INDATA Project Offers Free Training on Assistive Technology Basics

The INDATA Project at Easter Seals Crossroads is offering a free full-day training program for those individuals interested in learning about the basics of assistive technology.

“Assistive Technology 101” takes place Thursday, May 15 from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. in the fifth floor conference room at Easter Seals Crossroads, located at 4740 Kingsway Drive in Indianapolis.

The agenda includes funding sources for assistive technology as well as assistive technology and iPad apps for those individuals with vision, physical and cognitive impairments.

Anyone interested in learning more about the basics of assistive technology should attend this free training. This includes vocational rehabilitation counselors, social workers, parents, educators, students, professionals and health care providers.

“This continues to be one of our most popular training topics,” said INDATA Director Wade Wingler. “Anyone who wants to learn or get a refresher on assistive technology basics will benefit from this training content. We will focus on how assistive technology can benefit people with hearing loss, vision impairments, mobility and communication needs as well as learning difficulties.”

Attendees can register for onsite or online participation in the training at EventBrite.

How to set up and use the Accessibility options on your iPad

The INDiana Assistive Technology (INDATA) Project has published another series of videos; this series is about Accessibility on the iPad.

Part 1 of the series teaches you how to turn on VoiceOver and set up other accessibility options.

Part 2 of the series shows you how to work with the Contacts app by using the Dictate option to add the first and last name of the contact.

Part 3 of the series show you how to add a phone number to the contact by turning on Handwriting mode.

I watched all 3 videos this morning – unfortunately, I couldn’t follow along because I don’t have an iPad – yet.

A new tool in my Accessibility Toolbox - The WAVE Toolbar for Firefox

In Part 2 of INDATA's Web Accessibility series, Wade Wingler, Director of Assistive Technology at the INDATA Project, introduces The WAVE Toolbar for Firefox.  The WAVE (web accessibility evaluation tool) Firefox toolbar provides an automated way to run WAVE reports directly within Firefox.

It provides you with information about your web page in four different ways:

• Errors, Features, and Alerts
• Structure/Order View
• Text-only View
• Outline View

Text-only View is especially useful if you want to see what a screen reader would read out loud about your page.