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PACER’s Simon Technology Center: Making the Benefits of Technology More Accessible to Children and Adults with Disabilities (Transcript Provided)
(Full Transcript Below)
Director of Simon Technology Center (STC), Bridget Gilormini and Assistive Technology Specialist Paul Samft give us a look inside the Simon Technology Center and what services they provide to Parents and children with disabilities.
Bridget and Paul sit down with Jeff Thompson of Blind Abilities in the second of a series of podcasts in partnership with PACER Center and State Services for the Blind. Be sure to check out our upcoming PACER Center podcast featuring the Director of Children’s Mental Health and Emotional or Behavioral Disorders Project. You can find the entire PACER Center series here.
From workshops, camps, webinars and projects, the CST Team allows you to investigate all the assistive technology in efforts to help support your aspirations, goals and education.
(from the PACER.orgweb site)
Assistive technology can be a device or service that helps children with disabilities participate more independently within their environment at home or school.
The Simon Technology Center (STC) is dedicated to making the benefits of technology more accessible to children and adults with disabilities. Through a collaborated effort involving parents, professionals, and consumers, the STC can provide numerous services for your family, as well as resources and informative answers to your questions. Since 1987, the Simon Technology Center has helped many children and adults, with a variety of disabilities, use assistive technology to enhance learning, work and independence.
You can find out more about PACER Center on the web at www.Pacer.org
You can reach PACER Center by phone at 952-838-9000
You can find out more about State Services for the Blind on the web at
And by calling 651-539-2300
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Full Transcript:
PACER’s Simon Technology Center: Making the Benefits of Technology More Accessible to Children and Adults with Disabilities
Bridget G:
I think all of us are kind of geeks at heart and we just have a passion for helping people and making a difference.
Jeff Thompson:
State Services for The Blind of Minnesota presents PACER Center, Champions for Children With Disabilities. Director of the Simon Technology Center, Bridget Gilormini.
Bridget G:
About 30 middle school girls with disabilities. They come for day camp and they do it for five days and we spread it across two weeks.
Jeff Thompson:
Assistive Technology Specialist Samft.
Paul Samft:
Yeah, so our technology for teens is a club, basically, is how we package it. And we have a workshop just about every month.
Jeff Thompson:
Simon Technology Center, where parents and children with disabilities learn about assistive technology and how it can enhance their opportunities for the future.
Paul Samft:
They’re increasing their confidence in an area that maybe they didn’t think was an option for them and that’s what’s been awesome about that.
Jeff Thompson:
And you can find out more about PACER Center on the web at www.pacer.org.
Bridget G:
I would say that the feedback that we get from the families that we work with is that the biggest thing that strikes them is how customized the experience is for them.
Paul Samft:
I’m not getting bogged down by what technology’s out there, but rather focused on what goals we want to accomplish and then find the technology that supports those from there.
Bridget G:
One of the things that’s really exciting about working at PACER is that innovation and ideas are really encouraged.
Paul Samft:
Coding in particular is one of these professions that is very well situated for people of all types of disabilities. Especially if you have low vision or no vision because there’s all sorts of tools that you can worth with.
Bridget G:
It’s not a matter of can we, it’s we could just do.
Jeff Thompson:
We hope you enjoy.
Jeff Thompson:
Welcome to Blind Abilities, I’m Jeff Thompson. And today we’re at the PACER Center in Bloomington, Minnesota. And I’m talking to Bridget Gilormini. She’s the director of the Simon Technology Center here at PACER. How are you doing?
Bridget G:
I’m doing great. Good morning and welcome.
Jeff Thompson:
Good morning. Can you tell us a little bit about the Pacer Center here and yourself?
Bridget G:
Sure, so PACER is a parent advocacy center, a parent training information center that was founded over 30 years ago on the premise of parents helping parents. So around that time, legislation came out about what rights children with disabilities had in the school systems. And our founders … Co-founders,
Paula and Marge Goldberg, no relation, just had a heart for helping parents navigate and figure that out. So they started with a staff of about five, got a grant, thought they’d work for a couple years, and close up, go home. And over 30 years later, here we are. And we’ve grown since then into over 30 projects with still kind of that mission that the heart of it helping parents understand and navigate different parts of disability. So we have a national bullying prevention center, we have mental health project, early childhood project, housing project, and then the project that
Paula and I work in is the Simon Technology Center which was founded 32 years ago with a grant from Apple and funding from Minnesota State Department of Education.
