Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
MathPAD in the classroom
Dino Panagoulias
The use of technology to enhance learning is an effective approach for many children. Additionally, students with LD often experience greater success when they are allowed to use their abilities (strengths) to work around their disabilities (challenges). Assistive technology tools combine the best of both of these practices.
Assistive technology for kids with LD is defined as any device, piece of equipment, or system that helps bypass, work around, or compensate for an individual’s specific learning deficits. Over the last decade, a number of research studies have demonstrated the efficacy of assistive technology for individuals with learning disabilities. AT doesn’t cure or eliminate learning difficulties, but it can help your child reach her potential because it allows her to capitalize on her strengths and bypass areas of difficulty. For example, a student who struggles with reading but who has good listening skills might benefit from listening to books on tape.
Assistive technology for kids with LD is defined as any device, piece of equipment, or system that helps bypass, work around, or compensate for an individual’s specific learning deficits. Over the last decade, a number of research studies have demonstrated the efficacy of assistive technology for individuals with learning disabilities. AT doesn’t cure or eliminate learning difficulties, but it can help your child reach her potential because it allows her to capitalize on her strengths and bypass areas of difficulty. For example, a student who struggles with reading but who has good listening skills might benefit from listening to books on tape.
AT can address many types of learning difficulties. A student who has difficulty writing can compose a school report by dictating it and having it converted to text by special computer software. A child who struggles with math can use a hand-held calculator to keep score while playing a game with a friend. And a teenager with dyslexia may benefit from AT that will read aloud his employer’s online training manual.
Electronic math worksheets are software programs that can help a user organize, align, and work through math problems on a computer screen. Numbers that appear onscreen can also be read aloud via a speech synthesizer. This may be helpful to people who have trouble aligning math problems with pencil and paper.
A program that does this is called MathPad. It is an AT tool that is used from grades K-8 and allows a student to learn using a keyboard called IntelliKeys and a mouse or even a switch. This is something that can be useful for any student not just one with a disability. The use of this AT will help a student better understand the math problem at hand because of the animation features it offers. A teacher cannot force a student to understand, but, if there is a way to make a student like the content and also offer it in a variety of ways, the student tends to grasp it more readily. Computers have helped bring students with learning disabilities closer to the goal of helping them understand.
This program has a variety of purchasing options, which I have included in the links below. The cost to purchase the “suite” is $799. It may sound expensive, but how can you put a price on the educational achievement of a student at a school. This is something that can and in all likely hood be used for all students rather then those with disabilities.
http://www.schwablearning.org/pdfs/e_guide_at.pdf?date=3-13-06&status=new
http://www.schwablearning.org/on_the_web.asp?siteid=http://store.cambiumlearning.com/ProgramPage.aspx?parentId=074003433&functionID=009000008&pID=&site=itc&popref=http%3A//www.schwablearning.org//articles.aspx%3Fr%3D1075
http://store.cambiumlearning.com/Resources/ProgramOverview/pdf/itc_Overview_Math.pdf?site=sw
Sunday, November 4, 2007
REACH Tablet Interface Author
Manufacture: Applied Human Factors (AHF)
The REACH Tablet Interface Author is an on screen keyboard assistive technology tool. It helps students use the computer keyboard and also assists in their speech development.. If student’s have trouble using the reach keyboard, they have the ability to use a standard mouse or any pointer device. The REACH Tablet Interface Author has numerous add on features. This ranges from the standard keyboard to over 300 different add on computer programs available.
Standard Keyboards
Some of the additional keyboards
• Special Keyboards
• Children's Keyboards
• Speech Keyboards
• Reading-Assistance Keyboards
• Musical Keyboards
• Interpreter Keyboards
• Quiz Keyboards
• Game Keyboards
• Talking Storybook Keyboards
• Scanning and Auditory Scanning Keyboards
• Exploratory Keyboards
• Puzzle Keyboards
• Performance-Aid Keyboards
• Template Keyboards
• Secret-Code Keyboards
• Point/Click Motor Skills Keyboards
• Memory Assessment Keyboards
• and many more
The REACH Tablet is an innovative approach to typing in which a user types using sounds instead of letters. It seems that it was originally designed for students with learning disabilities (especially spelling). I believe that any student could learn from this approach.
