Event ID: 2367804
Event Started: 5/6/2014 4:50:01 PM ET
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I cannot get my camera to work. I think I have been unmute.
Yes, Tom, you are good.
Don't worry about the camera. We know you are there.
It would have been nice to see you. Were I just to hear what you have to say.
-- Anxious to hear what you have to say.
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Any? -- Amy --
One moment.
This meeting is now being recorded.
Thank you.
Hello, everybody. This is Amy Parker here at the national Center on death like this. I want to thank Dr. Megan Conway and soon to be Dr. Tom Conway from the University of Hawaii for taking the time to show us this project they have been engaged in which is a beautiful nexus between technology, empowerment and a disability rights and access and adult learning. I have relied on both Tom and make an as reviewers for our online modules -- open hands open access, tran17/blind modules and was grateful for the expertise and the depth of the review and the knowledge they bring to the table.
As some of you know, they were on spring break recently and came to Oregon as a part of the visit to the West coast in the continental United States. They enjoyed visiting with us while we were on spring break, two, and that was lovely. So, thank you again, Tom and Megan for sharing this project with us. We look forward to learning from you and having dialogue at the end.
They give very much, Amy. We appreciate being invited to give this presentation about this project that we have been working on for the last two years. It's called the EmployAble project -- a world without borders. It is a virtual employment center.
Can you hear me?
Barriers --
Sorry, it were without barriers.
We have been working on the pilot for the past two years here at the center on disability studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. This was funded by the Kessler foundation. We are finishing it up and writing up the results and working on a percent presentations. We did have a video presentation to look at at your own leisure. This is something we will use to promote the project. It is going to be shown at the board of directors meeting on Friday. This will show a follow-up on the project completion. I have also put on a tiny URL. If anyone wishes to watch the slide presentation on their own device, they can go to the URL. It is a Google presentation. I do that so that people have the option of doing it on a different source. I just wanted to point that out.
Today's presentation -- we will give an overview of the project. We will be doing a In World -- 84 of the second life simulation side that we used to do the training of people and we will give it to have that. At the end we will have a time for in-depth questions and discussions. With that I will go to the next slide.
I will have -- Megan, do you want to step in and describe the project?
Absolutely. I will read the slide and that I would like to tell you more about why we conceived this project and why we did it the way we did. The vision is that EmployAble is guided by the belief that a practical and sustainable employment tool can be created through a combination of technological innovation and collaboration with employers, representatives of the disability community, and people with disabilities.
That is the nice, tidy way to say it. But, really, how this project emerged was that first out of a desire to address the employment situation for people with disabilities. To come up with innovative ways to do this. I should probably know, people with disabilities are considerably underemployed and unemployed in the US and internationally, as a matter of fact. I am a person with a disability. The co-presenter of the project is also a resume with a disability as are most of the people on this project. All of us know very well what it is like to struggle with getting and keeping employment. We were interested in coming up with some things that were innovative and also something that -- certainly there is a lot of people that and if it from getting a job -- Walmart or subway or whatever it is. For a lot of people, that is an accomplishment. We were also very interested in enabling people with disabilities to be at the forefront and cutting-edge of the employment situation. These days, it takes a lot more to get and keep a job. The kind of jobs there are require more and more education and more and more technical skills and people with disabilities often are left behind in all of this as they always have. We wanted to develop a project that can prepare the person who needs some experience with how to interview at a basic level and how to look for a job. The person getting started out in a job such as a student that just graduated and so forth. We wanted to address their needs. We also wanted to address the needs of folks like ourselves who want to be at the four point -- to be competitive. In a more professional orientated jobs. People that want to 10 -- change their careers. We also wanted to be inclusive and innovative in the way that we thought about employment preparation.
With that desire, combined with what Tom has been doing -- working in the area of educational technology, he was the one that sparked my interest because he he took a lap -- a class in second life -- a multiuser environment -- he took a class. One of the projects was to design an educational tool in second life. Something you could use to educate people about a topic. He designed a module around universal design. Universal design for learning geared toward higher education to teach about universal design and design for learning. When I saw the module, it seemed like such an interesting way to educate people. There seemed to be so many amazing applications around not just educating people about disability, but improving skills for people with disabilities. So, this is how the project emerged and this is how our vision came to be. Merging of -- wanting to address employment issues holistically and also integrating cutting-edge technology.
The goal is to improve upon the knowledge and skills for personal boat with disabilities to employment skills training, exposure to audible technologies, networking, mentoring, and access to employment resources.
These were the things that we saw as the key element for anybody to gain success in employment. You need the training, obviously. You need training in the skills necessary to do a specific job and you need more global climate skills -- how to get along in the workplace. Had to find a job. How to communicate with people, etc. Exposure to multiple technologies -- as I said, we all know that increasingly we are dependent on technology independent on all kinds of technologies. What people with disabilities -- in many ways this has enabled people with disabilities to participate in things they have not been able to previously. Of course, the group of [indiscernible] people is a perfect example. I just participated in a work shop on Sunday. Here in Hawaii. We were talking with several Deaf-blind adults about the different kinds of technologies that can assist them with communication and education and workplace issues.
For example, being able to have an iPhone connected to a braille display so you can utilize an iPhone like everybody else does. These are the things that are revolutionizing the medication for people that are Deaf-blind and the same as for other people with disabilities. There are applications opening up our world. Of course, at the same time there is still a persistent barriers to access for some of us. Particularly those of us with sensory disabilities. So, we really wanted to -- the first thing was to expose people with disabilities to all the different kinds -- not all that many different technologies out there that can help them to become productive and do with the need to do. At the same time, show them that if there is technology, it doesn't work so well because of disability issues there are options. Wanted them to feel comfortable with troubleshooting things and looking for solutions when they experience barriers rather than just giving up and saying well, I can't get a job because such and such.
