I hadn't attended a CSUN (California State University: Northridge) conference in years, but year I did attend. I'll never be able to adequately summarize the conference because there were too many great presentations and too many vendors with new products. Instead I'll simply report on a few of the people, sessions and vendors I did talk to.

I discovered an impressive new curriculum developed by AbleNet and tested by Karen Erickson.  MEville to Weville is aimed at early literacy and communication for children with cognitive disabilities in the moderate to severe range. I've written an article on Meville to Weville elsewhere on this website.
http://www.connsensebulletin.com/mevillewe.html

I was very lucky to discover a presentation by the Writer's Brigade. This is the group of AAC users who are learning to write and publish technical articles. Johana Schwartz,  an AAC user who directs the WB wasn't able to attend CSUN, but Sarah Blackstone was there and the session went very smoothly. This was a memorable session and I write about it in more detail here:

http://www.connsensebulletin.com/csunwb.html

I met a very interesting woman earlier this year at the ATIA Conference. Leah Vickery is a CSUN trainer and has a visual disability. However, when I met her she was riding down the hall on a Segway with the aid of an ultrasonic cane called an Ultracane from England. Basically ultrasonic waves provide vibration feedback to the handle of the cane that alerts one to things in front or above them. It's more complex than this, but Leah uses the cane all the time and has promised to write an article on the Ultracane for a future ConnSENSE Letter. The picture on the left is Leah at the CSUN Conference with her Ultracane.

I attended a nice party put on by the people from Kurzweil. They were explaining the features on the newest version of Kurzweil 3000. They also highlighted the new improvements to the Mac version of the Kurzweil. I've sat in on several presentations on the Kurzweil 3000, but I'm still not very clear on all its capabilities. Fortunately, the party resulted in me making a connection with two women from Maryland who agreed to write the heartwarming article about a student's success with Kurzweil 3000 which is located at:

http://www.connsensebulletin.com/zach.html

I attended a fascinating session on audio description by Joel Snyder, the director of described media at the National Captioning Institute in Vienna, VA.  His demonstration of the power of described video for anyone with a visual disability was so convincing that I would certainly urge everyone to become more aware of this accessibility technique. I've attempted to describe this session on the website at:

http://www.connsensebulletin.com/described.html

And there is more, but I'll have to add it later to the website. Most moving was the Bubbly Ball put on by USSAAC (United States Society for Alternative & Augmentative Communications) and sponsored by Microsoft. The Ball honored five AAC users whose stories were all memorable. The five included Tracy Rackensperger who I wrote about in an article on the Writers Brigade this month:

http://www.connsensebulletin.com/csunwb.html

The Bubbly Ball program was incredible, complete with a very popular actor and actress. I promise to tell you all about it soon on this website.

Quite a wonderful conference!

© 2005 ConnSENSE Bulletin