I was unable to find research data on the effectiveness of the Reach tablet and software.
Prices: REACH Interface Author™ Version 5 $325
REACH Tablet $4899
Add On $49 - $349
Manufacture: Applied Human Factors (AHF)
The REACH Tablet Interface Author is an on screen keyboard assistive technology tool. It helps students use the computer keyboard and also assists in their speech development.. If student’s have trouble using the reach keyboard, they have the ability to use a standard mouse or any pointer device. The REACH Tablet Interface Author has numerous add on features. This ranges from the standard keyboard to over 300 different add on computer programs available.
Standard Keyboards
Some of the additional keyboards
• Special Keyboards
• Children's Keyboards
• Speech Keyboards
• Reading-Assistance Keyboards
• Musical Keyboards
• Interpreter Keyboards
• Quiz Keyboards
• Game Keyboards
• Talking Storybook Keyboards
• Scanning and Auditory Scanning Keyboards
• Exploratory Keyboards
• Puzzle Keyboards
• Performance-Aid Keyboards
• Template Keyboards
• Secret-Code Keyboards
• Point/Click Motor Skills Keyboards
• Memory Assessment Keyboards
• and many more
The REACH Tablet is an innovative approach to typing in which a user types using sounds instead of letters. It seems that it was originally designed for students with learning disabilities (especially spelling). I believe that any student could learn from this approach.
I was unable to find research data on the effectiveness of the Reach tablet and software.
Prices: REACH Interface Author™ Version 5 $325
REACH Tablet $4899
Add On $49 - $349
Friday, November 2, 2007
Project: Assistive Technology
Brett Cohen
Foundations II: EDPC 610
11/05/2007
This programmable keyboard is used to assist students with entering letters and numbers, navigating on-screen displays, and executing commands
I began my web search in the hope of finding an assistive technology device or software that I could imagine using sometime, maybe in the near future. I stumbled across a site, ATTO which is an acronym for Assistive Technology Training Online.
The word "online" stoppoed me ib my tracks. Any assistive training online is a rare commodity that could certaintly enhance online classes in conjunction with a somewhat traditional approach. I am a firm believer that education is heading toward a more personal touch and am optimistic enough to believe a variety of educational options will be available for all diverse populations within the next decade. Where eduacational is still streamlined and limited in its scope in delvering educational services for all diverse populations.
The resource section is divided into six different categories again my personal favorite is assistive technology on line.
The product section offers over 19,000 AT products and the site is very user friendly. There is information on how to navigate and use ATTO site including a site map, accessible design features, and plugins. What makes this site unique is that they are not selling the products,but more importantly providing a service; objective data on a particular product.
The products are listed in the AbleData data base according to each product's intended function.
I have just touched the iceberg of exploring this site. I want to get a more in depth look at the site this weekend. I wll get back and let everyone know of my findings. I encourage anyone to further investigate what this site has to offer in the way of assistive technology.
IntelliKeys is a flat, programmable keyboard that plugs into your computer. This "plug and play" keyboard is used to assist students who have difficulty using the standard keyboard or mouse. It comes with basic overlays that provide alternative keyboard layouts. These assist with entering letters and numbers, navigating on-screen displays, and executing commands. IntelliKeys can also be used as an alternative for mouse functions or as a switch.
Depending on your IntelliKeys version, follow either "Classic" or "USB" instructions from the following tutorials. More IntelliKeys tutorials and third party products are available at the IntelliTools website.
http://atto.buffalo.edu/registered/Tutorials/intellikeys/index.php
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Assistive technology project
Name: Personal Science Laboratory
Manufacturer: IBM
Description: microcomputer-based aid that could give visually impaired science student to perform many instrumental measurements with maximum independence.
Price: $75-500
Who needs technology?
I’m a science teacher and I have a hard time thinking of ways on how I can integrate assistive technology to my student’s who have learning disabilities. Although in my experience, I haven’t encountered kids who needs extra help in my science class. When I was teaching chemistry in the past years, I never thought that it’s possible to teach in a disabled kid especially in the lab. I came across an article about, assistive technology in science laboratory, and it talks about creating a high- technology based aid for a blind chemistry student. Lunney and Morrison put effort in helping a blind chemistry student learn science in a meaningful way. It was brought to their attention to give visually impaired student the opportunity to understand and experience working in the laboratory despite the disability.
