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Clicker 5 – Let’s get Hands On

What is Clicker 5?
Clicker 5 is a package that allows you to make your own activities for students with a range of education and access abilities.

You can make activities in Clicker 5 which provide lots of support using pictures or you can just use text. You can set them up to be used by students using a mouse or students using a switch.

Clicker 5 comes with a range of pre-made activities which give you an idea of the range of things you can make with Clicker 5. You can also download activities from LearningGrids.com and from the Spectronics website www.spectronicsinoz.com – just go to our activity exchange section.

Let’s have a look at one of the pre-made activities in Clicker…

Clicker Explorer
When you first open Clicker you are taken immediately to Clicker Explorer. This looks much like you have opened any folder on your computer. Let’s double click on “Examples” and have a look at one of them!

Now double click on “Geography” to go into the example Geography grids.

Double click on “At the Seaside – Read”.

Example Grid Sets – Talking Book
“At the Seaside – Read” is an example of one of the most common uses for Clicker – a talking book. Read the book and notice some of the features of Clicker 5 – in particular that each word is highlighted as it is read aloud and the pop-up labels on the final page.

When you have finished reading the book click on the Explorer icon on the toolbar. This will return you to Clicker Explorer where you left it.

Explore
Take 10 minutes and explore some of the other example grids. Take note of those that you could modify and use for your students or ones which have elements you would like to use.

Making Your Own Grid Set

Let’s make a Talking Book
Go to the File Menu and choose New Grid Set…

Double click on Book Making

Double click on Landscape 12

Click Create. Your new grid set will now open!

Press the forward arrow and scroll through the grid set. You will notice that there is one title grid and 12 single page grids – which is why the template was called Landscape 12. Each page has a large cell to put a picture into, a smaller text box, a forward arrow, back arrow, speaker button and microphone button.

Formatting the Title Page
For this exercise we are going to make a book about an excursion to the zoo.

On the title page we want to give it the title “Our trip to the zoo”, put an appropriate picture in the large cell and put your name in the author box.
There are couple of ways we can put the title into the title box, but for this example we are going to go into Edit Mode.

To do this, go to the Edit menu and choose Edit Mode. A Clicker Editing Tools toolbar will appear.

To change the title follow these steps:

1. Right click on the text box with the word “Title” in it.
   
2. A small menu will appear next to where you have clicked.
   
3. Choose “Properties…”
   
4. A window called Cell Properties will appear.
   
5. Towards the bottom of this window the word “Title” appears.
   
6. Highlight the word “Title”, press delete on your keyboard and then type “Our trip to the Zoo”.
   
7. Press OK.
   
8. The title on this page should now have changed to “Our trip to the Zoo”.

Now, let’s choose a good picture for this page.

1. Go to your Clicker 5 Editing Tools toolbar and click on Pictures.
2. The Picture Palette will appear. From here you can browse around your hard drive and find pictures. You can also look through the picture libraries which have been registered on your computer. For the moment we will simply double click on Crick Picture Library.
3. Double click on Animals.
4. Double click on Wild Animals (you may have to scroll down to see this)
5. Choose a picture of an animal that lives in the zoo. Click and drag this picture to the large cell on your page.
6. The picture and its label should have appeared in the large cell.
7. Click Close on the Picture Palette.

And finally, add your name as the author.

1. Right click on the cell at the bottom of the title page.
2. Go into Properties.
3. Add your name into the cell.

Your title page should now look something like this:

Go on to the first page of your book and customize it following these steps:

1. Add the story text to the text box at the bottom of the page by holding down the Shift key while you click in the text box. Once the cursor appears type “At the zoo we saw an elephant”.
   
2. Click on the Pictures button on the Editing Tools toolbar.
   
3. Find the picture of an elephant and drag the elephant picture onto the large cell in the centre of the page.

Move forward to the second page and customize it.

1. Add the text “At the zoo we saw a camel” to the text box at the bottom of the page.
   
2. Add the picture of the camel to the large cell.

Move to the third page and customize it.

1. Add the text “At the zoo we saw a polar bear” to the text box at the bottom of the page.
   
2. Add the picture of the polar bear to the large cell.

Move to the fourth page and customize it.

1. Add the text “At the zoo we saw a tiger”.
   
2. Add the picture of the tiger to the large cell.

You have now almost finished your book!

If you remember, when we created this grid set there were 12 pages in it and we have only used four. We need to delete all the remaining grids except the last one, so we can create a final page.

