Professional Learning Opportunities and Assistive Technology Resources

This page lists a variety of professional development opportunities and application/training materials.

If you have suggestions for additional resources, please contact Lea Ann Peschong.

Iowa Area Education Agencies: Professional development sites.

The Iowa AEAs each provide a variety of professional development opportunities. Check these links to find PD that interests you.

Central Rivers AEA Professional Development

Keystone AEA Professional Development

Grant Wood AEA Professional Development

Mississippi Bend AEA Professional Development

Heartland AEA Professional Development

Prairie Lakes AEA Professional Development

Northwest AEA Professional Development

Green Hills AEA Professional Development

Great Prairie AEA Professional Development

Iowa online professional development opportunities

AEA Professional Development Online

AEA PD Online and PBS TeacherLine Online Course Partnership

For registration information:

Click the “Click Here to view AEA PD Online Catalog” link,
Click on the blue, “Looking for more online courses?” link.

Webinars, tutorials and resources

AbleNet

AbleNet University: Live and archived webinars on a variety of topics. Some are product oriented some are not.

Accessible Technology Coalition

Live and archived webinars from a variety of sources, on a variety of topics. Most appear to be free.

AssistiveWare

Proloquo2Go, Proloquo4Text, SwitchXS, KeyStrokes, and more. (Videos, Tutorials and Manuals)

ATIA (Assistive Technology Industry Association)

Live and archived webinars on a variety of AT topics. CEUs available for all webinars. $39.00 for 1 hour $49.00 for 1.5 hour webinar (cost decreases as number of webinars purchased increases)

Atomic Learning

High quality video tutorials on hundreds of software products, both mainstream and assistive technology. Free for Iowa educators and students. Contact your building media specialist for log-in information.

Bookshare

Webinars, tutorials and training videos pertinent to accessing and using Bookshare’s collection of accessible instructional materials

CALLScotland: CALL (Communication, Access, Literacy and Learning) (“a small unit within the Moray House School of Education, The University of Edinburgh”, Scotland)

Webinars (live and archived) around assistive technology and access (They are 6 hours ahead of us. Their 4:00 PM webinar starts at 10:00 AM here.)
They are also the creators of the free WordTalk plugin for the Windows version of MS Word, providing TTS and a few other tools.

Don Johnston

Co:Writer, Read:Outloud, Snap&Read, Draft:Builder, First Author, DAISYtoEPUB, Improv, Start-to-Finish Online, & Write:Outloud (“Show-Me-How Tutorials”)

Gooru University

Short and easy tutorials on specific skills in Google Drive, Spreadsheet and Gmail. Calendars & Docs “coming soon”. Sign up for daily tips.

Classes, workshops and conferences (face to face)

Most of these are annual events. The link will take you to the event website. Typically, the events are held around the same time each year. There may well be information for next year’s event.

ATIA – (Assistive Technology Industry Association) – Conference