Finding Happiness

Today we’d like to share a great story from our friends at Apostrophe Magazine.

Connie Whitley's book, “Finding Happiness,” is all about finding joy in life. She wrote all about it on an iPad.

Click here to read the story.

Check Out The Latest SmartHomes Newsletter

Check out the latest edition of Imagine!’s SmartHomes newsletter online by clicking here.

Technology Tuesday

This week’s Technology Tuesday is another installation of Chris’s Corner, brought to us by Imagine! Technology Specialist Chris Baumgart. We’ve already shared ways that Imagine! is using technology to help individuals we serve make beautiful music on their own. Today, Chris talks about the next step he’s exploring: how to use multiple iPads to make the experience of creating music more interactive among several musicians. 

Chris’s Corner 

My Corner (My Corner)…Talkin’ ‘bout my-y-y corne-er. (My Cor-ner!)

Welcome back, fellow Corner-ians! At the beginning of the year, we showed you some of the amazing adaptations you can make to an orchestral setting using MIDI technology. If you missed that post, have no fear! You can simply check it out here!

Not to give too much away, but we’re just now beginning to take this one step further. By capturing MIDI signals sent over a WiFi network, we are now turning iPads into accessible musical instruments. Depicted below, you will see a couple of participants, including our good friend Robert, using iPads as instruments that feed into the live mix.

The app depicted above is a free app (Fiddlewax Blue) which allows individuals to either play the instrument locally (choosing from all types of instruments, guitar, piano, etc.), or to enable MIDI output so that the user can play as a member of a group (band, orchestra, jam session, etc.). But this app also has its limitations. The layout can’t be changed, and for some users, there may simply be too many options. We started working with a different paid app (Beatsurfing) which allows us a fully customizable layout (pictured below).
 
Now, instruments can range anywhere from the simple:

To the slightly more complex:

To the outright chaotic:

Quickly and easily depending on each individual’s needs, target skills, and/or preferences. Haven’t seen enough yet? Check out this demo video! (Please note: If you must critique on the musical content of the video, please do so gently, for I do not consider myself a musician by any means). Enjoy! And, as always, stay tuned for more to come!

Can’t see the video? Click here.

Technology Tuesday

For today’s Technology Tuesday, we thought we’d share some brief information about a brand new
collaboration Imagine! is undertaking with the University of Colorado to help address issues around new technology we develop to help assist those we serve.

A group of four undergraduate seniors from a variety of disciplines (including a journalism major, and advertising major, a Micro, Cellular and Developmental Biology major, and a business major) are teaming up to undertake a case study as part of a Leadership Studies Capstone course. The University reached out to Imagine! to see if we could help provide a real life case study that the students might be able to tackle, and the group chose this one:

Two ‘SmartHomes’ have been developed by Imagine! to explore the use of technology to aid people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. There is now a partnership with the University of Colorado School of Engineering as a result of Imagine!’s efforts in this area. Imagine! brainstorms ideas based on the needs of individuals served, then presents these ideas to a freshman level engineering class. The engineering students design the ideas as part of a semester-long class project. Who owns these ideas and projects? This is a question of intellectual property. How are these concepts, projects, and products managed? What about collaborative efforts? How should Imagine! and CU address this issue, such that these relationships can continue to grow? 

This is a vitally important case study, as we have seen many viable products come out of our collaboration with the engineering students, and we want to explore how to take the very best of those products to see if we can produce them on a larger scale so more people may use them. But we need to make sure we are doing that appropriately, and this case study should help guide as moving forward.

Thanks to students Alyssa Proctor, Jessi McArthur, Vanessa Harmoush, and Cassy Olson for agreeing to take on this case study and assist Imagine! as we continue to look for the most efficient and effective ways to incorporate technology into the lives of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities so they may engage in their communities in meaningful ways that benefit us all.

Celebrating At Twisted Pine

On Saturday, Longmont Charles SmartHome resident Toby was invited to his friend Gerald's birthday party at Twisted Pine Brewery. There were so many people there including Imagine! staff and residents from Imagine!’s Bob and Judy Charles SmartHome, Imagine!’s Santa Fe group home, and Imagine!’s CORE/Labor Source department. It was a hoot, the gang took up most of the brewery inside! Thank you to team member Alicia Gonzales for the story and photos.

Check Out Mandy's Valentine's Book

Mandy, who lives in Imagine!’s Bob and Judy Charles SmartHome, has published another book! Just in time for Cupid’s Day, check out “The Things People Buy for Valentine’s Day” here, and consider supporting this talented artist.

Technology Tuesday

A little more than a month ago, we let you know that students of Sri Kurniawan, Associate Professor at the Baskin School of Engineering at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC), are collaborating with Imagine! by having some of her students help to create apps for Imagine! clients as part of a student project.

This is Imagine!’s second app development project with UCSC. Go Banana Slugs!!

Today, we’d like to share some specifics about this semester’s projects. This year we will be working with two teams to develop five HTML5 applications for people with cognitive disabilities. The general purpose of these applications is to provide access to, and teach basic educational/communication skills to, adults with disabilities in a way that is age appropriate and customizable to the interests of the individual. One of the goals of this project is to develop a database for each game to track the progress of the user over time. The apps will be developed to incorporate an errorless learning approach (meaning, users will always select the correct answers before moving on to the next question). Each application with have two different modes of operation, a teaching mode and a testing mode. The teaching mode is a practice mode where the user gets to play freely but is still within the errorless teaching approach. The testing mode is password protected and needs to be facilitated by an administrator. This mode records the user's results which can be stored, and then accessed and compared for data analysis at a later time.