Research:
According to the article, it was a researched which were funded by the U.S. Department of Education and consist of creating a machine with software that could help visually impaired chemistry student to perform many instrumental measurements with maximum independence. At first it was an expensive high-tech instrument costing $8000 but has later on reduced it’s price. It is a computer aided machine that communicates with the standard serial port in the computer and reads it’s various sensor probes upon receiving commands from the host. It has sensors for pH, temperature, light intensity,mass and distance. It is called PSL – Personal Science Laboratory that conatins a lot of features used mathematically in science. There are sound cards available that can work with it which is called Sound Blaster card by Creative Labs and are offered at a reduced price. This technology uses talking, whistling and music to enhance a deeper level of learning with visually impaired kids. The talking lab station have features that are accessible to both middle school, high school and college kids. The software that comes with it consist of programs for performing titrations, infrared and visible spectrometry, gas chromatography and the like.
Benefits:
If computers are connected to a suitably adapted computer to instruments and sensors in a laboratory and provide with a suitable data acquisition and data analysis software, students have great way to make science more accessible to people with disabilities.
Knowing that chemistry, physics and other sciences are not easy to teach in kids with normal ability. How much more it is to teach in a disabled populace? A simple explanation doesn’t help even for those who can see and hear the teacher.
Recommendations:
I wasn’t able to find more articles to support my findings about Personal Science Laboratory. My recommendations will be limited and based only on one article I’ve read. I would say that this type of assistive instructional technology would be very helpful on visually impaired students. Teaching science to people with disabilities is very difficult to imagine. Most of the labs especially in colleges involves a lot of hands-on and are not easy. Through this inventions students who are not capable of performing these labs, can have the opportunity to have an experience of doing it the other way. As a science teacher, I would recommend any school to try to use this assistive technology especially for visually impaired students. This computer aided machine can do a lot of magic to let students feel that everything is possible in learning science and can have a hope that success can be achieved no matter what are the circumstances in life.
Article: http://www.rit.edu/~easi/itd/itdv02n1/lunney.htm
Manufacturer: IBM
Description: microcomputer-based aid that could give visually impaired science student to perform many instrumental measurements with maximum independence.
Price: $75-500
Who needs technology?
I’m a science teacher and I have a hard time thinking of ways on how I can integrate assistive technology to my student’s who have learning disabilities. Although in my experience, I haven’t encountered kids who needs extra help in my science class. When I was teaching chemistry in the past years, I never thought that it’s possible to teach in a disabled kid especially in the lab. I came across an article about, assistive technology in science laboratory, and it talks about creating a high- technology based aid for a blind chemistry student. Lunney and Morrison put effort in helping a blind chemistry student learn science in a meaningful way. It was brought to their attention to give visually impaired student the opportunity to understand and experience working in the laboratory despite the disability.
Research:
According to the article, it was a researched which were funded by the U.S. Department of Education and consist of creating a machine with software that could help visually impaired chemistry student to perform many instrumental measurements with maximum independence. At first it was an expensive high-tech instrument costing $8000 but has later on reduced it’s price. It is a computer aided machine that communicates with the standard serial port in the computer and reads it’s various sensor probes upon receiving commands from the host. It has sensors for pH, temperature, light intensity,mass and distance. It is called PSL – Personal Science Laboratory that conatins a lot of features used mathematically in science. There are sound cards available that can work with it which is called Sound Blaster card by Creative Labs and are offered at a reduced price. This technology uses talking, whistling and music to enhance a deeper level of learning with visually impaired kids. The talking lab station have features that are accessible to both middle school, high school and college kids. The software that comes with it consist of programs for performing titrations, infrared and visible spectrometry, gas chromatography and the like.
Benefits:
If computers are connected to a suitably adapted computer to instruments and sensors in a laboratory and provide with a suitable data acquisition and data analysis software, students have great way to make science more accessible to people with disabilities.
