Zahavit Paz, Executive Director of LDRF, invited to speak on the use of Assistive Technology for people with LD at the College of Emek Yezreel

Zahavit Paz, Executive Director and Co-founder on LD Resources Foundation Inc. (LDRF), will be speaking on Sunday, September 13, 2009 at the Israeli Assistive Technology Forum. The forum, held at the Max Stern Academic College of Emek Yezreel, (http://www.yvc.ac.il/template/default.asp?maincat=24) will look at assistive technology and its role in assisting postsecondary students with learning disabilities. Ms. Paz will speak on Digital Literacy and Technology in the 21st Century. Her talk will focus on how assistive technology in the United States is utilized for students with Learning Disabilities and Attention Deficit Disorder (LD/ADHD). She will give a live demonstration of the Key to Go USB drive, an extraordinary cutting edge assistive reading tool used by our technology award student recipients (for more about our award programs go to: http://www.ldrfa.org/awardprogram.php). In this fast-paced world, having the right tools to learn is essential. For students with learning disabilities, it is all the more important that these tools be portable and accessible. Premier Assistive Technologies Inc., a partner with LD Resources Foundation Inc, (LDRF), developed the Key to Go USB drive. Ms Paz’s presentation will include an overview about how people with a reading disability can access their textbooks at college and access the Internet.

For her PowerPoint presentation and other links and resources, please visit: http://ldrfa.org/?pID=24

In 2008 LDRF started operating two programs in Israel at Open University- http://www-e.openu.ac.il/ and Tel Hai College http://www.telhai.ac.il/english/ Both are members of the Israeli Assistive Technology Forum.

One of the other speakers is a representative of LESHEM (http://leshem.telhai.ac.il), the Association for the Advancement of Learning Disabled Students in Higher Education.

For further information about LDRF’s award programs and advocacy work of LD Resources Foundation, go to http://www.ldrfa.org.

For further information about Premier Assistive Technology Inc., go to http://www.readingmadeez.com.

Post high school students with disabilities in postsecondary institutions

The National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER) released a study on June 2nd. The study, “The Post-High School Outcomes of Youth with Disabilities up to 4 Years after High School,” surveyed high school students with disabilities, ages 17-21 on life after high school.

One aspect of the study focused on students with disabilities enrolled in postsecondary institutions. Some of the findings were:

Ø Forty-five percent of high school students went to college. Out of the forty-five percent, 32% were likely enrolled in a two year community college versus 14% enrolled in a four year college.

Ø Students with disabilities who attended a two year college were enrolled in an academic (57 %) than vocational (29 %) programs.

Ø Students who were identified as having a disability in high school, 55% of students did not consider themselves as having a disability while in college. Thirty-seven percent of students self-identified as having a disability in college or in a postsecondary certificate program.

Ø Eighty-nine percent of students with disabilities enrolled in college reported they were working towards a degree or certificate. Twenty-nine percent had graduated or completed their postsecondary certificate program.

To see the report in its entirety, go to http://ies.ed.gov/ncser/.

Activities and fundraing for the LD Resources Foundation

Dear supporters,


* This year: we served and awarded more than 20 college students and 38 college staff.
* We ran 16 programs in colleges ,libraries and organizations.
* Our advocacy, awareness programs and our support group workshops have attracted hundreds of participants .
* LD Resources Foundation has just moved to a new office.


All this we were able to achieve with the generosity of our volunteers and supporters .


This year, we need to hire paid staff in order to serve our students and run our programs .
Due to the economic downturn and higher demands for our services your support is needed more than ever.


Please help us help our students achieve a college education and ultimately improve their chances for a better career .


Your contribution is very important to us
You can make your donation online
at: https://www.ldrfa.org/~ldrfaorg/donate_paypal.php


or mail it to:
LD Resources Foundation
31 East 32 Street Suite 607
New York, NY 10016


Your contribution is tax deductible
The LD Resources Foundation Inc., is a not for profit organization under IRS section 501(c)(3)


Thank you your support is greatly appreciated"

DIGITAL EDUCATION REVOLUTION by Ken Grisham

In the academic world of the 21st century, the inexorable march that we know as the “digital classroom revolution” presents challenges unlike others that have ever been faced in the history of education. With a very “deliberate speed” (almost always too slow), the majority of schools are making the shift to a digital world. Many schools have been led (naively) to believe that the digital classroom revolution is just a matter of more PC’s and software in the classroom. While that is certainly a start in the right direction, how many schools have we seen that purchased new computer hardware and software only to have much of it be “underutilized”, or worse, NOT UTILIZED AT ALL? Even those schools who believe they are going the right direction, often don’t fully appreciate the task in front of them or how to approach it, and certainly don’t realize the magnitude of the tasks they will be facing. Much of this failure to recognize the magnitude of the those tasks is the direct result of not being able to recognize and anticipate the speed of emergence and evolution of the “digital universe of tools and content”. This galactic shift in the world of information must be considered when evaluating the overall framework of the digital education environment of the future. To be successful, every school MUST develop a “digital classroom strategy” that addresses each of the aforementioned issues.

