SNOW Team and Contributors

SNOW’s team includes individuals from the Inclusive Design Research Centre at OCAD University, as well as the broader SNOW community including workshop moderators and those who share their experiences and expertise through the content and articles on our website.

SNOW Project Coordinator

Hello, I’m Caren Watkins, an Inclusive Designer with experience in communication and information design, education and learning and cognitive differences. Along with coordinating the SNOW project I contribute to research and design of various projects at the IDRC including PhET, UIO interface development and federal and provincial government accessibility consulting projects.

I have over a decade of teaching and curriculum development experience as a partial load professor at York/Sheridan and OCAD U, as well as over 20 years of communication design and publishing experience. In 2016 I completed a Masters of Inclusive Design where I focused on inclusion in the public school classroom.

The inclusive technology strategy I strive for is multimodal inputs of information and multimodal choice of outputs for educators and groups of learners. A colleague at the IDRC delivered a talk about this topic that includes ongoing research and development at the IDRC. You can view their slides here: http://www.alanharnum.ca/post/2017-06-01-multimodal-design-for-inclusion/

And a transcript of their talk is here: http://docs.open.uoguelph.ca/document.aspx?id=6064d30a-8fb1-405a-a6d6-be4e8281e677

Please drop me a note if you have any suggestions, would like to contribute to SNOW or have an event that would be of interest to the community. SNOW encourages open resources and community involvement to foster a collaborative approach toward a comprehensive model of education for all. snow@idrc.ocadu.ca

SNOW Project Manager

Dr. Vera Roberts is the Academic Research Manager and Manager of WebSavvy Consulting Services at the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) of OCAD University. She holds a Ph.D. in Applied Cognitive Science from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. Dr. Roberts’ primary research area is generating a culture of inclusion through outreach activities, training and implementation of inclusive technology and digital sharing platforms. As a researcher at the IDRC (formerly the Assistive Technology Resource Centre at the University of Toronto), Dr. Roberts has participated in numerous multi-partner inclusion projects including Barrier-free Access to Broadband Education, Canadian Network for Inclusive Cultural Exchange, CulturAll, Stretch, The Inclusive Learning Exchange and Cloud4All. Recent projects include APCP, Discovery, BIG IDeA, Our Doors are Open, aha! and Outside-IN. Recent reports include Taking Ontario Mobile, Preferences for Global Access, Releasing Constraints: Projecting the Economic Impacts of Increased Accessibility in Ontario, and Volunteering and People with Disabilities. Dr. Roberts coordinates, develops and provides consulting and training on inclusion and diversity to the public and private sector. She has been an instructor in research methods in the Master of Design in Inclusive Design program and is currently teaching innovation research methods in the Strategic Foresight and Innovation program at OCAD University.

Vera’s favourite technology strategies are using the format painter to fix formatting issues and using headings to support navigation within documents. She also loves using digital documents on mobile devices for maximum flexibility and personalization.

SNOW Project Administrator

Pat Murray is SNOWs Project Administrator. As the administrator Pat supports SNOW workshop registration, social media postings, content upload and day-to-day site maintenance of the SNOW website. Pat is also the Administrative Assistant for the Inclusive Design Research Centre and plays a key role in supporting services like the Vision Technology Service, research and development projects, and conference planning for the annual DEEP Conference.

Pat’s favourite technology strategies are using two large displays to give her extra space to spread out and organize the documents she is reading and creating. She also applies formatting adjustments to new SNOW content (e.g. heading tags) to improve accessibility of new content.

SNOW Community and Content Contributors

SNOW would not be possible without the participation of many other formal and informal team members. Our community includes a diverse group of educators, parents, students, administrators, researchers, developers, designers, advocates, volunteers, and other technology and inclusion enthusiasts. These dedicated individuals share their expertise, experiences, and passions through SNOW content, feature articles, workshop moderation, and more.

We are always excited to connect and grow our community. If you or someone you know is interested in contributing to SNOW, we would love to hear from you. Send us a message with your ideas!