Final Report: Interactive Technology Literacy Curriculum Online (ITLC Online)

Interactive Technology Literacy Curriculum Online (ITLC Online) was a Steppingstones of Technology Innovation for Students with Disabilities Phase 1 (Development) project awarded to the Center for Best Practices in Early Childhood (the Center) at Western Illinois University (WIU). ITLC Online's goal was to improve services for young children with disabilities by offering access to effective family and professional development materials focused on emergent literacy via a web-based system organized in an easy-to-use format. Teachers and other early childhood professionals, faculty, preservice personnel, family members, and care givers across the nation can use ITLC Online workshops for staff development activities, as part of coursework at undergraduate and graduate levels, or as a means to gain personal knowledge. ITLC procedures and materials have the potential to positively impact literacy skills of many more young children with disabilities than can be reached when adults are trained using traditional face-to-face strategies. ITLC Online was based on "ideas that work"--four projects that provided the knowledge and skills base that informed the website's content and approach. Content was organized into six online workshops: (1) "Literacy Foundations" (2) "Literacy Environments"; (3) "Children's Software"; (4) "Technology Integration"; (5) "Authoring Software"; and (6) "Literacy Assessment." Other features include: (1) a database containing 2,040 children's books, categorized according to common classroom themes with information on availability of special formats, such as big books or books on tape. Database fields include author, illustrator, book title, publication date, publisher, publisher location, subject descriptors, and others. Book listings in each category are available in PDF format for printing or downloading; (2) 238 links to resources for materials, products, and information. ITLC Online's Resources contains eight sections including: "Glossary," "Articles and Books," "Children's Books," "Family Info," "Literacy News," "Organizations," "Technology News," and "Software and Equipment"; and (3) 71 PDF files including articles, curriculum activities, resource information and instructional materials contained in the six workshops. Six Advisory Panel members evaluated the ITLC Online website. All strongly agreed that ITLC workshop content reflects developmentally appropriate practice; all strongly agreed that materials on the website are current; an