Bridget G:
So we started with a part-time staff and we got some additional funding from the … And at that time it was known as the computer resource center. And we got some funding from the Simon family, the Steve Simon family, their foundation and were able to expand. And we have many services, kind of core services then and projects that we do.
Jeff Thompson:
And Bridget, what brought you to PACER Center?
Bridget G:
So I’ve been with PACER Center a little under 11 years. I’m a speech therapist by training and a geek at heart. And those two things married really well together to give me a foundation in assistive technology. I worked in the public schools here in Minnesota for about nine years and had really grown as a leader in my district and the opportunity at PACER came up and I grabbed it and was fortunate enough to be selected for the position and 11 years later have thrilled and thrilled with the absolutely talented, and bright, and exuberant, enthusiastic staff that we have back there. And just the way we’ve been able to grow both the technology and the projects that we have.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah, your staff. I was waiting in the lobby out front and everyone that comes in says hi and it’s like the nice company.
Bridget G:
It is, it is. Most of the people that work here are parents themselves of children with disabilities and I would say probably the Simon Technology Center is one of the exceptions. I think all of us are kind of geeks at heart and we just have a passion for helping people and making a difference.
Jeff Thompson:
So Bridget, can you tell us a little bit about the Simon Technology Center that you just mentioned?
Bridget G:
Sure. So the Simon Technology Center … Our mission is to make the benefits of assistive technology available to parents, professionals, consumers, families, anyone. We’re a cradle to grave service that we … We’re one of the projects at PACER that works with a wide variety of ages. We work with all disabilities. And then probably one of the common questions we get is what makes an assistive technology specialist? We’re blessed to have a staff of about seven. And as I mentioned, I’m a speech therapist by training, but everybody in the center has a different background. We have early childhood teachers, and we have a staff who’s getting her degree in occupational therapy. And I brought one of our staff here today and that’s Paul Samft, and he can tell you a little bit about his background.
Paul Samft:
Hello, yeah. I am one of the assistive technology specialists in the Simon Technology Center. And when I heard about the existence of this job, that there was something out there to help in this way, I was super excited. My background is in training. I train classes in computer skills for a lot of years. I have education in math and computer science and so when I heard about a chance to take those teaching skills that I have and also apply my love of all things technology I … Bridget is right. Everyone at Simon Technology Center is a geek and I’m definitely one of those. And so when I found out that this existed, I jumped right at it and to have the opportunity to work with individuals to basically show the different types of technology that’s out there is one of the things that I really love because there’s a ton of technology and being able to sort through it all and figure out what’s useful is really challenging. And so to have that opportunity to kind of be that expert in that area and help people find those tools is a lot of fun.
Jeff Thompson:
Great. Do you actually work with the youth and the parents? Or is it a collaboration of both?
Paul Samft:
It’s a collaboration definitely. So our consultations are kind of the heart of the Simon Technology Center where we will set up … A assistive technology specialist like myself will set up a time to meet with an individual, and their family, and their support staff, anybody that they’re working with, and we’ll customize that consultation for their specific needs, and goals, and strengths, and weaknesses. And so it comes down to communicating in advance with them, having conversations about what types of things they’re trying to accomplish. And then we gather all the tools that we know of, maybe do some additional research, and come together so that they can have sort of a hands on time to explore these different technologies because it’s really hard to sift through everything on your own. So having this really customized experience is really what the consultations are. They’re a big strength.
Bridget G:
One of our core services, as Paul mentioned, and I would say that the feedback that we get from the families that we work with is that the biggest thing that strikes them is how customized the experience is for them. A couple of important things to note about it is that it’s a free service that we offer. We offer it to families annually so they can come back and see us because kids change and technology changes and we want them to have that opportunity to grow with their technology. And then it’s sometimes confused with an assessment process, but it’s not an assessment. It’s a window of time where we spend about an hour and a half looking at what some of those technology options might be. Sometimes it’s just getting the process started, and sometimes they have very specific things that they want to look at and we’re able to hone in on that for them.
Jeff Thompson:
It sounds like a really good education for parents because with my experience, some parents never knew anything about a disability or something and then all of a sudden it’s sprung upon them and things change, and they want information, and they want to be able to go somewhere to learn about the options that they have.
