Marc's Independent Project

The location that I chose for my individual project was a small coffeehouse named The Last Drop located on 1300 Pine Street in Philadelphia. The coffeehouse is a medium-sized establishment, roughly 35 x 75 feet. It has a ground level floor and a small lower floor. The top level seats about 25 people upstairs and about 10 downstairs. The Last Drop considers itself a old-fashioned coffeehouse that caters to the artist establishment prevalent in its section of Center City, Philadelphia. The reason I chose to highlight the restaurant is because I find their values and practices to be contradictory of the true artist liberal spirit it forcefully proclaims. This spirit should guarantee equal access to everyone.

Katelyn's Independent Project

The place that I have chosen is PJ’s coffee house in Highland Park, New Jersey. PJ’s is a local favorite because it serves coffee and smoothies in a comfortable and relaxed atmosphere. As a privately owned new business, PJ’s must be in accordance with The Americans With Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities regarding accessibility and architectural barriers (Hulet 2009).
When I first walked in,

Tom's Independent Project

The location I have chosen to report on is Beverly’s Old Fashioned Ice Cream Parlour and Arcade in Little Egg Harbor, NJ. It is a small, privately owned, family-oriented and 50’s style parlor that serves ice cream and candy to the local community. It is located at the end of a strip mall on a main road and was originally a small bank before it got converted into its present usage. Consequently, because of its original design the shop also utilizes the original drive through like a typical fast food restaurant for people to get ice cream on the run. Being less than 3 blocks from my home I visit this establishment frequently with my family as it is very accommodating and family friendly.

How Accessible is the Community?

We like to think the world around us is pretty accessible to those people with disabilities. We like to think that businesses aren't excluding anyone or not allowing anyone to fully access the world which we sometimes take for granted. Sometimes they are, and sometimes they aren't. We completed independent reports for our special education law class detailing how accessible various places are around us in the community. The results are interesting.  Check out the posts!

What is Assistive Technology and Universal Design?

Assistive technology is any technology that is utilized by people with disabilities to perform functions that might be considered difficult or impossible otherwise. Universal design is the concept of using this technology for the benefit of everyone, not just people with disabilities. 

First Post! - Who are we?

We are students. We are teachers. We are professionals. In some ways we are everyone. We are those who believe in the mission statement above. We believe in accessibility for all and education for all. We believe that assistive technology is underutilized and can benefit more students. We believe that universal design is a way to guarantee access by all. We believe a ton of other ideas that wont fit in the 500 character limit above. You'll just have to subscribe and read our posts to see more!