The following are articles and/or web sites pertaining to Web access issues for students with disabilities.
One of the most useful was through the Access.Edu. site; this tool was Lynx-View. I found this tool to be very helpful and easy to use. While checking out my pages I found that it didn't have any problems with the text only pages. But when I checked out the pages that had some charts and tables it changed them so that the reader would only have to read from left to right instead of looking down columns and across rows at the same time. Lynx-View showed me that by making the graphs and chart easier to read it would be easier to read for visually disabled people. It made me think - sometimes we try to compile a lot of information on to one page, and for some this is more confusing than helpful! I had never thought about how hard it would be to understand information given on graphs or on tables for someone with a visual disability. I had two students last year that had visual problems. One wore very thick glasses and had to be right on top of things in order to see them. The other one had to get glasses at the beginning of the year and the doctor told his mother that he was dyslexic. He did very well and we did several things that helped him with his school work.Graphs and tables were one of the areas that he had the hardest time trying to grasp. I will now try to make easier to read graphs and tables for those who might need them.
I also thought that the following web site was really something that would be good to use, Dr. Peet's Talk/Writer. This is a word processor with voice designed for very early learners, those with learning disabilities, or those with visual impairments: blind, or partially sighted. The program is designed to work with basic letter recognition exercises to simple word processing and written expression.
Another area I looked up was one that I would have found helpful at the beginning of this year - disabilities due to a language barrier. Sesame Street Activities. There is also some software that is available for anyone with this disability through Learning Services I had a student that came into school not knowing one word of English. Spanish was the only language spoken at home. I spent a lot of time finding things in Spanish that went along with what we were doing so that her grandmother and father could read them to her. This way she would have some idea of what we were reading and talking about. We also had a Spanish/ English video that was helpful. But this Sesame Street Site has many activities that would have been really helpful. I will probably use this site this year after seeing how much Spanish the other students picked up last year while Yessica was learning the English.
With the use of these sites along with our recently purchased Power Macintosh (which has audio-visual capabilities). I think that I have a great start in providing my students with an enhanced curriculum that will better meet the needs of all of our students.