Bridget G:
That’s exactly true. Another one of our core services that ties in with our consultation service is our lending library. So we have a lending library of approximately 2000 items, software, hardware, although less software nowadays as technology changes, apps, devices. That is by membership, although we do offer scholarships. And we recently went national with that so we’re offering access to our equipment for trying to outside of Minnesota, which is pretty exciting as well. And one of the things I think that families really learned is that assistive technology is really a very broad category. Oftentimes when we’re having conversations with them, the picture that they get in their head is computers, and tablets, and that type of technology, but when we introduce pencil grips, and reading helpers, and just really simple modifications that they hadn’t considered to be assistive technology, that gets to be really exciting.
Jeff Thompson:
With the vast array of technology, Paul, your job is pretty broad then I suppose.
Paul Samft:
Yeah, definitely, and that’s where it comes down to communicating with the people that we’re working with to narrow down the types of things that they’re looking for. But at the same time, having such a broad range of things to look into also makes it a lot of fun because there’s a lot of research that goes on … Fun research. A lot of testing things out to see what’s working and what isn’t. I think that the benefit of having a department like the Simon Technology Center is because these things are so broad.
Bridget G:
I just want to pipe in and say that everybody tends to specialize in one area. So with a certain age group and with kind of a certain set of technology because it is such a broad category. I call us the collective brain. So if I don’t know something, I could tap into Paul’s knowledge of the age group and the technology that he works with and so together we can really support each other and get to the heart of the knowledge that we’re looking for.
Jeff Thompson:
Let’s talk about that age group. I noticed there was the TIKEs, and the KITEs, and EXITE, and last time I was here we had to move to a different room because the puppeteers were here which I thought was quite exciting. How cool? Puppeteers.
Bridget G:
Yeah, so one of the things that’s really exciting about working at PACER is that innovation and ideas are really encouraged. And so … And identifying needs and then having a passion for an idea and developing and watching it come to fruit is really exciting. And that’s how a lot of our projects have started is either staff have seen the need and kind of developed an idea or a parent has come forward. In fact, that’s how the Simon Technology Center started too was a parent said, “You know, there’s gotta be something about technology that can help kids with disabilities.” And Paula said, “Okay, I’ll put that on our wish list.” And that started kind of the exploration before all of the stuff happened with Apple. That’s how a lot of our projects have started. So let me walk you through some of the projects that we have. And I’ll start, I think, with age groups rather than how long the projects have been around.
Bridget G:
So our project for the really little kids ages birth to five is our TIKES project. So it’s one of our newer projects. We were the very happy recipients of a very large federal grant to support … Because the research said that technology for little kids was underused and parents didn’t know about it, they learned about it from other parents and not teachers. So TIKES, technology to improve kids’ educational success. We like acronyms at PACER. And we worked with three school districts in Minnesota to build their capacity around supporting young children. We’re still actually wrapping that project up with some materials that we’ve created for teachers to use, some handouts that talk about some of the different components of that and how we can support parents. And then Elizabeth will be starting a new round of that in the fall working with a scaled down version of that project.
Bridget G:
Next we have our KITE project, was kids included through technology are enriched, which has been around for I want to say over 20 years. And that also started with funding from a federal grant. When that funding went away … Typically, after five years that funding goes away, Minnesota Department of Education picked up funding for that project. And so that’s a traveling project so teachers and parents apply to be a part of a team in a similar location, geographic location in the state. So it’s comprised of about nine people. Three educators, three parents, three related service providers all focusing around one child. So three kids. And then Terry travels to them and provides them a series of training starting with what is AT and looking at the profiles of the kid. She customizes it for them and then takes them on this journey. And afterwards, then, those teachers now have the possibility of impacting all the future classrooms of kids that they have and those parents, as their child goes through the system, is now armed with knowledge. And that can change the trajectory and the life of that child because of their knowledge of AT. So that’s project KITE.