Networking -- this is increasingly important because of the fact that we still use the web so much now. We network with people all over the world. We felt it was important for people with disabilities to utilize that to their advantage.
Mentoring -- this is an outcome from the project that we can talk about. This turned out to be an important part of the project. Mentors -- most were people with disabilities themselves or they were rehabilitation specialist interested in issues of employment and disability. Working with the participants. The participants got a lot out of the support and advice from the mentors.
Obviously, access to employment -- one thing we tried to to do was give people resources into multiple formats. In addition to having a webpage, we had links to the resources and we tried to utilize resources that were very engaging and to use different kinds of technology to expand the understanding about the [indiscernible] I'm going to let Tom do most of the presentation now. I wanted to emphasize that our project, again, trying to be innovative was key for us. Trying to be acceptable. Tom will talk about how we implemented universal design throughout over projects. Both to make the project accessible and to engage participants. I will hush now and let him tell you about the nitty-gritty of the project.
Thank you, Megan. As we started to approach this project we decided we had to cover a few important topics relating to people being able to get online and use the different modes of communication. I am going to read the slide. We have 4 different points on the strategies and tools. The first is to create an online community using social networking and communication tools.
Number 2 -- Nurture and mentor relationships using video chat program.
3 -- Develop an interview module using Google content management tools.
4 -- Enhanced practice and real life scenarios using SecondLife platform.
Everyone in the program -- the participants -- they did it all online. This presented a lot of challenges. Getting people to train on various online technologies. I'm sure that all of you have had the experience at some point -- some of these things have higher learning curves and others. Some people have great familiarity with certain programs as opposed to others. So grandma creating an online community -- the first thing we found out was that everybody had a Skype account. We were able to get people onto Skype and start having discussions and to mitigate with them. Ironically, at a higher level -- a better connection and even with e-mail. That was the first thing we found out that the prices. During that time we started to that up training groups to learn how to use Second Life. The virtual user environment. I wanted to point out that the goal was not necessarily to get them to use Second Life for a multicultural environment it was one of the options that we wanted to have available when we started to do the training. When we decided to do the training, there were several participants that didn't -- they weren't quite up to speed. They have anxiety issues about being in the virtual world. Fortunately, we had another option. I want to point this out -- throughout the project we wanted to make sure to follow the universal design that we had multiple means of people -- representation of the material and to the training options. People had options and they went along. Even with Skype, originally we set up things for using Google hangouts -- other video chat options. This is critical. The success of the program -- people being able to interact with us. We always had another option. That was a critical point. We were not trying to force them into the technology to use. The mentoring relationships -- number two -- we felt this was critical. These were the ones that opened up the people size. A lot of times -- we had 51 participants originally. As a worked out we had about 25 that started actively engaging in the program. This went on for about two months -- less than six months. About two or three months. It was a short timeframe. People who got on and were able to engage with us, primarily through the video chat programs, were able to get them onto second life and in training on it. We worked the process. The topic we chose -- originally the goals was for people to develop different skills. We chose the one doing interview module -- we feel like the interview process is something that -- easily people are gainfully employed, they may want to change careers. It is always something that they need to brush up on. It is a good skill to have. We found this to be true. Whether they were trying to get a job for the first time or whether they were looking at a career change, going through the interview process was something that all participants found to be highly useful. Once again, this is a pilot study. The first one we are modeling. The interview module. So, the goal is to eventually have employers come in and start to use what we have set up in terms of training specific job tasks. We will go into that a little little bit later and get a better idea how this project can evolve. The main reason for using a virtual reality platform -- once again, it has a limited use in terms of the business world. There are some graduate -- corporations that use it for international training. The main thing was to get people to go in there and practice what they learn. For the job interview, the practice is basically sitting down and having the interview. We felt as though this was the closest scenario to real life without having to walk into a place and meet is ever there that you will talk to -- sitting down -- this is typically not a familiar environment. This is the closest thing we could do. I would like to point out that host people in the project were on the East Coast. In time zones far from us. We found an effective way of getting them used to the whole thing of being in an interview which we were able to record. So, even the interviewer that we had -- people were not familiar with. As close as we could get to having a real scenario for practicing what they had learned.
The 3 phases of the study I have been describing -- three parts of it. The first part was the interview module -- self-paced, web-based. Done a Google sites. We will go to that next that we have a photo so that. They were able to login. I will describe in detail a little bit. They could do this on their own. This is not something that they had to do when a group or have somebody there telling them to do. I can do it. They login and review the material. The material was displayed -- it meets all the criteria of the guidelines for making the content accessible. It was red I a screen reader and we had options there. This was the first set of guidelines. Next we started to implement a more universal design for learning -- multiple means of engagement and representation. Each one of the modules -- we timed then. It did not take long to do. They are segmented so you get on there and typically they have a video -- like we describe -- there is more and you have text and a reinforcement quiz. This is to get people engaged and we can measure how long they were on their and which participants were involved. The next part was the mentoring video chat. This was primarily done through Skype. That was also highly effective. One of the groups -- different time zones. We had challenges getting people together. But, a lot of the people did I'd it useful and particularly in identifying different types of options they had for employment. One of the people that we spent a lot of time with -- he originally was looking at being a greeter at Walmart. He has a college degree. Just being able to be around other people. He set his sights higher and as a consequence of going through this process he is now doing inventory control independently. He is going to different companies. You have probably seen them in the stores doing inventory -- a market all down and they are doing barcodes. He went from aspiring to be a preacher at Walmart actually doing something more in line with what he has and trained to do.
