What We Are Reading

Special shout out and a huge thanks to DIAGRAM community members Robert Jaquiss and Laurie Vasquez! Both of them sent us links to several articles that they read and found interesting so that we could share them with everyone.

• Learning Disabilities Awareness Month: Beyond The Dys In Dyslexia Benetech’s own McKenzie Erickson wrote this post on her experiences with Dyslexia for the Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services Blog.
• $20 Million Grant Powers Game-Changing Internet Access Effort The federal government awarded the University of Wisconsin-Madison a grant to develop and pilot a prototype for an infrastructure that would recognize the type of technology a person was using and automatically apply needed accommodations to make it accessible. This article explains the vision and goals of the pilot.
• IBM Research, Carnegie Mellon Create Open Platform To Help The Blind Navigate Surroundings Scientists from IBM Research and Carnegie Mellon University introduced an open source platform designed to support the creation of smartphone apps that can enable the blind to better navigate their surroundings. This article talks about how they used the platform and how it works.
• At Some Museums, Blind Visitors Can Touch The Art This past July was the 25th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act and because of this, museum programming for the blind has gained greater emphasis. This article talks about what museums are doing to make art more accessible for people with visual impairments.
• Federal Enforcement Activity Focusing On Accessible Technologies The issue of accessible technology and the use of inaccessible technologies in higher education has been termed an area of “great public importance” by the Department of Justice (DOJ). This short article reviews ways in which the DOJ and the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) are enforcing the ADA, and its sister law, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.
• 2015 ELI Content Anchors Survey Results Since 2011, ELI has conducted a yearly survey of the teaching and learning communities to determine key themes and opportunities in post-secondary education. This article is the result of their 2015 survey.
• Facebook’s AI Can Caption Photos For The Blind On Its Own Facebook’s Accessibility Team is working to make social networking more useable for people with disabilities. This article talks about how.
• Visiting Russian Libraries For The Blind & Observations About The Emerging Russian Maker Culture  Several people sent us this article about visiting Russian libraries for the blind so we knew we had to include it. The article talks about the U.S. Speaker Program in Russia, the writer’s experience with the Russian Maker Movements and visiting Russian libraries for the blind to present work on 3d picture books.
• Fishing For Recognizable 3D Printed Textures In this article, high school student Lindsey Welch recounts her experience participating in a REM summer research project where she worked on accurately replicating textures using 3D printing.
• Ouch: Disability Talks A series of podcasts produced by BBC radio that explore topics related to disability through interviews, discussions and guest presenters. Episodes are available for download at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02r6yqw/episodes/player.

Have you read anything you think our community would find interesting? Let us know! Email info[at]Diagram[dot]org and we will include it in our next blog post.