May 2020
Know AT with the Help of MoAT (vol.12)
ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY,
EXPLORING SOLUTIONS TO REMOVE ALL BARRIERS
Assistive technology provides tools to help individuals overcome challenges which they may encounter while engaging with their environment. This week, we at MoAT, would like to feature a device that helps little ones with limited mobility discover the world around them. 
Research shows that  crawling facilitates the development of cognitive skills, but what about those children who have physical limitations that prohibit them from crawling? For many infants who have mobility limitations, lack of interaction with their environment can hinder or limit their cognitive development. The Frog, invented by Taylor Moreland, provides a solution to overcome this challenge. Learn more about the Frog at https://www.frogmobilityllc.com/
  MoAT CAN HELP YOU TO
FIND SOLUTIONS!
Summer is the perfect time to explore assistive technology. For low-tech, high-tech, and everything in between, Missouri Assistive Technology can help you to find and explore solutions. Our ETC lending library can provide you with the opportunity to have hands-on experience with AT tools outside of the classroom. ETC offers 5-week loans of hundreds of different AT tools to facilitators, therapists, teachers, and families to explore and learn new devices. Reach out to us at www.at.mo.gov to find out how you can borrow devices to explore.
Did You Know That They Have That at Moat?
Missouri Assistive Technology is working towards making it easier to find and borrow assistive technology tools. This summer we are rebuilding our website to include catalog descriptions of all devices, including all software packages and iOS applications, which can be borrowed through our lending library. As we are making changes to better reflect the incredible inventory that we house at MoAT, please contact us to find out whether or not we have a device for which you may be searching. Not all available assistive technology is represented on our website at this time.
As educators work towards preparing for the upcoming school year, there are many assistive technology tools that may be explored to help to support students who may be struggling with learning. In this brief video, Scout introduces some options that are available through Missouri Assistive Technology.
Missouri Assistive Technology is scheduling now for fall in-service zoom meetings to help to introduce assistive technology solutions to your team. Areas of ETC equipment that can be addressed include: Aids for Daily Living, Augmentative and Alternative Communication, Computer Access, Educational Aids, Hearing, Speech, Mounting Systems, Switches and Alternative Input, iOS Tablets and apps, and Vision. Contact us at 816-655-6700 for more details.
 Assistive Technology Webinars
UDL for Remote Learning
Image of student using the Equals Math manipulatives
June 25, 2020 11:00 AM CST
Equals Math is a multi-sensory math curriculum for students with disabilities at all levels of support, including students with low incidence disabilities. This webinar highlights three distance learning options available when teaching takes place outside of the classroom. Technology-based solutions using web-conferencing tools, slideshows, photos, and video will be highlighted. Solutions for students without access to technology are included to ensure no students are left out. Every option includes activities for parents/guardians to complete at home, so students continue the important hands-on experiences needed to understand math concepts and solve problems.
If students will be asked to learn remotely in the fall, how can we as educators encourage classroom interaction? Miro encourages class participation and interaction through an infinite whiteboard platform that can prove functional in any classroom. This short video shows how one teacher uses the Milo for mathematics.
This webinar helps educators to explore options for making distance learning work for all students. While remote learning, teachers must provide students with a sense of normalcy, in order to keep them active, engaged, and moving forward. Through this webinar, AbleNet presents easy technology ideas for use to add UDL to remote learning.
Special Offers in AT  
Understanding UDL for Remote Learners
Logo for the Assistive Technology and Accessibility Educational Materials Center
Follow these steps to create content that is accessible to all students:
  1. Run the accessibility checker as you create Word Documents and/or PowerPoint Documents (Microsoft Accessibility Checker)
  2. Use the heading and list functions.
  3. Apply high contrasting colors and avoid using underlining and bold to make a point.
  4. Provide links to online resources and/or order a digital course packet for hard to come by resources to avoid scanning and uploading as a PDF.
  5. Include only necessary, content-driven images, adding alternative descriptions for all images.
  6. Use captioning for all recordings, editing for accuracy.
Free UDL Lesson Plan Guidelines
What can teachers do to provide assistance to all learners? We have all heard the buzz words "universal design for learning" but what does it truely mean? How can it be implemented by the teacher to best benefit and support the student? Get started understanding UDL with this FREE organized UDL Lesson Planner.
Miro logo
Miro offers their online interactive whiteboard free to educators. Through UDL, educators are to provide students with multiple means of engagement, representation, and action/expression. Miro provides a tool for doing so while teaching students remotely.
What’s “App-ening”at MoAT?  
MoAT's Apps of the Week
Visual Impact 3 is a prompting system that has been designed with features for individuals with cognitive disabilities. The software enables people to become truly independent, self-paced and self-directed. Visual Impact 3, allows the facilitator to acquire and reinforce skills necessary for achieving independence across life activity domains including education, employment, independent living, recreation, and transition. Visual Impact 3 gives provides a tool to quickly create multimedia task instructional sequences, social stories and visual modeling vignettes for nearly any activity.
Icon for Attainment's Stages Math
Stages Math is a number sense app curriculum for assessment and instruction that allows the user to practice nine key areas of elementary level mathematics. Activities are designed to improve the students' number sense and correlate with math standards for typically developing students in pre-K to 3rd grade. Instruction and assessment activities are provided in these skill areas. Each skill area has learning scaffolds with settings that can be customized. For example, you can select activities like counting money, academic goals like the coins and bills presented, and student access methods like mouse or switch use. Students begin within the parameters that the facilitator sets. Data are gathered during instructional practice and assessments. Detailed information such as questions asked, student responses, and time spent are reported. 
Icon for the Noteability app
Notability is an app designed for notetaking and PDF annotation.
This app provides notetaking, journaling, and drawing tools like ink, highlighter, text, and audio. The user can mark imported or scanned textbooks, documents, forms, and images. They can also add photos, GIFs, web pages, and more. Explore this AT tool with anyone that has challenges putting pencil to paper.
Missouri Assistive Technology is here to help you to find unique solutions to all challenges through the use of AT.
Email Laura Hoffman at lhoffman@mo-at.org to learn more.