So, that was one of the big benefits of doing these personal communications online using the video chat sessions. We thought that was very effective. For the second life simulation, as I said this is a pilot study and we start off with doing the interviews. We found this to be effective. People going on a different interview can also see how it looks. The recording. We had some of the participants that completed everything who felt that they could do this better on Skype. They said this is what I will be using. They were able to record this on Skype into the same thing. Once again we had another option there.
I am going to --
Tom, can I interject? We don't want to forget about this. Jay had a question about how we address the needs of the participants that are blind and visually impaired. I wondered if I could talk about that briefly.
Yes. Good one.
This was something that was a concern from the outset, particularly because we were using second life -- SecondLife -- a visually based program. This is one of the reasons, really, that pushed us forward to use as many different kinds of technology as possible. In order to ensure that participants who might not be comfortable with or easily accessing certain kind of technology could benefit from the program.
I wanted to give an example. We had one fellow who was an active participant who was totally blind. He was pretty tech savvy. That was important. One thing to point out -- for most of the participants they did have to have a basic to moderate level of technology skills to really benefit from the program. It wasn't the goal to teach people how to use a computer. They had to have those skills first. If they did use assistive technology, they had to have skills and how to utilize the technology. This fellow was fairly technologically adept and he was familiar with the screen reader and how to use it. For example, when we used flat floored -- blackboard -- he used the commands. There are key commands in there. Is not easy. But if you do know what they are, you are able to utilize the different features in Blackboard using a screen reader. He was able to do that. What he was excited about -- SecondLife. There is an alternative browser called [indiscernible]. It is entirely textbased. He was able to download that and he did training with the partners -- virtual ability -- assisting people with disabilities to access SecondLife. He did the training with them. Especially with them, he heard information about the entire [indiscernible]. He did this using text -- using his a screen reader. You can also do things like -- attached to another [indiscernible] and go with them around. What was interesting was that -- even after he figured out SecondLife -- he decided that it wasn't that interesting. The benefit of SecondLife is that you are immersed in a visual environment. That is part of the benefit. We thought -- he might get benefit from the socialization -- you probably could. But he decided -- I am familiar with Skype and I want to do this in Skype. That's what he did. Tom will talk about a practice interview. He did this in Skype. In terms of things like -- the kind of nice thing is that a lot of these video programs like SecondLife they have [indiscernible] and chat capabilities -- if we have participants that are deaf -- and we do -- we primarily mitigated using the chat features. For the issue of visual impairments they referred to use audio features. When we had a group -- I did have a mentor meeting with people with multisensory disabilities. I had the meeting where there was a person that was deaf, and a guy that was hard of hearing and visually impaired. And then there was me -- I am also heart of hearing and visually impaired. I found myself reading the chat allowed and we had the auditory part going, so we were talking. Then I was doing some signing when it got the public aided. -- Too complicated. That I was reading the chat for the benefit of the guy they couldn't see very well. It wasn't ideal, but we worked through the situation.
We did find that for most people were there was a will there was a way. Tom, anything I missed in terms of the blind and vision impaired users fax
That was an excellent illustration. I spent a lot of time learning how to use that program -- fortunately Randy put this out there -- Radegast. This was one of those things -- this is great. This is technology geared toward a group put that can use this and engage in SecondLife. But after talking with him and seeing what he was up against, it was clear -- why would you want to do this? Everything in SecondLife has a window above it describing the text of what it is. It is a cop located thing to go through. That was not our objective -- to teach them how to get onto SecondLife. He was interested and get did get into it and was able to engage, but the practical pragmatic thing was that he was going to do things in Skype and we did all of his recordings and practice sessions in Skype. One of the things -- we were able to assist him with this. Since he wasn't visually able to interact with it, we were able to assist him with -- if you are going to do this interview in Skype you need to be aware of what is in the background. These were the things he was concerned about. We were able to get him inside his apartment that had a blank wall -- windows in the background and other things. Being able to adapt this, he did get something out of the fact that we were able to record it and get feedback. It was a fascinating experience.
I appreciate you bringing those things up, Megan. Don't hesitate to break in as I start to go on.
I will go over these slides rather quickly. This is the one that you would open. This is the introduction. Was again we are trying to implement universal design for learning. We have a video here. This is a content expert explaining what is going to happen. You can hear the video or see it. This is also usable on multiple mobile devices. So, when we designed this we wanted to make sure you could access it on a smart phone or tablet or anything. We made sure to complete this rationale of criteria.
You get on here and typing your name. You take what we call a free quiz. These are the questions they will ask. These are the topics. As it goes along they asked the question -- how long will it take -- this one will be 20 min. You will not be graded on this. Then, going to the segments. We have the introduction and you can log on there and log off and login as images you want. We're keeping a record of how long people are on what is going on. Each one of the modules are the same. There is a video on their describing something about it. It doesn't necessarily read the text -- but it goes along with the topic. This is about presenting yourself in an interview. Once again, it has the content and the video. At the end there is a reinforcement quiz of about two or three questions. The answer that we think it is -- consider this. It is more like a learning tool that opposed to an assessment of how well they were doing. Reinforcement. The question comes up -- the answer at the way we think they should. We did want to have it to structured. Like you said, it is a reinforcement tool to keep them engaged with the material on hand.