Bridget G:
Then we have our middle school girls with disabilities project, EXITE, exploring interests in technology and engineering. And that one started with some funding from IBM. So IBM historically had an EXITE Camp, just for regular girls all around the country. I think it was even international. And then they approached us about the underrepresented group of girls. And that would be girls with disabilities. And we said, “Yeah, we’ll do that.” Fast forward now, I think we’ve been doing this project 17 years. We are the only camp of it’s kind. IBM stopped doing the camps and we’re the only camp of it’s kind that I know of in the country. And so we bring about 30 middle school girls with disabilities to PACER Center. They come for a day camp, and they do it for five days, and we spread it across two weeks. So they come Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Next week Tuesday, Thursday. And we partner with corporations 3M, CH Robinson, Accenture, Medtronic, and they come in. They bring their women engineers, and their scientists, and they construct a really fun day of camp.
Bridget G:
And I’ll give you my favorite example, which I don’t know that they do anymore, but it’s still my favorite, called Cinderella Shoes. So one of the challenges specifically with girls is just peaking their interests in science, technology, engineering, and math, and installing in them, “I can do this,” that this is … And then expanding what they think science, technology, engineering, and math is. So Cinderella Shoes is about studying the ergonomics of the feet. And if I presented it that way, we’re gonna study about feet, that doesn’t sound very interesting. So they’ve wrapped it up in this delicious package of creating these beautifully decorated shoes with corrugated cardboard, feathers, sequins, ribbons, and they actually would stand on a pressure machine so you could see how much pressure your foot presses down on a surface, and then construct a shoe that’s going to bear weight. And they have a blast.
Bridget G:
And so it’s five days of activities like that. Shooting rockets and making ice cream with liquid nitrogen. And they leave, every year … I can say this that I’ve been here, the 11 years, they leave changed. The other thing that’s really exciting about what they do is they … An unintended consequence is they end up leaving with a friend. We’ve had many parents who approach us and say, “This is the first time my daughter has had a phone number. That somebody’s given her a phone number. And they actually call each other. And they actually get together and do things.” And so that’s been really exciting as well. And that also historically happens every session of camp.
Bridget G:
And then Go, Baby, Go. That’s one of our early childhood projects. We have no funding for it, but we’ve been able to kind of bring it along, but it’s about giving mobility to young children by taking motorized cars that you can buy off the shelf and rewiring where the gas pedal is. We take the gas pedal away from where the foot is and Paul and our volunteer Scott Silver do that and rewire it to another switch. So most of the ones that we’ve done have had a thumb switch on the steering wheel and that’s how they give power to the car and it gives them instant mobility, laughs, giggles. We have a little boy. When he got his car … When he finally got it home, he falls asleep in his car because he doesn’t want to get out of it. Because it gives him mobility and control of going where he wants to go. And that was based on a project out of the University of Delaware with Doctor Cole Galloway. And we just do a little bit in our corner of Minnesota.
Bridget G:
And then I think our final project, which I think I’ll introduce it and then I’m gonna let Paul talk about it because it’s his baby. But when we were doing EXITE Camp, which is only for girls, we had lots of parents ask, “When are you gonna do something for boys?” And we had lots of our parents for our middle school girls say, “When are you gonna do something for older girls,” because they also have a need. And so it got put on the list probably about five years before we started the project. And we started looking for funding. And we received some funding. We packaged a project we’re calling Technology For Teens and I’m gonna let
Paul talk about what the components of that are and how exciting it is.
Paul Samft:
Yeah, so our Technology for Teens is a club, basically, is how we package it. And we have a workshop just about every month. We ended up … In these first few rounds we’re focused on coding and robotics and kind of that area of technology. As we start to grow and expand, we might start pushing into other areas but right now, that’s been ar really exciting area for the kids that are signing up. And the interest in this has been fantastic. We’re filling up the workshops every single time. And the kids come in, they get a chance to code video games in the first workshop. They get a chance to see how to code websites. They have robots that they can program and even a robot that they can build from scratch. More or less from scratch. There’s kind of a kit to follow. But they can see all of these different things.
Paul Samft:
And one of the biggest outcomes that I see is the increased confidence that they get coming into this. Because they hear about, “Oh, coding video games. I play video games, I wonder what it’s like to code this.” And they come in and when they leave, I’ve heard many times that they didn’t think this is something that they could do. And now after doing it, they’re confident and they go on learning more about it. And in each one we give them a tool that they can continue learning on their own. So we try to use things like Scratch which is a way to learn coding which is completely free online so they can create their own accounts and continue learning what they learned in the workshop. We just got some new robots in that are small, but very powerful and quite a bit more affordable. So they wanted to purchase one on their own and continue learning robotics, it’s a affordable and accessible way to do that.
