Nick Hoekstra

Man Using the Braille in Front of a Computer

Dot the I’s and Every Other Letter: Technology to Support Braille Learning

For over 150 years, a system of raised dots known as braille has been the fundamental system of written communication for the blind. Perkins School for the Blind reports that there exist braille codes for over 130 languages from around the world. Even beyond the classroom, braille is an indispensable tool in the daily lives of people who are blind or visually impaired. Fortunately, advances in technology have the potential to make braille more readily available than ever before.

Person looking at an open laptop with multiple options on the screen

Supporting Peer Interactions Online

With the growing interest in online education – and especially after the global COVID-19 pandemic forced schools across the world to turn to online education – how can we continue to support peer interactions?

A woman looks through Virtual Reality goggles to see various images and videos spread out before her.

I’ll Cross that Virtual Bridge When I Come to It: Orientation and Mobility Training in Virtual Environments

One technology that has shown potential for creating safe spaces for teaching/practicing O&M skills is virtual reality (VR). According to Thevin and colleagues (2020), VR systems create immersive, interactive environments that provide students the opportunity for trial and error . Besides visual feedback, VR systems can provide both haptic and auditory information for the benefit of individuals who are blind or low vision.

A professional works on a slide deck at a desktop computer. He is in an office with other professionals that are working together.

Accessibility Checker for Slides

Special education teachers and related service providers are tasked with developing and maintaining high-quality data to support student progress towards goals. This means that the burden of exploring options to collect high quality data is on educator preparation programs (EPPs) and personnel. Beyond teaching how to write legally defensible goals and maintain high-quality data sheets from them, EPPs must also provide pre-service teachers with the skills to create and/or find resources to assess the assigned goals. Boom Cards™ by Boom Learning are interactive task cards that can be used in the brick-and-mortar classroom and virtually to provide teachers and related service providers with meaningful feedback for progress towards goals.

A university professor lectures in front of a higher education class.

Preparing for the Fall Semester: Aligning Instruction to Standards

This is post 4 of 9 in the series “Prepare for the Fall Semester” Preparing for the Fall Semester: What Do You Want to Share? Instructional and Assessment Technology to Prepare for Your Fall Semester Preparing Teachers for Standards-Based Lesson…

A blind woman using phone as assistive technology

Introducing the Assistive Technology Blog Series

This is post 2 of 9 in the series “Assistive Technology” Assisting Teachers in Understanding Assistive Technology: What Recent Research Says Introducing the Assistive Technology Blog Series Preparing Pre-Service Educators to Make AT Decisions 3 Key Questions When Considering Assistive…

Author: Nick Hoekstra

Author: Nick Hoekstra

Dot the I’s and Every Other Letter: Technology to Support Braille Learning

Supporting Peer Interactions Online

I’ll Cross that Virtual Bridge When I Come to It: Orientation and Mobility Training in Virtual Environments

Accessibility Checker for Slides

Preparing for the Fall Semester: Aligning Instruction to Standards

Introducing the Assistive Technology Blog Series

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Introduction

Author: Nick Hoekstra

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