SBIR-STTR Award

With the increasing inclusion of students with disabilities into regular education settings, more educators are faced with addressing this population's challenging and specific needs. These educators may not be specifically trained and/or knowledgeable of the disability area of their particular student; therefore, the need for immediate, specific training in addressing the needs of that student is great. This research will investigate the development, implementation, and effectiveness of providing educators online training designed to provide these needed skills. Kraus Communication LLC proposes to build and implement two web-based courses. The goal of this Phase I proposal is to develop, implement and investigate the effectiveness of a web-based training approach assessing teacher attitudes toward web-based training, knowledge acquisition, and the classroom integration of acquired skills. The training system will be developed using Authorware 5.0, delivered over the Internet, and accessible through a web-browser. The goal of Phase II will be to implement a web site offering a professional development curriculum. Phase II will include a more in-depth analysis of the effectiveness of the training and a broader scope of instructional courses. The Phase III product would offer an online package of courses for practicing teachers and/or parents.Summary of Anticipated Results and Implications:The success of Phase I will result in:1.an expanded experience base in web-based training development,2.a stronger development process for online courses,3.an online courseware management system, and4.a corporate teaming relationship between content developers and the Internet Service Provider.The anticipated results of Phase II include the full implementation of the "TeacherWebTrainer" training system, which will allow school systems to overcome the traditional barriers of professional development.Potential Commercial Applications.The resulting training system would offer an online package of training courses available to school districts and community organizations at a subscription or per-course rate at a fraction of the cost of traditional training.

TeacherWebTrainer.com is a prototype web site offering web-based training for educators in the area of addressing the needs of students with disabilities. In meeting Phase I objectives, self-paced web-based courses were administered to educators utilizing streaming technology. Additionally, a web-based management system was developed allowing for the tracking and administration of the participants who completed the courses. The success of Phase I resulted in: 1.an expanded experience base in web-based training development, 2.a strong development process for web-based courses, 3.a courseware management system, and, 4.a corporate teaming relationship between programmers and content developers. Our goal in Phase II is to develop a curriculum of courses that can be delivered at TeacherWebTrainer.com , create a web- based learning portfolio tool that can be accessed by the participants, develop an e-commerce tool that will allow participants to pay for courses, develop an administrative tool for the management of participants, implement the web-based courses for a six month testing phase, and finally analyze performance data, including educators attitudes toward web-based learning and scores on the assessment instruments. The Phase III product will offer web-based package of courses for practicing teachers and/or parents, which can be purchased at a subscription rate. Summary of Anticipated Results and Implications: The success of Phase II will result in (1) an expanded curriculum of web-based training courses, (2) a web-based learning portfolio tool, (3) a web-based e-commerce solution, and (4) an in-depth look at the effectiveness of the web-based courses. This will result in a fully functioning system that is ready for commercialization in Phase III. The anticipated results of Phase III will include the full launch of the web site to state, regional, and national markets. The resulting system will offer a web-based package of training courses available to school districts and community organizations at a subscription rate at a fraction of the cost of traditional training.