In our last email update, we told you about our Inclusive Learning Technologies® Summer School 2004 to be held from 9th to 11th November on the sunny Gold Coast of Queensland. As a reminder, this conference will focus on "inclusive learning technologies" - technologies designed to support students with disabilities and/or learning difficulties. It will include sessions looking at these technologies in three different interest streams:

1. Struggling Students
2. People with Communication Impairments
3. People with Physical Disabilities

Our keynote presenter will be Kelly Fonner, a Special Ed teacher from the USA with extensive experience in applying inclusive technologies in the classroom and in disability organisation settings. We are also working with key Australian technology trainers and other international visitors to make this a truly unique event in the inclusive technologies calendar for Australia this year.

The program is still a work in progress, as is the final list of confirmed presenters. However, we have now booked the Crowne Plaza Surfers Paradise Hotel as our conference venue. And we have set the Registration Fee for the conference at $385 (incl. GST) per person. This is great value - given that it not only covers the cost of participation in the formal conference program, but also entitles all delegates to attend the Welcome Cocktail Party as well as the Conference Dinner. We want to ensure that all of our delegates have a wonderful time over their three days with us!

We will have to limit registrations to 200 only. With several registrations already received, we urge you to book this one up in your PD calendar now and not delay your registration for too long!

If you want to know more about the Summer School:

• Click here to visit our web


• Contact the Summer School Co-ordinator, Heather Jones on heather@spectronicsinoz.com for more information


• Click here to download the Preliminary Summer School Flyer in pdf format.

Back to Top

Back to Top

For some time now, Spectronics has been keen to add a Speech Pathologist to our team. So we are proud to announce that Sue Owen will be joining Spectronics as our Speech Pathologist in the first week of April this year. Sue will then be heading up our expanding AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) services.

Many of you will know Sue through her years working for various services across Australia - including the Crippled Children's Association of South Australia, Microcomputer Applications Centre (now ComTEC) in Melbourne and the Severe Communication Impairment Outreach Project in Victoria. She also worked for two years as a Consultant Speech Pathologist to Regency Park Rehabilitation Engineering in South Australia. She is currently employed providing outreach services to children with cerebral palsy in Queensland.

In addition to her busy work commitments, she has occupied active committee positions for both ISAAC (International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication) and AGOSCI (Australian Group On Severe Communication Impairment).

Is it any wonder we are excited to be welcoming Sue aboard?

We feel confident that with Sue as part of our team, Spectronics will be able to offer a much more comprehensive level of professional support to users of communication devices, and the team members who support them. As a result, in the near future we will be expanding our range of communication devices - currently made up of the Impact Devices from Enkidu Research, Tech/Series and Partner Series devices from AMDi, and lower cost options such as the GoTalks, BIGmacks and Step-by-Step Communicators.

Sue will also be co-ordinating the Inclusive Learning Technologies® Summer School stream focusing on technologies appropriate for people with communication impairments.

Back to Top

What is Kurzweil 3000?

It is a software program designed to support students who struggle with reading and writing by offering many support features within the one program. It reads text aloud, highlights words as it speaks, increases the accuracy and volume of written work by struggling students through word prediction and other tools, and organises collation of data as they research for assignments.

Two particular strengths of Kurzweil 3000?

1. Using a scanner, you are able to scan in printed documents like pages from books, or primary school worksheets, and these documents can then be read aloud to students. Kurzweil scans in complex combinations of graphics and text with great accuracy - resulting in them appearing on screen almost identically to their printed layout and colours. Students who have trouble comprehending what they have read, can then be assisted by the computer speaking out the text for them.

2. Kurzweil 3000 is also unique in its ability to convert scanned worksheets to "onscreen testing format". By simply scanning in an examination outline or worksheets with answer fields, the program will read out the question, then automatically create a text field in line for the student to start entering in their answers. As an educator setting up the assessment, all you need to do is select the "Fill in the Blanks" option, and the on-computer assessment is automatically created for those students who need that level of support.

For more information about Kurzweil 3000:

1. Visit our website


2. Visit the Kurzweil Educational Systems website


3. Contact Lisa Meyer on lisa@spectronicsinoz.com for a Kurzweil 3000 Demo CD and information


4. If you live near to Newcastle in NSW, contact Barbara Landsberg re the possibility of meeting up with Jackie Wheeler, International Marketing Manager for Kurzweil Educational Systems, who will be visiting Newcastle at end March/early April.

• Audio File Creation
  Create MP3 and WAV files of entire documents, selected pages or text and listen to these files on portable players while on the go.


• Picture Dictionary
  Lookup "picture" definitions for words using clip art and image libraries, including popular electronic picture dictionaries such as the PCS libraries from Mayer-Johnson.


• Homophones and Confusables Lists
  Find common homophone-related errors, such as "to," "two," and "too," with the Homophone lists or identify commonly confused words, such as "edition" and "addition" when using the Confusables lists.

Back to Top

You have received this newsletter because you told us at Spectronics that you would like us to keep you up to date with technology changes. If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter, click on the following link to unsubscribe:
http://www.spectronicsinoz.com/email/unsubscribe_me.asp
or click on the following link to change your subscription details:
http://www.spectronicsinoz.com/email/edit_me.asp

Please feel free to forward this newsletter or sections of it on to your colleagues. You are also free to post it up onto the web. All we ask is that you acknowledge the source as Spectronics Email Updates and list our contact details below with any posting.

Past copies of our email updates can also be found at http://www.spectronicsinoz.com/library.asp?library=email_updates