Accessible Resource Centre - British Columbia

Providing BC Educators with Alternate Format Materials for their Students with Perceptual Disabilities

The Accessible Resource Centre – British Columbia is a BC Ministry of Education funded response to the increasing demand for digital or alternate format alternatives to print in BC classrooms. The goal of ARC-BC is to provide BC students with perceptual disabilities and the educators supporting them with high quality digital alternate format materials based on the BC K-12 curriculum.

Current News

ARC-BC – Planning for 2010-2011

May 31, 2010

As you know, ARC-BC has over the past two years become a primary production and online distribution service for digital alternate format learning resources for BC students with perceptual disabilities. School districts throughout British Columbia have reported that access to ARC-BC resources has resulted in significant increases in student motivation, achievement and self-efficacy.

While the Ministry of Education recognizes the positive impact ARC-BC has had on meeting the diverse learning needs of our students, funding for ARC-BC’s alternate format production has not been continued for the 2010-11 school year.

At this time we are uncertain of the resulting impact to ARC-BC service. The Provincial Resource Centre for the Visually Impaired (PRCVI) is committed to maintaining the ARC-BC online collection at the current level but we anticipate that we may not be able to produce any new titles in alternate format other than those required by BC students with visual impairment/blindness. While we expect that educators will still be able to access the current collection and download resources, user support and training will only be available through the existing web-based resources.

We greatly appreciate your advocacy and support of ARC-BC over the past two years and ask for your patience and continued support as we seek ways to maintain the existing collection and work to secure ongoing funding for ARC-BC.

We welcome your questions or requests for additional information.

Anne Wadsworth & Flo Wong
awadsworth@prcvi.org
fwong@prcvi.org