This is Norman Coombs from EASI and we are going to start off with two slides talking about EASI. I do it all the time but you know you've always got to give a promo so as you know we've got to give webinars otherwise you wouldn't be here some of them are fee-based, some of them are free. We also give a number of online courses and if you give five of them and it can lead to an information and technology certificate given by EASI and University of Southern (inaudible) and we give 15 CEU for the certificate. The next slide for people who come to our webinars all the time the paid webinar series are present up to 125 for a flat fee you can can't give you free access to all the fee-based webinars as well as the free one of course give you 20% discount on courses and access to all 40 or 50 archive of previous webinars. So, think about the institutional webinar we have one for individuals and one for institutions. That's about all I want to say. Our professor today is Cary Supalo, he's assistant professor at Illinois University just outside of Chicago and I remember meeting Cary many years ago when he was still a student studying to get a PhD in chemistry. He's got that under his belt also he is a blind professor teaching chemistry. And so, he's had to do a lot of work to get access to labs that he wanted to use and in the process he asked also that it can be used for teachers without disabilities to be used by students with disabilities so we will talk about lab accessibility today. So, with that I will let go of the Mike and Cary, you can go over to the action menu, lock the Mike, and then you are in charge.

NORM COOMBS:  Can't hear you, Cary.

CARY SUPALO:  I'm not seeing the action submenu. I think I am still in my browser, just a moment. All right. I still cannot find the action submenu are you still on my---

NORM COOMBS:  I'm not if you're in a room which is a moderator and if you hit the alt key, you should get the file menu, go over one to decide it should be action and go down three, you should get lock talk key

CARY SUPALO:  All right I'm going to try to do this. I'm not finding the hold button for the microphone so I'm just going to have to do this one-handed, and I can do that. So all right, sorry about the delay. I'd like to thank everyone for logging into this webinar this afternoon or this morning. As I said I'm a chemistry professor at Illinois State University, Illinois just completed my first year of teaching. I teach two courses in general chemistry and one additional course for preservice teachers in chemistry teacher education. And I'm just getting ready for the fall semester. So it's a really wonderful time to be a professor. That being said, I want to talk a little bit about I want to talk a little bit about access to science laboratory activities for students who are blind or low vision the next slide, slide number two is titled why is it important for the blind to be involved in science. And of course I tell this to people all the time. Persons with disabilities are by their very nature problem solvers having to overcome their physical limitation, they've had to problem solve through solutions to access information in the case of a blind person, or a person in a wheelchair has to find out how to traverse the physical environment of the architecture where they live and so on and so forth how a person who is deaf or hard of hearing can communicate in a verbal world. So it's also true for the blind access and visual information can be a challenge. Of course we all know there are a number of solutions to the excess barrier, one of which is using a human being to serve as a live reader to read the printed word to using optical character recognition to scan the text and using text to speech among many other methodologies and of course there's the most important way and that his books in large print and/or braille. Of course all the skills I'm talking about have to do with lifelong skill sets so accessing the printed word using braille and large print, using speech those are lifelong skill sets a person who is blind uses every day. So in addition to the lifelong skill set good organizational skills, assist a student who is blinded them science laboratory you have to be very organized both how you work at the benchtop and in preparations for the laboratory experience. Working with teenagers a lot of kids like to act like they've done their preparation by reading the lab in advance, then they show up to the lab session and glance down at the lab procedure which tips them off as to what they are supposed to be doing whereas if the student had done the preparation in advance where they read about information understand the theory of the battle plan for what they're going to do to overcome physical tasks associated with a lab procedure you can tell the two apart those who are prepared and who is not in the case of a student to us by the preparation is more important because the preparation tips them off as to visually what should be happening in the lab experience. Knowing that the solution is supposed to change from clear to blue when you actually do the experiment and it turns black, it tells you the blind person that maybe we should do that again because that is not what we should be seeing. Why should it be black instead of blue, maybe we used the wrong reagent. In the case where visually impaired student works on the laboratory team this is also important for quality assurance of output and things of that sort. And Beth, if you could give me the next slide.

