The Learning Experience

We are so excited to bring you this interview with Jordyn Zimmerman, a passionate educator and disability advocate who is currently the Head of Product Strategy at the Nora Project. Jordyn was diagnosed as autistic at a young age, but she did not receive access to augmentative and alternative communication (AAC)  until the age of 18. Her own lived experience  fuels her beliefs about leveraging too...

A key goal for this podcast is to share the lived experience of learners who use and benefit from providing accessible educational materials and technologies. In that spirit, this month we are lucky to have Connor Joyce on the podcast. Connor is a student at Gettysburg College double majoring in Emerging Threats in National Security and Political Science and minoring in History. In 2018 he was awa...

The federally-funded Technical Assistance centers based at CAST are always working on new resources to help the field implement best practices in the provision and effective use of high-quality accessible materials and technologies. This month, we are pleased to share two new resources from the AEM Center. Michelle Soriano shares information about a new Family’s Guide to Accessible Educational Mat...

Diana Garcia-Mejia is a Pre-K teacher of students with visual impairments who is passionate about accessibility and inclusion for all students. On this episode, Diana shares many practical tips and ideas for ensuring young learners with visual impairments get off to a strong start in their educational journey. That includes learning about braille and other supports, including assistive technology,...

For our final episode of 2023, we are excited to welcome Loui Lord Nelson to the podcast. Loui, who herself is a master podcaster and the creator of the popular UDL in 15 minutes podcast, is an international UDL educator, consultant, speaker, and author. She has worked with schools, districts, universities, and ministries of education around the world to support UDL implementation and research, an...

On this episode, we welcome CITES Framework Development District partners Janna Greathouse and Samantha Reid with Jenks Public Schools in Oklahoma, and Bijul Dalal with Grossmont Union High School District in California. Janna and Bijul serve as their districts’ assistive technology leads, while Samantha Reid serves her district as the ed-tech lead. CAST Senior Technical Assistance Specialist and...

The AEM Center has enjoyed an exciting partnership with Step Up AT and the Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center (ECTA) .  On this episode, CAST Technical Assistance Specialist Maggie Pickett is joined by Michelle Schladant and Austin Garilli from Step Up AT and Jani Kazlowski from ECTA to discuss how their respective centers are working to foster more inclusive learning in early childhood s...

We are excited to launch season 3 of the podcast with a conversation between AEM Center Technical Assistance Specialist Kelli Suding, Rebecca Sheffield from the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), and Ellery Robinson from the Office of Educational Technology (OET). Rebecca is an Education Program Specialist at OSEP and the AEM Center’s Project Officer, and Ellery has been an Education Pio...

This Season 2 bonus episode originated from the AEM Center being introduced to leaders at the South Carolina Department of Education (SCDE) by both the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and the Office of Educational Technology (OET) at the U.S. Department of Education (USDE). Throughout May, OSEP and OET partnered on a month-long public campaign to celebrate Global Accessibility Awarenes...

On this episode, we welcome Zebadiah Hall to the podcast. Zebadiah is the first Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the University of Wyoming, and he has a long career in the field of disability services in higher education. He was previously the Director of Student Disability Services at Cornell University, where he was a champion for integrating Universal Design for Learning (U...

On this episode, CAST Disability and Digital Inclusion Lead Luis Perez chats with Mia Murphy and Chris Smith from the North Carolina Virtual Public School (NCVPS). Mia and Chris have been great partners in supporting the work of the technical assistance centers at CAST, especially the Center on Inclusive Technology and Education Systems (CITES). In 2022, CITES launched its Virtual Learning Project...

If you are interested in learning more about efforts to coordinate work around Universal Design for Learning across states and make it more systemic and sustainable, this episode is for you. CAST Technical Assistance Specialist Michelle Soriano has a great conversation with Zach Smith, who as a Senior Project Director at West Ed, leads a UDL Deep Drive group as part of his work at the National Cen...