Paul Samft:
So these workshops they’re turned into a place where, not only are they making friends like our Tech For Girls and EXITE Camp workshops there, they’re increasing their confidence in an area that maybe they didn’t think was an option for them. And that’s what’s been awesome about that one.
Bridget G:
Creating a safe, supportive environment, I don’t think many of our participants have needed accommodations or technology, but we have it available for them in case they do. Which kind of leads in to our innovation lab which is where
Paul holds most of the sessions. And I think last time, we received some new equipment, a donation from Safe Co. Seating. I know our staff calls them the mushroom chairs. But your participants in your last session were checking them out.
Paul Samft:
Yeah. And the kids jumped on them. As soon as they saw there was seating options that weren’t your typical chairs, everybody kind of ran for them and made sure they tested them out. And so we had seats that are essentially … And so it’s a ball chair, but it’s not just a ball that can roll around. It’s actually encapsulated in sort of a fabric and stand. So some of them swivel, some of them are just stationary. So you still have the effects of being able to move around while still staying seated, which can be really helpful for any kid that just has to get out that energy or just needs to move around in order to focus. It helps them stay seated while doing that.
Paul Samft:
We also have balance boards, which they kind of look like hover boards if you’re familiar with Back to the Future 2. But they don’t actually hover, but they stand there, and when you balance on it, you move back and forth. You’re using some muscles, you’re moving around while still standing so you can get that motion without having to walk around the room. So it’s a great way to keep you going one place while also giving them that stimulation that they might need.
Bridget G:
Every month, there are a variety of workshops that we do on a wide variety of topics. So we’ve done Appy Hours where we’ll go through apps in a certain category. And it’s just an hour so we do as many as we can in an hour. Apps for assistive technology for transition aged students, AT for writing, introduction for AT is probably one we do a lot, how to consider AT in special ed documentation. And all of those we also broadcast via live stream. So if folks can’t make it to PACER, they can hop on the web, hop on to the live stream channel and view either the live presentation or access our archives of recorded presentations.
Jeff Thompson:
So you can reach all of the edges of the state.
Bridget G:
All the edges of the state. We have viewers from India. Bangalore, India. From an assistive technology center that we helped start that attend our training. So we reach all over the country.
Jeff Thompson:
Wow, that’s impressive.
Bridget G:
It’s exciting, very exciting.
Jeff Thompson:
Now you’re talking about the innovation center. This is something that’s fairly new, right?
Paul Samft:
Yeah, so our Innovation Lab is something we received a very generous grant from
Paul’s Pals, which is a foundation created in honor of
Paul Adelman, and it’s a grant to basically create an innovation lab which filled with assistive technology and cutting edge technology. So we’re installing new touch screens, we’ve just installed a couple of new TVs. We have the seating from Safe Co but we’re also installing all sorts of different types of accessible tables and additional seating. And I think we’re getting some virtual reality stuff put it. And so it’s really just trying to create a space that is not just comfortable for people with disabilities, but also has the leading edge innovation to it. Hence, the name, Innovation Lab.
Jeff Thompson:
Reminds me of a new thing that I’ve seen going on across the country are maker’s spaces.
Paul Samft:
Yeah, so we’re incorporating that into it as well. We have now two 3D printers where … And that’s part of one of the workshops we do in Tech For Teens. And so you can basically come up with any type of 3D design. You can design it yourself, you can get plans online and then feed it into the printer and print out these objects. The 3D printers are not just things that you use to print out cool looking things, but they can actually practical things that you can develop.
Bridget G:
I’ll tell you my favorite 3D printed project. And this is … And we’ve talked about this ’cause I want to … I still want to do this. You can go to Thingyverse and download plans for tactile books. So there’s a tactile representation for Goodnight Moon. You print off each page of the book which will then take the page that is representative of house and mouse. And so I can touch the surfaces of the book and feel the house and feel the mouse. Slip that into a felt background of a book, add a braille label, and I’ve created an accessible book using a 3D printer and a braille labeler.
Jeff Thompson:
Last time I saw something. I believe it was from Star Wars. These little gadgets. You told me the story that the amount that it cost to make them is very affordable.