            What is the director assisted approach? Well, this is the most common way to provide access to the laboratory. Has been used for decades in this can be a sighted counterpart there usually is a student that is not enrolled in a course could be, strongly discourage that this person can be a volunteer or a paid position it's better if it's a paid position if possible because then they view this as an employment opportunity and 810 to take it more seriously which is always a good thing. The laboratory assistant should be familiar with the laboratory safety protocols similar to that of the blind student. The laboratory assistant is supposed to only perform the instructions given by the blind student as long as no safety protocols have been compromised. So what does that mean when I say safety protocols being compromised? It has to do with a blind student giving a command that might create a hazard. Say, putting a metal and a flame that is very flammable and can create some problems may be mixing about sequence of chemicals together causing an explosion it just depends so you've got to be conscientious of that so now one of the major limitations of the director assisted approach is that it expects the blind student to be an expert and typically this is not the case as they themselves or the student usually due to the profession you have to be an expert in order to supervise, Beth if you could give me the next slide, please.

            Limitations of this technique because of its inherent limitations the directed assisted approach can be misused by blind students. And the instructor does not always catch this misuse. The instructor sees that the lab work is getting done without noticing how. It was to be completed. Simply being in the lab does not ensure that learning is occurring. The next slide, please. The next one has to do with some low-tech solutions. For those of you who don't know there is a curriculum called the savvy self which tones for science activities for the visually impaired. Science enrichment for learners with physical handicaps. The savvy self curriculum program was developed initially for students in grades, not K, in grades three through eight and has been field tested with students with other disabilities in other laboratory classes as well. This was developed by the Lawrence (inaudible) Hall of science back in the 1970s to serve as a multisensory science package of tools and curriculum that make the science more hands-on and the materials used for this curriculum honestly were typically non-things such as water, coffee, rocks and sand and such a lot of these materials with the savvy self you are working with plastic devices and hence, you could not but concentrated sulfuric acid in something like this, anyway the next slide, please.

            Some of the tools associated in the savvy self kit have to do with if you hear there's a 50 mL syringe with a braille labeled biometric indicator you also have a tactile thermometer that again is really good at monitoring the temperature of water anywhere from 0°C on up to boiling. Much beyond that, it kind of goes out of its capabilities. However, it is good for that ballpark region. There is a sorting tray sure that the savvy self implemented that uses, just a moment, Beth, what slide number am I on, I want to make sure that I'm aligned

BETH:  I cannot see the numbers on the slides, but is this window eyes and it's got a bunch of bullets about window eyes and then window eyes with the (veneer) probes

CARY SUPALO:  Okay, we need to go back three or four slides, please. All right and I want to be on the slide that is labeled savvy self is that where we are now, Beth, I can't

BETH:  I am looking for that. I went back and it's not there, so I'm going forward.

CARY SUPALO:  Okay, so what does the slide say that you are on now so I can fill in for the rest of the audience.

BETH:  I'm back at the one that says window eyes that converts written text to speech the computer and window eyes with the near probes.

CARY SUPALO:  All right before I talk about the slide then I will give you guys a sense of what else I have here on these other slide so I was talking about the savvy self curriculum and the tools I believe my references list given a specific link where you can find more information about savvy self. But, they also have, I was mentioning the sorting tray I also said that's implemented, serves as a good tactile indicator at the benchtop to indicate to a blind student where liquids are placed by the teacher on the benchtop so it is a good tactile indicator so, if there are some graduated cylinders here have got to be conscious of and they also found that placing graduated cylinders into a beaker, using the beaker as an added support at the base helps to prevent inadvertent toppling of graduated cylinders that's because we know it's a very easy thing to have happened. And then the next slide that I had that showed some more savvy self tools it had a 50 mL graduated cylinder with raised line markings on the edge. It has a plastic balance that used kind of like a teeter totter. Has one up on each side and you use the standard 1 g cube on one side and then you could put another sample on the opposite side and balance them out, gauge the mass to the nearest gram. That and also had a beaker, 100 mL beaker with raised line to indicate liquid level. And it also had, it says, a final stand, a standard that would hold a funnel in place while you pour liquids into various containers. Then the next slide that I had was a picture of what I call a not syringe, again this originated with savvy self. And it is one of the best ways for a blind student to measure volume. In the laboratory, in my chemistry class today.

