October 9, 2009
jgronneberg@cast.org
40 Harvard Mills Square, Suite 3
Wakefield, MA 01880
Tel: 781-245-2212 ext. 275
CAST to Lead National Center on Accessible Instructional Materials
5-year, $5 million project to offer technical assistance, best practices
Wakefield, Mass., October 9, 2009—Moving toward its goal of guaranteeing all students full and equal access to a high-quality education, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) has awarded CAST leadership of a 5-year, $5 million Accessible Instructional Materials (AIM) Center.
The AIM Center is charged with working with state education agencies, local education agencies and other stakeholders to develop effective systems to speed the delivery of high-quality accessible instructional materials to students with print disabilities.
“Ultimately, it is our expectation that every student with an identified print disability will receive accessible materials in a timely way and will demonstrate improved learning outcomes within the general education curriculum,” said Chuck Hitchcock, the center’s project director.
Partners in the center include: the American Foundation for the Blind, the American Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA), and the PACER Center Technical Assistance Alliance for Parents.
The AIM Center carries forward CAST’s five years of experience and leadership in developing the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS), a technical specification which guides publishers in preparing digital source files for their copyrighted content. The new center also carries forward the work of the 15-state AIM Consortium, funded by OSEP and led by CAST from 2007-2009.
According to Dr. Joy Zabala, a nationally-known specialist in educational and assistive technologies, and director of technical assistance for AIM, “In the span of two short years, the 15-member AIM Consortium states successfully blazed a trail for all U.S. states and territories by putting into place the building blocks for effectively acquiring and delivering general education materials in accessible formats (Braille, audio, etext, and large print).”
The goals of the AIM Center are to extend the knowledge base and provide technical assistance to additional states and local districts as they establish policies and practices for delivering instructional materials in accessible formats in a timely manner to students with print disabilities. To that end, the AIM Center will:
- Establish and maintain a website with significant background information, learning supports, policy and practice guides pertaining to specialized formats (Braille, audio, etext, large print), and other timely resources.
- Promote best practices, skill development, and successful methods and models, while building a community of practice using traditional and new social media.
- Coordinate with other national and regional technical assistance providers to provide technical assistance that will improve services provided to students with print disabilities.
- Examine trends regarding the future of instructional materials and build capacity to develop, acquire, and use materials that are designed to support all learners right from the start.
#####
About CAST
Founded in 1984 as the Center for Applied Special Technology, CAST has earned international recognition for its development of innovative learning resources and for articulating the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), a framework for creating inclusive educational environments. For more information, go to www.cast.org.