The next thought was the interview -- these are questions that we took from human resource people. These are the questions that typically are asked in an interview. Each one of these is a separate topic. We have 18 of these. We address each one. We ask -- these are options you have. A lot of times these questions are difficult to answer. We wanted to let them know their are ways to answer difficult questions. Everyone goes through this. We tried to make this as universal -- I want to stress that. It's like something that anyone going to a job interview -- these are the things you have to think about. If your resume is not full accomplishment, how to address that? If you have certain challenges, what is a good way to answer the question and keep it going? Not getting a defensive. Not putting yourself down. How to approach it in a positive manner. Once again, this is probably the biggest part. You click on the question and it goes through and it starts asking you things in more detail.
One thing I would like to point out -- for this part of the module we have an interview that we produced ourselves. A job interview. The people are actors that were care. Not professional actors, but people that work at CBS. Below it we have a similar interview. Part of this was to get people used to the idea that you are in the avatars then this is a good way to practice. From the production standpoint it is a lot easier to do these things in Second Life that real life. The one on the bottom -- this took us maybe one half-hour production time. The one on top took all day.
These are other ways that the tools can be used on the other side. We are trying to introduce the participants getting used to use the avatar. At this point in the process they have been trained on SecondLife and they know what it is. As we go along, we introduce them to the idea of practicing for the interview.
At the end we have the same thing. The same set of questions. We were able to measure -- it was an improvement. We didn't give them a grave. It was for our own internal use.
We try to do something humorous. We didn't want to make light of this, but sometimes there are things that can go wrong. This is to increase people's comfort level.
Is an intimidating process for anyone.
I want to address the last series of things. We also introduced some special topics and people, depending on how they are coming into the job interview process, we also have one on me yet -- full disclosure about disability -- we took information off the job network -- they have a series of things about how to answer questions about your disability. Should you do it? What are your legal rights? These are add-ons to the module that we will expand and yet more specific as people give us feedback on it.
This is one of two different videos describing what you're supposed to do legally. What are good strategies for approaching him. We felt like this is important. We want to make sure that you have the information there that is universal. Also, how do you answer these questions we ask sometimes it is very difficult. We also had a module hear about adjustments to civilian life directed toward veterans. One of the target audiences was veterans. Going over from a military life, with you have a disability or not, is always challenging. So, we had information about people talking about -- coming out of the military culture into a civilian one. Particularly the kinds of things they had to be aware of.
These modules are flexible and ongoing.
I wanted to point that out.
Megan, do you want to discuss the outcomes asked
Sure.
I will hand it over to Megan now.
Sounds good. Take a breather.
In the summer of 2013 we had 51 adults with disabilities participate in a three-month pilot study. 30% completed the final survey. I would say that, as Thompson, about half of the participants engaged fully in the project. One of the challenges as with anything was capable to -- everybody fills out the survey. To the midpoint you can't step it up. It is difficult to get this. We got about 30%.
Of those, 84 indicated [indiscernible] helped them prepare for retain a job. There is a bar with some of the outcomes that we found. There was quite a significant number that said that they learned new skills. I am afraid -- with the bar -- it is not quite specific enough. We are talking about nearly 100%.
In terms of improving their ability to network, about 85% said that they improved their ability to network.
About 75% they improved their technology skills. 60% posted an updated resume online. 40% had a job interview. 20% received a job offer.
These numbers are -- the percent sounds like a lot bigger. For example, there was a handful of participants who actually got a job during the process of participating in the project. The goal, really, was not to place everybody in employment. The goal was to enhance people's ability to identify the first job if they wanted and to look for a job and practice interviews and be more confident in terms of doing an interview. Improve the resume. Background skills. This was more the goal. We definitely feel that we accomplished that.
Of the people that did get a job, Tom talked about the fellow who now does inventory. He is a fellow with autism. He is someone that we feel got a significant amount from the project. He was highly engaged. He got allowed of working with his mentors. He worked on his resume. He came out with a much nicer than the resume. As Thompson, is to working with the project. Increases expectations of what he can do. I okay job. Daddy has a background in business. That was his undergraduate training. He got a job in that field.
The deaf woman that I work with had just gotten her doctorate. She was looking for a job in higher education. During the project she didn't get a job. When I first worked with her, I saw her improve -- the resume improved by leaps and bounds. She came in with a half put together resume and came out with a curriculum vitae appropriate for an academic setting. She enjoyed the interviews that she worked on them diligently. Was really nice is that she was applying for a job and as we went to the program and I was able to work with her on every step of the process from identifying job that was a fit and working to develop the curriculum the take and working under cover letter. We did an interview specifically -- specifically if she were to get an interview for that job, the kinds of questions they would ask. There was another participant looking to be -- he wanted a change in career. He was able to accomplish that. We thought that the people -- people came out with -- something they needed. For another participant -- was on the next page?
-- What's on the next page?
I can't remember -- I think it is implications.
Okay.
In a minute I will do this. We have quotes from some distant. One of them is talking about how WYSIWYG the mentor gave her confidence. She didn't believe in yourself before.
She came out more confident and said yes, I can go into a maybe. What were the implications of the outcomes? One was that online technology -- when you give in an active -- this can improve skill development and preparation for individuals with disabilities. We attribute use of these different kinds of the County -- accessibility -- people coming out of the project with what they needed and wanted.
We were looking at what you can do and how to make it work.
We think we came up with some good strategies. We also learned about what not to do. Was definitely.
