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New Mobile Technologies Partner with Bookshare

2009-07-17T06:50:00.000-07:00

Individuals with Print Disabilities Can Now Use Mobile Technologies for Accessing Bookshare Titles. Bookshare and Code Factory Announce Partnership.

Individuals with print disabilities can now choose new, low-cost mobile technologies to read more than 50,000 digital books and periodicals thanks to a partnership between Bookshare, the world’s largest online library of accessible books for people with print disabilities, and Code Factory, Barcelona Spain; a leading global provider of screen readers, screen magnifiers, and Braille interfaces for a wide range of mainstream mobile devices.

The Mobile Speak screen readers for mobile phones developed by Code Factory use synthesized speech to read aloud information displayed on the mobile phone screens including ebooks stored on their phones. Using this technology, Bookshare members who are blind or have visual impairments will have new alternatives and features like navigation, bookmarking and text search, to access digital books for work, study or reading pleasure.
“For years, individuals with print disabilities have needed the ability to read books on a readily-available, low-cost, portable device such as the mobile phone,” said Jim Fruchterman, CEO of Benetech, the nonprofit organization which operates Bookshare. “We envision students with visual impairments or learning disabilities on the bus reading textbooks and other assignments with their phones. In rural areas or homes without computers, individuals can download digital books at school or a community center with computer access and read the content anywhere using their mobile phone. Mobile phone technologies will bring Bookshare books to people and students who previously lacked a portable technology solution to read digital books, magazines and newspapers on the go.”

To read Bookshare books, users of Mobile Speak can download books and periodicals from the Bookshare website (http://www.bookshare.org) to their PC and transfer them to their mobile phones or PDAs. Code Factory provides accessible solutions for Symbian phones as well as Windows Mobile Smartphones and Pocket PCs.
If users have a Symbian phone (e.g. Nokia phone) they can install the Mobile DAISY Player application in addition to the Mobile Speak screen reader application. Mobile DAISY Player is a book reader which will allow users with sight and visual impairments to read Bookshare files in DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System) format. Mobile DAISY Player is the first and only mobile phone DAISY application to support both DAISY 2.02 and DAISY 3.0 (NISO) book formats. Users can adjust the speed of reading without changing the pitch, set bookmarks to favorite places in the contents screen, navigate by character, word, sentence or paragraph, and configure font sizes and screen colors.

Individuals with a Windows Mobile device can also read Bookshare books in BRF (Braille Ready Format) through the built-in Braille reader implemented in Mobile Speak Smartphone and Mobile Speak Pocket. The Braille reader application will read Bookshare BRF files in English through users’ active speech synthesizer whether or not a Braille display is connected. Users having a refreshable Braille display can read Bookshare books in Braille which is particularly useful for deaf-blind users.

Bookshare member Larry L. Lewis, Jr., President and Founder of Flying Blind, LLC, uses the Mobile Speak application to read Bookshare books on the go. “My Mobile Speak-equipped Smartphone is convenient and allows me to accomplish more tasks while carrying fewer devices,” said Lewis. “Code Factory's BRF reader allows me the flexibility to read Bookshare books with a wireless Braille display or to simply listen to the text while it is read by Mobile Speak.”

“Bookshare and Code Factory share a vision to provide individuals with disabilities around the globe with greater access to a vast collection of digital books and information,” said Eduard Sanchez, CEO of Code Factory. “We value this introduction from Bookshare, a social enterprise, to identify the latest mobile technologies as a solution that will raise the level of access for these individuals.”

Product Information Links:
Bookshare Membership – Code Factory Promotion Code
Bookshare offers memberships to individuals in the U.S. and around the world for a nominal fee. The library has tens of thousands of books including fiction, non-fiction, textbooks, educational reading, newspapers and magazines, plus two free software applications that read digital content. To learn more visit http://www.bookshare.org/signUpType.

Applicants, other than U.S. students who qualify for free memberships, will receive a $25 waiver on a set up fee. To receive this waiver, you must: 1) enter promo code: Codefactory in your registration form and 2) send an email to membership@bookshare.org to request the waiver. http://www.bookshare.org/signUpType?promoCode=Codefactory)

Mobile Speak Pricing and Distribution Information
Code Factory’s accessible solutions are available in the U.S. through several distributors, including AT&T. The price for Mobile Speak starts at $89 for AT&T customers. For more information about the AT&T and Code Factory partnership visit http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/articles-resources/disability-resources/mobile-speak-magnifier.jsp.

To find the closest distributor visit http://codefactory.es/en/purchase.asp?id=54

To download Mobile Speak screen readers, visit http://www.codefactory.es/en/downloads.asp?id=44.

To learn how to get a trial, visit http://www.codefactory.es/en/purchase.asp?id=285.

Mobile DAISY Player Information
To download Mobile DAISY Player for a free trial for 30 days, visit http://codefactory.es/en/downloads.asp?id=43#version_2_57

To buy Mobile DAISY Player, contact the following distributors or look for other Code Factory distributors at http://codefactory.es/en/purchase.asp?id=54:

- Adaptive Technology Resources at http://www.adaptivetr.com/
or call 262.375.2020
- Handy Tech North America at http://www.handytech.us/
or call 651.636.5184
- Vision Cue at http://visioncue.com/contact.php
or call 888.318.2582

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Dynavox and Blink Twice have Merged!

2009-07-06T10:02:00.000-07:00

Industry Leaders have Joined Forces to Better Serve Individuals with Speech, Language and Learning Disabilities.

DynaVox Mayer-Johnson has announced they have merged with Blink Twice, effective today, July 6, 2009. DynaVox and Blink Twice are now one company with the broadest range of products in the industry.

Here is the infomation I received today:

"DynaVox is the leading provider of symbol-based communication software and speech generating devices for children and adults with speech, language and learning disabilities. Blink Twice is the developer of the Tango, an innovative, synthesized symbol-based communication device designed primarily for children and teens. Today's merger reinforces our joint commitment to providing the appropriate communication solution for each client's unique needs.
DynaVox recognizes that augmented communicators have different needs, and our goal is to offer the right product to best meet the needs of each individual. DynaVox is excited to have the Tango as part of its product offering. We admire the innovative approach that Blink Twice has taken towards creating an easy to access, aesthetically pleasing device, along with engaging symbols and voices which are particularly appealing to children and teens.

For more information about the Tango, please visit the DynaVox Website at dynavoxtech.com.

Sales, support and manufacturing activities for the Tango will be integrated into DynaVox, with all key employees of Blink Twice joining the DynaVox team. With the Tango as part of the DynaVox family, customers will enjoy the benefits of DynaVox's industry leading support capabilities - what we like to call the DynaVox Difference. Tango customers will now benefit from:
• Increased local support through our team of over 100 North American Sales Consultants - find yours online at dynavoxtech.com
• Enhanced technical support coverage, now provided by the DynaVox Tech Support team, from 8 AM to 7 PM Eastern time. 866-DYNAVOX (396-2869)
• Expedited and accurate management of the reimbursement process, with the DynaVox Funding Team handling all Medicaid, Medicare, and insurance processing.
• Tango's inclusion in the DynaVox DREAM and rental programs.
• High quality manufacturing and the DynaCare service you've come to expect from DynaVox.

Dynavox is ready to assist you with all of your needs for the Tango.
All new orders should now be placed with the DynaVox Customer Support Team at 866-DYNAVOX (396-2869).
They are also working to expedite the delivery of all Tango devices currently on order."

Full Press Release

All the best to you!

Lon

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WATI Free Resources for AT on Talk Radio

2009-06-29T11:17:00.000-07:00

Jill Gierach of Wisconsin Assistive Technology Initiative (WATI) was my guest this morning on No Limits 2 Learning Live!

LISTEN NOW!

We had a great time discussing the resources in their Assessing Student Needs for Assistive Technology manual, (4th edition pdf link here). They are working on a 5 th edition that will be aimed at RTI and curriculum content areas more specifically in organization.
You can also listen on my blog player on the sidebar and access older shows there in the list.