Knowing that chemistry, physics and other sciences are not easy to teach in kids with normal ability. How much more it is to teach in a disabled populace? A simple explanation doesn’t help even for those who can see and hear the teacher.
Recommendations:
I wasn’t able to find more articles to support my findings about Personal Science Laboratory. My recommendations will be limited and based only on one article I’ve read. I would say that this type of assistive instructional technology would be very helpful on visually impaired students. Teaching science to people with disabilities is very difficult to imagine. Most of the labs especially in colleges involves a lot of hands-on and are not easy. Through this inventions students who are not capable of performing these labs, can have the opportunity to have an experience of doing it the other way. As a science teacher, I would recommend any school to try to use this assistive technology especially for visually impaired students. This computer aided machine can do a lot of magic to let students feel that everything is possible in learning science and can have a hope that success can be achieved no matter what are the circumstances in life.
Article: http://www.rit.edu/~easi/itd/itdv02n1/lunney.htm
Friday, October 26, 2007
My Assistive Technology project
Course NYIT -ID79001
Foundations II
Enrique Cestona
Prof. Dr. S. Mc Pherson
MY PROJECT: PUBLIC BROADCASTING SERVICE (PBS)
INTERACTIVE SOCIAL STUDIES WEBSITE
This search has been rather difficult for me, because I do not have students with disabilities like the ones shown in the video watched on the class of
Wednesday, October 11th 2007. I teach Social Studies at High School with more than three thousand students, but I have never been assigned students like the ones of the video. The only few cases of Special Education students I have received were three or four cases for whose exams the Guidance Counselor recommended “Some extra time” allowed. Until I received this notification, there was nothing in the student or performances that coult make me think that they needed special attention.
As a Bilingual Social Studies teacher, the main problem my students may encounter is their relative or poor command of English, plus their lack of expertise
With computers. Theirs is more a case of an environment-related disability
Rather than a genetic one.
Being a neophyte in this issue, I started by doing research about what U.S.
Federal laws have created protection and special treatment for students with disab-
ilities;Then I came across I.D.E.A. (HTTP://IDEA.ED.GOV/EXPLORE/VIEW) and found out that its purpose is “Ensuring that all children with disabilities have available to them a free appropriate public education (FAPE) emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs and prepare them for further education, employment and independent living”.
I found that when first created in 1997, the IDEA Act defined Asisstive Technology as as ‘Any item, piece or equipment, or product system, whether acquired commercially off the shelf, modified , or customized, that is used to increase , maintain , or improve the functional capabilities of a child with a disability “( IDEA ,1997, 20, USC, Ch.33, Sec 1401 (25)US). In addition, some authors acknowledge that ”The student may need anything from physical , verbal or visual prompts to high-technology devices and services (Purcell & Grant, 2002).
Another useful guidelines to help me choose Assistive Technology for my students were paragraphs of the 2004 Reauthorized version of IDEA , when it states that Assistive Technologies are “ Useful for improving the academic and functional achievement of the child with a disability to facilitate the child’s movement from school to post-school activities, including postsecondary education, vocational education, integrated employment ;Including supported employment, continuing and adult education, adult services, independent living, or community participation”…and that this “Includes instruction, related services, community experiences, the development of employment and other post-school adult living objectives, and, if appropriate, acquisition of daily living skills and functional vocational evaluation”.
In addition, a good list of how many elements can become “Assistive Technology” can ben found in the website www.ncrel.org , that creates five catheg-
ories of “Assistive Technology” (For vision, for Communication, for access, for hearing, for learning and studying);Each cathegory comprising between ten and twenty devices that can become applicable tools.
Therefore, I came to the conclusion that a good interactive Social Studies
Website could be an excellent example of Assistive Technology.
THE FEATURE:
I researched the internet looking for good Social Studies interactive websites for High Schoolers of grades 9-12, and I checked many companies , like Intellitools (http://www.Intellitools.com), Kurzweiledu (www.kurzweiledu.com) Metropolitan Publishing (www.metrotlc.com) Sopris West Educational Services (http://www.sopriswest.com) and others. However, most of the Asisstive Technologies they create are for grades k-8, and rarely for Social Studies.