Paul Samft:
Yeah, so the 3D printers themselves come in a huge range of prices. I mean you can spend tens of thousands of dollars on the really fancy ones but you can also get them 200, 100 dollars and they work really great for printing out very, very simple things. So one of the things that we did is we had a workshop on 3D printing with a focus on Star Wars. So we had a guest speaker, who does a lot of 3D printing, came in in a Star Wars Costume that he 3D printed himself. The helmet and everything. And then we printed out a handful of TIE Fighters and they got to see one print from beginning to end. And all the kids got to take one home with them. But the filament for that … The TIE Fighters themselves were maybe about four centimeters by four centimeters or so. And the amount that it cost to print something like that apart from electricity and all that is one or two cents is where it comes down to. Because you get a spool of filament is how it works and the extruders melt it down and lay down the mold sort of layer by layer. And that spool you can get for 25 dollars and it prints out a couple hundred of these smaller toys.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, that’s just neat. There’s a story you told me about a parent realizing the possibilities that his kids could do something by working with the robots. Can you tell us a little about that?
Paul Samft:
Yeah, in one of our last Tech For Teens workshops, it was building a robot and we had five different teams of kids working on building this robot. And it involved a lot of plugging chords into pins and things. A lot of fine, fine motor skills involved. And we had a student who came in. He was completely blind and he sat down on the table and everyone around him immediately started helping him out. They became friends. He was showing them his note taker and so they’re all learning all sorts of great things. And he ended up assembling this robot, a lot of the hardest parts on his own. And he was having a blast the whole time. And you could tell he definitely was … This was his area of strength.
Paul Samft:
And later on the dad came up to me and he was telling me that his son really liked coding and technology. But he was wondering … His dad was wondering if it was a realistic career path for him. If that’s something that realistically he could pursue. And of course, I jumped at it and said absolutely because coding in particular is one of these professions that is very well situated for people of all types of disabilities. Especially if you have low vision or no vision because there’s all sorts of tools that you can work with. With a code, you turn it into audible code or even changing contrast on screens and things. And when the dad heard that he’s like, “Really?” And I was like, “Absolutely. We can set up a consultation and go through all the different technology that’s out there.” And they got super excited when they left.
Paul Samft:
And I think, in addition to the kid who … He was gonna go on and do whatever he wanted no matter what but the dad’s confidence and hope was really boosted from that experience and so they both left pretty excited.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah, I was excited to hear that because it’s really interesting and neat to see the parents’ confidence grow in the capabilities or the possibilities … I mean, if you can build a robot, you can take out the garbage. If you can build a robot, you can do all these other things. And sort of challenging them to keep pushing themselves.
Bridget G:
And that’s one of the values of PACERS, high expectations and installing that value in parents and in the kids that we work with. This kind of attitude that you can. You can.
Paul Samft:
Yeah, a couple of times in a workshop, some parents have stayed just kind of to see how things are going or to give their kids some support. And a lot of times, especially with some of the coding workshops, you can see the parents really getting into it and the kids end up teaching the parents things. And the kids then leave with a huge confidence boost. The parents are excited that their kids are showing expertise in something. It can be a lot of fun.
Jeff Thompson:
Great. Could each of you share with our listeners what advice you would give to someone who is transitioning from high school to college to the workforce?
Bridget G:
So for students transitioning from high school on to post secondary or employment, I would say, one, that there are a lot of tools. If you haven’t explored any tools, there’s still time. It’s never too late to figure out if there’s something out there to help you. A lot of our parents that have brought their kids in also have disabilities. So dyslexia, ADHD. And they bring their kids in and they’re like, “You know what? I think this stuff might help me.” So it’s never too late to explore what technology options might be available to help support Your goals and the dreams that young people have about their future. And there’s so much technology out there that can really support it. Other piece of advice, don’t be afraid to embrace it.
Paul Samft:
Yeah, I think what you said is the goals piece is important. A lot of times people will come in and they don’t know where to begin. They don’t even know what questions to ask because they don’t know what they don’t know. And I always say, well, decide what your goals are. And whatever your goals are, we can find some technology or supports to help you accomplish those. And then people start saying, “Well, I want to be able to do this, I want to be able to that.” I was like, “Oh, there’s an app for that, we’ve got tools for that.” And that’s a great place to start is to not get bogged down by what technology is out there, but rather focus on what goals you want to accomplish and then find the technology that supports those from there. Makes it a little bit easier.