All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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WATI Director Jill Gierach on No Limits 2 Learning Live, June 29

2009-06-26T10:01:00.001-07:00

No Limits 2 Learning Live is proud to host WATI (Wisconsin Assistive Technology Initiative) Director, Jill Geirach Monday, June 29 at 9 a.m. Pacific time.
WATI resources have been some my best and most-used tools in assessing and implementing assistive technology. If you have never explored the free documents on their website, you need to add them to your knowledge base. Due to some budget cuts (we all know about that these days!) and some re-structuring, WATI will be taking on a little different look in the future.
Listen in as Jill shares about free resources from the WATI shelves and join us as we celebrate a wonderful history of WATI support for students with special needs and the teachers and parents that serve them.
If you would like to call in and talk with Jill, call 347 945-5431, Monday, June 29 at 9 a.m. Pacific.
You can listen live here or access the archive after the show on the sidebar player on the blog or Blog Talk Radio/ No Limits 2 Learning Live! show episode.

All the best to you!

Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Assessing Accessible Instructional Material Formats, Part Two

2009-06-25T06:00:00.000-07:00

Matching an AIM (Accessible Instructional Materials) format (See part one for format types) with students involves more than just locating a textbook title in etext or qualifying for eligibility to acquire NIMAS files. The correct software, type of reader, text to speech voice, method of access and visual settings for those with orthopedic or low vision issues all combine to make or break the implementation of the text in an alternative format.
In Oregon, we have the Talking Book and Braille Service for our Blind and low vision students. They usually access braille formats or listen through a Braillenote or computer. They use JAWS to navigate the computer and DAISY files that can be in a braille format (.brf).
OTAP, The Oregon Technology Access Program, has begun to develop a new state recognized media provider for accessing titles for those that are not blind - but either orthopedically impaired or having an organic brain dysfunction (See part one for more on eligibility and these conditions). As a teacher or parent gets past the eligibility piece and on into the accessing of materials, you have options of using Bookshare.org and state media providers that are recognized by NIMAC. There are other services that provide public domain texts in e formats such as Gutenberg.org and Lit2Go, etc.
As an assistive technology specialis, I am trying to develop a procedure which will help me streamline the process by which I work with teachers and IEP teams, so that we know what services we want to use for a student to access titles and what software and hardware will best serve the student to access and hear/see the text files.

What areas need to be considered in a Learning Media Assessment?
Below is a sample I have been brainstorming as a possible checklist for a Learning Media Assessment Form. It is a work in progress, but you can take it as it is and tweek it for your own use. I will hopefully have a finished and working document by the time school starts in September, and this is not an all-inclusive form - but it is a start. Let me know your thoughts and feedback. If you are familiar with the SETT method of AT Assessment, you will recognize those pieces in the sample below.

Learning Media Assessment Document
Student information:
Name:
School:
Classroom Teacher:

Case Manager:

Student Diagnosis:

Student Objectives? IEP Goals?:

Planning AIM:
1. Has the textbook and other materials been identified that need to be accessible? List below:

2. Who is the primary contact (your staff) for materials, converted files, etc.

3. What Authorized Users are being used? Bookshare ____; RFB & D ______; Other _______
____________________________;

4. In what settings will the student need text to be accessed? School ____; Home ____; Other _______________;

5. What are needs for implementation/staff training?

Media Assesment:
Check the type of media this student should use:

Audio (Mp3 file only) ___

Audio (DAISY) _____

Etext for large print only ____

Etext with reader _____

Format for etext: pdf ____; txt ____; html ____; BRF ____; DAISY _____; xml _____;

Software Tool used to read etext: K3000 _____; Read Outloud ____; DSpeech ____; TopOCR _____; Wynn _____; iTunes _____;

Hardware Tool: Classmate Reader _____; Mp3 device (i.e., ipod/Zune/Etc.) _____;

Optional readers for blind users (DAISY): AMIS _____; Victor Reader _____; Dolphin _____;ZoomTextPlus _____; JAWS _____;

Hardware Tool: Braillenote _____; PacMate ______;

This is all I have so far. Take this as a start and customize it to fit your needs.
I would suggest visiting the AIM consortium area on CAST and visiting the CAST site in general for more resources.
OTAP is working on a much more extensive set of info sheets and assessment pieces, designed by Gayl Bowser. Check the OTAP site this next fall to see when they will be accessible. Also, I am teaching 2 day classess in the Portland area in August for the Oregon Assistive Technology Summer Institute. College credit will be available through Portland State University. I will be teaching a day on free and low cost print disability tools, and a day on using Access Apps tools. Check here for registration and details. The venue is about an hour from the Oregon Coast as well.

All the best to you,

Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Kidthing Offers Free Downloads of Summer Ebooks, Videos and Games

2009-06-24T07:22:00.000-07:00

Free Games on Kidthing this summer....

Kidthing, the games and ebook player for kids is promoting free games each week throughout the summer. You can download the player for free and the access the free game downloads. There are games such as The Great Outdoors word search and soccer math. July will bring a group of patriotic themed games and activities. Once downloaded, games and books can be accessed off-line on the player, so kids don't need to be on the Internet to play.
My past Kidthing posts still seem to be some of the most popular and if you haven't tried out this player and catalog of books and activities you should give it a try. I have used a switch and interface with the books to allow students to turn the pages and of course many of the books can be read to the students. The access piece matched with the books available, make it great - especially for younger or cognitively lower students. They also have an NEA/Read Across America program during the school year that allows teachers to download a free book a month - many of them Dr. Seuss titles.
We have a lot of fun with kidthing at home and my 7 year old son asks to play and read on there all the time.

All the best to you!

Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Assessing Formats and Eligibility for Accessible Instrcutional Materials, Part One

2009-06-23T06:00:00.000-07:00

Getting curriculum to students in an accessible format can be a challenge, but it is a federal mandate. We are to provide materials in a timely manner which means, "At the same time as the other students".
In Oregon, we are working on a protocol for helping districts and educators streamline the process for identifying what type of format AIM (accessible instructional materials) needs to be in and how to access the materials in a timely manner and implement them.
If you are looking at qualifying some students you have, or you are a parent that knows your child needs textbooks, articles and handouts in an alternative format, but aren't currently getting them, this post might help.

Format:
What are the formats we are talking about? Most common are: Large print; Mp3 audio; DAISY files; text files in a .txt format that can be opened by a text reader (see past posts on my blog for text to speech tools); or a text file that can be opened in a program or web browser with different color text and background. (Access Apps has some great free tools for this)
These formats require an e-copy of the text book or other materials so that the text can be converted, manipulated by an assistant, parent, teacher or the reader.
Accessing the Format:
We will assume for this post that the student has already qualified and eligibility has been proven. Briefly though, the standard requirements for eligibility are that the student needs to 1.) either be blind or visually impaired, 2.) orthopedically impaired to the point where a book cannot be held or pages turned, or finally, 3.) the student has an organic brain dysfunction that causes a processing or reading disorder.
A doctor's letter supporting one of these three eligibilities is needed for accessing copyright protected files through a state authorized media provider of files coming from the NIMAC (National Instructional Materials Access Center).
Another option, Bookshare.org , requires that a competent professional make this determination and it doesn't necessarily have to be a doctor. A special education teacher, a specialist in the field of disability, etc. can make this determination. You can consult the Bookshare.org website under qualifications for membership eligibility for more information. Bookshare is working hard to expand their ability to locate and provide textbooks for students so check them out.
I recently had a visit from a young woman who was a nursing student who wanted to know about some tools to help her access her nursing textbooks. She was able to connect me with a regional school psych who had tested her in community college for eligibility on a learning disability. I was able to send him the Bookshare form and he was able to sign off on her eligibility and fax it in.

These are some of the foundational pieces to setting up access to instructional materials that are copyright protected. We will look at the process of assessing formats for students and implementing in part two.

All the best to you!

Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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A "Bug" in the System: An Important AAC Care Tip to Save Money

2009-06-22T08:40:00.000-07:00

I have to share a tip I found out about this week that could save you upwards of $1500 on repair costs on those expensive dynamic display touch screen AAC devices that are used for communication...
"This is the service/repair department. We have your device ready to send back. Could you call us for details on your repair?"
I had been given a mal-functioning touch screen AAC device from a high school that needed repairs for the second time on a USB port. I was glad it was done and called the service department back to find out what was up.
"Hello Mr. Thornburg. We have replaced a main board in the device. It looked new other than being dirty - more than what we could just clean. I wanted to let you know that we found what looked like roach legs and fecal matter behind the screen. Sometimes if a device isn't working properly and gets stored away in a closet, garage or basement in a box, it becomes the "home" for insects."
I was getting a little grossed out I have to say... "You are kidding me, right?"
"No" he replied. "We see a lot of damage to devices because of bug issues." He went on to say, "We are replacing the board free this time and the USB port is working fine, but we are making a note of the bug issue and the free replacement. If it gets returned again and has the same issue, we will have to charge for the replacement of the board and labor which will run about $1600.00."
"Wow. I think this device is getting stored in a snap lid box from now on. Thanks for the free repair and the word of warning."
I called a different AAC device company's rep and asked if this was a common issue. I was cautioned that although it is not probably an issue for actively used devices, that folks store them away not thinking and the little vents and holes can become an inviting "hotel for insects".
"Be careful though about reporting that this is a common issue because it just can be another factor to cause folks looking at AAC devices to decide against them." the rep advised me. "A post about this could be helpful though just to help people be more aware and care for their devices."

So...there you have it. Who would have known? I guess our repeated repair had a literal bug in the system. I have visited the classroom where this device resides many times and it is a very clean room and a neat and tidy environment. I don't have any ideas about how this could have happened except that the OT that works with the student told me that the device doesn't go home with the student in the summer. "It gets locked up at school through the summer months." I was told. There could be our issue. If you have these type of devices stored away for the summer months you might want to re-think your storage strategies.
I will be advising all our AAC device owners to get a snap lid storage box to put the whole device, charger and case in when not in use. I don't want to see a $1600 dollar repair bill next time and maybe this advice will help you avoid a costly repair bill as well.

All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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A Mountain Ranch Visit with a Todd's Paralysis Student for Summer AT

2009-06-16T06:00:00.000-07:00

Summer is here and kids are at home. Are you looking for a tool to sharpen skills and keep them engaged over the summer months?

Today I made a home visit, driving through our local Indian Reservation of the Cayuse and Umatilla, winding along the Umatilla River out into ranch country. I was taking a laptop loaded with Clicker 5 by Crick Software, out to the most beautiful piece of heaven you could want to see - straight out of a Louis L'Amour western. I drove up a gravel drive, under the hanging brand sign of the ranch and drove up to the main house, where a little cowpoke was waving me down on the porch. The family greeted me and I had a chance to sit with their little girl who just finished the first grade.

Mandy, (I will call her for this post) has Todd's Paralysis, a side-effect of epilepsy that comes on as a type of seizure. She has several in the early waking hours of the morning before school on a regular basis. They have effected her right side and she uses her left hand to do most things. Her speech is pretty good but she has to put alot of effort out to be understood.

Her teacher at school shared that she has mastered the material for first grade, but has difficulty writing and so she cannot get her work done and handed in at school with the other students in her class. The hope was that there would be something she could use with a laptop to type and print her work.

I got out a loaner laptop loaded with Clicker 5 to leave with them to play with for a month or so. Clicker 5 has a talking word processor window and a pop-up keyboard on the screen. It also has editable buttons in various templates that allow you to build word walls, build your own guided sentence writing activities complete with sound, animation and pictures that correspond to the words. My hope was that Mandy could begin typing using the mouse on the pop up keyboard and use word wall buttons where possible as well to practice writing skills over the summer in prep for fall.

We set up the introduction demo that let her go through the program and see how it works and try various activities. She needs to develop mouse skills so she can access the buttons on the screen, but with guided prtactice from mom and dad, she was pointing out the correct words for fruits to match pictures and her reading skills and word recognition was excellent.

I left them with dad building a word wall page with mommy, daddy, her horse, ranch, etc. They were building a sentence for her to tell about her horse when I left. The family was up and running with the basics to use the program within 15 minutes.

If you have a young student home for the summer that needs text to speech, picture linking to words and opportunities to build dynamic pages for inspiring writing, check out Clicker 5. The cost is $229 for Windows/Mac.

All the best to you,

Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Wii Therapy Baseline Forms Program Pilot

2009-06-11T10:02:00.000-07:00

Our ESD released the following article this week. From this I have had several newspapers and two TV stations call for further stories. I thought I would share the article below:

"Nintendo Wii has taken the video game industry and many American households by storm, and now the game system is starting to be used as a form of physical and occupational therapy to help improvement movement and motor skills.
When Pendleton Academies closed its doors last fall, the Umatilla-Morrow Education Service District (UMESD) acquired several used Nintendo Wii game consoles. They were handed down to UMESD Assistive Technology Specialist Lon Thornburg, who began to research the use of Wii systems in physical and occupational therapy with special needs students. The results?
“Wii-hab.”
Now Thornburg, physical therapist Jodi Garberg and occupational therapist Christi Sullivan are working together to create a pilot program for the Wii therapy. They spent two days observing students using the system and several games at Sandstone Middle School and Hermiston High School to develop a baseline of activities and design a data collection model for the program.
The trio are hoping to create a pilot program that will be used for six months at a time at two different schools (to be determined) next year. They’ll study the effectiveness of the system to motivate special needs students, as well as how well it helps to improve their communication and motor skills. The pilot program will also give them the opportunity to improve the program, its uses and effectiveness, as well as refine the data collection model.
“We think it’ll also be a good tool for diagnosing what some of these kids can’t do,” Thornburg said. “I think there are just tons of possibilities with this system.”
Thornburg emphasizes that this program is not something for kids to have the chance to just fool around with.
“We want to make sure people understand we’re being very clinical about this,” Thornburg said. He noted that the only expenses so far have been to purchase several Wii games, such as the sport pack, Outdoor Challenge and Wii Fit. All of the consoles and remotes were donated when Pendleton Academies closed.
The Wii Fit aerobics and balance programs have fun therapeutic movements such as the hula hoop, penguin slide, ski slalom, tightrope walk and balance bubble. The Outdoor Challenge features a “mole stomper,” trampoline, water slide, jump rope and trail rider. These games help special needs students to improve their balance and motor skills.
Through his research, Thornburg has found other physical and occupational therapists across the country who are using the Wii systems in rehabilitation centers, assisted living centers and even for war veterans in VA medical centers.
“Doing the physical therapy can be quite painful for some of the veterans, so using the Wii helps them with their therapy while helping to take their minds off the pain by doing something fun,” Thornburg said.
Thornburg also has connected with Mershon Hinkel, an occupational therapist in Philadelphia known as the “Wii OT.” The pair have shared various Wii therapy ideas and experiences.
By refining the program through the pilot project, Thornburg hopes to collect enough tangible and effective data and experiences to apply for grant funding to help the program take flight in more schools with the UMESD’s physical and occupational therapists."

All the best to you!

Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Upcoming Topics for June on No limits to Learning

2009-06-04T06:00:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone!
I am "re-surfacing" after a pretty intense few weeks where I have just not had the energy to chronicle my work. Instead, I will try to start unpacking some of the thoughts surrounding the following topics that have filled the last 2 or 3 weeks of my life:

1. Accessible Instructional Materials/ conducting Learning Media Assessments - what does this mean, what is involved and how do you do it?
2. Social capital and how special needs students can get it, keep it and let it help them transition on after High School.
3. Wii therapy experiments in middle and high school: What we found and the data collection we are developing for OT/PT/Communication and Social Skills.
4. Lessons learned from success (and failures) in setting up AT pilot programs.
5. New Edition of Access Apps and changes/new programs.
6. Developing a rocketry unit and using AAC
7. Using AAC with Wii Therapy

As you can see, I have had quite a lot going on and have been tying up loose ends on transition meetings, setting up summer trainings, etc. I have quite a bit to write about. I just need life to slow down enough to get it out of my head and onto the blog.
I have pretty much posted every weekday for the past year and a half until this past month - please forgive me and I will do better. Who knows, maybe you have been so busy you haven't had a chance to read much either!

