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Shar Lopez is the Technology Trainer at OTAP the Oregon Technology Access Program. She highlights the training support made possible through the use of 15 laptops that were donated by Arrow Electronics through the National Cristina Foundation.

Once a year we have an annual conference called Access Now. It serves educators, parents, teachers, and educational specialists throughout the State of Oregon. We generally have six sessions and a keynote speaker. In the work sessions we have two hands-on training labs. The purpose of these training labs is to teach attendees about special software that can be used to make computers more useful for students or family members with disabilities.

Shar Lopez loading software on donated laptops

This year we actually had two PC labs thanks to the lab that we had gotten as a result of the donations of the laptops from Arrow Distributors through the National Cristina Foundation. That allowed us to run two labs which otherwise would not have been possible because of cost and budget restraints.
We're in a small rural area of Oregon. So when we do training we usually bring the lab to the people rather than the people coming to us. These mobile learning labs guide professionals, family members and anyone who relates to people with disabilities who require technology support to use adaptive devices in a more knowledgeable way. They also build awareness of these tools so people can ask professionals who are serving their schools or their families to help them obtain them once they are introduced to the concept of how these devices could help. (Editors Note: Adaptive devices are specialized hardware and software that are installed on computers to enable them to be more accessible for people with disabilities). Following the workshops, participants can call me and I will walk them through troubleshooting if that's what they need.

A typical week-long set of workshops means we travel to five different cities in Oregon and teach an eight hour class about a specific device, such as IntelliKeys. IntelliKeys is a large keyboard that you use instead of the one that comes with the computer. It can be customized to the users, according to their special needs.

You could customize it with words that relate to the child that's using it or just use pictures if they're at that level. It has great potential for a range of students with various disabilities. It's very flexible. It could be used for a student that has a severe learning disability to get the auditory feedback or it can work to help a student that is severely disabled but has the ability to do some direct selection. (Editor's note: See magazine section Solutions Made Simple for a further description of this device manufactured by Intellitools).