Bridget G:
I’m gonna say absolutely because it’s less about the technology. Even though we’re geeks, we can really comment … We say that it’s really less about the technology and more about the person and the goals that they have, the dreams that they have. And then matching the technology that we know about with those goals and dreams.
Jeff Thompson:
I think it’s really neat that what you’re doing here is all inclusive of youth with various disabilities. And it doesn’t matter that they’re all included in this. And that has to be quite a challenge for you to … For all of you to … I don’t know. I’m so used to one specific thing. I worked at a blindness training center and that was what we worked on. But to see a vast aray of stuff that you guys handle and take on. And you’re all so willing. There’s a passion that you have for this.
Bridget G:
I don’t think we think of it as a challenge. I think as each opportunity … I’ll call them opportunity, is presented, we just … Some of it’s right in our wheel house and we’re comfortable and we just apply all that knowledge and kind of move forward. And some of it’s new. And some of it’s maybe with a disability or an aspect of a disability that we haven’t had any experience with at all. But we just put on the thinking caps, we start doing some research. I call up my friends in different disability areas and say, “Hey, what do you know about this?” And then we just … We do it. It’s not a matter of can we, it’s we just do.
Paul Samft:
Yeah, and the team in the simutechnology center is what it all comes down to. Because you can have this area that you’ve been really focusing on. You’ve had … You worked with a lot of people. And suddenly a brand new situation comes up and you’re thinking, “Well, what types of tools work for this?” Well, I have seven other people that I can instantly ask and they’ll throw all their ideas out and we’ll collaborate that way. And so, like
Bridget said, it is an opportunity. I mean, all of us would probably be doing these very same things just in different ways. It’s any time we get a chance to learn about new tools that are out there, that’s exciting for all of us. So it makes it a lot of fun to have nay new situation arrive. Any new challenge.
Jeff Thompson:
Well, it’s really exciting that there is a place for parents to come to and the youth can experience this. And like you said, it’s not an assessment, it’s more of a-
Bridget G:
It’s a first look. It’s kind of like … And sometimes parents don’t know what they don’t know. And we’re kind of exploring what all the options are and presented it to them. Sometimes they have very specific things that they want to look at and we open doors to other opportunities. And we hope to stay connected with them in the future. We hope that they’re gonna call us with questions, that they’re gonna utilize the library, and that as their child grows, that they come back and say, “We’re now in middle school and note taking is a big thing in middle school as they’re getting older. What do you have for that?” And then continuing the conversations.
Jeff Thompson:
And that’s very important to be able to try the stuff because this equipment, some of it could be four, five, 6000 dollars, is expensive. So getting some hands on, evaluating it, seeing if it would be part of the plan. The pathway that would help them, that’s awesome.
Bridget G:
You made me think of, because of how expensive things are, one more project that we have. We used to have a project called SUPER, still useful product equipment referral and it was kind of like a craigslist of people being able to post the things that they had and trying to match them with people who were looking for those things. And over the years wasn’t effective and meeting people’s needs. And so we brainstormed and said, “What 21st century way can we approach this about helping people find stuff and connecting with people who have the stuff and who are either gonna sell it for a much lower price than new or give it away?” And so we started a Facebook buy and sell group and we call it Minnesota Special Needs Equipment For Sale because many parents don’t connect or resonate with the words assistive technology but they understand special needs and they understand equipment.
Bridget G:
And so we in a little over the year that we’ve had this, we have over 1400 members, and we’ve had over 600 postings, which is super exciting. My last year of SUPER I think we had 10 postings. So I was super excited with 600. Which means we’ve matched. We’ve helped people find homes for equipment and some of it’s free.
Jeff Thompson:
I remembered on my tour, I met this V-Go, this machine. And I’m usually going for the technology stuff, mostly towards the visually impaired stuff or just blindness stuff. And when I heard about V-Go, I was like migrated right over to it. I just went right over to it and I had to learn about V-Go.