WATI Director on Blog Talk Radio Interview coming this month!
I am honored to be interviewing the director of the Wisconson Assistive Technology Initiative (WATI) about their program. Unfortunately, due to budget and the economy, WATI will be closing the doors, but the website, a vision of director Jill Gierach MSE ATP will continue and all its' great resources should remain for us. We have not set a definite date, but it will be on in a couple of weeks. Keep posted for dates and more info as it gets closer.

Have a great first week of June...
All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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2009-06-02T14:38:00.000-07:00

Imagine a home 3D printer/ fabricator where you "print" a device by loading a fabrication software plan/ program for what you want to build, supply the raw materials and let the "robot" build it.

A Standard Freeform Fabricator (SFF) designed by "Fab at Home" will do just this. With Open-source software, folks are experimenting with designing 3D and useful objects. h+ Magazine posted an article sharing about the system and that it is being used in universities to learn design and engineering as well as experimental handicapped assistive devices.
Cornell University published an article: "Object Augmentation for the Visually Impaired Using RP" (pdf here). Sibley School of Mechanical and Aero-space engineering, Cornell Univ. Computing and Information Science, and ELIA Life Technology Inc, used a free form fabricator to "print" a tacticle alphabet on various surfaces.

Here is a video that shows the unit making a watch...

Find more videos like this on hplus community

All the best to you!

Lon

Math Tool Accommodations: Online Number Pads, Calculators and More

2009-05-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

I received a question about options for number pads and calculators for the computer. The need was to isolate the number keys so the letter keys weren't being hit. As I got to looking at options, I thought I might as well share my ideas with you. If you know of some cool apps for this or tricks, share them in the comment section. I have left out big button calculators, but they are great tools too. It just depends on what you are wanting to do. The question I received came from a computer keyboard need.

You could use small pvc pipe and elbows and ends to make a “stand” that covers the part of the keyboard you don’t want and leave the numbers at the end. I made one a few years back to cover the keyboard on a laptop – pretty simple – I covered it with foam board from a craft store and covered it with felt. We used it as a flat surface and used velcro to fasten jelly bean switches on it. (Thanks Linda Burkhart!)

Another option is a mini USB pad – here is one for $20 at Target online.

I use comfort software's on-screen keyboard. They have many editable on-screen keyboards and I like one that is a number pad only – you can download the program and get a whole suite of keyboards, word prediction and you can change the size and customize. I put a screen shot of one at the top of this post. The program has a preview download version to try out. I think you can stay in evaluation mode as long as you want to put up with the start-up sales stuff. Their website is: http://www.comfort-software.com/on-screen-keyboard.html

There is also an online virtual calculator for the visually impaired here: http://www.calculateforfree.com/sight.html

This site has all kinds of calculators for different purposes so definitely check them out.

Last but not least, I will refer you again to the Calcu Type online switch activated scanning calculator which is another great on computer math accommodation tool .

All the best to you!

Lon

Rocketry and AAC

2009-05-19T06:00:00.000-07:00

3...2...1...Lift-off!

I have been "in the trenches" over the past week or so and also off to some great trainings, one on transitioning and building social capital for students and a state meeting on implementing accessible print materials. BUT...in between all this I have been building pages for a Dynavox VMax for a rocketry project with 2 of our non-verbal students. We video-taped one student last week and I will be doing another this week and next.

I built several pages, one branching off a science class page with 3 button/folders:1.) Rocket parts 2.) Building the rocket and 3.) Launching the rocket. I used a digital camera and took pictures of the parts in the package and made buttons for the main ones. I purchased a rocket kit with some pre-assembled parts so it only took about 15 minutes to build. I also took pictures of hands doing the assembly pieces and the actual launching. We even made a countdown page with 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, lift-off buttons.

Since we are using a speech output device, I am having the student using the device work with an assistant and use the device to tell the partner what items to get, and what they will do next, clear through the launch. What an exciting way to build involvement and motivation to use AAC. The student has been practicing where all the boards and buttons are. It should be great fun! I am looking forward to a sunny afternoon launch out on the football field soon!

All the best to you...

Lon

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Using Stimulus Dollars to Build Your Essential Assistive Technology Toolbox

2009-05-12T06:00:00.000-07:00

What Essentials are in Your Toolbox?

I was asked to recommend some tools that I consider "staples of the trade" to put in a tollbox for special ed classrooms. I was asked to keep it "reasonable" in cost and equip with the essentials. I might be sticking my neck out here, but I thought I would throw my list out to you and get your feedback. What am I missing? What would be better? Give us your ideas... remember, in this scenario there is money to spend!

My Toolbox List:

Boardmaker software $399 (Mayer Johnson)

Super Talker Progressive Communicator - $339 (Ablenet)

2 Jelly Bean switches - $45 each (Ablenet)

1 Switch Interface Pro USB 5.0 - $99 (Don Johnston)

1 Big Mack Communicator - $109 (Ablenet)

1 Big Red Switch - $45 (Ablenet)

I Universal Mount - $80 (Ablenet)

1 Powerlink 3 - $189 ( I would get a cheap radio to use with it) (Ablenet)

2 Battery Interrupters (AA and C/D sizes) - $12 each (Enabling Devices)

1 Touchscreen (13"-15") - $179 (Don Johnston)

1 Canon Canoscan LiDE 200 flatbed scanner with OmniPage SE OCR software- $99

(Tiger Direct)

1 Mp3/voice recorder/audiobook flash drive player - $39.95 (RCA Pearl)

Don Johnston SOLO Literacy Suite with Talking Word Processor, Graphic Organizer, Text Reader, Word Prediction. - $749 (Don Johnston)

(A free suite of tools with some lower-end tools like on SOLO comes in Access Apps as a download to put on a 2GB flashdrive) A low cost alternative I recently discovered is Confident Reader. It will not read DAISY files, but you can get one that does free online from Bookshare.org if you have an account, They also have a free version of a Don Johnston Reader.

There are so many great software tools like Classroom Suite, Clicker 5, Kurzweil 3000, etc. but with the tools above I could do alot - I think I could survive fairly well actually. I also know there are lots of different kinds of switches, but we have our equipment center to trial varities of switches so I would check them out and get them as needed. There are low-end ideas like pencil grips, see-through color strips, etc. What are your resources? (things you would want to be on your list?)

All the best to you!

Lon

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Piloting Our Own Wii Therapy to Support OT in the Schools

2009-05-07T06:00:00.000-07:00

Wii-abilitation or Wii-therapy is becoming more and more popular. I can tell by the increase in posts, articles and sites about it online. As I shared not too long ago, we were given a Wii, leftover from a program that had been closed. The Wii had some parts missing and the Wii Sports CD scratched beyond use. I got a call from a director asking me if we could use it for assistive technology somehow.
I went through the storage tub and sorted through broken remotes and odds and ends (there had been 2 Wiis at one time) and got enough working pieces to make up one good set. I bought an Outdoor Adventure mat and game, a Wii Fit board and Wii Play. I went online and printed off a good Wii Fit tutorial that lists all the activities and put together overviews from resources online for the Outdoor Adventure and the Wii Play.
We had a "launch" at a monthly OT/PT meeting last week and I gave the specialists an arsenal of articles supporting the use of the Wii in schools, veterans hospitals, care facilities, etc. I began to get requests from therapists to come out to some schools and help them get started.

