accessible Technology Coalition website which you've already been on at least once in order to sign up for this webinar.

But I wanted to point out a couple of things.

This is the home page, where we provide easy and quick links to a variety of articles that are on the website.

And so you can grab by category,

We also list some of the upcoming trainings.

If you want an article about a specific topic that's not listed, you can type it into the search window and go.

And it will bring up a listing, like if I wanted screen readers, let's see.

And I hit go, then it searches our database of articles and also webinar trainings,

And brings up suggestions for you.

And you can read through the articles and learn more.

We also have a news area of the website, that Jim developed.

So, just some, keep you current on what's new in the area of AT, and what's, might be of interest in the area of AT.

Lots of great stuff in the news feed as well as the articles.

We have a training area, that you've all gone, and that's where we list our webinar trainings in order.

I try to keep it about a month to two months ahead of time, so you have a chance to plan on what you want to attend.

And this is where you get the link and be able to register.

We have an Ask the Expert area of the website, if you have a question that you can't find an answer to in any of the articles,

You can ask our email expert, and you should receive a response within 24 to 48 hours, would you say, Jim?

That's right.

And, I'll talk about both, I'm gonna stay on this page to talk about membership, actually.

So if I went- we are offering membership opportunities, for people to become, really part of our ATC family,

And help with building this database of information.

Right now when you go to the membership page it says that it's on hold,

So what I'd like to do is encourage you to become a member, which is absolutely free of charge,

We're offering it free for at least the next six months,

And you can do that right now by actually creating a free account,

So on the Ask an Expert page there's the opportunity to create a free account to go and join our efforts with the Accessible Technology Coalition.

A couple of reasons to do this, one is become part of, and support the Accessible Technology Coalition,

Another reason is it makes it really easy to register for webinars, that's my thing,

Because when you sign up, we ask you for username, email, and address, and then some basic information,

And every time you register for the, any of the webinars,

It actually automatically populates your information, so right now I'm not logged in but if I log into my account...

Gotta remember my password...

When I go to the training page and select "Register for Training"

Rather than having put in my first name, last name, email, company title, it's up there for you.

So it populates those fields, it makes it really easy.

In the future we're going to be adding a lot of nice functionality,

For example you'll have an opportunity to say where your area of interest is,

And then every time you log in we flag you,

For example if you're a librarian, we'll flag you with any new articles that have been posted around library-type issues.

If you're in a school district, we'll flag you about anything that has to do with K-12 students.

And we're also going to be offering opportunities for you to comment on articles and draft additional information that you'd like included in the articles,

So we're really trying to create that coalition community feel, around the Accessible Technology Coalition.

So, please, join us. For now, go to that Ask an Expert page and create a login account.

And also look to the membership pages and we'll invite you to become a member.

Any questions about the website while I have it open?

Or Jim, anything you wanted to add?

Yeah, that's great, thank you.

So I'll go back to the powerpoint and then I can also ask any questions - I mean answer any questions,

And Jim we're really on the last slide, so are there any final thoughts you want to offer?

Um no, I just, you know, everyone's got kind of one piece of the puzzle,

The advantage of these community-building tools is that if every person has five questions and one answer, everyone's questions will be answered,

As long as we have enough open participation.

And instead of struggling in isolation, because very often I know in your organizations there's only one person,

And not always a full-time position, to focus on accessible technology,

So, I think the ATC offers you an opportunity to find this larger community and both get your questions answered and make your contribution as well.

So I look forward to working with you.

And we'll...

We can wait a couple of, a minute or so for any additional questions,

Looks like you guys have everything you need answered.

Jim did mention the "free computer AT you already have" webinar, that's been mostly focused on Windows.

Next month we're gonna be offering one that's specifically on OS 10 because that was requested at one of the previous webinars.

So keep an eye out for that.

And as Jim mentioned, we're pulling together a webinar on legal obligations for organizations and what supports are out there.

So what's mandated, what's required versus what's suggested, as well as supports for reaching those goals.

And if Jim doesn't have anything else I'll say thank you all for attending.

Thanks a lot, everyone.