Presentation on accessible educational materials. Online resources available at fdlrs2015.wikispaces.com Developed by the Technology & Learning Connections Team, a part of Florida's MTSS Projects.

1. Accessible Educational Materials:
Ensuring Participation & Progress in the
General Curriculum
1
Sponsored by
Florida Instructional Materials Center for the Visually Impaired
Problem Solving/Response to Intervention Project
Suzanne Dalton
FIMC/VI
David Davis
PS/RtI

2. What Do You Believe?
OSERS Policy Guidance on FAPE

3. Instructional Materials
•For purposes of state adoption, the term
“instructional materials” means items having
intellectual content that by design serve as a
major tool for assisting in the instruction of a
subject or course. These items may be available
in bound, unbound, kit, or package form and
may consist of hardbacked or softbacked
textbooks, electronic content, consumables,
learning laboratories, manipulatives, electronic
media, and computer courseware or software.
FL 1006.29(2)
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4. Instructional Materials
Core
Information
Manipulatives
Hardbacked or softbacked
textbooks, electronic content,
consumables, learning
laboratories, manipulatives,
electronic media, and
computer courseware or
software that serve as the
basis for instruction for each
student in the core courses of
mathematics, language arts,
social studies, science,
reading, and literature.

5. Instructional Materials
Core
Information
Manipulatives
Information, reading, and research
materials not considered “major
instructional tools” but used by the
school and classroom teachers
Examples include encyclopedias,
dictionaries, reference materials,
content enhancement materials,
novels, periodicals, videos, etc.
Informational materials may be
printed to paper, digital files (pdf,
PPT, etc.), ebooks, web-based, or a
combination

6. Instructional Materials
Core
Information
Manipulatives
Manipulatives include those items
that are universally used as
curriculum instruction & learning
aids, such as math manipulatives
and science lab equipment.

7. Instructional Materials
• Electronic Materials
• text-based or image-based content in a form that is
produced on, published by, and readable on computers
or other digital devices and is an electronic version of a
printed book, whether or not any printed equivalent
exists.
• Digital Materials
• text-based or image-based content in a form that
provides the student with various interactive functions;
that can be searched, tagged, distributed, and used for
individualized and group learning; that includes
multimedia content such as video clips, animations,
and virtual reality; and that has the ability to be
accessed at any time and anywhere.
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8. Instructional Materials
•1003.4203 Digital materials, recognitions,
certificates, and technical assistance.—
•(1) Each district school board, in consultation
with the district school superintendent, shall
make available digital materials for students in
prekindergarten through grade 12 in order to
enable students to attain digital skills. The digital
materials may be integrated into subject area
curricula, offered as a separate course, made
available through open-access options, or
deployed through online or digital computer
applications, subject to available funding.
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9. Instructional Materials
•1003.4203 Digital materials, recognitions,
certificates, and technical assistance.—
•(2) Beginning with the 2013-2014 school year,
each district school board, in consultation
with the district school superintendent, shall
make available digital and instructional
materials, including software applications, to
students with disabilities who are in
prekindergarten through grade 12.
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10. Legal Requirements
•IDEA 2004
•“ . . the SEA must ensure that all public
agencies take all reasonable steps to
provide instructional materials in
accessible formats to children with
disabilities who need those instructional
materials at the same time as other
children receive instructional materials.”
•CFR 300.172 (b)(4)

11. FAPE
•Federal Register Vol 71, No. 156, Pg. 46618
•“Timely access to appropriate and
accessible instructional materials is an
inherent component of a public agency’s
obligation under the Act to ensure that
FAPE is available for children with
disabilities and that children with
disabilities participate in the general
curriculum as specified in their IEPs.”