A Time for Assessment
One of the OT's has set up two days, one at a middle school and one at a high school where I will set up the Wii in a closed setting. Throughout the day, we will bring in various students and based on their motor level and ability, try some games out and decide what activities will support the unique needs of that student. Will it be eye-hand coordination, balance, fine motor, speeding up reflex action, or just getting a student out of a chair, onto a mat and letting them slide down the water slide steering with their hands on the mat?
I drafted up a rough data sheet for starters that has the student information on the top as well as motor ability and motor goals, and then lists all the games with space for notes. We can fill out a form for a student, check all the games that apply to the goal and get a baseline started.
If we can pilot a program in a couple of schools and get some data that shows this is helping students, we can use that to start more Wii's in more schools under the direction of the OT/PT's.
Wii and Communication?
I have an interesting case developing for a non-verbal student where we are going to incorporate some augmentative communication with the Wii Sports to allow this student to play against a classmate and use the Communication Overlays to choose games, make comments, take turns, build a Mii (I have made boards with all the head, eyes, nose, hair, etc. parts ready to use) and say "Good game!" A great Mii site to visit for some ideas for your boards is a Mii Creator site.
Some students need a motivator to use alternate forms of communication. We are trailing a Dynavox with a student that is doing terrific things because we are having him build sandwiches, make pizza and build and shoot a model rocket (this Friday!). He happens to be in the middle school where we are bringing the Wii, so I will build some pages for using the Wii and incorporate the Dynavox V into it.
Blending tools and supports is getting to be so much fun and I find it allows some of those unique needs kids have to be met in a way that just can't happen with a one-size-fits-all philosophy.

All the best to you!
Lon

Plan Now for Strong Fall Transitions with Students Using Assistive Technology

2009-05-04T06:00:00.000-07:00

As we face spring and the end of the school year, we have transitions...the movement of a student from elementary to middle, middle to high school, on to college and then out the door to life. It seems like it happens all too fast.
There are so many changes and adjustments to make. Parents get nervous about new settings, new staff and how their child will fare. Teachers feel overwhelmed by new cases that they have to study and students that they have to become familiar with. There are new routines to learn, new curriculum, new environments, etc.
I have seen transitions that were seamless and transitions that were bumpy at best. New teachers have to get up to speed on a student, but sometimes the same assistants go with a student to help. New IEP's and new goals, re-adjusting and fine-tuning what is being done - all can slow down progress being made.
In assistive technology, I have the distinct honor to follow sudents through their school career, so I can be one point of A.T. memory so to speak, going to new schools with the students as they advance and sharing what we have been doing can help a lot.
To help prevent the potential bogging down of the wheels of progress, here are some ideas you can implement in your transition planning now to make next fall a whole lot easier:

1. Don't assume anything! Never assume that a new school in your district will pick up the AT torch and carry it on without any glitches. Be available every step of the way to get things started. The AT specialist (or other specialist in charge of it) may be the only AT advocate for the student in the new environment for awhile. Don't dismiss your importance in training and sharing what is being used for support and accommodations.
1. Use Video: Take video now (don't wait) of a special activity that showcases the use of AT with a student. Send it on with the student and let the up-coming staff see first-hand what the student can do and what is possible to accomplish.
2. Send up-to-date reports at the end of the year explaining what was used specifically and how it was incorporated. Don't assume therapists in other areas will include details about it in their reports. Many of the files I get on new students have sparse AT notes. Sometimes there are notes of trials or recommendations, but not a lot of detail on things that were used and how they were used.
3. Transition equipment as well as students within a district. Try to make purchases district purchases - not individual school purchases. I have some schools that buy a Big Mack, a recordable communicator, or some piece of equipment and send it on with a student within the district for the student, but sometimes a school will keep the equipment for other students and send a student on empty-handed. It then becomes the high school or middle school's responsibility to find the money to get it to continue a service plan. This can eat up weeks or even months of time. I have an equipment center that can loan items to schools in the interim, but many districts don't have that luxury. Plan ahead for these glitches.
4. Spend time investing in the new staff that works with the student as soon as possible. Try and shorten the lag time between the first day of school and getting AT implementation up and running, by really shadowing an assistant for a few sessions. Follow the "Watch me, then do it with me, then do it by yourself while I watch you" steps to training and you will have strong AT implementation coming out of transition.

Following these steps takes some extra effort, but when you weigh the time spent at the beginning of a new transition done well vs. time spent over an over throughout the year struggling to get something going, the first example is more efficient in the long run and will save you time. I know there are many of you that have advice in this area and it would be great to hear from you.

Our new topic for our next Assistive Technology Blog Carnival coming up will be on transitions and how they went well or went bad - what tricks or tips help, what the obstacles are and how to overcome them. I will be posting more on this over the week and hope to hear from many of you. We can share information that will strengthen this area for all of us.

All the best as you press into the last few weeks of the school year!

Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Wii Jumps in as Therapy Tool in Special Education

2009-04-30T06:09:00.000-07:00

I had reported on the Wii as "Wii therapy" this past winter and had asked for tips and ideas. I received several emails and comments about it. Since then, my assistive technology department has been given a Wii to use as a therapeutic support tool. I got on the Internet this past week and found that the number of articles and sites featuring the Wii for this purpose have grown considerably.

I "launched" our Wii program at a monthly meeting of our OT/PT specialist team yesterday. I set up the Wii and gave everyone a set of handouts on the games and articles that support the Wii in rehab settings. I shared examples of the Wii being used in hospitals for all ages, from 9 to 90. Stroke victims, veterans hospitals for military, special needs students in schools, all across the country are finding the following:

1. The Wii can divert the attention of the subject off of the pain associated with movement making it easier to do the movement while bowling, boxing, playing tennis, etc.

2. "Virtual PE" from a wheelchair is possible in special needs classrooms. Children can bowl and play baseball against other students in the classroom. One school even has a "game day" where a special needs class can play another class.

3. Teachers, specialists and assistants often hold and assist the student with the Wii remote to model movement, the swing, roll, punch, etc.

4. Better circulation of limbs is occurring.

5. Games support eye/hand coordination and students are able to "whack the ball out of the park" on the Wii when they have difficulty doing other eye/hand tasks. Maybe this will help.

6. Color and shape recognition is increasing.

There are quite a few articles online if you Google Wii therapy or Wii rehabilitation. One article I loved was: Wii Solutions for Special Needs from the special needs program at the Harry E. Blair Learning Center in Bakersfield, California. I would encourage you to check it out. There are some great pictures there too.

We have purchased a Wii Fit board to work with students who are not in wheelchairs. We have a game mat/game "Outdoor Adventure", which allows students with the ability to sit on the mat on the floor to slide down a water slide and use their hands to steer to the left or right. The Wii Sports games will allow students in chairs to use muscle groups while doing the tennis, boxing, bowling, baseball, etc.

The first student to use the setup will be a 12 year old in a chair that has lost interest in doing many of the activities the occupational therapist gives him to do at school:

"Stringing beads and other hand exercises have kind of reached their limit with him," the OT/PT director shared. "Maybe this will engage him and get the muscles actions we want him to get, and make it more fun for him."

I 'll keep you posted.

All the best to you!

Lon

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Music at Your Fingertips: Radios, Switches and TBI

2009-04-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

I was heading to a home visit on a long highway through wheatfields, making my way to a small country town. Turning off the highway, I passed an old feed store and headed down what used to be a frontier brick and stone building -lined main street. If you dumped truck-loads of dirt on the street to cover it up and threw in a few cowboys on horses, you would think you were on the set of a western movie.
When I arrived at the house, using a Powerlink 2 from Ablenet, a Big Red switch on a universal mount, a radio and an lamp that looks like an aquarium, I set up a cause and effect activity for a non-verbal 4 year-old girl in a wheelchair who had a traumatic brain injury when less than a year old. The doctors said she would never be able to do anything, but the 2 aunties who care for her and love her have worked hard to get her to respond and clue in on what is going on around her.
Since her arm was hanging down off the side of her chair, we mounted the switch so it sat under her fingertips. I moved her fingertips slightly so she could get the feel of flexing them a little to make the switch trigger the radio station and the aquarium lamp on, timed for 3 seconds. As soon as the music started she rolled her eyes and opened her mouth, but when the music and lights stopped, she didn't try to get it going again. We verbally encouraged and coaxed, and finally I moved her fingertips and started the music and lights again.
"When we say funny things, she laughs," shared one aunt. "Not too long ago when we were talking about my sister having to be gone part of the day and a sitter needing to be here, she started to cry. We think she knows what is going on."
"I am sure she does. If she can move her fingertips to make the music play and gets the idea that she can have control over it, it will give her some power, and the stimulus will get those synapses' firing and we can build another block in the foundation," I encouraged.
We moved out to the back step of the house and continued to visit when suddenly from the living room we heard the country music station we had the radio set on, begin blaring through the house.
"She did it by herself!" cried one of the aunts.
I watched as the other aunt with me, began to tear up, her eyes showing the excitement of what she was hearing. "We know there is alot going on in her head and we want to see her world open up."
"She is just like any other typical kid inside," I said. "She will trigger the switch and do what she wants on her timetable, not ours." It seemed like when we were staring at her and waiting for her to do it, she wasn't going to. But as soon as I was out of the room...there it went!
I shared a few strategies with them on how to use the timer on the Powerlink and left them to experiment and play.
What a lucky girl to have 2 aunts that care so much. She is just starting to expand her abilities and there is so much ahead.