            So what it has on this if you've seen these plastic needleless syringe is it has a pull tab that you pull out of the cylinder and what you can do is a teacher can launch the (inaudible) a specific volume of the milliliter mark so with a blind student feels the notch aligned with the cylinder that tactile he indicates they have now extracted 10 mL of liquid and they should go ahead and react to add that to the reaction but one of the limitations of that is sometimes you get bubbles that you extracted or say you are extracting from a stock solution in a beaker and you need 10 mL of solution and there are not 10 mL left in the beaker then you wouldn't necessarily know that you've sucked in air in addition to the liquid you've got to make sure your stock solution containers are relatively full so that you can get an accurate biometric measurement. And then the next slide that I have prepared for you guys again had to do with commercially available tactile three-dimensional models. And in the slide I had to models illustrated. One was of a plant cell and the other was of a flower model with braille labels on it. With models you've got to be careful with which models you select a piece of various concepts, you need to have adequate spacing for added modifications for braille labeling as the flower model indicates, but the plan so that you see indicated in the slide is too small for braille labeling so simply good tactile representation of what a plant cell should feel like. So for any teachers of the visually impaired on the webinar today you've just got to choose your models wisely and also it's good if you do label the model such as such as the flower model here we just use the key number one correlate to this, number two correlates to the stem, number three correlates to the leaf, then you provide enlarged print or braille key on a piece of paper alongside the model so the point student can interpret the material accordingly.

            And then progressing forward into the next slide of the presentation that again we missed was just a slight over viewing a company called veneers software and technology. The (veneer) is committed to the preparation to the next generation of scientists and engineers by providing hardware sensors, data loggers, experiments and curriculum and graphing and data analysis software. And then the next slide was supposed to be a slide that illustrated some of the many veneer probe sensors, there are 70 hardware sensors that veneer sells that work with the talking interface that we are going to be discussing shortly and on this one slide I had for you guys I had chosen a heart rate monitor, EKG, a motion detector, a calorimeter, and accelerometer, and a connectivity sensor that six of the 70 sensors right there on the one slide and again, they all talk with the next slide was to be GW micro window eyes text to speech screen reader. So for those of you that don't know, a lot of blind and visually impaired people use access to computers through text to speech and the application we've chosen for this product is called the window eyes text to screen reader from GW micro. And through a specific application called it gives a blind student the ability, okay, Beth, what slide are we on

BETH:  I don't think they are in order because I keep bouncing around trying to find the ones you are talking about so I finally found the multiple sensors and I went to the one right after that one advances the multisensory science learning experiences are good for all students and then the one after that is going to be the use of the braille notebook text and graphics where do you want me to be?

CARY SUPALO:  I want you to be on GW micro window eyes.

BETH:  Okay, the one that explains all about window eyes and what it does, correct?

CARY SUPALO:  Yes, that is correct.

BETH:  Okay I got it.

CARY SUPALO:  All right, let's try this again, cool. So, it converts, window eyes converts text into speech, it allows a blind student to navigate data tables using the arrow keys, it gives a blind student the ability to start and stop data collection into logger Pro application it reads labels on Cartesian graphs. And can also provide access to critical statistical analysis data. That the blind student needs to do their lab reports and also gives the blind student the ability to customize their experimental parameters. So you can tell the system how many data points per second to collect, how long you want the data collection to run and all of that and so for so on and so forth. Logger Pro also has the ability to provide graph sonification. For those of you who don't know graph sonification is the generation of a tone and it plays back a qualitative representation of what an XY Cartesian graph looks like the, not a quantifiable sense but are qualified since in case you don't have access to a tabbed braille embosser to make a raised line of the Cartesian graph. If you can go to the next slide window eyes logger Pro

BETH:  Is the slide talking about the lab quest logger Pro interface?

CARY SUPALO:  No, Beth I need you to go back I think three or four slides.

BETH:  With the veneer drop counter probe, correct?

CARY SUPALO:  Okay, that is one of the sequence, if you could go back three more slides, please.

BETH:  With the stainless steel temperature probe?

