MINUTES
High Tech Center Training Unit Advisory Committee Meeting
Friday, February 1, 2002
Carl Brown HTCTU, De Anza HTCTU Director present
Justine Mitrovich Shasta College Region 1 present
Thad Selmants Sierra College Region 2 teleconference
Carolyn Fiori College of San Mateo Region 3 present
Kathleen Allen Chabot College Region 4 present
Laura Ingram Merced College Region 5 present
Laurie Vasquez Santa Barbara City College Region 6 present
Ray Lovell El Camino College Region 7 present
Mike Bistany Irvine Valley College Region 8 not present
Brian Brautigam Victor Valley College Region 9 present
Carl Fielden Grossmont College Region 10 present
Peggy Tate Chancellor’s Office present
“This has been the most eventful and remarkable year in the fourteen year history of the High Tech Center Training Unit program” according to the HTCTU Director, Carl Brown. There has been a complete staff turnover which could have been disruptive to the program but turned out to be reenergizing and remarkable.
Gaeir Dietrich Alternate Media Trainer
Sean Keegan Web Accessibility Trainer
Bong Deiparine Program Secretary
Michael Fosnaugh Administrative Assistant
Dale Kan Network Specialist
The HTCTU is still on the process of hiring the Assistive Computer Technology Trainer. This position has been reopened and re-advertised.
The new project team at the High Tech Center Training Unit is a tightly knit group with a common set of goals and objectives. The new staffs are committed to the success of students with disabilities in the California Community Colleges statewide.
In the last six months, HTCTU had developed more new trainings and trained more people than ever in the program’s history. Here are ten new trainings developed by the new HTCTU trainers.
· Creating E-text
· Transcribing with Duxbury
· Creating Tactile Graphic
· Designing Accessible Forms and Tables
· Jawbone
· Introduction to Alternate Media
· Grade One Braille
· Grade Two Braille
· Captioning Digital Media
· Using Advanced Web Accessibility
The HTCTU has also provided a number of specialized training opportunities including presentations/demonstrations by representatives from Duxbury embossing software, Tiger embosser, Freedom Scientific and Dancing Dots Music Braille transcription software and from major captioning providers, CPC and Rapidtext.
The HTCTU has also funded several presentations of Inspiration and Kurzweil 3000 from Stacey Kayden of Laney College at various locations around the state.
“This has been a banner year for the High Tech Center Training Unit. The Advisory committee’s membership is once again complete. Productivity and training attendance is up dramatically. We have, and will continue to produce a broad selection of valued trainings and resources. Staff moral is excellent. Our working relationships with California Community Colleges Chancellor’s office staff are strong and direct. We continue to serve the needs of students with disabilities in the California community colleges and the faculty and staff who work with the students on a daily basis.”
- Carl Brown, HTCTU Director
Gaeir Dierich, Alternate Media Trainer.
Gaeir is responsible for a number of trainings including: Creating E-text, Duxbury, Creating Tactile Graphics, Grades One and Two Braille, and Intro to Alternate Media.
Gaeir has arranged for a number of vendor trainings including: Dale McCann of Dancing Dots and closed captioning training by CPC. Gaeir also discussed the steps involved in formatting a college catalog for Braille transcription. Gaeir also talked briefly about her role in the ATPC advisory as the representative of the High Tech Center Training Unit and the chair for the technology sub-committee.
Sean introduce to the committee the soon to be launched AMX database. He explained various features an organizational structure of the database. Sean reviewed the security concepts embodied in the organization of the database. Sean demonstrated various methods to which users can search for content, add, edit or delete record content. The HTCTU expects to launch the new AMX database in two weeks.
Sean is also working on digital captioning, developing streaming media for web pages. He is in the process of putting together trainings on how to use different software programs to do digital captioning. These trainings will be offered in the spring quarter.
Peggy Tate reviewed the status of the ATPC. To date the program has: :
The ATPCs primary activities to date have centered around building and designing a website. Peggy Tate of the Chancellor’s Office stressed that since all requests will have to be submitted online, the ATPC is still in the process of contracting with the subcontractor IBM vendor to develop the database website. During the last ATPC advisory meeting, some concerns were expressed regarding website accessibility.
The second term of the ATPC has not yet been approved by the Chancellor's Office. Proposed work plans include:
The High Tech Center Training Unit advisory committee expressed concern about the ATPCs realistic capacity to achieve these goals considering the short timeline and several underlying foundational requirements which need to be completed before moving on to the next step.
Brian Brautigam commented that questions about the progress of the ATPC which were raised during the Regional Coordinators were not directly addressed by representatives from Ventura College during the meeting. A number of questions about production process, equity of job description, a testing and other issues were raised by advisory committee members with regard to how the goals of the ATPC will be met.
A handout drafted by Carl Brown and Peggy Tate on suggested minimum configurations of high-tech and alternate media production centers, staffing, staff training and curriculum was presented to the advisory committee for review. Various provisions and additions were agreed-upon by the committee.
Minutes, September 21, 2001 Advisory Meeting
HTCTU Mid-year Report
Proposed Minimum Standards
HTCTU-Assistive Computer Technology
ATPC Handouts (from the Chancellor’s Office)
May 10, 2002