Another implication was that mentors are a valuable resource for jobseekers with disabilities. We have some participants talking about that. The mentor component -- we think that any sort of a job support program should include some kind of mentorship. I think that is recognized in the business community and the [indiscernible] community. Sometimes the people with the needs for disabilities to have a connection with other people with disabilities. They also have knowledge about -- employment. Really have knowledge of an area where somebody needs support. If they were able to relate to the mentors on a personal level because of the common element like disability, but also the mentors had knowledge about employment strategies. So they could work with participants and give them new skills. It wasn't just about talking about the experiences, but also about okay, let's look at your resume and figure it out.
. Third point -- people with disabilities need access to online resources that are interactive, comprehensive, and useful.
Here are some testimonials. I think this is an awesome program and thank you for having it. The most frustrating thing I have encountered this is becoming disabled is not knowing where to turn or asked Corsi. This program helped me through that and pointed me in a lot of good directions. I would never have otherwise considered this a thought of it. It's easy to become hopeless and discourage. This program provides hope and encouragement.
Another participant said much of the information on interviewing exposed me to a lot of new information that will help me with future interviews. Reviewing my mock interview was particularly illuminating. As Tom mentioned, we recorded the interviews in SecondLife so people could go back and review them and self critique. Some of the participants then we recorded their interviews.
I also found the group mentor helpful particularly on the subject of resume writing and looking for a government job. Much of value in this project. I feel fortunate to have been a part of the pilot study.
Tom, I will let you wrap it up. Take us into the next stage.
Okay. I want to point out that we had multiple ways of presenting the material we had. We have a website with everything on it. All of the material -- whether it was for researching companies or job interviews or preparing for it. You can go to the website and all the materials on their -- we have videos. Here is the link to the module -- the interview module. I believe it is open now. Ironically we have some of the groups going through the interview module. We have students from the college of engineering going through it just because we want to do so more evaluation of it. We have other groups going on to it, but if you want to going impressive, that's all right with us.
We also have a twitter account -- we were sent information about doing job interviews. There were a few participants who found this very useful. Some had never used a social media before. They were able to interact and it was all about job tips. Once again, we try to make it as generic as possible. There was some specific information about job -- but mostly it was what anyone else would interact with.
We also had Skype. We had all these different things out there that enhanced the whole experience. I did notice that we had somebody that wanted to know about people who finished the breakdown of the type of disabilities. We have the exact numbers. Megan, to remember the exact breakdown?
No, but was interesting --
Yes.
It was very diverse.
Yes.
In terms of the original 51 and find out, we probably -- a general disability category. We have someone represented. We had people with ceramic brain injury, blindness, deafness, people with physical disabilities and psychologically an introduction.
The general category -- student with autism. In terms of people that finished, yes, it ended up being a significantly smaller number, but I would say that finishing -- there was nothing to be a correlation with disabilities type.
We had a blind participant and a deaf participant in a couple with autism. A couple with physical disabilities. Traumatic brain injury. Intellectual disabilities. I don't know that we could statistically make inferences on that. We had our eye out for that, like this appropriate for this kind disability, I would say more significant indicators of whether somebody completed the project -- one was comfort with technology and not necessarily a lot of previous experience. Just a real desire to learn more about it and excitement about it.
I would say that they developed a strong relationship with their mentor. That is a positive indicator. These have something in common with the mentor or released
Some people came into the project with the expectation we would find them a job. When it became clear that that was not our purpose, those folks dropped out. So, -- another indicator it was that there were some participants that enrolled because somebody, as it turned out, made them. Rehab counselor said you have to enroll in this with her mother said you have to enroll in this. We tended to lose them. [laughter]. We are laughing -- the participants of the lot the survey and then we didn't hear from them a we called them and they said who are you. What do you want to ask [laughter]. Wait a minute -- you filled out this survey. It turns out their mom had killed about. It was funny. I would say that all these factors were more important. This is kind of off the top of my head. We are still sifting through all of the data. The kind of the formulations of weakening.
I would say that -- I know you were interested, Jay, in those with autism. To me, this group could really find some benefit. We had a nice group of folks with autism. A couple were [indiscernible]. We did some work with them in person as well. One thing -- for example -- one way they benefited from SecondLife -- then we will open this up for discussion. We will show you the SecondLife site --
There was interaction with three participants with autism. They were in the virtual clothing store. They were trying on -- talking about what would be appropriate for an interview. What do you were? One participant -- the avatar was dressed like a punk rocker. One of the other guys said I really don't think you want to going to do an interview just like that. [laughter]. They were talking about what they would wear.
Yes.
These are people that normally have difficulty with social interactions. We were talking to each other about this. Appropriate clothing. These were some things that we thought were significant.
Yes.
How about other questions from you guys before we take you to the SecondLife site?
Comments or whatever --
I don't know if you want to open this up --
Megan, this is Amy.
Hello.
You guys are doing a great job of we are enjoying it. I was thinking that for many people that have never seen SecondLife, it might spark more questions if you just do a look see. Then we will open it up to Hollywood squares with those that want to be on camera.
Okay. Thanks.
I will let time do that.
-- Let Tom do that.
Cool.
Are you seeing it?
Yes.
You can see the -- can everyone else?
Yes, everything looks good.
Great.
There is Megan. These are the avatars. Typically when I do this I would speak to the program. Since I am on the phone -- if I was speaking through the browser -- SecondLife -- the avatars not would be moving. It would appear more animated. One of the options we have here -- when you deal with the virtual world there is a chat box on the lower left-hand side. I don't know if it shows up on your screen or not. But, this is typically most of the interaction. Just like Adobe Connect -- there are different modes of communication.
I am going to give you a brief tour. This is the headquarters. This is where people come and meet.