CARY SUPALO:  Yes that is correct okay, so on the slide you have a picture stainless steel temperature probe and that that is connected to a laptop computer running the logger Pro data collection software package and the window eyes text to speech screen reader and it is announcing the temperature readers as a chemical reaction is running to completion the sensor is on a beaker there as you can see and as the temperature is raising upwards ever slow slightly Beth, if you can switch it to the next slide titled window eyes logger Pro interface with if you have a picture with the slide, Beth, with the scale on it.

BETH:  The analytical skill we are good, go ahead.

CARY SUPALO:  Okay I'm a slide you should see a USB interface balance with a laptop computer again running the logger Pro data collection software package with the window eyes text to screen reader running and there I've taken a mass of a golf ball as you see is 45.92 g is the measurement we got on the one device, however the a golf ball is but obviously the winning boat on the balance, tier 20 and a powder and you can also measure liquids graph it magically specifically with water because as any scientist knows, 1 g of water equals one military millimeter of water equals one cubic, soap is in balance to measure water is a very precise way to do that. Okay, Beth I need the next slide labels window eyes with logger Pro interfacing with the veneer gas chromatic excellent, thank you.

            So, on the slide you've got the veneer gas chromatographic interface by standard USB connector cable to the lab computer again running logger Pro with window eyes and and here you see the precursor of the gas chromatographic measurement polyethylene solution that is to be we are going to use the glass syringe there on the countertop to injected into the (QPC) and that will produce a peak data on logger Pro software which you can then press (inaudible) under the accessibility submenu logger Pro to get a playback of where your peaks are and a statistical analysis features on logger Pro will tell you where the will tell you where the peaks are correct. For anyone who is in chemistry another critical information of your analysis of what chemicals and substances you are working in. All right, Beth if you could get the next slide titled window eyes logger Pro interface with the drop count.

BETH:  Got it.

CARY SUPALO:  Okay so with the veneer drop counter as you can see it is attached to a standard ring stand and one of the components that comes with the drug counter probe is what I call a dual stop clock reps for that also uses a claim to attach the ring stand and of course the drug counter is a veneer digital sensor most of the sensors are analog in nature of the lab crust of ice there are reports for analytical and digital posts of the prep counter drops into a digital board and then of course the (inaudible) is still plugged into the logger probe computer on the window eyes and allows you to track the volume and a drop wise fashion to the drug counter this is valuable for conducting acid-base titration is where you have the acid-based indicator usually a single saline is what most high schools use in a beaker down below the group calendar with your acid and you are adding your base drop wise through the drop counter in the drop counter at the volume you're counting we know there's approximately 20 to 24 drops per milliliter of liquid solution and it's also useful when using the drop counter you can, there are additional holes on for a temperature sensor and a pH sensor if you want to track pH and temperature along with the volume you're adding in the acid-base titration. All right, as I need the next slide titled independent science, please.

BETH:  I'm looking. I can't find it, what does it say exactly, I'm sorry.

CARY SUPALO:  All right, it says independent sciences the top line, and the

says product assists in compliance with ADA.

BETH:  I don't have that slide anywhere in here.

CARY SUPALO:  All right well what was on the slide was just an overview of independent science list of products and services that we provide the possibility. I'm not sure, but we did verify that they were right. I don't know. Independent science, what we do is adapt standard commercially available laboratory equipment. We support the efforts, the research grants and make them commercial products available once they've been developed and field and tested they've also been terrified to schools and additional guidance on how to specifically adapt a laboratory classroom work curriculum or anything under the sun that they might require so the next slide Beth I'm looking for is titled side voice talking lab quest.

BETH:  Lab quest logger Pro interface?

CARY SUPALO:  We will go with that one. So what you've got there it sort of reiterates in the earlier we have the lab device serving as a hub unit well, in this picture you can use the lab quest as a talking handheld device and we, the side voice talking, you don't necessarily need the lab laptop computer but however if you do do data collection on just the lab quest device you can connected to a laptop computer at a later time and download your data file. Onto your PC with logger Pro and then you can afford higher functional statistical analysis and graph modification with that interface. Okay, Beth, the next slide is going to be the one that says side voice talking lab quest with that periodic table.

BETH:  Okay I have the periodic table.

