The Rats of NIMAS

Okay, so the play on words here is supposed to be the "rats of NIMH," a children's movie which came from a book, I believe; but I don't mean to compare the hard working people on NIMAS and NIMAC to unsanitary rodents. On the contrary, I was just exploring CAST's NIMAS website, and I am impressed by what they are doing.

I feel like I finally have at least a rudimentary handle on how NIMAS is played out. Some helpful definitions:

• NIMAS: National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard
• NIMAC: National Instructional Materials Access Center
  

And here's how it all works:

CAST has been appointed by the national government to run two NIMAS-related organizations: NIMAS Development Center and NIMAS Technical Assistance Center

The NIMAS Development Center sponsors these committees:

• NIMAS Standards Board
• NIMAS Advisory Council (which handles state-level implementation)
• AIM Consortium (group of 15 states devoted to improving instruction for K-12 students with disabilities)

Each of these met in Florida in January. In looking at the notes from the Standards Board meeting, I was struck by how new some of this is! The AIM Consortium was just created in the fall. I was also wondering why I hadn't heard of any of this before, since NIMAS started in 2004...

UDL Theory vs. UDL Practice

I figure it's about time for another post. I've been solidifying my goals in my CAST internship--deciding on my research questions before break, developing an observation protocol for data collection--and I've run into the challenge. The hardest part for me has been trying to connect theory to practice. Hardly surprising, but difficult nonetheless.

I found that this last week, I had put a lot of thought into the design of my observations, to focus it on what Universal Design supports the students use, how often they use them and if it affects the quality of their work. However, when I started observing, I went into a sort of "research mode." I'm pretty good at watching people objectively, but I was losing the heart of why I was observing.

Because my work is developing a case study, I should be focusing on the individuals' needs and characteristics. I had stopped thinking about Universal Design and had begun thinking "science." But my mentor reminded me that I can think about my subjects as people--it's okay to interact with them if need be!

Music-In-Education

Hey, check this out and its implications for Universal Design! (Being a music person, I find great potential for this...)

And this guy directs the Research Center and is a faculty member at the New England Conservatory:

• Larry Scripp — 617.585.1364 | larry@music-in-education.org
  Executive Director; Editor, Journal for Music-In-Education

Darius Part II

So I couldn't stop right there, but I wanted to expand more on the education point. I am also impressed by the curriculum created out of Darius Goes West. It uses the same entry points/awareness ideas I mentioned earlier.

Know About It

What do others think about this curriculum?

Darius Comes East

I'm glad I went to the screening of Darius Goes West on Tuesday. I was inspired, moved, and of course most importantly of all, prompted to think about education. ;-)

First, the movie actually made me think about accessibility--which does have important implications for education. Connecting back to my thoughts on Kerry's blog, I was amazed at another aspect of accessibility I easily take for granted. Kerry had posted about accessibility for the deaf on the T, but Darius's message about mobility access makes a more salient point. The guys in the film rated their "sample" of places in the U.S. as 65% accessible. That means 35% of locations are not. Can we be satisfied with that?

Second, I was honored to meet (well, see and say hi to) Darius, and I was inspired by his perspective. The programs that he and Logan and the foundations backing their cause have created changed my thinking about raising awareness and capturing attention. The way to get someone to think about a problem (like Duchenne Muscluar Dystrophy) is to put it in front of them--in whatever way engages their affect. Give them a blinding discrepant situation! And then I realized that putting the message right at the audience's fingertips was a great way to improve my blog.

So I'm going to do that. Here's what I want you to see.

Here's the movie trailer:


Darius and Logan on NBC:

A young boy's road trip on wheels

btw: Logan--well done. I have great admiration for you.

UDL Editions and My Internship

Let me tell you why I am SO EXCITED about the upcoming BookBuilder assignment. Not only does it rekindle inspirations I had as a child using book-creating software, it provides yet one more link between class and online literacy tools I am exploring in "the field."

As some of my Universal Design classmates may know, I am doing an FEP internship with CAST right now. The research project/program I am working with is called ICON (Improving Comprehension ONline). If you click the link in text or from my list of links on the right of the blog, you can see what the program is all about.

Why am I telling you to do this? You might start to see some similarities between ICON and the program David showed us on Monday--UDL Editions.

When I saw UDL Editions Monday night, I had a major feeling of deja vu. The two programs share many of the same features, with the same goals for improving reading strategies and the reading experience in general. But--UDL Editions seemed more polished and presentable (a la Google), so even though I suspected they were related, I also suspected UDL Editions might even be a step further in structuring Universal Design reading tools.

Talking with Seoin Lim (her blog) after class confirmed this. Both programs feature:

• spoken text capability
• scaffolded reading strategy points
• reading coaches (cartoons who give suggestions: also appear in BookBuilder)
  
• translation to Spanish
• underlined vocabulary words
• glossary
• access to background information

I could probably go on. I would like to create another blog, linked to this one, to tell about my experiences in my internship connected more closely with Universal Design. Look for that link soon.

I just love using Universal Design in reading. It seems to lend itself well to that area of instruction. I know CAST has multiple projects in a variety of subject areas. I keep wondering, though: What can similar UDL programs in science or history or math or car repair look like?
Any thoughts?

Auditory, Meet Motor: Let's Talk Mirror Neurons

So today, I got to have lunch with (and listen to a talk by) Amir Lahav, a neuro-researcher at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital. Besides being a pretty cool and easy-going guy, his work and interest in sound's connection to learning through mirror neuron activation is fascinating.

After subjecting nonmusicians to 5 piano lessons, one of his studies found that listening to the music they learned to play activated their motor areas. Music they didn't know how to play did not do this. Ok, so this is something maybe we've seen before; not that new.

But what about the other way around? Can we benefit motorically from listening? Here's the cool part: Lahav found that those who learned piano music and then had 5 sessions of just listening to the music they learned to play performed better in sequence, timing (rhythm), and dynamics on a pop quiz than people who learned piano and listened to nature sounds.

Mirror neurons react and learn from auditory input. Imagine this implication for education: if you teach a movement with sound, or teach sound with a movement, listening becomes that much more helpful in performance. And teaching in multiple modalities would also strengthen the learning. The importance of listening continues to amaze me.

PS: But so does the importance of movement. In his concluding comments, Lahav said there is something strong and intuitive about learning through movement: "We move before we talk." We understand much through simulation, both physical and mental.