Chief Officer, Policy & Technology
Director, NIMAS Technical Assistance Center
Co-Director, AIM Consortium
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Short Biography - Education - Current Projects - Selected Publications
As CAST's Chief Officer of Policy & Technology, Chuck Hitchcock oversees technology innovation, including software and website development. He was instrumental in the creation of Bobby, an award-winning, innovative tool for improving website accessibility which earned honors from the Computerworld/Smithsonian Awards, the American Association of Engineering Specialists, and others.
As director of the federally fundedNIMAS Technical Assistance Center, Mr. Hitchcock works with states, school boards, and publishers to raise awareness of and implement the National Instructional Materials Accessbility Standard (NIMAS). NIMAS guides the production and distribution of digital versions of textbooks and other instructional materials so they can be more easily converted to accessible formats such as Braille and text-to-speech.
He is also Co-Director of the AIM (Accessible Instructional Materials) Consortium, a 15-state initiative to improve the timely delivery of appropriate high-quality digital instructional materials to students with print disabilities. The NIMAS and AIM initiatives are supported by the Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education.
Mr. Hitchcock played a key role in the development of NIMAS while directing the National Center on Accessing the General Curriculum (NCAC) from 1999-2004. He has extensive practical experience in special education administration; technology education; and teaching at all levels, from early childhood to graduate school. He has been a chief developer of many of CAST's educational tools and software.
Chuck Hitchcock is a coeditor (with David Rose and Anne Meyer) of The Universally Designed Classroom: Accessible Curriculum and Digital Technologies (Harvard Education Press, 2005).
M.Ed., Educational Administration and Counseling, Antioch Graduate School, Cambridge, MA.
B.S, Special Education, Fitchburg State College, Fitchburg, MA
NIMAS Technical Assistance Center – Director of this OSEP-funded cooperative agreement to support states, publishers, and organizations authorized to convert educational materials for use by students with disabilities in the implementation of NIMAS. The goal is to improve the timely delivery of student-ready alternative formats of K–12 textbooks to students with disabilities.
NIMAS Implementation Advisory Council – Chair of this OSEP-supported council to support implementation of the NIMAS Technical Assistance Center goals of maintaining, advancing, and supporting the adoption of the NIMAS at the state level.
AIM Consortium – Co-Director of this OSEP-funded grant to work intensively with 15 states on NIMAS implementation. The goal of the consortium is to put into place effective systems to ensure that students with print disabilities receive accessible materials as mandated by IDEA.
CAST Advisory Council – CAST Liaison to council of former board members, potential board members and national experts in education reform.
Rose, D.H., Meyer, A., & Hitchcock, C. (2005). The universally designed classroom: Accessible curriculum and digital technologies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.
Strangman, N., Hitchcock, C. et. al., Response-to-Instruction and Universal Design for Learning: How might they intersect in the general education classroom? Washington, DC: The Access Center. Retrieved March 6, 2008 from http://www.rti4success.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1.
Hitchcock, C., & Stahl, S. (2003). Assistive technology, universal design, Universal Design for Learning: Improved opportunities. Journal of Special Education Technology, 18(4).
Hitchcock, C., Meyer, A., Rose, D.H., & Jackson, R. (2002). Providing new access to the general education curriculum. Teaching Exceptional Children, 35(2), 8-17.
Hitchcock, C. (2001). Balanced instructional support and challenge in universally designed learning environments. Journal of Special Education Technology, 16(4).
Hitchcock, C. (2000). Bobby: A validation tool for disability access on the World Wide Web. In N. Abascal & J. Abascal (Eds.), Inclusive design guidelines for HCI (pp. 107-119). London: Taylor and Francis.