All the best to you!

Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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"Text-Driving" the NEO 2 for Text to Speech Support

2009-04-23T06:00:00.000-07:00

We have been using the Alphasmart NEO and the Dana now for quite some time in our assistive technology equipment center. We have used it for alternative access in writing for some students who can't handwrite, and we have had a text to speech sound card in a Dana we have used with Write Outloud To Go from Don Johnston.

Recently I got an email on the NEO 2. When I found out they had built in the text to speech I wanted to try one out. They sent one for evaluation and I have been taking it out for a "text drive". I thought you might be interested in what I found out:

NEO 2 Text to Speech

The NEO2 has text to speech built in as standard. You access it with the purchase of a small wireless, battery operated receiver with headphones (see image above). This way the student can hear the voice without disturbing those around them. I hooked it up to a set of powered desktop speakers and turned it up. It worked great. My thought has been to use this as an alternate form of communication for students that can type well, but are non-verbal. The NEO with the text to speech kit comes in at $299. Well lower in cost than some of the mainstream word processing communicators. I also found the voice to be fine. It wasn't one of those primo natural voices, but it wasn't robotic and awful to the ear either.

Quizzes, Spell Check and Other Features

My main focus was on the alternative communication piece, but while I was at it, I thought I might as well share about other features it has as well. There are several "smart applets" that run programs off of the Renaissance Learning/Renaissance Place subscription services. The NEO can connect online through a wireless receiver ($99) to the Internet to access Accelerated Reader quizzes and Math Facts in a Flash. There is a built-in classroom response system, standard, that works with their 2Know! Toolbar software.

The NEO2 can come loaded with Co:Writer by Don Johnston, a word prediction tool, as a package for $338. I was told that a fully loaded NEO2 with Co:Writer and the text to speech receiver kit is $399.

Standard, at no extra charge (no subscription services) is the spell checker, thesaurus, Beamer infrared sending of files between NEO's, a calculator, Keywords typing tutor and AlphaQuiz that is set up to send quizzes to the NEO from a teacher computer, allowing students to answer on the keyboard. The program then scores and reports with the manager program when the finished quizzes are sent back.

Final thoughts:

There is a lot to the NEO2 keyboard and extension tools. I like that the NEO's text to speech receiver can be swapped between keyboards without worrying about which one has the text to speech software on it. Since it is on all of them as a standard tool, when a student needs the text 2 speech support, they can get a receiver and headphones and get going. The receiver needs to face directly in front of the NEO and no more than 3 feet away.

My only negative on the receiver is that if I am wanting to use this for a student as a communication device with others, I have to plug a speaker into the headphone jack on the receiver to be heard. Now I have 2 external items to carry along - the receiver and the speakers. An internal speaker and headphone jack option would be a nice addition.

I hope this gives you some ideas on the speech capabilities. This looks like a great piece of equipment to support learning.

All the best to you!

Lon

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Beef up your Text to Speech Tools with Confident Reader

2009-04-22T06:00:00.000-07:00

Looking for a low-cost, high-powered text reader and accommodation tool?
I have been using the free demo version of Natural Reader for use in the classroom for some time to introduce teachers to what it can do. I love the floating miniboard toolbar that can work with most all my documents and web pages. Some of the teachers have purchased Natural Reader for use with their students and to convert text files to Mp3.
While visiting the site recently, I discovered they have a new product, Confident Reader, that is a spin-off of Natural Reader, but for accommodating Dyslexia, reading and writing. And you know what I really love? They didn't hike up the price because it was being adapted for educational use. The personal version is $69 and the professional version is $99.
The main difference between Natural Reader and Confident Reader is that CR includes a typing echo by letter, word or phrase so you can hear what you type, a 100 ebook library of classics, a word prediction engine and a spell checker. The Natural Reader personal version is $49.50, so you are paying about $20 more for CR.

You can view the Confident Reader demo here.
A 7 day/ 10 time trial is available here.

Confident Reader has 2 natural voices, reads MS Word, pdf, MS Outlook and the web. It converts text to Mp3 file, has the ebook library, typing echo, word prediction and spell check. The professional version includes some nifty sound editing (that you could do with the open source tool Audacity), but it is nice to have it all in one place. The pro version converts multiple text files, like chapters, as a batch and even allows you to use a graphic sound editor to clean up the tracks and add a background music track. With the insertion of xml tags feature , you can insert male and female voices in the reading , insert pauses and conversational tags to create a dramatic and professional sounding audio book.

If you are looking at how to spend stimulus bill funding for your school in the area of technology/assistive technology, this might be a great way to stretch your dollars to get the biggest bang. I am going to get one to demo with my schools on my laptop. I am using a scanner and the free Top OCR (an image to text converter) to get my hard-to-access text ready for those students who qualify under copyright law, and then looking at this Confident Reader as a dynamo of a player at a low cost. It will also be a great companion to the Access Apps collection of tools we are introducing in our districts. There have been some shortcomings for me to free readers either in voice quality or the lack of highlighted text as the reader reads. Confident Reader looks like it gives me both.
With services like Bookshare and tools like this and all the free open source apps, we have many exciting methods to help students accommodate their learning. I see so much potential. Crazy as it sounds - I almost wish summer weren't coming so we could continue to implement and get these things going!

All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Create a switch-Adapted Spinner From a Battery Fan

2009-04-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

When it comes to tightening budgets, what better way to stretch the dollars than with a battery operated fan converted into a spinner. The battery interruptor cost about $10 and the fan was about $5.

A speech pathologist came in yesterday with a cardboard cut-out flower and some communication/activity boards she had made for spring. She was having students use seeds and glue them on a flower and use colored cut-out petals for an activity. She asked if I had any ideas for a spinner that was switch-activated.

"Why don't we make one right now!" I said. (It took about 20 minutes because I had everything already)

Materials:

Battery operated necklace fan

battery interruptor (see links to get one or make one below)

self-adhesive velcro dots or strips (both the latch and hook)

scissors

Sharpie pen and pencil

cardboard or card stock paper

notching file or a small round file

How we did it:

I grabbed a necklace fan that was battery operated I had saved in the closet for just such an occasion and we notched the slide lid on the bottom for the battery interruptor/switch cord, put batteries in and the interruptor. When we plugged the switch in, the switch made it go (We had to slide the on/off switch to "on" first and leave it there). Here is a link to get interruptors ready to go for $10.95. You can make them yourself too with a solder gun, and some speaker wire and plugs from radio Shack. pdf instructions here

A battery interruptor

Next, I took the fan guard screen's top half off to access the blades inside. I used scissors and cut off the fan blades so we could use the top of the fan as a mount for the spinner arrow. I used velcro dots and stuck a dot on the fan head that spins and the corresponding dot on a spinner arrow I cut out, then stuck them together, pressed the switch and...we had a spinner!'

Now the fun part came:

I took her cardboard flower cut-out and traced it on card stock. I cut it out and cut the center hole out so the spinner and fan blade head would go up through the center of the cut-out. I put velcro underneath, on the bottom fan guard and also the cut-out so it would stay. Now we had a flower spinner, themed to go with her activity.

