The purpose of the National AEM Center’s Quality Indicators with Critical Components for K-12 is to assist state and local education agencies with planning, implementing, and evaluating systems for providing accessible materials and technologies for all students who need them. States and local school districts will find the Quality Indicators useful for implementing statutory requirements that mandate equitable access to learning opportunities for students with disabilities, including equal access to printed materials, digital materials, and technologies.

Discover accessible learning across the lifespan in these short and informative videos designed to start conversations about the importance of accessibility and accessible materials in your context.

Introduction to Accessibility

In this first video in our series, you’ll build an understanding of what accessibility means. People who need accessible materials and technologies describe how access creates inclusion where they live, learn, and work. Ultimately, accessibility is achieved when we remove barriers — or better yet, design environments that are inclusive for everyone from the beginning.

Acquiring the accessible formats a learner needs is part of a multi-step decision-making process. By prioritizing accessibility, access barriers for learners with disabilities will be minimized when materials are acquired. In cases where inaccessible materials have been selected, alternative forms - accessible formats - of those materials will have to be acquired for learners who need them. Examples of accessible formats include audio, braille, large print, tactile graphics, and digital text conforming with accessibility standards.

Accessible formats of materials can be acquired from:

Accessible Media Producers (AMPs)
Publishers
Local Conversion

Learning Center
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The new ATIA Learning Center is a user-friendly source of high-quality education, presented by leading AT professionals and designed for educators, consultants, and service professionals working at the local, state and national levels in government and private organizations. The Learning Center is the place to:
Discover courses covering a wide variety of AT topics*
Expand your knowledge and skills on your own time
Download handouts for future use
Earn CEU certificates immediately (upon completion of course assessments)
Store your unfinished courses, completed assessments, and CEU certificates in one place – indefinitely!
Complete feedback surveys to improve the user experiences

Michael Cantino from Northwest Regional Education Service District presents Creating Accessible Documents in the Microsoft and Google Suites.

In inclusive early childhood programs and settings, social and learning activities are designed for the participation of all children. Objects, tools, and materials that are selected for inclusive activities provide options for engaging through multiple sensory, physical, and perceptual means. The Quality Indicators for Early Childhood describe how agencies, programs, and services can work together to improve the accessibility of early learning environments for children with disabilities.

Framing the Future of Learning with Technology
The goal of the Center on Inclusive Technology & Education Systems (CITES) is to empower school districts to create and sustain inclusive technology systems that serve all students, including students with disabilities who require assistive technology or accessible educational materials. To do this work, we are creating and disseminating a framework of evidence-based practices to enhance the successful use of technology by all students. We provide technical assistance to districts, educators, and families to ensure that students with disabilities are able to use the technology tools they need to foster learning and life success.

Checklist of best practices for creating accessible resources.The Accessibility Checklist is adapted from BC Open Textbook Accessibility Toolkit, CC-BY 4.0 International License.

This module is part of a course on Inclusive Educational Practices that offers professional development for educators who aspire to provide a supportive learning environment for dyslexic and with learning difficulties learners.Students have different needs, interests, and abilities. In order to effectively teach them and provide them with rich learning experiences, lesson plans need to be as diverse as they are. This module aims to help educators analyze different learning styles and accordingly build  their lesson plans as to embrace and support not only the needs of specific learners but provide quality education for all students. To this end, tools, articles, guidelines, videos, and examples are provided. Planning a lesson for an inclusive classroom entails less modifications for future use in a different learning context, facilitates a substitute to take over the class, and ensures learning for every child."It is not the disabilities of the students that prevent the implementation of a long effective instructional model, but the environment that is disabling"                               Katz, 2015 

The National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS) is a technical standard publishers can use to produce source files (in XML) that may be used to develop multiple accessible formats (such as Braille or audiobooks).

In addition to the technical specification, our NIMAS Exemplars provide NIMAS-conformant filesets you can inspect to learn more about best practices based on the technical specification and the DAISY Structure Guidelines.

MathML is the recommended way to represent mathematical notation in NIMAS. For more information, visit MathML in NIMAS.

Visit Resources for Publishers and Conversion Houses on the NIMAC website for additional resources related to the production of NIMAS files.

On November 17, 2004, a bipartisan House-Senate conference committee approved a final special education reform bill that reauthorized the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and set in motion important reforms that helped teachers, parents, and schools ensure every student with disabilities receives a quality education. The bipartisan agreement is based on legislation authored by House Education Reform Subcommittee Chairman Mike Castle (R-DE) that passed the House in 2003 with bipartisan support. The measure includes reforms recommended in 2002 by President Bush's special education commission, as well as key elements of the IDEA reauthorization bill passed by the Senate in 2004. On December 3, 2004, the President signed IDEA 2004 and stated:

"All students in America can learn. That's what all of us up here believe. All of us understand we have an obligation to make sure no child is left behind in America. So I'm honored to sign the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004, and once again thank the members for being here."

The materials in this module -- including PowerPoint slides and a handout -- were developed for the Washington State Canvas Conference (WACC) 2019, co-presented by an Instructional Designer and OER Librarian. Therefore, the focus is on best practices of integrating UDL and OE principles and materials into Canvas courses. However, many concepts are basic and universal and could be adapted to any learning management system. These materials were also designed for a 60-minute session but could easily be adapted for a longer session or workshop. These materials were designed for educators already familiar with the basic concepts of UDL and OER.

Oregon Department of Education's Program Analyst and Instructional Materials Coordinator Aujalee Moore shares the states processes and guidelines for school district purchases of accessible curriculum and supplemental materials for K-12.

Information and video tutorials to help teachers and students take advantage of built-in features, apps and extensions on a variety of devices to support a personalized and accessible reading experience for everyone.

The mission of the Assistive Technology Act Technical Assistance and Training Center (AT3) is to increase access to and acquisition of assistive technologies by individuals with disabilities across the lifespan.

The Assistive Technology Act Training and Technical Assistance Center(AT3/AT3 Center) is a project funded under grant award # 90ATTA0001 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Community Living (ACL). AT3 provides technical assistance and supports to State Assistive Technology (AT) Programs funded under Section 4 of the Assistive Technology Act of 1998, as amended (P.L. 108-364). The AT3 Center is a sponsored project of the Association of Assistive Technology Act Programs (ATAP) The information on this website does not necessarily reflect the position or policy of ACL, and no official endorsement should be inferred.

Resources to help educators enhance and enrich their teaching with accessible videos that include captions and/or audio description.

The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Learn more about the Universal Design for Learning framework from CAST. The UDL Guidelines can be used by educators, curriculum developers, researchers, parents, and anyone else who wants to implement the UDL framework in a learning environment. These guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.