12. Accessibility
To be accessible, instructional materials must be:
•Perceivable: If the material is audio the student
must be able to hear it. If it is visual the student
must be able to see it.
•Operable: The student must be able to physically
manage the materials.
•Understandable: The student must be able to
understand how to use the materials and be
able to understand the content.
•Robust: The materials must respond to assistive
technologies.
http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/intro.html

13. AIM or AEM?
•Accessible Instructional Materials (AIM) is a
phrase found in IDEA 2004 and has often
been used with a focus on making print
materials accessible.
•Accessible Educational Materials (AEM) is a
phrase being used to help people understand
that accessibility is required for all types of
instructional materials, especially digital
curriculums.
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14. AIM or AEM?
•So, accessible educational materials, or AEM,
are print- and technology-based educational
materials, including printed, electronic, and
digitial textbooks and related core materials
that are designed, adapted, or converted in a
way that makes them usable across the
widest range of student variability regardless
of format (print, digital, graphical, audio,
video).
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15. Brainstorming …
•Why is AEM so important to exceptional
students?
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16. Who can benefit?
• Students who cannot decode text and/or have language-
related disabilities have shown positive effects for
fluency with text-to-speech.
• Students with attention, organizational, and/or learning
disabilities have shown improved academic gains with
visual mapping supports, such as concept mapping.
• Students who cannot hold a printed book or turn the
pages benefit from digital books where the pages can be
“turned” by a switch or key press.
• Students who are deaf or hard-of-hearing have
demonstrated academic gains with sequential text
highlighting and captioning.
• Students who are blind or visually impaired benefit from
digital text that can be converted to braille, used by
refreshable braille displays, or converted to audio.

17. Challenges
•How many students are actively accessing
digital files in your district?
•Have you encountered any challenges
related to securing digital files? If so, please
share with the group.
•What can we do to increase that number?
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18. Students
•Exactly who qualifies for AEM?
Students with disabilities who
cannot read standard print effectively and/or
are unable to independently manage and
operate standard instructional materials, and
are therefore unable to meet grade-level
expectations due to their disability, require
accessible educational/ instructional materials
to participate and progress in the general
curriculum.
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19. Brainstorming Together … Questions
• What information is needed BY THE IEP TEAM to
determine instructional assessibility needs?
• How do we know if accessible educational
materials are appropriate for an individual
student?
• Where do we get information relating to the
student’s need and/or an individual student’s
progress?
• Where can we locate the of a student’s
performance on assessments?
• How do we select the accommodations and
specialized formats that will benefit a student?
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20. Assessment Guidelines
When evaluating basic accessibility of
instructional materials, consider:
Sensory
PhysicalCognitive