She can now use boardmaker or other graphics, colors, numbers, etc. to make the spinner fit any activity. Other shapes could be: a pumpkin, shamrock, bug, heart, snowflake, etc. to fit other activities, or just a cardboard circle with divided sections and velcro dots to fasten any symbols you choose on.

I bought the fan, O2Cool Necklace Fan; http://www.o2-cool.com/ at Target or Walmart last summer for around $5. I found an Amazon Marketplace seller that sells it for $6.99 plus shipping. I like this fan for several reasons:

O2Cool Necklace Fan

1. The top is flat and facing straight up to put up through a cutout. Most fans are on the side or angle, making it hard to adapt it for a spinner.

2. It has a nice flat base so it can be switch-adapted and stand up without help. I have seen ones that have been mounted up inside a yogurt or cottage cheese container to hold them. This one might need a round cardboard foot under it to help it stand up better, but mine is staying up on its own.

Here is a snapshot of mine taken with my cell phone afterwards...

Hope this inspires you to give it a try...

All the best to you!

Lon

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Assistive Technology & Transition on FCTD

2009-04-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

I was excited to see Gayl Boswer, AT pioneer, as the moderator and discussion leader for a discussion on AT and transition on The Family Center on Technology and Disability site now through May 8 (Started on April 13).
About the discussion:
"We hope you'll join us ... (and) explore the many facets of planning for assistive technology devices and services as children move through the important transitions in their lives. Whether you're a parent, teacher, therapist, or disability professional, we know you'll learn a lot from Gayl and the many knowledgeable discussion participants."
I have enjoyed reading some of the threads. There is always a lot of good information, and their past archives have wonderful content to review.
You don't have to set up an account or register to read or comment, but you do need to type in a name just to identify yourself online.
Take some time to visit for some great discussions.

All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Bookshare Interview on No limits 2 Learning Live

2009-04-14T10:39:00.000-07:00

Getting to Know Bookshare Live! Wednesday, April 15 at 1 PM Pacific time.

Betsy Beaumon and Betsy Burgess of Bookshare will be on No Limits 2 Learning Live (Blog Talk Radio) to share about the Bookshare service, what it is, how it got started, what is new, and where they are going in the future.

You can listen in or call in and share comments or questions at 347 945-5431.

The archive will be available on the player in the blog sidebar after the show is over if you miss it.

Hope to have you listen in!

Lon

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A Cowboy Makes it Work with Assistive Technology

2009-04-13T09:07:00.000-07:00

I shook the knarled, arthritic hands yesterday on an Easter afternoon visit, of a veteran cowboy, Dean, who has ridden for 15 brands and taught himself how to rope in spite of his disability.
"I reached the goals I wanted to reach in roping," Dean said.
"And what were those goals?" I asked. He shared that he had joined the PRCA (Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association) and competed in the Elgin Stampede - a regional rodeo in the snow-capped mountains of East Oregon.
"There I was, left-handed, trying to rope right-handed with my hands the way they were. It was my first competition and I had been practicing hard. I had to take pain medicine to rope but I was determined to do it. I entered with a friend in team roping and when it was all done that day-we won!"
He shared his frustrations with having fingers swollen and curled into knots and his inability to grip: "I went on the Internet to try and find someone who could tell me how to button up my jeans. I couldn't push the button through the hole. I spent a whole afternoon "Dancin' around on the Internet" I found handicapped tips, things about wheelchairs, etc. but nothing to help me get my pants buttoned, so I invented something myself."
When asked if he could show me what he made, he left the room and came back with two tools he had adapted. A flat head screwdriver he had heated in his shop and bent into a flat hooked tip, and a long piece of blue heavy wire bent in a "U".
"I just stick the wire loop through the hole, snag the button and pull one direction and then hook the eye-hole with the screwdriver hook and pull the two together."
I shared how ingeniously simple this was and how proud I was of him to make it work on his own.
"I just figure I need to learn how to do things myself. It might take me longer, but I have a great shop and I have all kinds of things I have adapted to pound nails, open my truck door and on and on."
As I left yesterday, I thought about this man's determination to self-accommodate. How I would love to have him share tools and talk about the whole frame of mind that comes with being able to solve problems and be independent. He is an example of what I strive to see for all our students as they struggle to achieve. Whether it is a text reader, a spell checker or an adapted screwdriver - helping students learn how to "make it work" with AT is what my work is all about. This cowboy's tools are a perfect example of what assistive technology is all about - it's not just high-tech computer equipment. Anything that solves a problem and accommodates a disability to make something work is AT. My cowboy friend is an AT designer out of necessity - and a good one to boot!

All the best to you!
Lon

(Dean has given me permission to photograph his tools and inteview him for the No Limits 2 Learning Live show and the website - so look for a great interview and photos in an up-coming edition!)

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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New Assistive Technology Blog Carnival up: "Sabotage!"

2009-04-10T08:46:00.000-07:00

Sabotage is the theme for the Assistive Technology Blog Carnival hosted by Patrick Black at:
http://teachingall.blogspot.com/2009/04/at-blog-carnival-sabotage_10.html

Patrick, Karen Janowski, myself, and several others have posts linked there. They range from making Rock Band accessible to early experiences with sabotage for learning in the classroom.
Some great reads and great ideas are found there this month.
Thanks Patrick and all those who submitted!

All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Create EBooks with Your Cell Phone Camera?

2009-04-07T06:00:00.000-07:00

Click! Take a picture of that page with your nifty smartphone or digital camera and turn it into a MP3 sound file in 3 steps.

1. Open it on your computer with Top OCR, a free open source program in the Access Apps Suite, or you can download it separately from the TopSoft Ltd. Site.

2. Top OCR will convert your page into text with almost error-free recognition, then read it to you with text to speech.

3. You can convert and save as an Mp3. (You save to .wav first and then click the Mp3 for final conversion - so 4 steps really.)

Sound easy? Here is their short tutorial. Note: They have pdf examples of the finished text files when taking pictures of pages the wrong vs. right way. Interesting.

Here's what they say about using text files you already have:

"You can also use TopOCR to turn the eBooks you downloaded to your web browser from Project Gutenberg or from other web sites into audio files to play on your MP3 player. On the TopOCR Text Window, you'll see a "View" menu item, under that you'll see an item called "Image Window". Simply "de-select" this item, and it reduces TopOCR to only the Text Window. Now you can Copy/Paste from your web browser, or even from other Windows applications such as Adobe Acrobat to TopOCR's Text Window. When you finished pasting the text, simply use the Text To Speech dialog to convert your copied text to an audio file. If you already have a text file on your hard drive that you'd like to convert into audio, simply drag and drop the text file onto the TopOCR Text Window, or use the File Open Dialog to load your document, then use the Text To Speech Menu to generate your audio file. "

I have found it to work great using scanned text or downloaded text files. I have not used my phone camera yet. It highlights words as it reads and can choose from the voices you have on your computer for the sound file conversion and reading. This is a serious tool for something free and should be considered in any school print disability accommodation package of tools. With growing budget issues, a tool like TopOCR can really help.

Post-note Update 4/8/09:
The Access Apps version of TopOCR is older - it does not have the Mp3 encoder. If you download the latest version of TopOCR from the website, it has some updates that improve its sound recording. The newer version allows you to convert text to a sound recording using any available voice you select so that the sound file has that voice. The older version on my computer defaulted to Microsfot Sam as the voice for recordings no matter what other voice I chose.
I just deleted the old Top OCR files out of the Top OCR folder in Applications on the jump and replaced them with the newer files from the TopSoft Ltd. site. I downloaded right onto the jump. I found though that I ultimately had to use Audacity (in Access Apps as well) and convert the .WAV to an Mp3 from there. The Top OCR program wasn't finding an extension needed even though it was there. USing Audacity was a quick converter method - not that much more of a step really. Once you get the newer version out of the way, you will have a nicely working setup. I hope Top OCR can fix the Lame extension bug so the Mp3 encoding works better though. Also, Access Apps is working on a newer updated suite right now.

All the best to you!

Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE.