This year we are working on a "concept" game, a basic sign language game, a "Simon" game for the visually impaired, and a basic object identification game.

In the "concept" game, users will be tested on their knowledge of which is amount is bigger, which is smaller, longer, shorter, fuller, emptier, etc.

The basic sign game will incorporate videos of basic sign language and asked the user to identify the correct photo/icon equivalent.

The object identification game will teach and test users on their environmental knowledge.

The Simon game will allow folks with visual and cognitive impairments to play games independently.

Imagine! is very grateful to the University of California, Santa Cruz for all of their work on these projects and for the development partnership to create solutions for the cognitively disabled. We’ll be sure to keep you posted on the progress!

Congratulations Living Resources

Congratulations to our good friends at Living Resources in New York on a great article in Fortune Magazine about their smart home!

Click here to check it out. 

CU Engineering/Imagine! Collaboration Continues

Once again, students in a University of Colorado Engineering class taught by Professor Melinda Picket-May are collaborating with Imagine! to provide assistive technology for individuals we serve. We’ve been doing this for more than five years. Each semester, students form small groups and select projects that have been identified by Imagine! staff members as something that will meet the needs of a specific individual served by Imagine!. The collaboration has truly been “win-win.” The students get real, hands-on experience on a unique and challenging engineering task, and people served by Imagine! get a piece of adaptive equipment designed specifically for their needs. To start this year’s projects off right, Imagine!’s PR Director Fred Hobbs presented to the students today to give a historical perspective on services for individuals with I/DD and why the projects are so vital.

Technology Tuesday

Leah and Alex

Today’s Technology Tuesday is going to be a little different than some of the others in that, rather than focusing on specific technologies, we’d like to share information about an individual working for Imagine! who is truly blazing the trail when it comes to incorporating technology into our services to improve the self-reliance of the individuals we serve.

More than seventeen years ago, Alex Andrews brought his curiosity and creativity to Imagine! to support people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to achieve their full potential. Long before technology was viewed as a viable support in our field, Alex was using his knowledge to wire devices to teach basic principles of cause and effect, so that individuals with significant disabilities could control and manipulate lights and sound by simply tapping on his or her chest, or by brushing his or her fingers up and down the front of his or her body, taking that critical first step toward independent decision making. Since then, Alex has pursued grant opportunities to improve and increase the access to technology so that individuals can learn, live, play, and work in their communities.

Today, as a Direct Support Provider (DSP) and technology architect, Alex is working locally and nationwide to create assessments and screening tools to assist people experiencing a disabling condition to identify technological solutions to increase independence, health, and safety throughout the community, at home, and at work. Alex’s latest venture has brought his knowledge into his home, where he and his wife support Leah as host home providers. Through a combination of low and high tech solutions, Leah uses an iPad to complete activities of daily living, and to prepare her for what she loves, which is heading out to her job in the community.

Here’s what Leah’s dad, Doug, had to say about the progress she has made since Alex began providing services, and how technology has played a role in her successes:

Alex’s work with assistive technology is being applied to Leah’s living situation. Alex remodeled a portion of his house to provide for Leah and future client(s). He has wired the environment that Leah now lives in to support her specific needs (with ‘sound prompting’ and communication systems). In only a few weeks, Leah is now waking up, starting her morning routine, contacting Alex and Diana when she completes her routine all without any personal contact. The same applies to her routine when she comes home from her ‘day program’ and for her evening routine. She is also learning to pack her bag with appropriate clothes and items she needs to visit us on weekends. All of these are first time events! 

Alex has devised a method that allows prompting and supervision to be applied less and less as Leah progresses toward the goal of handling tasks without any prompting or support. She has already made measurable improvement toward performing daily routines independently. In addition, at her recent IP, Leah’s attending support group watched a video of Leah working with a prompting system to make oatmeal for herself in a microwave oven with no help. These professionals, (not to mention Leah’s parents), were overwhelmed to see Leah demonstrating such independent skills. It was clear to all that Leah was so proud of what she had accomplished. 

Although Leah has a wonderful support group, it is without question that Leah’s growth, independence, and joy has advanced due only to Alex’s exceptional vision and caring. His drive to never stop looking for solutions and his knowledge of how to approach these challenges using any and all simple manual solutions or technological solutions is known to many. I personally have seen the effect that his effort has had on my daughter and it has been significant and has been witnessed by everyone that works with Leah. 

Leah is showing an ability to provide for herself in many ways that would not be possible without Alex’s influence. I no longer allow thoughts of what Leah can’t do thanks to Alex. Also, my wife and I have both learned a great deal from Alex about how to be consistent in our support for her. He is always willing to share his knowledge without hesitation. He has greatly improved my life and the life of my daughter. 

Imagine!’s well-deserved reputation as a leader in incorporating technology in services to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities is largely due to creative and dedicated employees like Alex. Thanks, Alex, for your efforts!

Catching Up With Donna And Gerald

We caught up with former SmartHome residents Donna and Gerald earlier last month, and they reported that are enjoying what they call “country living” at Imagine!’s Santa Fe home in eastern Broomfield County. They are both staying busy at their jobs. Donna continues to work at In Clover, packaging wellness supplements for dogs and cats; and Gerald working at Twisted Pine Brewing Company. During our visit, Donna showed us her new computer (pictured below) that she and Gerald use to stay in touch with family, friends, and coworkers by way of audio email and Facebook.