August / September 2008

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Darren Avey, assistive technology specialist, and Mark Ammons, speech language pathologist, have been doing trainings at Texas Regional Service Centers, as well as the public schools, designed to provide an overview of software and technology that can be used effectively for bilingual students. A favorite software used in bi-lingual trainings is Boardmaker from Mayer Johnson www.mayerjohnson.com. It is available for $299.

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Assistive technology comes in many different sizes, shapes and forms. Sometimes, the accommodation is not high tech, but rather a similar product with basic features that alter a standard model. Keyboards and mice are two input devices that sometimes require accommodations.

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Introduction There are many well-documented barriers to student assistive technology (AT) usage in the classroom. One not often addressed barrier can be the teacher's lack of awareness, comfort and experience with AT. This often stems from limited to no exposure to AT at a pre-service level.

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Show Me AAC (Life Tools, available from Mayer-Johnson: 800-588-4548, www.mayerjohnson.com) This program is designed to help students learn and practice vocabulary and basic concepts, including about 350 words within 12 categories (clothes, food, vehicles, bedroom, etc) , colors, shapes, size, letters, numbers, and time. Pictures or PCS can be used. The program can be accessed with a mouse, touch screen or with scanning.

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Imagine being a young adult and still having the opportunity to go to camp. You could make new friends and joke with your camp staff. Go jet skiing.

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I love computers. I am fascinated by the ability to create, to see patterns in new ways, to try out new ideas, and explore new ways of thinking. Technology provides opportunities for physical and cognitive scaffolding that all of us benefit from, and can help us create an atmosphere of discovery and wonder for students (and for teachers) that all too often students with disabilities don’t get to experience.

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Moving an AAC system from the packing box to the person who needs it can take a long time. Personalized content must be added. Time is spent determining, organizing, and programming that content.

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Kristi Peterson and Deb Schwantes met in February of 2002. Kristi was in Ashland Middle School at the time, Deb was (and still is) working for New Horizons North in Ashland, WI, as a community support specialist. Kristi had already owned a DynaVox Series 2 device for many years, but outside of school, she hardly used it at all.

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ConvenienceWare / AssistiveWare has announced the release of GhostReader 1.5, which adds new voices, enhanced iPhone/iPod export, a pronunciation editor and much more. GhostReader is a powerful, yet easy to use multilingual text-to-speech solution for Mac OS X that reads aloud PDF, Word and other documents as well as selected text in any application. It can also convert any text to audio files, MP3s, or bookmarkable audiobooks for playback on iPhone and iPod.

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Duxbury Systems, Inc. and Design Science, Inc. have announced the availability of Duxbury Braille Translator (DBT) version 10.7 with support for direct import of Microsoft Word documents containing mathematical equations created with MathType.

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When Abby Brown, a Minnesota teacher of more than 22 years, speaks about possibilities, those around her listen. Brown has a vision of what student learning and productivity look like, and now students at Marine Elementary are reaping the benefits of a joint effort between Brown and Wisconsin-based Sunway Inc.

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HumanWare is now taking orders for the Trekker Breeze, a state-of-the-art talking GPS specially designed for the needs of visually impaired users. This simple orientation tool is designed for use when travelling in familiar surroundings or pre-defined routes. The product will also be appealing to people not comfortable with computers and screen readers.

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MacSpeech, Inc.has announced a new, approved wireless microphone option for use with MacSpeech Dictate. Now for the first time, MacSpeech Dictate customers can choose an AirLine 77 wireless mic from Samson Technologies as an upgrade to the speech recognition solution's standard microphone. The AirLine 77 mic is available immediately for $349 directly from MacSpeech, Inc.

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Word wizards of the world rejoice. All inPlay has announced that its fourth title, Tag-The Anagram Game, is now in open beta and playable free at allinplay.com for a limited time. With Tag, All inPlay has broadened its appeal by cracking yet another genre in accessible online multiplayer games.

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AssistiveWare has announced the release of Proloquo 2.0, a major new version of the industry-leading communication solution for Mac users who cannot speak. Version 2.0 adds a lot of value: It now includes LayoutKitchen, a panel editor that allows users to create their own image-based communication panels, it adds the natural-sounding Infovox iVox voices for a language of choice, it has enhanced export to iTunes and many more improvements. Yet, this Universal Binary upgrade is free for existing users, as many of the people who rely on this software only have access to funding every few years.

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A new switch modified controller is available now for game boxes that plug into your TV (XBox 360, XBox, PlayStation 2 and 3, GameCube). • 'Universal' version for XBox, PlayStation 2, and GameCube • Versions available for XBox 360 OR PlayStation 3 • Switch inputs for most important functions • Reasonable cost • Allows collaborative play of complex TV oriented games • Accepts any switch as input.

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