discover idea CD
This is a screen shot of the front page of the discoverIDEA CD. The CD contains resources related to special education, including regulations and law, training, and information for parents, teachers, policy makers and others.
The discover IDEA CD is a web site on a CD. The pages are written in html and contain links to resources both on the CD and beyond (the world wide web.) The CD was designed with universal access in mind, an exceptionally important concept in this case as the users and sponsors of the CD have an investment in access for all.
My role in this project was to act as web master, designing layout and navigation for the pages; editing the user instructions; developing a search tool; gathering and organizing information and links; coordinating art work and producing some images myself (tabs).
The image at the right is the National version of the discover IDEA CD. The states of Washington and Oregon worked with the WRRC to produce their own customized versions of the CD. I worked on both of these projects in the same roles as webmaster.
Building the Washington CD, called connecting ideas, meant incorporating the Washington Sate special education regulations. The the regulations were indexed and then the index for the federal regulations was expanded to include the Washington index. Terms were linked to their locations in the special education regulations. Not a small scale task but I had the pleasure of working with Sandy Grummick at the Washington State Department of Special Ed. Her energy and efficiency made the links and checking that I needed to less problematic. The end result was an index that linked to both the National Regulations and the State of Washington regulations, making comparisons across the regulations far easier.
Myrrh Sagrada created the beautiful image that connects the two resources. The art work and CD titles were design to fit with the style of the Washington State Department of education web site. Myrrh also designed the connecting ideas logo for the top of the page and the cardboard sleeve of the CD.
My work on this CD was similar to what was done on the national version, designing navigation, writing directions, 
developing look and feel and coordinating documents. In addition to gathering materials in English, Washington provides information in a number of other languages. In the case of every document, it was important to check to be sure that fonts were displaying properly, this was of particular issue and importance in the non-english language documents.
Updated May 8, 2006