This document summarizes Lucy Gray's presentation on the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS) and how digitized educational content can benefit students with disabilities or who learn differently. NIMAS aims to provide high-quality accessible educational materials to students with print disabilities in a timely manner. Gray discusses tools that teachers currently use to share and remix digital content, and ideas on how to increase accessibility of educational materials through social networks and user-generated content like adding captions and translations. She raises questions about how NIMAS could support more students and help address the digital divide.

1. You’ve Got It Digitized
Lucy Gray
Lead Technology Coach
The Center for Urban School Improvement
at the University of Chicago
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I'm supposedly an education innovator, and a concerned parent, and I had no idea about NIMAS. I'm here to help you think about educating the
public and to show you ways that i use digital materials as a teacher and parents.

2. You want me to talk
about what?!?!
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3. A bit about me...
• Taught in a variety of settings
• Inspired and intrigued by technology
• Newbie to assistive technology
• Fairly savvy in the ways of Web 2.0
• Active in education communities
• Parent of a child with a learning disability
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4. NIMAS as I recently
understand it...
•National Instructional Materials Accessibility
Standard
•Timely delivery of high quality accessible materials
to students with print disabilities
•A delivery system rather than a learning system
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5. The Content is Already Here
(and they are free)
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People are publishing, sharing and remixing already. What is the publishing world’s response? How are publishers going to keep up? How can
these worlds overlap?

6. Tools Teachers Are Using
•social bookmarking tools
•social network creation tools
•media sharing tools
•publishing tools
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del.icio.us
Ning
You Tube
Teacher Tube
Wikispaces
Blogger

7. My World
•Field Trip 2.0 ALI Exhibit
•Computer Science wiki
•Classroom 2.0 ning
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11. Questions
• How does NIMAS affect non-special ed children? What about kids who
just learn differently?
• How are students designated for clearinghouse access? Is a medical
diagnosis necessary?
• How are companies addressing the digitizing of other media? Google
Earth, YouTube, etc.
• How will teachers in the field develop an awareness of NIMAS’s
existence?
• Where is the content going to be delivered and presented?
• Will NIMAS help bridge the digital divide or increase it?
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12. Concerns
•Training
•Publicity
•Access
•All students
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There are a lot of obstacles to innovation..... change is not something that people easily embrace. How are we going to address the issues that go
along with change? What could be the tipping point here?
Blended the training piece with other initiatives. Response for intervention. We have to translate for teachers... put it into teacher-speak. Call it
differentiation.

13. Suggestions
•Make it easy for parents and students to access
materials. Break down the bureaucracy for people.
•Take advantage of the viral qualities of ed tech
social networks to spread the word.
•Be media savvy. Use RSS feeds, podcasts, blogs,
etc., to distribute information in a timely manner.
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Below is what a parent at my previous school did for one of her son’s classes. Parents shouldn’t have to do their own research like this! http://
mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=64525c02dd&attid=0.1.1&disp=inline&view=att&th=10e9f625bcb92d4a
1) Schedule and resources for 6th grade humanities
Commercial on-line sources of audio and text files:
Amazon http://www.amazon.com/
Barnes and Noble.com http://www.barnesandnoble.com/
Books on Tape http://www.booksontape.com/
General resources for audio files (mp3, etc.):
Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic (RFBD) http://www.rfbd.org/index.htm
must become subscriber; audio CDʼs must be played on special/adapted player
Telltale Weekly http://www.telltaleweekly.org/
low-cost downloads of books, etc., with an ultimate aim of building a library of free text downloads, currently at the Spoken Alexandria site: http://www.spokenalex.org/
General sources for electronic files (html, txt, pdf, etc.):
Please note that the files can be pretty clunky and messy to use, especially from the free sites!
Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
oldest free e-book site on the web; 19,000 titles
Bibliomania http://www.bibliomania.com/bibliomania-static/index.html
free on-line literature (lots of novels!), study guides, etc.
Bartleby: Great Books Online http://www.bartleby.com/
free on-line access to lots of books, including reference books (dictionaries, etc.)

14. Ideas
•What about a social networked text book? Is this
happening already? How can we all be designers of
curriculum that’s accessible and relevant to all
learners?
•A textbook is put online in digital format
•Tools are embedded allowing classes around the country to
communicate, comment, tag, question and build upon the
content.
•It’s about customized learning for kids.
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Add-ons :
Captioned videos
hyperlinked text
synopsis
different languages
embedded vocab
interactive
notetaking
teacher monitoring

15. Ideas
•What about an iTunes-like environment with digital
educational material available at reasonable prices
with flexibility in copyright?
•What about kid-reviewed textbook adoptions?
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16. Lucy Gray
elemenous@gmail.com
AIM, Skype, Twitter, Flickr, Ning
username: elemenous
http://lucygray.org
http://infinitethinking.org
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