On this episode, CAST Technical Assistance Specialist Maggie Pickett interviews the authors of Inclusive Learning 365: Edtech Strategies for Every Day of the Year. The authors’ contagious passion for inclusive learning will be quickly evident as they each start with a brief description of what drives their work as advocates for inclusive technology and accessibility. This is followed by a  great c...

Mark Nichols is the Senior Director of Universal Design and Accessible Technologies at Virginia Tech and a longtime friend of the AEM Center and CAST. This episode starts with Mark sharing the personal experience that drives everything he does as an accessibility professional. We then explore the exciting Choose Accessible Learning Materials, or CALM, initiative and how it has helped Mark and his...

On this episode we are excited to welcome CAST CEO Lindsay Jones to the podcast! Lindsay discusses technical assistance with the entire TA team at CAST, which spans two national technical assistance centers: the National Center on Accessible Educational Materials for Learning (AEM Center) and the Center for Inclusive Techology and Education Systems (CITES). After explaining what makes the approach...

Procuring or purchasing accessible educational materials and technologies will make it more likely that learners with disabilities who use assistive technology (AT) will have access at the same time as everyone else. In this episode, a team from the Francis Howell school district in Missouri speaks to the collaboration across departments that has helped them improve how accessible educational mate...

The research is clear. Implementing strong, authentic family engagement practices has a positive impact across the board for educators, families, and learners themselves. In this episode, you’ll learn how the Center on Inclusive Technology and Education Systems (CITES) is elevating this critical piece of district technology implementation across the five areas of the CITES framework - Leadership,...

In this episode, AEM Center Project Director Cynthia Curry chats Dr. Eric Moore, Director of Learning Technology at the Kennedy Krieger Institute. Dr. Moore’s passion for designing inclusive learning environments has been informed and inspired by his own lived experience as a person with a disability and the many roles he has had in education, both in the U.S. and abroad. Tune in to hear Dr. Moore...

We are excited to launch Season 2 of the podcast with a conversation between AEM Center Technical Assistance Specialist Michelle Soriano and Kelli Suding. Kelli works for the PATINS (Promoting Achievement through Technology and Instruction for all Students) Project in Indiana, which was a 2014-2019 National AEM Cohort state. She is an experienced educator and assistive technology expert, and in th...

The Center for Inclusive Software for Learning (CISL) at CAST is an OSEP-funded project that developed Clusive as a free, flexible, adaptive, and customizable web-based digital learning environment . On this episode, Lynn McCormack and Kristin Robinson from the Clusive team join us to explain the many accessibility features and Universal Design for Learning supports that are built into Clusive to...

Step UP AT is an OSEP-funded project that coaches teachers, teacher assistants, families and school districts to adopt evidence-based assistive technology (AT) practices shown to improve early literacy outcomes for young children with disabilities. On this episode, Step UP AT’s Michele Schaldant and Austin Garilli explain how Step UP AT is addressing the challenge of building capacity for the effe...

Bruce Alter and Jamie Maier have developed a strong partnership aimed at improving access for all students in Oregon’s Tigard-Tualatin School District.  On this episode, Bruce and Jaimie share powerful personal and professional stories highlighting the power of assistive technology and accessible educational materials. They also share a number of tips and lessons learned from their district’s expe...

The need for accessibility doesn’t stop when learners transition into the workforce. In this episode, we continue our discussion of effective partnerships, this time with a focus on efforts to improve the timely delivery of high-quality accessible materials and technologies to job seekers with disabilities.  Our guests from Oklahoma’s Able Tech and Department of Rehabilitation Services explain how...

Developing a robust system that improves the timely delivery of high-quality accessible educational materials and technologies requires coordinated work at both the state and district levels. What does that kind of partnership look like? On this episode, Carson Cochran, from the Georgia Department of Education, and Somer Smith, from Marietta City Schools, share the insights and lessons they have l...

In the conclusion of our three-part series exploring the history of accessibility at CAST, co-founders Skip Stahl and David Rose reflect on how that history continues to inspire and inform the work of the technical assistance centers based at CAST. The episode concludes with a touching tribute to the life and work of Joy Zabala, with information on how you can contribute to the Joy Zabala Fellowsh...