TEACHER VS. STUDENT – WHO’S WHO HERE ??? Ken Grisham President / CEO Premier Assistive Technology

There is a aphorism about old age to the effect that “The child becomes the parent and the parent becomes the child” referring to a time in our lives when our parents take care of us, then we grow up and, in turn, may take care of our parents as they grow old. Even as recently as the late 1990’s, the primary conduits for learning had always been through our parents and teachers…..authority figures who effectively ruled most of our lives, at least until early adulthood when we ventured out on our own. Virtually nothing could be learned that parents and teachers did not already know and they were expected to “pass” that information down to the next generation as part of the overall education process. Generally over time, younger generations came to respect the older generations because they were, for all practical purposes, the “only real path to knowledge” and growth. In today’s world of digital information and access, we see happenings that are analogous to the “parent-child / child-parent inversion, but perhaps in a more unsettling way….a way that presents a major hurdle to migration to a digital world. As access to independent sources of information have become more affordable and widely available, it is much easier for children to discover, learn and apply knowledge without working through parents or teachers. One of the emerging consequences of this new digital reality is a “loss of respect” for authority figures because children can acquire knowledge and skills WITHOUT going through an authority figure, thereby diluting their implied “authority power”. We continue to see children who are far more adept at using multi-tasking devices like cell phones, MP3 players, CD/DVD players-recorders, video recorders, access to the Internet and complex video gaming systems. In those instances, children effectively don’t NEED the adults to show them ANYTHING. The children acquired their knowledge on their own and KNOW MORE THAN THE ADULTS. Even worse, many adults (including teachers) now clearly articulate that they DON’T WANT TO KNOW (AND HAVE NO INTENTION OF LEARNING) about those technologies…thereby, further eroding the child’s confidence that they should turn to adults to acquire knowledge. The student has become the teacher and the teacher has become the student!! There are 3 major elements of the digital classroom strategy. 1. Digital reading tools. Literacy software and hardware that can directly access and work with digital sources of information. 2. Digital content. Digital content can be create in one of several ways: a. Acquire directly from publishers b. Acquire from public sources (e.g. Internet sites, blogs, wikis) c. Acquire from 3rd-party services (Bookshare, RFBD, AMX) d. Create internally by generating new documents or scanning hardcopy materials. 3. Integrated digital curriculum. Digital literacy tools combined with digital content are meaningless unless they can be effectively integrated into an overall curriculum that is the mainstay of the day-to-day classroom environment. All three of these elements MUST BE PRESENT in order to have a successful digital education environment.

A Council Candidate Who Knows It's 'Hard to B.S.' Sonia Sotomayor

A Council Candidate Who Knows It's 'Hard to B.S.' Sonia Sotomayor By Reid Pillifant

Jo Anne Simon, a City Council candidate from Brooklyn, has a Sonia Sotomayor story. Years ago, in a case that produced what will be one of Sotomayor's more closely scrutinized rulings as she prepares for her Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Simon was the lead counsel for the plaintiff, and, ultimately, the winner. The case centered around Simon's client, Marilyn Bartlett, a severely dyslexic law student. Simon was arguing that Bartlett had a right to additional time on the state bar exam under the Americans with Disabilities Act. “It was very clear to me, very early on, that she was extremely bright and extremely careful about the way her court was run,” Simon said of Sotomayor, in an interview. “She was very demanding, but she was also very fair. It was hard to B.S. her.” When Bartlett v. New York State Board of Law Examiners began in 1993, Simon—who is now running in a crowded Council primary in David Yassky’s district on the Brooklyn waterfront—was three years removed from Fordham Law School, and Judge Sotomayor was in her first full year as a district court judge. “I didn’t know anything about her at all,” Simon said. (This would change when the case dragged on for about eight years.) Simon said Sotomayor had had no prior experience with the legislation, which had not been heavily litigated at the time. “This was cutting-edge case law and there wasn’t a lot of it on this issue when we started,” Simon said. According to her, it "would have been easy" for a court to rule in favor of the attorney general's office. "She didn’t,” she said. “She wanted to know more.” “Early on, when there was a question about whether or not we’d be able to delay certain discovery, [Sotomayor] was concerned that it would take a long time. Her question was: ‘This is this woman’s life, how does she feel about this?’” Simon recalled. “It was very clear that it mattered to her what the plaintiff’s plans for her life were. There was a recognition on her part, and it clearly mattered that there was an important person behind this case,” said Simon. After Sotomayor ruled in favor of Simon’s client, the case become one of three controversial decisions that came up in Sotomayor's fifteen-month confirmation to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in 1997 and 1998. (The case was not resolved until 2001, after two trials and subsequent appeals.) At the time it was treated as something of a radical ruling, Simon said: “I remember reading something about just how crazy this decision was—that it was just a totally crazy decision—but I don’t think it was as crazy as it was made about to be.” But the decision stood the test of time. When Congress amended the Americans with Disabilities Act last summer, it specifically tailored the act to be consistent with the Bartlett case. (Simon testified at the hearings, and calls the case’s impact on the amendments “a very proud moment.”) The 33rd Council district is a particularly liberal one, so Simon’s status as the lead counsel in a case associated with President Obama’s first Supreme Court nominee can only help. Simon expects that the association, via Bartlett, won’t hurt Sotomayor either. “I think she will more than be able to handle herself in her hearing,” Simon said. “She’s exactly what we need on the Supreme Court.”

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