[NFBF-L] FW: DBS Media Report Thursday, March 26, 2020

[PLipovsky]

DBS Media Report

Thursday, March 26, 2020

 

Forbes: The Power Of Purpose: How Brands Can Work With Be My Eyes To Help
The Blind And Low
<https://www.forbes.com/sites/afdhelaziz/2020/03/24/the-power-of-purpose-how
-brands-can-work-with-be-my-eyes-to-help-the-blind-and-low-vision-community-
part-2/#4a4c8ed22fc8> - Vision Community

Any brand, anywhere, who wants to support the blind and visually impaired,
globally, can do so through the Be My Eyes platform. You as a brand chooses
your own opening hours, regions, and who at your company is going to answer
the calls. When a brand partners with Be My Eyes, we provide them with a
profile in the Be My Eyes app that allows blind users to get information,
links to services, and make direct video calls to your call center. As a
brand you can decide what service you want to provide: whether it's tech
support, experiential marketing, or just basic information and referral
services. We're giving any organization who wants to interact on a human to
human level a chance to field calls just like our volunteers. The experience
is just as rewarding as volunteering - and gives your company incredible new
insight into your product's accessibility and usability, from an inclusive
design perspective.

 

Education

 

Thrive Global: Practice What We Teach: Higher Ed Needs Universal Design For
All Students
<https://thriveglobal.com/stories/practice-what-we-teach-higher-ed-needs-uni
versal-design-for-all-students/> 

As university faculty and administrators across the country are closing
schools, scrambling to flip course work to on-line or virtual programing due
to COVID-19, many are also finalizing decisions on acceptances for the 2020
fall incoming classes. Hopefully, they give priority to attracting and
retaining students with disabilities as part of diversity initiatives.
However, although this year is the 30th anniversary of the signing of the
Americans With Disabilities Act and March is recognized as Disability
Awareness month, accessibility concerns of this group of students often go
unnoticed with university diversity initiatives. The concept of Universal
Design for Learning can offer solutions for virtual learning as well as for
the approximately three and a half million students who identify as having a
disability. This number translates to roughly 20% of the student body in
college each year. 

 

Click Orlando: Children With Special Needs May Go Without In-Person Therapy
But Education Continues Online During Coronavirus Pandemic
<https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2020/03/25/children-with-special-ne
eds-may-go-without-in-person-therapy-but-education-continues-online-during-c
oronavirus-pandemic/> 

Parents whose children are enrolled in specialized programs through their
schools due to learning or physically disabilities are faced with attempting
to fill that gap on their own now that all Florida schools have shifted to
online-only learning due to the coronavirus outbreak for the time being. In
Orange County, the school district created a website with resources for
exceptional student education parents
<https://www.ocps.net/cms/One.aspx?portalId=54703&pageId=1406302> to help
continue their education online. "This is an unprecedented time in our
history, OCPS staff will make every effort to meet student needs given the
current conditions. OCPS support services staff will be in communication
with parents of students in the near future to discuss potential remote
learning," according to the OCPS website. During the current emergency
school closures it may not be possible to provide hands-on physical therapy,
occupational therapy, or tactile sign language educational services,
according to the district, however, many disability modifications and
services may be effectively provided online, including "extensions of time
for assignments, videos with accurate captioning or embedded sign language
interpreting, accessible reading materials, and many speech or language
services through video conferencing."

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: Untitled attachment 00032.txt
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/nfbf-l_nfbnet.org/attachments/20200326/c0a7b832/attachment.txt>