In the end, I found that the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) has a website ( www.pbs.org ) that is perfect for my students..
THE FUNCTIONS:
This PBS website provides materials and good practice of skills that my students need: to improve their command of English, to acquire social studies content, to develop internet skills, to enhance their knowledge of the search engines to get information for the school activities and for their personal life, to refine their writing and reading abilities, to increase their deductive and inductive powers.
In particular, this can help the students a lot with the RCT/Regents exam that they have to pass in order to graduate from High School. These exams are about Global History- including many issues of present day international politics- and U.S. History and Government. All the schools are now making the teachers work following the Cooperative Learning System, where the teacher becomes more of a facilitator:
After a brief minilesson carried by the teacher, the student are distributed in groups, given materials to analyze and then they have to create the answers to the group questions collectively.
The PBS website is , in this respect, perfect: It has News Hour extra stories written for students and interactive reports based on stories from the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, the nightly news broadcast on PBS. And the students can choose any subject from a menu comprising Science, Math/ Economics. This meets all the Social Studies RCT/Regents requirements; And the students can work in this website in Cooperative Learning mode.
In addition, this website include a Lesson Plan with subjects that are always important current events affecting the international world.
My plan is to create the usual groups to work in Cooperative Learning mode, and then assign each group to that website: each group will be assigned to search for material about different aspects of a central issue. Following the Cooperative Learning system, Each group will have a)Providers of ideas, b)Note-takers and c)a Group Speaker. The Providers will do the search in the above mentioned website , while the notetaker will coordinate all the materials found into a rational piece of information; And the speaker will present the group’s final answer to the other groups, when in the end all the groups have to share their findings with the other.
One of the advantages of this website I found is that it is interactive: Which means that when you type some words its software will help you re-direct your search if you are going in the wrong direction; Or will suggest the correct spelling of issues you are looking for, if you have typed something wrong and then the query drives you nowhere.
All this software crutches do not mean that the students will not be required to apply and refine their searching abilities , and high order critical thinking when they use this website: They must know how to log on, how to define ,and accurately circumscribe the subject for which they are looking for information; How to analyze if the material –either text, images, videos- they have found is relevant for the subject or not, what are the important points and the accessory details, and also how to write their analysis of the material, providing answers supported by real evidence.
They have the chance of applying all their reading and writing abilities in this task. They will have to apply all the stages of the human thought ( Knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation) described by Benjamin Bloom (http://faculty.washington.edu/krumme/guides/bloom1.html)in his 1956 book;
That are the final goal of the Higher Critical Thinking.
Students working in groups under the Cooperative Learning System do not only meet the High School requirements, but also create a mentality of team work that is an important asset in the students’ professional life. This mentality is expected in most of the present jobs, and it will be increasingly demanded in the next decades.
REFERENCES:
- WWW.PBS. ORG
- HTTP://WWW.INTELLITOOLS.COM
- WWW.KURZWEILEDU.COM
- WWW.METROTLC.COM
- HTTP://WWW.SOPRISWEST.COM
Foundations II
Enrique Cestona
Prof. Dr. S. Mc Pherson
MY PROJECT: PUBLIC BROADCASTING SERVICE (PBS)
INTERACTIVE SOCIAL STUDIES WEBSITE
This search has been rather difficult for me, because I do not have students with disabilities like the ones shown in the video watched on the class of
Wednesday, October 11th 2007. I teach Social Studies at High School with more than three thousand students, but I have never been assigned students like the ones of the video. The only few cases of Special Education students I have received were three or four cases for whose exams the Guidance Counselor recommended “Some extra time” allowed. Until I received this notification, there was nothing in the student or performances that coult make me think that they needed special attention.
As a Bilingual Social Studies teacher, the main problem my students may encounter is their relative or poor command of English, plus their lack of expertise
With computers. Theirs is more a case of an environment-related disability
Rather than a genetic one.
Being a neophyte in this issue, I started by doing research about what U.S.
Federal laws have created protection and special treatment for students with disab-
ilities;Then I came across I.D.E.A. (HTTP://IDEA.ED.GOV/EXPLORE/VIEW) and found out that its purpose is “Ensuring that all children with disabilities have available to them a free appropriate public education (FAPE) emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs and prepare them for further education, employment and independent living”.