CARY SUPALO:  Great, all right. A lot of teachers with the blind and visually impaired always ask the question how do I get an accessible periodic table and what's been traditionally done is the tables have been constructed with poster boards, with wiki sticks and hot glue guns and vinyl tape labeled symbols of atomic numbers and symbols and tend to make these by hand spend hours and hours and they tend to take up lots of space if you want to maintain the integrity of the columns on the rows of the periodic table. On the talking lab quest device one of the software applications that runs in parallel with the data collection software application known as the lab quest app is a periodic table application. There brings up a periodic table as you see on the site and you can use the air Okies on the lab quest device to navigate the columns and rows of where the elements are in relation to one another and it's nice when you get to be at the end of a row or column you can dare on to the wraparound to the next row it will force the student to air a backwards or up or down in another direction to maintain a job review representation layout of the table then you can also hit the okay button in any specific elements and it will bring up a list box of 20 different facts, every element atomic weights to electron configuration to a visual description of the element, where it was found who found it and what year it was discovered so, it is a nice way to see, work with the periodic table because again I think the lab quest device if you see in the picture it's not very large it's almost pocket-sized girl could put it in her purse if she wanted to and take it with you and has a very small footprint on a tabletop to access the type of information. Now the next slide, Beth, is titled multisensory lab gear. Lab gear kit.

BETH:  Okay, multisensory science learning experiences?

CARY SUPALO:  No, it should have the lab gear kit in the title, is that not what you are seeing?

NORM COOMBS:  I'm beginning to think I must have put up Cary's slides from a previous webinar.

BETH:  Yeah Cary, I don't have that one.

CARY SUPALO:  I can go ahead and at least talk about the device I suppose the multisensory lab gear kit is available from NBWH education services out of New Jersey and Dr. Lillian Ringel and Marilyn put together a package of low-tech ways of accessing science laboratories so one of the things they had in the kit was a braille and raise line labeled spring scale. They had a series of plastic jars and beakers that were labeled also labeled with capital marking specific volumes in each piece, and they are plastic, so they are not glass and let's see what else was in the care. They also have a talking thermometer that, and things of that sort, so that way a child, say a middle school science could go to the science class with their own tools already to go out of the box and they can implement then or the teacher can work with the student to implement them into the curriculum. And then the second to the last slide that I had prepared for you guys had to do with just an overview of all of what we discussed today and that deals with savvy self being a package of low-tech tools from the past from the 1970s or 80s and how those tools complement the veneer software technology interface with the window eyes text-to-speech reader interface and logger Pro information to make them compatible with one another to get quantifiable data collection both the middle school high school and even college-level or science level class to the talking, the side voice talking lab quest again taking that one step further to eliminate the use of a laptop computer and making a student more mobile so that if they had a field experience or had to go out on an informal learning lesson say field trip to an amusement park you can click scientific data in the field with a lab quest device and then going on to the multisensory science lab gear that I just mentioned a moment ago again another package of more modern low-tech solutions to measuring volumes and waits at middle school and high school level classrooms. If you put all those tools together in a big package you're going to be well on your way to conquering any type of science laboratory class, middle school, high school, or a blind college student might encounter in the first one or two years of college laboratory classwork. We are getting into a political science laboratory classes that's when the technology gets really pushed to the limit and we tend to encounter things where the technology is not capable of the precision that the measurements require with veneer, we do sell high precision balances, so you can get a balance it goes to .0001 g of course that's a very expensive balance as you can imagine some research grade measurements are possible if you calibrate the sensors accordingly. You can get very precise pH measurements with a veneer pH sensor for research purposes as I mentioned the balances, you can also obtain the ocean optic spectrometer to again get transmittance and absorb its measurements, that would be research grade that would be considered research grade. So you can apply this to research experiences for undergraduates students as well but again you have to take it on a case-by-case basis.

            With that. So with that I just would like to thank all of you for your attention and I apologize that the slide student matchup with the presentation today. I don't know what happened with regard to that. I would like to think I'd like to think our product partners GW micro veneer software technology and of course independent science for working together to help make science more accessible to the blind and I do not remember the manufacturers of the models I showed you earlier, but my acknowledgment to them as well. And of course to EASI for allowing us to have this webinar. With that and with that I will open the floor to questions.

