Help and Site Feedback
Sunday, February 6th, 2005
LD Resources is a collection of information (posts) that is indexed to make it easier to find what you are looking for. There are many ways to find things on this web site and we hope you’ll explore and find the way that works best for you: search, archive, category indexes, and more.
Home Page
The home or front page has the five most recent posts on it, links to the next ten, and the ten most recent comments.
Category Index Pages
Each category has its own index page with a list of all of the posts in that category as well as external links that are relevant to that category.
Individual Posts
Each piece of information at this web site is a post. Think of a post as a Rolodex card. What you are reading here is a post.
Each post is displayed on the home page (when it is new) and on its category index page and then in full when you click on “more” or “Complete Post.”
When you view a complete post, you also see any comments on that post as well as the commenet form to allow you to comment.
All posts have titles and under the title is a line, and then a series of links:
Category, State (if relavant), Complete Post, Comments
Then the entire content of the post followed by a single line at the bottom separating one post from another (when more than one is shown).
When you are in Complete Post view, the links under the title change a bit:
Category, Print This, Email This, Comments
Print This shows you a differently formatted version of the post you were looking at. Hopefully a format that will print well on your printer.
Email This is a way for you to easily email the URL and post title of a post you find interesting to a friend instead of copying and pasting into your email program.
Please do not re-post articles from this web site at other web sites. Either subscribe to our RSS feed, link to an article or use the above mentioned Print and Email system to share.
Logo
Click the LD Resources logo from any place in the site to return to the home page.
Sidebar
The sidebar (the area on the right side of the screen from logo down) will be available wherever you are in LD Resources. Use the links on it to navigate to main areas of the site or explore categorical archives.
Navigate
Home – takes you to the front or home page
About – takes you to the page about the site
Archive – takes you to an index of everything posted at this site excluding external links
Links – is a complete listing of all external links from this site (they are also shown in their appropriate categories)
Search
Type a word that you are looking for in the search box that appears in the gray box at the top of most main section pages and click the Search button or hit return. Narrow searches may not turn much or anything up. Experiment.
The search results page will show you a list of found posts and the category that post is in. Both the post and its category are links which take you to two different places.
Searching for “Richard” produces many more results (almost too many) than searching for “Richard dyslexia” (you do not need the quotation marks. If you know an author’s last name that will help a lot.
Searching for “Fredlund” will give you both of Richard Fredlund’s articles (case is not important in search).
Again, experiment with search and see how it works for you. There are many more intuitive ways to find things categorically but search is a useful last resort or fast way to go directly to something you know keywords in.
Tip: be careful with your spelling.
Browse Categories
All of the content on LD Resources is categorized. Whether we’ve done this in a way that makes sense to you is another story. And, we may have made mistakes in categorizing things. However, if we did the categorization in a way that makes sense to you, then the category indexes will be the best way to get a sense of where things are.
We encourage you to use the Archives to see how things are categorized. Those same categories appear on the sidebar wherever you are on the site. On the sidebar we’ve categorized the categories to make finding things easier (well, it is for us, anyway).
Clicking on the heading in any category listing will show all posts in that listing as they would show on the front page (a trimmed version).
Is LD Resources a “Blog?”
This site is now running on WordPress, a modern, open source weblogging engine that is used all over the world on thousands of weblogs or “blogs.” This site is technically a weblog and we’re hoping that this form will make it easier to use for those of you who have experience with other weblogs.
We have moved most of the content from the old site into this form and tried our best to categorize and date it in a way that will make it easier to find. New content will appear on the front page until other new content pushes it into the background; this is the way most weblogs work.
Because of this structure many people who do not frequent the web on a daily basis want to be told when a site is updated. Traditionally, email has been a facilty for this but weblogs come with a better one built in called “RSS.”
RSS?
RSS = Really Simple Syndication. It’s a way to track many weblogs and sites from a single application or page and once you start using it it’s incredibly useful.
Some modern web browsers are now starting to include the ability to track RSS, there are web sites that help in the tracking of RSS and then there are client applications for doing it. Here are some links to get you started thinking about this.