I will go ahead and turn this around. Here I am.
This is my guy year.
-- My guy here.
There we go.
You have to go between Adobe Connect and this screen --
Yes.
This is the main the room a. These are the partners. This is information about the program. The partners were Virtual Ability that created the SecondLife site and ability court -- a an employment agency that helped us with mentoring and suggesting material to put up.
Here we have the site. People come in and get ideas about what the project is about. Just like any sort of reception area that anyone else would have.
I will go outside. These are the 3 areas that we had. One was called Skill Builder. Things were replicated on the module. The topic for this one was -- doing the job interview. I want to emphasize that the material was replicated. Anything on the job interview is also in this site.
The other two sites were Matchmaker. -- Connect with other people -- mentors or employers. Once again, all of this has been replicated onto the website. This is not necessarily the only place that people are engaged.
The third site is accessed info. This is also replicated on the website.
Making, which like to describe more about Matchmaker before we take a tour of Skill Builder?
Matchmaker with the area -- was the area -- my avatar keeps falling asleep. Nothing personal. [indiscernible - multiple speakers] She is my avatar in a wheelchair. I don't personally use one, but I have an avatar in a wheelchair and and avatar who does not use a wheelchair that looks more like me. [indiscernible] is also from Hawaii -- she is a local gal.
I wanted to throw that out there.
Matchmaker was the concept in that area. Having tools around mentor relationships and connecting with employers. We have resources for mentors. We have resources for people with disabilities about employers and ways to look for jobs like -- you can set up a LinkedIn account there. That kind of thing. We also have resources for employers about working with people does -- working and recruiting people with disabilities. Given the timeframe of the project we did not end up involving employers like we originally envisioned. This is something that that would be a possibility for the project. To engage employers specifically on projects.
Then, access info is another way to present the employment resources. We are forever created a lot of the [indiscernible] that would list on the website. Someone can go there and they can't link to all the different resources and information. Coming in second place and in the engaging environment.
The section on how to dress for an interview -- on the webpage you can access web links and -- I did not a poster of my avatar looking appropriate and inappropriate for an interview. This is the additional kind of engaging features.
Tom?
Will take a tour of one of the building. They are laid out exactly the same. The one we will go to first is the Skill builder.
I want to emphasize that all this with real is being replicated on the interview module. So, it is exactly the same thing. Section 1 -- I showed you on the slideshow. If you click this it goes to the module. You can have access. The idea was to bring in groups and us we brought people into second life we wanted to expose them to -- reinforce the material on the interview module. This is exactly the same feel and look. If they click this on in SecondLife -- it goes through the module. This is something that they appreciate. They're coming into the group and asking questions about it. The self-paced modules. They may not have done this otherwise.
Once again, the third one -- the first impression -- that's about picking out clothing and appropriate attire and presenting a your self.
Now I will go upstairs and show you -- everything here is also -- ADA compliant. We wanted to make sure to model, particularly for employers but also for employees, and get some idea.
I realize this is not exactly how you would have a ramp, but we want to emphasize that the ramps are a part of ADA. The real one probably wouldn't be this steep.
Looks like fun to go down.
Here we have a place where we did some of the interviews. Someone would come in and we will arrange a time. Just like for a real interview. You would arrange a time to meet and come in here and we didn't several of them. A lot of the things here -- the laptop -- you can use it as a real laptop and leak into a URL. The one we have on their -- on an ongoing basis -- it was linked to our website. So, you can interact with it. This is what we call scripts. People use these. I am coming to the job interview and I will be -- I will sit down in the chair. I sit on the chair and I don't know if you can see this, but I have options of how I will fit. Will I sit back? Cross my legs? Am I typing? Someone comes to the interview and has options. How will you present yourself? They are able to apply the material they were using in the module.
I felt that was important.
There are also ways of showing emotions. A set of gestures. I will show that real quick.
There are ways of communicating nonverbally.
I assume that you can see this. I can clap.
I was trying this and it was not working for me.
There are different things to do. There are ways, like I said, -- you do have a bunch of options. There are also custom scripts like shaking hands. These things are incorporated into the program to give it a realistic representation.
We did to some of the interviews here. Once again, there is the introduction. I don't know if you can see the laptop. We are trying to reinforce the same material. This gives them a certain comfort level when you come to this environment. It is a somewhat intimidating environment as I go through this. But, we tried to do things to make it so that you had to interact with the actual -- having to use SecondLife. We wanted to make it so that they came to the spot. We set up a time and we would meet them at the spot. They were following us up here. We are trying to make things as focused on just what we wanted to accomplish as opposed to experiencing the whole thing. I could do a whole presentation on SecondLife. That was the objective. It was to get them to practice the interview. We are trying to develop the scenario to replicate a real one is much as possible.
All three of the buildings -- they are laid out the same. Groups of people come in and sit down and practice the interview in different places. Now we will go on. We will go back downstairs.
We are going to -- the other things -- other parts of the module. If we were going to do training for a specific -- let's say an industry or a company was to do training, this is where we will be switching out the material.
Once again, the same videos that are on the module. The same thing -- you click on this and Agosta the material. Now with go over to the other spot that we have -- this is where the businesses are located. This is where -- like the clothing store and we will briefly go -- I will not go into each one of them, but this is called the city street. I don't know if they can see that --
[indiscernible - multiple speakers] Yes, the conference area. It is always sunny in SecondLife see you can stay outside.
Some of the businesses -- one is hospitality. Everything there is -- people can go and train to be -- work the front desk or be a manager or if they wanted to operate their own business, they can go and practice this. Once again, they can recorded. We had another business that was an architectural firm -- I will go there quickly.