Clicker Explorer
To look at all the grids in the grid set you need to go to Clicker Explorer. Click on the Explorer Icon on the Clicker Editing Tools palette.

Clicker Explorer now opens and you should see a screen like this:

At the top are all the grids in the grid set. Double click on cover1 and you will see the cover page you have already made. Click the explorer icon on the floating toolbar to go back to Clicker Explorer.

Double click on page1 and you will be in the first story page you made. Go back to Clicker Explorer.

You can go in and look at pages two, three and four. Since we don’t need all the extra pages we will now delete them:

1. Right click on page5.
   
2. Choose delete from the popup menu.

Repeat this and delete page6, page7, page8, page9, page10 and page11.

Double click on page12 and create the final page:

1. Add the text “We saw butterflies at the zoo”.
   
2. Find a picture to represent this and put it in the large cell.

Read the story. Click on the Speaker icon on each page and you will hear each page read out. You could click on the Microphone icon and record an audio for each grid. However, we’re not going to do this so we are going to delete the Microphone icon.

Master Grids
Go into Clicker Explorer. Down the bottom of the screen are the Master Grids for this grid set. There is one Master Grid for the cover and one for the pages.
Any change you make to the Master Grid called page applies to all the grids called page as they have all been made from it.

To make a change to the Master Grid:

1. Double click on the Master Grid called page.
   
2. Right click on the symbol of the microphone.
   
3. Choose delete.
   
4. Click yes.

Go into Clicker Explorer again and go to one of the pages listed up the top. The microphone will have disappeared because we deleted it from the Master Grid.

Adding a grid
Just as we finish our book we decide that we want to add another page. Stay in Clicker Explorer.

To add the page, click on the Master Grid page and drag it up into the sequence up the top. The program will automatically label it “page” and give it a number.

Drag it to where you would like it to go in the sequence. Double click on it and go in and edit it. Add the text “At the zoo we saw a penguin” and add an appropriate picture.

Let’s have another look at some example grids
Go to the Clicker Home grid and then double click on Examples.
Double click on Geography.

Grids that send to Clicker Writer
Double click on “Coasts Word Bank”.

Enter the grid set and click on Coasts. A window will open with a set of words relating to the topic coasts down the bottom and a new Clicker Writer document at the top.

Type the sentence “Where the coast has been worn away there are erosion landforms”, using both the keyboard and the word bank. Don’t forget to press full stop at the end. Notice that the sentence is automatically read back to you. This is a feature of Clicker Writer that we will look at later.

Obviously this word bank can be used with all levels of students – words on the word bank can also be accompanied by pictures and the words themselves can be as simple or as difficult as you like!

Grids with pop-ups
Click on the Explorer icon, which is now on the toolbar in the middle of the screen.

Double Click on the Migration grid set which is part of the Geography examples.

Click on each of the buttons on the Migration page. Notice the pop-ups with extra information. Continue through the grid and have a go at each of the categories.

This could be re-created with any information – things that float or sink, things that are yellow, etc.

Making a Word Bank grid that sends to Clicker Writer
Follow these steps to make a new grid set:

1. Go to the File Menu and choose New Grid Set…
   
2. Double click on Word Banks.
   
3. Double click on Word Banks.
   
4. Click on 3×3
   
5. Click Create

This grid will send to Clicker Writer in the top half of the screen.

Let’s make a grid for doing an onset rime activity. Make sure you are in edit mode before you start.
To edit each cell:

1. Right click on the cell
   
2. Choose Properties
   
3. Add the text e.g. b
   
4. Change colours if you so desire!

See the picture below for how the grid should look when you have finished.

Once you have finished, try the grid out, making up each word in the -at word family, bat, cat, fat, hat, mat, etc. Notice that there is a space after each letter.

Clicker automatically puts a space after each cell – this is the default when you create a new grid that sends to Clicker Writer. To remove this space from every cell except “at” follow these steps:

1. Right click on each cell
   
2. Go to Properties
   
3. Click on the Send tab at the top of the window
   
4. Click on the box next to “Add Space” – the tick should disappear.
   

5. Click OK and go on to the next button.
   
6. Make sure none of them send a space except “at”.

Adding more grids
Go into Clicker Explorer and add three more 3×3 grids. Double click on each grid and do one for the word family “all”, one for “ill” and one for “ig”.