Here are the RSS feeds for this site:
You can find them on the sidebar as well.
Subscribing to the main feed will show you each new post the minute it is posted as well as edits to the last 20 posts. Subscribing to the main comment feed will altert you to any new comment posted on any post. Each post has its own comment feed which you can find in the gray comment introduction area. If you get into a heated exchange in one comment thread (or many) you can track those singly for a while, then, when the heat dies down, delete those feeds from your collection.
RSS is a wonderful invention and once you start using it we think you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it. And, RSS is way cool and will make you popular with all nerdy teenagers. If you are a nerdy teenager then you knew that already.
Layout and Browser
This site’s layout is completely controlled with CSS (no tables) and some older browsers have a hard time with this although we’ve tried to keep the site compatible with all browsers we know of.
If you use Internet Explorer (IE) on Mac or Windows, you may want to consider upgrading your browser to one of these excellent and free alternatives: FireFox (Windows or Mac), Safari (Mac), Mozilla (Windows or Mac), Opera (Windows or Mac).
This post will be added to from time to time to explain more and answer questions as they arise.
Please reply to this post with your comments and questions about the site.
Thanks and again, welcome.
Hi you two, it looks really cool! Great work.
Page is now displayed well in Mozilla, Opera and even in IE 5.5 . No jumping below logo anymore. You must have found the bug over the weekend.
The format and layout appear logical; everything seems clean and uncluttered…should be helpful for LD adults and others. As soon as I get my blog up, one of the resource links will be to your blog.
Congratulations on the big move! I’m looking forward to see how you use these tools to provide information and connect people.
Scott,
Wow, thanks for the comment, we admire the work you do at Schwab and hopefully now that we can broadcast RSS easily we can do some things collaboratively. Stay tuned.
Hey Rich and David:
This project makes much good sense. Considering how many rich resources you two have gathered over the years, the original site sort of naturally grew in the various directions and eventually became more difficult to navigate.
This is a splendid extreme make-over! I find the new organization much more intuitive for locating specific topics. And I do love being able to get to topics from cross referenced perspectives. Another really nice feature is the various options for each article or topic: blog/comment, print, etc. Really efficient and helpful.
I couldn’t get the RSS stuff working. I’m using Safari in the latest OS X. When I clicked on the Subscribe option, I got a screen full of text but nothing else. Suggestion?
Please let me know when we can start to tell people about the new website. The organization is wonderful.
Thanks for your hard work and this great resource,
Mads
——-
Madalaine Pugliese, Director
Assistive Special Education Technology Program
Simmons College
300 The Fenway, Room W-303
Boston, MA 02115
Voice on Campus 617-521-2521
Alternate voice 781-639-1930
Fax 781-631-9928
Madalaine,
I’ll post a “how to” on RSS. Until then, Safari is not an RSS reader (it will be in its next iteration but may not be as good as NNW) but NetNewsWire is as are others. Stay tuned for a how to on RSS. It’s well worth it and will change the way you use the web.
Richard and David,
I love the new look of the site. Very clean and easy to follow. This probably sounds silly, but I found the clean white background and 2 color fonts to be very easy on my eyes, and very easy not to get lost and distracted in the site, as well as the increased loading speed of pages.
Having spent a lot of time researching on the web where many sites are plastered with lots of other irrlelavant information and graphics I felt like I had come crashing out of the bramble into a nice quiet meadow!
Nice job.
Dan Herlihy
Thanks Dan, from you that comment is very meaningful.
Hi Richard and David,
Wandering through this site, letting my interest lead me, and always getting where I wanted to go, and finding what I was looking for–couldn’t help but remind me of the “old days” when people would ask me for help and all I could give them was your email address (hmmm–or was this even before email? telephone number?). What a joy–SO much information, SO crucial and helpful, but so beautifully organized that it is actually all usable as well. It is a wonder, and a wonderful thing for anyone who needs this information.
Bravo you two,
Laurie
Wow Laurie, this is great news, thank you. Glad to hear the site is working and the organization makes sense to at least one other person. This is indeed great news.