NORM COOMBS:  Thank you very much, Cary. I'm sorry about the mixup on the slide so I will get together with you in the next day or two and see if we can get the correctslides up for the archive I guess we should leave a few minutes for people to type questions into the text chat and Beth can read them to you.

BETH:  Chris had one question he wanted to know if Earth science is the same as geography and geology.

CARY SUPALO:  Geography to my understanding is the interpretation of maps. And pie charts and data related to me now, the layout of the world, geology has to do with rocks and soil samples and of course heard science is a combination of geology aspects but in a more general science sort of way, that's the way I view Earth science.

BETH:  I think that's all I see for questions. (Inaudible) says that she wants to know if you have difficulty getting students to learn how to use all this equipment?

CARY SUPALO:  There is a learning curve to it and that's why based on the age of your student determines what package you should use those elementary school or middle school savvy self is perfect for them. For middle school the multisensory lab gear kit again is located low-tech so it's perfect for middle school and high school application is when you get into the use of logger Pro and talking MapQuest it does take some practice learning the keystrokes of the laptop to tell logger Pro what to speak as far as how to pronounce probe readings and data table navigation. But usually I give a crash course to a customer in maybe two hours and we can and the nice thing about the technology is once you've gone through the overview of how it all works then in order to maintain the skill set you need to practice using it because if I show you how to do something in August just before the school year starts and you don't use the keystroke until January odds are you will forget it so once we learned we strongly encourage that you practice using it from time to time as you progress through the school year.

BETH:  I think that applies for everything, but Krista says she wants to know if there are any magnifiers specifically designed for the science laboratory setting that cost less than $3000.

CARY SUPALO:  I'm not aware of any magnification technology that is made specifically for the science laboratory classroom. We have found that you can use the Zoom text with the logger producer touch software package to enlarge the software interface monitor obviously using a larger screen helps with that I know a colleague that is visually impaired and he is a chemistry professor as well and he uses the Ruby from freedom scientific to make observations and laboratory is all but personally been totally blind I've never done that.

BETH:  Chris wants to know if working with hazardous materials in the lab is an issue with the blind student?

CARY SUPALO:  I don't believe it's any more of an issue than it is with a sighted student. You still need to follow all laboratory safety protocols. Wearing safety eye protection, lab coats and as such being properly dressed, using latex rather protective and gloves and then of course handling them with care and being very conscientious of where you place them in different vials and flasks and such that you are working with and of course working with your volume isometric instruments making sure if you are not using, to make sure that the plastic is not incapable of withstanding concentrated acids and things that you might be working with.

NORM COOMBS:  So if you are using latex gloves for hazardous materials does that make it difficult to use refreshable braille display?

CARY SUPALO:  Norm, I wouldn't even think about using refreshable braille display in the lab if you can help it because as you know that technology costs a lot and if you are using gloves that could damage the band configuration obviously if you wanted to go through the effort of maybe taking the gloves off and then reading the display, you could do that. It's much more preferred to use hard copy braille at the benchtop that way if something spills on the braille paper you lose a dollars worth of paper as opposed to a $6000 piece of equipment.

BETH:  Blind people do not spill. And wants to know if you've use the (EXO) focus camera and she provided the camera the website for that other than that I think I got all the questions.

CARY SUPALO:  Great if there are no other questions I'd like to thank everyone for your participation today and Norm, I will turn the floor back over to you.

NORM COOMBS:  Thank you, Cary and we will work on cleaning up the slides for the archive. And next week we are having (inaudible) who works with high-tech math company, I've forgotten his name, doing a lot of work on analytics and I don't remember what (inaudible) season last March, was very impressed with his abilities as a presenter and his knowledge and skill level. So I think this will be worth coming to, so if you are registered are ready for this you don't need to register again. So I want to thank everybody, think Cary for bearing with us with our problems and we will see you hopefully next week.

BETH:  I want to chime in on that and Cary, thank you for being patient with me the science and mathematically challenged one of the family and it shows me all I need to learn.

CARY SUPALO:  Yeah, no problem. It was a pleasure working with you both as always, we can do this again at another time.