Bridget G:
Well, that’s the V-Go robot and we have the V-Go. We have three of those. We have two of the double. And they’re telepresence robots. And historically, they were designed to help people go to conferences so you would save on your air fare and your hotel room. And you could just rent- pay for your conference registration and rent the robot and save money. And that’s historically what they were designed to do. Over time, we found this really great application for kids with disability. So if we have a student who’s not gonna be able to attend school for fill in the blank. They’ve got treatments at the hospital, they have an anxiety disorder, fill in the blank. For whatever reason they’re not at school but they would benefit from the interactions with their teacher, and the peers, and the content. And historically schools have addressed this by sending tutors to the hospital or to the home one or two days a week, but the kids are really missing out on the social aspect which is critical for their development as a person and the content.
Bridget G:
And so the V-Go robot or the double goes to school. Sits in a dock on the corner. The learner form home or hospital logs on to the robot through an app or through a computer, Mac or PC, Android or iOS. They log in and they can see their teacher and they can see their classmates. They can move around the room and navigate. And the class can see them via either the iPad on the double or through the screen on the V-Go and hear them. And so they’re there. And so for the kids in the classroom, that robot is no longer the V-Go, but now it’s Paul, or it’s Bridget, or it’s Jeff. It’s whoever is on the other end of that. And so it just gives them a much different experience and opportunity.
Bridget G:
And I would say we’ve had robots in the library for five years and we’re ahead of the curve. We get a lot of questions from schools about how and why, a lot of questions about privacy. None of the robots actually record. They broadcast on secure networks. So we’re excited about the potential that that has and really hoping to place even some of the robots that we have into long-term loan situations where they wouldn’t have to buy the robot. Just buy in to the fact that it could help and here, you can use that.
Jeff Thompson:
So if the classroom was to go down, say they had a little pet fest down the hall in the gymnasium that the V-Go could go.
Bridget G:
So they could navigate down the hall, they can’t go down the stairs. So they’d … If there were stairs, they would need to either take an elevator or have somebody manhandle them, pick them up, take them downstairs. But for the most part, they can navigate to other places. So navigate between classrooms, navigate to the assembly, go to the lunch room, I pull out my lunch at home and have a conversation with my friends who are eating in the lunch room.
Jeff Thompson:
That must be really neat is that they … I call it V-Go, but it’s gonna start to become that student’s name.
Bridget G:
Absolutely. My favorite is Princess V-Go. And so what happens oftentime is the kids customize their avatar to make it more like them. And so they’ll put a t-shirt on it. Or we had actually a young lady attend our EXITE Camp and use one of the V-Go robots and she wanted sparkly red shoes. So we found her sparkly red shoe stickers and slapped them on the robot. They put a camp t-shirt on it and it was Talitha. Very exciting.
Jeff Thompson:
I want to thank both of you, Bridget and Paul, for sharing all about the Simon Technology Center and Innovation Lab. This is just great information to get out there to everyone and it’s basically … It’s a free service that they can connect with.
Bridget G:
And we’re really excited about being able to offer that. And many of the core services at PACER as an organization are free to parents.
Jeff Thompson:
So if someone’s interested, how they can get a hold of you.
Bridget G:
Well, they can get more information on our website at www.pacer.org/STC and then they can navigate through all the projects that we have there. Or they can call us at 952-838-9000 and ask to speak to anyone in the Simon Technology Center.
Jeff Thompson:
Well, thank you Bridget and thank you Paul, this has been awesome talking with you.
Bridget G:
Our pleasure.
Paul Samft:
Yeah, it’s been great.
Jeff Thompson:
Be sure to check out PACER Center, champions for children with disabilities on the web at www.pacer.org. And check out State Services For The Blind In Minnesota at www.mn.gov/deed/ssb. Live, learn, work, and play.
Jeff Thompson:
And a big thank you goes out to Chee Chau for the beautiful music. You can find Chee Choau on Twitter at Elcheechau.
Jeff Thompson:
For more podcast with the blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com, on Twitter at BlindAbilities, and download the free Blind Abilities app from the app store and on Google Play. That’s two words, Blind Abilities. You can also enable the Blind Abilities skill on your Amazon device. Just say enable Blind Abilities. And from PACER Center, State Services for the Blind, and Blind Abilities, thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed. And until next time. Bye bye.
[Music] [Transition noise] -When we share
-What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
…We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities.
Jeff Thompson:
For more podcasts with the blindness perspective:
Check us out on the web at www.BlindAbilities.com On Twitter @BlindAbilities
Download our app from the App store:
‘Blind Abilities’; that’s two words.
Or send us an e-mail at:
info@blindabilities.com Thanks for listening.