Hello, I’m an adult with a learning disability. I need some advice. How dose a person with a learning disability go about advocating for themselves in the workplace? And would having a reasonable accommodation taken away, that you were hired with & has been in place for over a year, be considered discrimination?
Here are two articles by Dale Brown, one of our authors, that I think will answer some of your questions:
Learning to Work: a Story by a Learning Disabled Person
Making Employment A Reality
Thank you for this great site. I am from Harwinton, CT, going to UCONN, Storrs as an education major. I ran across this website while doing a class project. It is very helpful. Thank you.
Molly, thanks for the kind words, glad the site is useful for you. We live in Warren, right down the road past Litchfield.
Dear people:
First, thanks for the useful resources.
Second, two requests for the web site:
1) Please update the list of conferences in a timely manner and list conference dates with the link. I just clicked on half a dozen links to conferences that already happened.
2) I would find it valuable to have access to a list of types of Learning Disabilities, including types of ADHD, with brief descriptions of their characteristics, especially with respect to learning challenges. Such a list on your site, or a link to such a list, I think would be a great resource for parents and teachers.
Thanks
Alan,
1. Are you asking us to take down conference listings that have already happened? Not sure that’s such a good idea because some of them repeat yearly. How about if we put the date on the listing so you can sort things out that way?
2. We have a glossary which we’ve opened to comments. There is no “master list” of types of LD because the definition of LD is different in each state in the US and different in each country on earth. Some countries (and states) don’t recognize ADD as a form of LD, others do.
So, we keep things loose and hope you’ll be able to sort things out on your own and ask questions here and elsewhere when confused. The answers will be forthcoming but will change in time.
Thanks for the comments, keep them coming.
how does one get a school listed in your directory?
-Richard Ward
Bachman Academy in Tenn.
Richard: Click on K-12 schools and in the gray box at the top click Suggest a resource.
School name
address
phone
email
web site
That’s it.
Very interesting and beautiful site. It is a lot of helpful information. Thanks!
Hi. Beautiful content and website design. Sorry for my english. I am from albania.
HI MY NAME IS LEONARD I HAVE A LEARNING DISABILITY YOUR SIGHT HAS BEEN VERY HELPFUL MORE THEN THE PEOPLE AT THE COLLEGE THANKS
Thanks Leonard, I’m delighted to hear that you’ve found the site helpful. Let me know if there is anything else you’d like us to write about or cover. Thanks again.
I wondered if you have evaluated the Leelanau School in Michigan?
Thank you.
Donna, Sandy hasn’t been to that school but we have it listsed here:
http://www.ldresources.org/?p=621
Donna, As Richard says, I haven’t been out there to see this school. I have heard good things about it. Anyone out there have any experience with Leelanau?
I have been researching many schools for my child who has a unique LD profile. Having Sanford Shapiro’s review of so many schools has been an incredible help. He did such a great job that many of the schools I wanted to research, he had already been to!
It was very helpful to have his reviews before I went to these schools. This information helped me see what schools I should be looking at and when I went to the open house, it gave me a framework for asking the questions that needed to be asked for my son.
He was also very kind to reply to a direct email I sent him and arrange a phone conversation to help me deal with some exceptional needs.
He is truly a caring man who has great knowledge about LD children, LD schools, and how to enable our children to become all that they can be.
Thank you for sponsoring his school review tour and sharing this valuable information with us parents. I hope this work will continue.
Lynn: You’re very welcome and I’m glad this web site was able to be a useful resource for you, if nothing else making the connection with Sanford. I’ll make sure he sees your feedback. Again, thanks for taking the time to write.
Lynn, thanks for your feedback. Glad the school reports have been so helpful. Richard provides a great service with this site. He’s been very generous in hosting this and giving it such a well-read platform.
The guy who funded the traveling is a parent who has a son with learning differences. Our shared goal is making the process of matching kids with schools easier.
You’re doing exactly what we’d hoped: using this site and these reports to help you make decisions. You’re not using them to make the decision, but instead as one of your tools. You’ve gone to the next step and visited and talked to different people, professional and otherwise.
Good luck and feel free to write in later on.
Sanford