I found that when first created in 1997, the IDEA Act defined Asisstive Technology as as ‘Any item, piece or equipment, or product system, whether acquired commercially off the shelf, modified , or customized, that is used to increase , maintain , or improve the functional capabilities of a child with a disability “( IDEA ,1997, 20, USC, Ch.33, Sec 1401 (25)US). In addition, some authors acknowledge that ”The student may need anything from physical , verbal or visual prompts to high-technology devices and services (Purcell & Grant, 2002).
Another useful guidelines to help me choose Assistive Technology for my students were paragraphs of the 2004 Reauthorized version of IDEA , when it states that Assistive Technologies are “ Useful for improving the academic and functional achievement of the child with a disability to facilitate the child’s movement from school to post-school activities, including postsecondary education, vocational education, integrated employment ;Including supported employment, continuing and adult education, adult services, independent living, or community participation”…and that this “Includes instruction, related services, community experiences, the development of employment and other post-school adult living objectives, and, if appropriate, acquisition of daily living skills and functional vocational evaluation”.
In addition, a good list of how many elements can become “Assistive Technology” can ben found in the website www.ncrel.org , that creates five catheg-
ories of “Assistive Technology” (For vision, for Communication, for access, for hearing, for learning and studying);Each cathegory comprising between ten and twenty devices that can become applicable tools.
Therefore, I came to the conclusion that a good interactive Social Studies
Website could be an excellent example of Assistive Technology.
THE FEATURE:
I researched the internet looking for good Social Studies interactive websites for High Schoolers of grades 9-12, and I checked many companies , like Intellitools (http://www.Intellitools.com), Kurzweiledu (www.kurzweiledu.com) Metropolitan Publishing (www.metrotlc.com) Sopris West Educational Services (http://www.sopriswest.com) and others. However, most of the Asisstive Technologies they create are for grades k-8, and rarely for Social Studies.
In the end, I found that the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) has a website ( www.pbs.org ) that is perfect for my students..
THE FUNCTIONS:
This PBS website provides materials and good practice of skills that my students need: to improve their command of English, to acquire social studies content, to develop internet skills, to enhance their knowledge of the search engines to get information for the school activities and for their personal life, to refine their writing and reading abilities, to increase their deductive and inductive powers.
In particular, this can help the students a lot with the RCT/Regents exam that they have to pass in order to graduate from High School. These exams are about Global History- including many issues of present day international politics- and U.S. History and Government. All the schools are now making the teachers work following the Cooperative Learning System, where the teacher becomes more of a facilitator:
After a brief minilesson carried by the teacher, the student are distributed in groups, given materials to analyze and then they have to create the answers to the group questions collectively.
The PBS website is , in this respect, perfect: It has News Hour extra stories written for students and interactive reports based on stories from the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, the nightly news broadcast on PBS. And the students can choose any subject from a menu comprising Science, Math/ Economics. This meets all the Social Studies RCT/Regents requirements; And the students can work in this website in Cooperative Learning mode.
In addition, this website include a Lesson Plan with subjects that are always important current events affecting the international world.
My plan is to create the usual groups to work in Cooperative Learning mode, and then assign each group to that website: each group will be assigned to search for material about different aspects of a central issue. Following the Cooperative Learning system, Each group will have a)Providers of ideas, b)Note-takers and c)a Group Speaker. The Providers will do the search in the above mentioned website , while the notetaker will coordinate all the materials found into a rational piece of information; And the speaker will present the group’s final answer to the other groups, when in the end all the groups have to share their findings with the other.
One of the advantages of this website I found is that it is interactive: Which means that when you type some words its software will help you re-direct your search if you are going in the wrong direction; Or will suggest the correct spelling of issues you are looking for, if you have typed something wrong and then the query drives you nowhere.
All this software crutches do not mean that the students will not be required to apply and refine their searching abilities , and high order critical thinking when they use this website: They must know how to log on, how to define ,and accurately circumscribe the subject for which they are looking for information; How to analyze if the material –either text, images, videos- they have found is relevant for the subject or not, what are the important points and the accessory details, and also how to write their analysis of the material, providing answers supported by real evidence.