21. Assessment Resources
•National Center on Accessible Educational
Materials http://aem.cast.org/
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22. AEM Center Decision Making Tools,
cont.
The AEM Navigator provides extensive
support for decision-making at each point by
providing guiding questions resources, and
links to other tools.
The AEM Navigator collects all decisions and
all supporting information entered by a team
and creates a summary that can be printed or
saved to a local computer, along with a
running To Do List.
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23. AEM Center Decision Making Tools
•AEM Navigator
http://aem.cast.org/navigating/decision-
tools.html#.VgQ4IPPD9pg
facilitates the process of decision-making about
accessible instructional materials for an individual
student by IEP or other decision-making teams.
The four major decision points in the process
include 1) determination of need, 2) selection of
format(s), 3) acquisition of formats, and 4)
selection of supports for use.
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24. AEM Center Decision Making Tools,
cont.
• AIM Explorer
http://aem.cast.org/navigating/aim-
explorer.html#.VgQ57PPD9pg
The AIM Explorer is a free simulation that combines
grade-leveled digital text with access features common
to most text readers and other supported reading
software. Magnification, custom text and background
colors, text-to-speech (synthetic and human), text
highlighting, and layout options are presented in a
logical sequence to help struggling readers decide
which of these supports might help them to access and
understand text. The AIM Explorer collects information
and prepares a summary.
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25. Procurement – How to get accessible
materials.
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26. AEM Center Resources/Born Print
• Born Digital vs. Born Print?
• IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) specifically
focuses on accessible formats of educational materials in
print.
• On the AEM website, there is sample contract language
(Purchase Order) for accessible materials that were born
print.
http://aem.cast.org/policies/local-purchase-order-contract-
language.html#.VgV60vPD9pg
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27. AEM Center Resources/Born Digital
•For digital materials, sample contract
language:
http://aem.cast.org/policies/local-purchase-
order-contract-language.html#.VgV60vPD9pg
•For more resources on the AEM Center
website, see Purchase Accessible Learning
Materials (PALM) Initiative at
http://aem.cast.org/navigating/palm.html#.Vg
V79PPD9pg
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28. Florida UDL Questionnaire
•Universal Design for Learning &
Digital Accessibility
Questionnaire
•All publishers who submitted
instructional materials to FLDOE
for review had to fill out one of
these questionnaires.
•Your districts can use this with
their publishers also.
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29. Procurement: Florida Statute
Publishers:
(15) Grant, without prior written request, for any
copyright held by the publisher or its agencies
automatic permission to the department or its
agencies for the reproduction of instructional
materials and supplementary materials in braille,
large print, or other appropriate format for use
by visually impaired students or other students
with disabilities that would benefit from use of
the materials. FS 1006.38(15)
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30. Procurement: NIMAS/Florida Services
•According to IDEA, who qualifies
for NIMAS? (National Instructional
Materials Accessible Standard)
A much smaller number of students:
•Students with visual impairments
•Students with physical impairments
•Students with a reading disability based on
organic dysfunction (interpretation of
definition and “competent authorities” may
vary by vendor)
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31. Accessing Files
•What are the steps to accessing electronic
files?
•Source textbook titles needed by the
student from vendors such as Bookshare or
Learning Ally
•Search vendor databases by title, author,
publisher, International
Standard Book Number (ISBN)
•Download electronic files from
vendor
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32. Vendor: Bookshare
•Bookshare – www.bookshare.org
•Membership is FREE for qualifying students
in U.S.
•Membership is FREE for schools in U.S.
•Search Bookshare database for availability
•School organizations (teachers) must
download textbooks from Bookshare
•Students can download recreational
reading materials from Bookshare
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33. Vendor: Learning Ally
•Learning Ally/Florida –
www.learningally.org/florida
•There are no membership fees for qualifying
students if schools in Florida access Learning
Ally through website address listed above
(register school using Florida DOE
Institutional Membership Application).
•Alternative is for districts to pay an annual
individual membership fee of $119.00 if
registered through www.learningally.org
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34. FIMC-VI
•Florida Instructional Materials Center for the
Visually Impaired – www.fimcvi.org
•AEM materials for students with visual
impairments are registered and book
orders are submitted through FIMC-VI by
teachers of the visually impaired that
are authorized by District Administrators
of Exceptional Student Education
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35. FIMC-VI, cont.
• Qualifying for AEM materials through NIMAS
eligibility criteria for students with physical
impairments or reading disabilities due to an
organic dysfunction are registered and book
orders submitted through FIMC-VI by Digital
Rights Managers (DRMs) that are authorized by
District Administrators of Exceptional Student
Education, annually.
• FIMC-VI then authorizes the National
Instructional Materials Access Center (NIMAC) to
send file to vendor selected by district; FIMC-VI
notifies district when books are ready for
download.
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36. FIMC-VI, cont.
• When accessible educational materials are
needed by students with physical impairments or
reading disabilities, FIMC-VI is used most often
for titles that are new state adoptions.
• Once Bookshare or Learning Ally have produced a
newly-adopted title sourced via NIMAC through
FIMC-VI, districts usually can then order needed
materials directly from the selected vendor for
additional copies needed for other students.
Check vendor database to identify if title is listed.
If not, order additional copies through FIMC-VI.
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37. Brainstorming Together …
District Needs
•What are your district plans/objectives for
2015-16 related to AEM including students
eligible for NIMAS?
•How do we increase the number of students
using AEM including those eligible for NIMAS in
your district?
•What additional information is needed by
district level staff or school level IEP teams for
effective integration of AEM for students? 37

38. Review
•What is AEM? NIMAS?
•Who can benefit?
•What information is needed to access AEM?
•What is a national resource on AEM?
•Who are the vendors for AEM?
•What role does FIMC-VI play in the AEM
process?
•What are district needs?
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39. Why AEM?
•Because achievement opportunities
for exceptional students are …
39

40. Accessible Educational Materials:
Ensuring Participation & Progress in the
General Curriculum
40
Sponsored by
Florida Instructional Materials Center for the Visually Impaired
Problem Solving/Response to Intervention Project
Suzanne Dalton
FIMC/VI
David Davis
PS/RtI