UNLIKELY HEROES DEFINE SUCCESS

Role models inspire us in a positive way. Children’s first role models are their parents and caretakers, and as they grow, they look to others to inspire them.  We look to those who have overcome social, economic, cultural, or physical challenges to reach goals they’ve set out for themselves.

In our LiveBinders podcast, Success in the Deaf and Blind Communities, Chris Tabb, Mobility Specialist at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, talked about finding inspirational people who have overcome hardships in his online binder: Role Models: Blind and Deafblind. He created the binder to provide blind, visually impaired, and deaf-blind students, and their parents, information about people with similar disabilities — many of whom have gone on to achieve great success in their careers all while living independent lives. What is revealing about this insight is that these role models are inspirational for all of us.

I love what Susie Tiggs, Texas Statewide Lead for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services said about their students:  “And so, you know, deaf doesn’t mean can’t, blind doesn’t mean can’t. Deafblind doesn’t mean can’t. It’s different.”

Follow the link below to learn more about these amazing role models..

https://www.livebinders.com/b/2697227

Photo by Prateek Katyal on Unsplash

Digital Binders and Accessibility

In our recently released Success Podcast, Susie Tiggs and Chris Tabb shared their feedback on the accessibility and responsiveness of LiveBinders to help their Texas visually impaired students with the ability to access online content. It is essential for them that an online tool or app provide the necessary features for the success of engaging online content with whatever technology they are using.

Digital binders can be a useful framework that helps curators package accessible content in a way that makes it easier for stakeholders to navigate. Check out this short, 3 minute clip from our podcast to learn more.

Using Digital Binders with the Texas Deaf and Hard of Hearing and the Blind and Visually Impaired Students

One way to describe Susie Tiggs commitment and dedication to the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) community can be realized by her LiveBinders stats. Since she started with LiveBinders, Susie has created some 300 binders, curating over 9 thousand resources in these binders, and garnering hundreds of thousands of views.  She is the Texas Statewide Lead for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services, and two of her binders caught our attention: Children’s Stories in Sign Language and her recently created Virtual Activities for Teachers and Families COVID-19 binders.

We reached out to Susie to learn how our digital binders helped her team not only during the pandemic, but throughout a normal school year.  With her invited guest, Chris Tabb from the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, we discovered:

• How Susie could quickly respond to the COVID-19 lock-down by app smashing resources to her binder such as Google folders, QR codes, Wakelets, YouTube videos and more.
• That components of the DHH and BVI (blind and visually impaired) education are important contributions to the UDL (Universal Design for Learning) program.  
• How DHH and BVI role models inspire all of us.
• That “fairy godmother syndrome” is not like a “helicopter parent.”
• Accessibility is an important reason they use LiveBinders.

Join Linda Houle and I, along with our sound engineer Andrew Lapp, for an informative and uplifting podcast with two educators excited to share their program with you and their love of LiveBinders.

Click here to listen to the podcast on iTunes.
Click here to view the LiveBinders Podcast Binder with links to the podcast, binders and resources mentioned in the interview.