They have the chance of applying all their reading and writing abilities in this task. They will have to apply all the stages of the human thought ( Knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation) described by Benjamin Bloom (http://faculty.washington.edu/krumme/guides/bloom1.html)in his 1956 book;
That are the final goal of the Higher Critical Thinking.
Students working in groups under the Cooperative Learning System do not only meet the High School requirements, but also create a mentality of team work that is an important asset in the students’ professional life. This mentality is expected in most of the present jobs, and it will be increasingly demanded in the next decades.
REFERENCES:
- WWW.PBS. ORG
- HTTP://WWW.INTELLITOOLS.COM
- WWW.KURZWEILEDU.COM
- WWW.METROTLC.COM
- HTTP://WWW.SOPRISWEST.COM
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Boardmaker
Boardmaker is a graphics database containing over 3,500 Picture Communications Symbols (PCS) that can be used to create a variety of communication materials. These symbols can be used as simple communication board, or with devices such as Go-Talk, Intellitools, Intellikeys, Scan4and other speech output devices.
System Requirements
Windows System Requirements
• Windows 2000 or higher • 512MB of RAM • 100 MB of free hard disk space
Windows System Requirements
• Windows 2000 or higher • 512MB of RAM • 100 MB of free hard disk space
Macintosh System Requirements • PowerMac • System 7.6 - OS X Classic • 16 MB of RAM • 22 MB of hard disk space • Mac compatible printer • CD is required to run program
Who uses symbols?
You don't have to have a learning difficulty to benefit enormously from symbols.Symbols are used around us all the time in everyday life, from instructions in how to use a new appliance, to signs in foreign airports. The PCS library consists of over 10,000 simple line drawings designed to represent words and short phrases to support children and adults with communication challenges. PCS can be used to augment expressive communication and improve comprehension. Developed over the past 25 years and translated into 44 languages, PCS is the most widely used symbol set in the field of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). AAC systems range of paper-based communication boards to high-tech speech generating devices.
What are symbols?
Is it important to understand that symbols are different from pictures. Visual representation of vocabulary progresses from actual objects to photographs to picture symbols to traditional orthography (Mirenda & Locke, 1989). We use the word picture to describe an illustration in a book, or a drawing on the wall. A picture conveys a lot of information at once and its focus may be unclear, while a symbol focuses on a single concept. This means that symbols can be put together to build more precise information. Symbol based language and communication has been developed over many years and has a visual structure that supports different parts of speech.
Here is a list of just some of the other different groups of people who use symbols:
People learning English as a second language
People with memory difficulties, senile dementia or other brain damage
People with dyslexia, dyspraxia or spatial/time/organizational difficulties
People who are deaf or hearing impaired
Young children who have not yet started to read.
People with Autistic Spectrum Disorders
Source: www.mayer-johnson-symbols.com/aboutsymbols/pcs.htm
Needs addressed:
Non-verbal or speech handicapped/challenged.
Learning Goals:
*To develop receptive comprehension skills.
*To develop functional expressive skills.
*Communication of personal information
*Development of communication skills so students can express their wants and needs, interact socially, share information, express emotions and advocate for themselves should be a priority.
Strategies for use in inclusion:
Truthfully, I have never seen any of our included students use an Assistive Device in inclusion. Even though we have very smart nonverbal students, I only know of verbal students in inclusion. However, I think that Boardmaker could be used to in an inclusion setting to allow students to tell about a book or story, talk about feelings, make comments during class discussions, tell what they did over the weekend and to choose desired rewards for completing tasks.
Company and Pricing:
Mayer-Johnson- Mayer-Johnson's mission is to enhance learning and human expression for individuals with special needs through symbol-based products, training and services.
Macintosh version - $299. Windows Version- $299
Professional Development:
Comes with a resource guide. The speech teachers give workshops on use and there is a lot of online support and many tutorials available.
Michele Freeland
Assistive Instructional Technology Project
EDPC 610
Dr. Sarah McPherson, Instructor
NYIT
October 17, 2007
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