Peer Review

SNAP - Special Needs Advocacy Parents

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Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:: SNAP provides information, education, advocacy, and referrals to families with
special needs children of all ages and disabilities. This website features
bulletin boards, an online newsletter and a list of resources for parents that
includes a national speakers bureau, a directory of attorneys, special needs
estate planning information, and referrals to advocacy groups and support
groups.
Type of Material:: Reference
Recommended Uses:: In-service teachers could use this site in order to provide information to
families during conferences. This site could also be included in a resource
portfolio for pre-service teachers to have available for the future when dealing
with parents and primary caretakers of children and youth with disabilities.
Technical Requirements:: None noted by reviewers.
Identify Major Learning Goals:: The main goal of this site seems to be providing information, advocacy, and
referral information to families of children and youth with disabilities. The
review team notes that this is not a learning object typically found on MERLOT.
Target Student Population:: Families of persons with a disability and other interested parties.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: None

Rating:
Strengths:: This site is intended for use by parents and primary caretakers of persons with
disabilities, and therefore presents information in a clear and easily
understood way. It may be valuable for in-service teachers as a reference for
providing information to parents and caretakers during parent conferences. The
information seems to be current and though specifically for California, much of
the information is applicable across the 50 states. The topics covered in this
site include a newsletter, medical, governmental agency information, legal
information, insurance information, volunteer updates, and other topics of
general interest of care providers.
Concerns:: Careful review of this site reveals that several of the links listed are nothing
more than list of items. A description of these items would be helpful to the
reader and big saver of time. Because this site contains many links, the
reviewers express concern about maintaining the viability of the site, and the
currency of the information.

Rating:
Strengths:: Because this site is one of basic information for families and primary
caretakers of children and youth with disabilities, it is a valuable site that
both pre-service and in-service teachers should know about. Because of the
interactivity of the bulletin board and the on-line newsletter, pre-service
teachers, at both the graduate and undergraduate level would have access to
others concerned with and studying the same issues. This could be a valuable
research tool.
Concerns:: In order to enhance this site a valuable learning tool for pre-service teachers,
the teacher educator must introduce this site early in the training program,
and be very creative in the design of assignments based on the information
within the site. Because the site is a repository of information, learning
objectives must be developed by the teacher educator in order for it to be
useful as a teaching tool.

Rating:
Strengths:: This site is easy to navigate. The layout of the site and its associated links
are consistent. The review team did not discover any special technical supports
needed for use of this site. The site is Bobby Approved.
Concerns:: While no special concerns were noted, one of the review team members noted that
the ?snapping motion of the hand used as a background graphic? was very
distracting and could cause difficulty for someone with ADHD or a visual
impairment

Other Issues and Comments:: Broken or inactive links found in the newsletter.
Creative Commons: