Disability, Individual Difference, and Learning-affecting Condition Accessibility at the 2020 Southwest Florida Virtual Weather Camps
Matthew J. Bolton and H. Michael Mogil, Southwest Florida Weather Camp co-directors
As preparations for our middle and high school summer weather camps ramp up, we wanted to take a few moments to share with you what we’re doing on the accessibility front, to make our virtual, internet-connected, classroom friendly to learners across a spectrumriety of needs. The following are based on almost two decades of operating weather camps and about eight years of being heavily involved in addressing students’ learning, physical, and emotional needs. They also include expertise from Barbara Levine, Mike’s wife, who brings some 25 years of classroom teaching experience. Moreover, Matt brings expertise in the form of lived experience as a person on the autism spectrum and learned experience as a Master’s candidate in psychology, charter member of the National Weather Association’s Diversity Committee (2015), and mentor to some dozen-plus middle and high school students who have had various individual differences and learning needs.
First, for students with hearing impairments, we are utilizing online speech-to-text software. Learners with hearing-related needs will have access to a real-time, automatic text transcription of our (Mike and Matt, the camp co-directors’) audio. Questions from other students, when asked, will be repeated by us when answering so that they are noted down and accessible as well. Any premade video material (such as the welcome-to-camp footage shot at a Naples, FL beach), as well as the audio of guest speakers, will be closed-captioned.
For students with learning-affecting conditions, such as ADHD and less functionally-inhibiting forms of autism, we have designed the programs with attention spans–including ours!–in mind. Camp will generally run from 10:30am-12pm and 1pm-2:30 each day, although we may re-convene based on prevailing weather conditions on any given day. If we were to arrange such an “after-hours” meeting, we would do our best to give all students advance notice. We have built-in a 1-hour break from 12-1pm to allow for lunch, if desired, and downtime away from the computer. Campers may also, of course, use this time to chat amongst each other socially.
We anticipate that the virtual nature of the camp will be easier, in some ways, for students on the autism spectrum. All students will be expected to be on good behavior, but the students on the spectrum will be under less social pressure due to the displaced face-to-face nature of video chat. Eye contact should not be as difficult, for example, when utilizing the computer camera; and they will have extra time to process text messages in the chat and not be expected to give quite as immediate a response. Please note, as well, that we have experience working with ADHD and autism in learning contexts and can generally, within reason, adapt materials and content to fit individual students’ specific learning needs.
In this vein, we see our camp as (to steal a tv commercial and hash tag) #togetherapart. Yes, we are all at our own homes, but we are together in this camp experience. This allows for common connectivities, some of which may not have been possible had it not been for COVID-19. We recognize that this experience may be easier for some, and harder for other, campers. Rest assured that this camp program will be an “experience” for the camp co-directors, as well.
For students with color vision deficiencies or weakness (color blindness, more colloquially), we will provide suggestions on software plug-ins, usually Internet browser-based, that should help during and even outside of camp–if such tools are not already in-use. If the student already has access to a particular piece of software or plug-in, she or he is of course welcome to use that program in lieu of our suggestion. We would also welcome knowing about the software or plug-in, so we can “pay it forward” to campers this year and in years to come.
More generally, we have experience working not only with these conditions but also anxiety, OCD, speech impediments, hearing-loss, and dyslexia. Dyslexia will be more difficult to address in this virtual delivery mode, but, as with all individual differences we will be accommodating as we can reasonably be.
In the ways outlined here, we hope to be able to provide for the learning needs of a diverse array of students. If you are looking for a meteorology-related camp that is accessible to and understanding of autism, ADHD, hearing-impairment, color blindness, and other needs, look no further! We hope you’ll check out our program.