You're walking backward.
I know. I have been filming and I have all my controls backwards for filming. I am having --
There we go.
Tom, this is a me. I have a question. Also, because the video feed in Adobe is a little more tricky -- then [indiscernible] whacks
Correct. It is a little bit of an adjustment. I will get in there.
Inside -- this is all the businesses. There is a lot of detail. This is a design firm -- architectural design firm. People can sit on the drafting board there. There are not fine motor skills, but what we are mainly emphasizing our social skills. If I were working in a design firm, what are the kinds of social interactions that we will have with the employer or employees or clients? Were trying to set up areas and have a somewhat accurate representation. Once again, laptops are live -- you type in the URL. We have one showing -- once again, it is the social interaction we are trying to replicate. Not necessarily fine motor skills.
With --
Tom, since you guys -- this is a me again. Said to have about 20 min. left, I wanted you to know that.
Yes, we are going to go outside and then we will start the questions.
I am here somewhere.
I am getting lag here.
While that is happening, Randy, are you going to set us up for a different screen layout?
We get to the part of questions -- Megan, Megan -- it will give you an opportunity to see who was on the line and baby meet a few people. We will go over a communication protocol. So that everyone has access to what is going on.
Sounds good.
I was going to give you a brief overview of the street area
This is a café. The Internet café where people may have a job interview. Once again, all of these things are usable in there. This is also where we had a lot of the meetings. Down here --
No real copy, though.
Unfortunately.
[indiscernible - multiple speakers] Yes, City Hall is here -- people can apply for a government job or get a permit for something. The one next to it is a credit union. Originally we had this designed as a bank but now we have the opportunity to have someone come through train people with disabilities -- how to work at a credit union. Within about two hours we were able to change the sign. You can change the environment quickly to model it after whatever kind of business you would like.
I will take it from there and we will get set up for the questions and answers.
Okay.
If folks would like to start their WebCams, click on the start at the top.
Or at the menu at the top of the screen.
It would be nice to have a lot of folks on camera.
I am trying. I don't think it will work.
It could be, Megan, that the WebCam you're using is indebted are attached has two -- like Adobe you have to go through a series of accepting.
Yes.
Accepting different things. Typically there is a preview button. Now we have people coming on.
What I thought we would do is -- as people have questions, they can simply raise their hand visually. If they are on camera. So that time or Megan can see you. Engage with you that way. Or, at the top of the screen next to the bar that says NCDB with the meeting and icons there is a raise your hand feature if you are not I camera. Or you can put your question in the chat pod. Megan or Tom will try to watch that and Randy and I will try to support this. Thank you very much, Tom and Megan. We will now open it up for discussion and questions.
It may help for you to know -- sepals -- people's names at the bottom. Maybe it would be nice to -- some of you met Tom and Megan when they were in town -- Carol did. I know Shelby did. She helped me do some filming with Randy for their interview. But, for those that did not get to meet them, when you introduce yourself. We will start with Robin.
-- Robbin.
Can you hear me?
Yes. I was muted.
[laughter] I am Robbin at the Oregon office for NCDB. I appreciate your presentation. Sorry I missed you when you were here in Oregon.
Gail?
I am Gail Leslie, also here at the NCDB office in Oregon. I also missed you when you were here. I heard that you had hide.
-- Five.
It was good.
Really good.
Jeff?
You are muted, Jeff.
While we wait on Jeff -- you're welcome to type your questions into the chat pod. We are having our own UN convention just like the meeting with those that Megan was mentoring.
I know that Patty Johnson is on the line and her WebCam is not integrated but I thought she might like to say hello. If you press *6 you will be unneeded and you can say something if you would like.
Jeff, you are off muted now.
Okay. I am the tech guy. Actually, I am the web developer for NCDB. I have been for about seven years. Building websites and databases.
Great. Thanks, Jeff. Would anyone else like to introduce themselves? It may not work out. Some people are having to leave the meeting. GC -- Greg [last name indiscernible] -- in the chat pod -- he had another meeting to go to. Jay and delete, two. We will make this pretty informal. If there is anyone with a question, please feel free to raise your hand and ask.
This is Carol.
I have a personal interest in how the veterans were doing with this program. We talked about that a little bit when you were in town. Any interest in connecting with the Department of Defense and the veterans Association -- Veterans Administration? Making something like this available to the returning vets?
In about two weeks we will go to the VA hospital here. We have a meeting here to incorporate the program. One of the target audiences was veterans. For whatever reason, -- there are is a lot of tension be given to the vets with employment issues. We are competing with the ones that are established. The content manager is an ex-Marine. -- A Marine. We had a lot of veteran interest. But, several of the people that signed job -- we are talking about people that dropped out. One was because there were ongoing veteran programs that they were going through and they were taken advantage of this as it was going. One of the target groups is veterans. We will do a presentation at the -- with VA added about two weeks. Also, the funding agency -- Scott -- Kessler got a grant. They want to utilize us and hopefully utilize a part of the project.
So, we definitely are looking forward to trying to get more involved with this.
Thank you.
This is a me. Anyone else?
-- Amy -- anyone else?
Jeff?
Pick you for showing us this. This is interesting. I wonder the time investment in setting up SecondLife. Is there a significant learning curve in setting this up -- the buildings and environments whacks
-- Buildings and environments?
When I was conceptualizing this, we envisioned something much simpler. Fortunately, the callout were -- collaborator has an expert builder. She built all of that stuff. She has a lot of experience. To build things yourself it is quite time-consuming. What we showed you -- I urge anyone to take a look -- it is pretty elaborate. [background noise]
I could not have built that side.