Creating links between grids
Now you have four grids there is no way for a user to move between them.

Go into the Clicker Explorer and go to the Master Grid for 3×3.

1. Shrink the bottom right cell to half size (see picture below). You can shrink it by clicking and dragging on the small square that appears on the right hand side of the cell when the mouse is over the cell.
   

2. We will now add a forward arrow. Go to Clicker 5 Editing Tools toolbar and click on Cell Palette.
   
3. Move to the red, green, blue or yellow tab and click and drag the forward arrow into the space you have just made.

Now, use Clicker Explorer to go back into one of the grids you have made and try out your forward arrow.

You should now be able to move through all four, typing onset rime words as you go.

Have a go at adding a delete button onto the Master Grid. The delete button looks like this:

Example Grid Sets – Student Authored Book
Go to your Home Grid, then double click on Examples.

Now double click on “At the Seaside – Write”.

This is a version of the talking book for the student to author with their own words. “At the Seaside – Write” shows many of the new features of Clicker 5, including word and picture pop-ups and the ability for students to easily record their own messages. Notice also how the sentence is read out to the student after they have composed it and before they close the pop-up, giving them the opportunity to edit their own work.

Go through “At the Seaside – Write”, making your own version of the story as you go.

When you have finished click on the Explorer Icon on the toolbar and return to the Geography examples. When the message appears asking if you would like to save changes to “At the Seaside – Write” say no!

Making a Talking Book with Word and Picture Pop-ups

1. Go to the File Menu and choose New Grid Set…
   
2. Double click on Book Making
   
3. Double click on with Word and Picture pop-ups
   
4. Double click on Landscape 12
   
5. Click Create.

For this exercise we are going to make the book about the excursion to the zoo but with picture and word pop-ups.

Format the Title Page
Give it the title “Our trip to the zoo”, put an appropriate picture in the large cell and put your name in the author box.

Formatting the pages and the pop-ups
Go on to the first page of your book and customize it following these steps.
Customising the picture popup:

1. Move into Edit Mode
   
2. Click on the icon of the picture pop-up. It looks like this:
   
3. The picture popup will appear.
   
4. Add a picture of an elephant to the first cell.
   
5. Add a picture of a camel to the second cell.
   
6. Add a picture of a polar bear to the third cell.
   
7. Add a picture of a tiger to the fourth cell.
   
8. Add a picture of a penguin to the fifth cell.
   
9. Close the picture pop-up.

Customising the words pop-up:

1. Stay in Edit Mode
   
2. Click on the icon of the words pop-up. It looks like this:
   
3. The words pop-up will appear.
   
4. In the first cell add the word “At”
   
5. In the second cell add the word “the”
   
6. In the third cell add the word “zoo”
   
7. In the fourth cell add the word “we”
   
8. In the fifth cell add the word “saw”
   
9. In the sixth cell add the word “penguins”
   
10. In the seventh cell add the word “elephants”
    
11. In the eighth cell add the word “polar bears”
    
12. In the ninth cell add the word “camels”
    
13. In the tenth cell add the word “tigers”

Try your page out!

Now, go and alter the pop-ups on the next four pages. Try making them different – scramble the words up to make it more difficult for students.

And finally, delete the pages you don’t need!

There is a lot more that Clicker 5 can do. This is only an initial workshop but you now have the basics.

If you have further questions please feel free to email Spectronics on mail@spectronicsinoz.com or give us a call at (07) 3808 6833 or if in New Zealand, (09) 275 5744.

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Spectronics is Australia and New Zealand’s largest supplier of special needs software and assistive technologies. These “inclusive learning technologies” foster real success and real inclusion in classroom or community-based settings for students with disabilities and/or learning difficulties. While many of the technologies are not difficult to use – it still helps to have training and support to assist with the process of making these technologies really WORK for your students! And Spectronics is 100% committed to assisting with this training and support!

This Clicker 5 Training Guide has been prepared for you by our experienced professional training team – who come from a variety of teaching, speech pathology, occupational therapy, and technical backgrounds. All have many years experience in the inclusive learning technologies arena – and are keen to share their expertise with you if you require training services.

We have several popular “ready-to-go” half-day and full-day workshops available. Alternatively, we can customise workshops to meet your individual requirements.

Please contact Spectronics on email mail@spectronicsinoz.com or phone (07) 3808 6833 for details of workshops and for the Schedule of Fees for our training services.