Spectronics - Inclusive Learning Technologies

I’m always looking for ways to save time when I am creating activities in Boardmaker Plus. As I am sure we all are! By now I hope you will have already heard of BoardmakerShare.com, where you can download and upload any Boardmaker activities. However, when you search this site there are some FREE, sophisticated interactive templates which go beyond my level of programming in Boardmaker Plus. They have some advanced programming and allow you to easily create slick looking activites for subtraction, sorting, multiple choice, hidden pictures, true/false and much more!  Each Power Template comes with its own activity specific PDF instruction sheet.

Follow these easy steps to access this collection:

1. Become a member and logon to www.boardmakershare.com
2. Enter the search term “powertemplate” (all one word)
3. The collection of Power Templates will be displayed.
4. Select the template you want and download it. Power Templates are .zip files. So you will need to save to your computer and then “unzip” the files.
5. Open the folder you just downloaded to your computer to select the specific activity you want to create. Copy the folder. Paste it and rename it. Note – you may be used to doing a “Save As” when utilizing templates. In this instance, you need to copy and paste the entire activity folder.
6. Each activity includes a Sample Activity to view before you create your own activity.
7. Each activity includes an activity specific PDF instruction sheet. Print this out as a reference while you are making your activity.
8. Open up the “Main” board of the activity.
9. Follow the instructions on the screen (from Use Mode) to edit the activity.

Have fun creating some nifty activities for home, school or in the community. And make sure you share with others! Upload the activity you created on BoardmakerShare.com.

I had the great pleasure of attending the launch for the new Key Word Sign Footy Book (Australian Football) on Wednesday 4^th August at Etihad Stadium, in Melbourne, Victoria. It was fantastic to see children and adults with disabilities participate in a footy clinic run by the Football Integration Development Association and hang out in the footballers change rooms.

The book was officially launched by the Hon. Mr Simon Crean, MP, Federal Minister for Social Inclusion and children from the Glen Allen School Choir sang the popular football song “Up there, Cazaly” in key word sign.

This little book is the ideal companion at an AFL footy game as it fits in your pocket and and contains 120 essential signs for all aspects of the game including all 16 teams with colour logos, popular football stadiums, common footy terms, food, numbers and much more!

In addition to the Footy Book, the Key Signs: A Supplementary Vocabulary – Auslan Edition CD-ROM is a fabulous new resource for further developing your key word signing skills. This is the companion to the green Key Signs: A Supplement to Makaton Vocabulary – Auslan Edition. It includes video clips of 250 signs and real life video examples of signing in use with infant, school aged and adult persons, showing early interaction, developing language and functional use of signing.

Be sure to check them out!

This story begins with Shannon Rosa, mother of 9 year old Leo, winning an iPad in a raffle. This is what happens next:

Leo is Rosa’s 9-year-old son, and when people ask her about him, she is mindful to explain him in a way that will set appropriate expectations. He is a boy with intense autism, she says. He is not conversational, he learns very slowly, and he has been prone to violent outbursts. He is essentially a triple-sized toddler. Leo had shown interest in the iPod Touch, but its 3.5-inch screen was difficult for his fingers to navigate.

For all those reasons, Rosa had no expectations when she handed her son the iPad — a half-inch-thick, touch-screen tablet computer three times the size of its smaller cousin, the iPod. Though scrolling through the icons is easy for most users, the device was not created with special-needs consumers in mind.

So when Leo took it in his small hands as if it were an old friend, and, with almost no training, whizzed through its apps like a technology virtuoso, his mother gasped in amazement. After he began spending 30 minutes at a time on apps designed to teach spelling, counting, drawing, making puzzles, remembering pictures, and more, she sat down at her own computer.

“With the iPad, Leo electrifies the air around him with independence and daily new skills,” Rosa typed into an entry for BlogHer, a blogging network of women for which she edits and writes. Her blog was one of the first to bring widespread public attention to what one expert has called “a quiet revolution” for the autism community.

Read the full story at http://www.sfweekly.com/content/printVersion/2090215/

I hope you will enjoy reading this story, I certainly did!

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Two great apps mentioned in the story are

• First Then Visual Schedule (currently available for iPhone and iPod only, hopefully an iPad update soon) – http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/first-then-visual-schedule/id355527801?mt=8

and

• Stories2Learn – http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/stories2learn/id348576875?mt=8

For an overview of apps for communication and learning see Jane’s blog posting on the 16th July – http://www.spectronicsinoz.com/blog/new-technologies/2010/07/iphoneipad-apps-for-aac/