[background noise]
She has a lot of experience -- years of experience.
So, I can tell you the timeframe. You can't -- you can go to SecondLife and there are classes available free to learn how to do this. I have built minor things. You have experience building things, modeling things like with cat or something, you could probably do this fairly quickly. It is not that complicated.
[indiscernible - multiple speakers] I was going to say -- like Tom, for example. He did the universal design. He did this with fairly limited experience. He was able to design a curriculum. He designed the pathway. But, where we hired out was what you see -- the detail to modeling the real world design. The way that she has the colors that are nice. All of the minute to details in each one of these things. To look like the real world. That was where her expertise came in handy.
Virtual Ability -- they were looking at things like modeling accessibility when she designed this. We were fortunate to work with them. There are people out there like that. From us, we designed the curriculum. We designed what we wanted there. But, she is the one that did the hands-on building of things. The designer.
Thank you.
Carol, is there another question?
Yes. You talked about how it was easier to make a little movie. In SecondLife rather than real life. With how much difficulty you have with learning had to move around, does it get scripted in advance and you like it? Or are you manipulating the avatars live while you make the movie?
We are manipulating the avatars. I was talking about -- when you do a movie, it is different than when you're in there. When you do a movie you face the camera. I between all of these movies. I got the controls backward. It takes a little bit of time. My point was that you can write out a script. You have someone come in and dress them the way you wanted but the where you want. The screen capturing programs for recording video are easy. You can have it all caption. It works out really well. We were very impressed. That is another tool that you can use. Doing the interviews, a lot of people don't -- that was the good thing about it. He could hear themselves and see themselves interact with someone that they may not do in real life.
Doing movies and training things -- this was a good tool for that.
I hope that answer your question.
Yes. Thank you.
This is Amy I have a question if nobody else does right away. Megan, you said you weren't several things not to do. You said you learned some humorous things. Some things to do and your takeaways on factors for success. You also learned some things not to do. Could you share those whacks
Yes. Some of the things to do came out of what not to do. We did go in with an expectation of using primarily SecondLife is a platform -- to develop an employment center in the SecondLife and having most of the project embedded. We learned quickly that for subdisciplines we had training in SecondLife and that was the first thing we did. The virtual ability helped us with that. They had a lot of experience with that. Some of the participants took right to it and Sudan and other people had a lot of -- it took them a lot more time to do it. So, one of the first things we learned -- we need to use a lot of technology. Part of it is called scaffolding. We need to lead people to this. Some people will need to start with something more simple. The online learning module came out of that. Let's build the module that is easy for most people to use who are familiar with the Internet. Then, let's build up to using these materials in SecondLife. So, that was a major thing. Some people could just jump right in to the advanced technology but a lot of people needed to get there and build up more gradually. Then there was a good chunk of participants that ultimately got there. Some people didn't. But, they were still able to get something for the project. They were able to participate in the meetings. They could review the interview module and resource. Maybe they didn't The interactive interview on SecondLife, but we had other things. The lesson was the realization that we need to have a lot of different ways for people to access the material. We didn't come in with that perspective. It just happened. Working with the participants.
Another lesson was really when we were talking about the [indiscernible] participant. Another lesson is that not everybody has to love every piece of technology. We really wanted [indiscernible]. We could say yes, we made SecondLife accessible for a blind guide. We did, in a way. But like you said -- G, is called visual. That didn't have to be the goal. What really was the goal was that he was able to benefit from the project and what he needed out of it. It wasn't that every single thing had to be -- if it didn't work it didn't work. We did the best we could to make things accessible as possible.
Then from there you have to talk to the participants about what they really want. This seems like a no-brainer, but it was a lesson.
Tom, I know we had a list at one point. What were some of the other things?
If I had to do it all over again, I would spend more time teaching people about the various different technologies at the beginning as opposed to staggering along.
I would've spent the whole two weeks -- one of the challenges we had -- the timing of the grant got changed around due to circumstances beyond our control. So, it got delayed six months due to some legal things between the University and one of the collaborators. It delayed it a bit. If I had to do it again I would get people together right away and we can start to agree on the technology to use. You get a better sense of which ones they could interact with easily. We were lucky with Skype. Every single person that signed up for a that a Skype account. That was beneficial.
I would have liked to get a better sense of -- maybe doing some screen sharing. A lot of this had to do with the equipment and configuration and the computers. Were they are sitting in their house. One of the [indiscernible] -- a success story is somebody that got a better job than he originally anticipated. I sat with him for an hour trying to figure out where in his house was the best place for him to get his Wi-Fi to work correctly. A lot of this troubleshooting -- I wish we could have concentrated on that to begin with. The whole thing is -- you can see this with any online technology -- it is his strongest and weakest -- with his thing. Particularly the Internet connection or how much other stuff you have going on your computer at one time. I probably would've spent more time setting of your protocol for that.
This is Amy. We are a little bit beyond our time. I am amazed at how fast 90 min. can go, especially when the topic is so interesting. But, I want to thank you both for taking the time to share this very exciting project. We can get in touch with you and you have welcomed us to share the link. So when Randy shows up the group, you as an individual are welcome to share this with somebody else that you think might be interested. Gail, to be we can share this on the website with the transition group or with folks building modules and thinking about that. You guys are fantastic. We are so lucky to have you as partners.
Thanks, Tom and Megan. We will be in touch.
Thank you very much.
Goodbye.
Thank you.
Goodbye.
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