Program overview

ATSTAR is an acronym which stands for Assistive Technology: Strategies, Tools, Accommodations, and Resources. It is a collaborative partnership comprised of educational professionals in Pre-K to 16 settings, technology experts, curriculum specialists, and leaders in the field of assistive technology. The central goal of ATSTAR is to build a National Collaborative Network to ensure that people with disabilities have equal access to technology-enriched education and competitive employment opportunities. ATSTAR promotes the utilization of promising approaches and technology innovation relevant to the needs, issues, and trends affecting people with disabilities.

ATSTAR also engages in the research, development and piloting of innovative parent and teacher training initiatives to improve social, educational, and vocational results. The ATSTAR Collaborative is an organization that sees opportunities where others see obstacles.

WHAT

ATSTAR is an online curriculum designed to improve educational outcomes for students with disabilities by helping teachers learn to use assistive technology in the classroom. Our core program is a series of online teacher training modules with supporting expert videos. The course is revolutionary in that it brings assistive technology expertise directly into the school and into the classrooms of individual students. ATSTAR prepares instructional staff at the school level to conduct assessments, collect data, and integrate assistive technology into the educational process. The program provides a network of ongoing support as educators learn to use technology to include students with disabilities in classroom learning activities.

The ATSTAR System provides district and state leaders with online data collection and a robust accountability system. Using the accountability system, facilitative leaders are able to review and analyze data in order to monitor the progress of teams and individual team members as they progress through the curriculum. In this way, leaders can provide data-driven support, encouragement, and corrective action needed to ensure that teams and team members are meeting expectations. In addition, ATSTAR provides an online forum to allow practitioners to discuss their progress in implementing ATSTAR principles in their classrooms.

Teams using the ATSTAR System frequently indicate that the knowledge and skills they gain help them address the needs of ALL learners, not just those with assistive technology needs. As a result of the ATSTAR program, students with disabilities and learning differences have a greater opportunity to benefit from a technology-enriched education that leads to improved outcomes.

BENEFITS

Use of the ATSTAR curriculum has been shown to:

WHY

Students with disabilities want to succeed in school.  Assistive technologies (AT) are available and continue to be improved that can level the playing field for these students, providing them with unprecedented support in their pursuit of academic success.  AT is increasingly required by legal mandates of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Teachers have not been given the tools, however, to meet their legal and pedagogical responsibilities.  ATSTAR provides this expertise in a just-in-time format that saves school districts money while improving outcomes for the most at-risk students - those with learning and physical disabilities.

ACTIVITIES

ATSTAR activities include:

Click here for more on the ATSTAR Curriculum

WHO

To create the content of the ATSTAR curriculum, Knowbility relied on several of the nation’s most respected AT specialists including: Gayl Bowser, Diana Carl, Carye Edelman, Kelly Fonner, Penny Reed, Terry Lankutis, and Joy Zabala. Following two rounds of pilot implementation, the technology platform was improved and the content refreshed to reflect evolving trends and legal considerations. Knowbility proposes to bring several of these authors together to discuss how to use the ATSTAR system as a district tool to help bring AT expertise directly into the classroom.

OUR VISION

We envision an inclusive educational system in which each student has access to the technology he or she may need to succeed, to learn, and to meet educational goals.  We envision teams in schools across the nation – teams of teachers, administrators, educational specialists and parents – that know how to implement technology as an integral part of the educational process.