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Using Planned Sabotage as an Opportunity for Opening Communication

2009-04-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

I thought I would share a little about my thoughts on and uses of planned sabotage to promote learning and development. I know that in my own life, whether planned or not, situations that had me "up against the wall" so to speak, forced me to come up with new strategies and problem solving - in ways that built new abilities that I might have otherwise been unmotivated to learn or try.
In this spirit, I think about those students that I work with in assistive technology and how I use sabotage with them. I think that the first time I began to think this way for the area of communication was when I attended a Linda Burkhart day workshop. For those of you who don't know Linda, she is a fireball of ideas and strategies for severely disabled children who seemed to be "locked out" of the everyday world because of multiple disorders.
Linda showed us video of her using planned sabotage to get a reaction out of children who were otherwise non-communicative. She worked to find the thing that was the hot-button for a child and then would take it away to get any indication of how they asked for it back. Was it screaming? Was it shaking? Was it working the tongue? Working in this method (I am giving you a short version) she found the initial indications for communication to start on cause and effect and intentional communication.
Since then, I have been using that kind of technique when I work with a team and we are looking at how to "crack the code" for a child. I have seen some wonderful things also come out of this technique using a multi-sensory assement as laid out byJane Korsten in her "Every Move Counts: Clicks and Chats" materials. She has found that mama's perfume can bring an acknowledgement - but sometimes it is through a sharp smell like Pine Sol or something that a student doesn't like. How about a sour taste on the tip of the tongue? This sounds cruel to some of you maybe, but it is a starting point to find how a chidl reacts and communicates dissatisfaction.
I found an interesting chapter in Google Books on planned sabotage. The book is: "Parenting Your Asperger Child" byAlan Sohn Ed.D and Cathy Grayson M.A.
They share in Chapter 10, on pages 204, 205, 206 that once you settle an asperger student into a safe routine and get them relaxed and comfortable, you can start to manipulate that routine in subtle ways with planned sabotage to begin to teach flexibility, problems and solutions and good and bad choices. The student subject they shared about was able to mainstream to a regular classroom and learned coping strategies to face day to day issues that come up.
I hope you will look at Linda and Jane's sites, read the selected pages on planned sabotage and think about how this can help you in your work.

All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Facilitating Assistive Technology: Working with Families as Experts

2009-04-03T06:00:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I had a parent contact me, concerned about some options we were presenting for her child using assistive technology. She shared that she felt she was the expert on her child and that we were moving in the wrong direction.
Let me state that, #1: We would not have done anything until a meeting with the parent, and #2: we were looking at some options for accommodating curriculum at school, not new access, a new wheelchair, new routine, etc. She had heard round-robin through the assistant about our ideas and was emphatic that we not try them.
I keep going back to her comment that she was the expert on her child. I had positive and negative emotions on that one. I have been turning it around in my mind and have all kinds of thoughts on it, but today I attended a webinar with Roberta DePompei, Ph.D. from the Unversity of Akron in Akron, Ohio. Her presentation title was "Working with Familes after Traumatic Brain Injury: Families as Experts." (It will be available on the TBI Educator website in a few days if you would like to view and listen to it.)
I believe, as Roberta does, that there is a lot of valuable information that parents have to give. The traditional assumption is that professionals are the experts with technical resources and knowledge, but Dr. DePompei shares that there are TWO other experts - the student who lives in the diability and the people who live with the disability. She shares that when you are in doubt, consult and trust those living with the disability, in this case, traumatic brain injury - or after brain injury.
Now to my parent a few of weeks back...
I would hope that I present myself as a professional who values the input and significance of the student and the family. If not, I need to work on it because I do believe in it. A good assessment is made by a team of professionals and family members. When professionals disregard the information that parents and a student can contribute in decision making, diagnosis and assistive technology considerations, then the implementation can run into snags and waste everyone's time (and money).
I hope you will take Dr. DePompei's suggestion to heart in your practice and allow parents and students to give their perspectives and be recognized as the experts they truly are. They have a lot to contribute. Now I need to re-address these affirmations to the families I see and work with.
All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Augie Nieto's Inspiring Story and Use of EyeMax on The Today Show

2009-03-31T08:46:00.000-07:00

Augie Nieto, fitness entrepreneur, appeared on The Today Show yesterday (video below). Diagnosed with Lou Gherig's Disease several years ago, Augie has been raising money for research. He now uses a trackball to access the computer with his feet. He demonstrated the use of the EyeMax from Dynavox for communication and computer access. He is planning for additional access strategies early, as his body continues to deteriorate.
You will find this video inspiring and encouraging. The code to embed it here wouldn't copy, so I am linking it below...

Augie Nieto Video from The Today Show

Also: Dynavox site page with focus on Augie Nieto

Enjoy!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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AAC Featured on NBC's "The Today Show"

2009-03-30T09:27:00.000-07:00

I received this email from Dynavox today on some AAC exposure on the NBC Today Show:

"Today, March 30, AAC solutions will be highlighted on NBC's Today Show. The segment features Augie Nieto, vice president and co-chairman of the ALS division of the MDA and founder of Augie's Quest, who was diagnosed with ALS almost four years ago. Augie will be communicating in the segment with a DynaVox EyeMax System. In addition, we expect the segment to discuss how AAC solutions can help people with many different conditions, including autism, Down syndrome, stroke, cerebral palsy, and traumatic brain injury. It will be a great introduction for anyone who knows an individual who is struggling with communication.

Augie's segment is scheduled to air between 8:30 - 9:00 AM. We hope that you will be able to watch it live or set your DVR to view it later.Later on Monday, you will find a page on the DynaVox web site with a link to the Today Show video and other information that will be of interest to those new to AAC. Please feel free to forward this on to any families, SLPs, teachers or others that might be interested. "

I will link to the video and more info when it comes out later today,

All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Spring Break and 5 Minutes for Special Needs this Week

2009-03-23T06:00:00.000-07:00

Spring break is here and I am taking a week off with my family on vacation in Colorado. I plugged in my laptop this morning and got a blue screen of death. Fortunately I have my computer backed up, but I am using my wife's laptop to write this post tonight.
Once back to work next week, I can turn my computer in to our wonderful tech guy and get it checked, but for this week I am a little stranded. Maybe I am being told I need to take some time off!
Patrick Black has taken the AT Blog Carnival on for April and I already have my article posted and ready for 5 Minutes for Special Needs for this Thursday - check out a post there on Power of the Positive in Advocacy. I am in good shape...
I know quite a few of you were at CSUN and I hope you found some great new products and picked up some good tips and information.
We have a couple of talk radio shows in the works for April (don't want to release who or what yet) and I have been working on a matrix of pros and cons to free print disability tools that I am getting ready to share. I have some challenging projects in the works with different initiatives from an AAC project to switch activated launch pads for rockets in May - so many ideas and so little time!
If you have a spring vacation break this week, take some time and enjoy. I will be posting some this week - but will be taking a little time off in there as well.
All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is a contributing writer who has the No Limits to Learning Blog, No Limits 2 Learning.com and edits the Assistive Technology Blog Carnival.

"Teaching All Students" Hosts Upcoming AT Blog Carnival for April

2009-03-18T13:44:00.000-07:00

Pack Your Bags! The Assistive Technology Blog Carnival is going on the road!

I have been hosting the carnival at the AT Blog Carnival Blog site for the past year and now Patrick Black has stepped up to the plate to host it from his blog, "Teaching All Students" for the April edition.

He has chosen the theme "Sabotage" and gives all the details on his AT Blog Carnival post. He welcomes all bloggers to send him their stories. It will go up on his blog April 9 and he is accepting submissions until April 6.

Check it out, write up a post and send him the link - you will get some new traffic and we get the benefit of your story and info - everyone wins!

The Carnival is ready to roll to your blog too!

If you are interested in hosting a future edition of the carnival on your blog, please let me know at: lonthornburg@nolimits2learning.com

All the best to you!

Lon

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Intellitools Classroom Suite and a SMART or Promethean Board: A Winning Combination!

2009-03-17T09:10:00.000-07:00

Classroom Suite by Intellitools has some great activities and applications that come alive with a SMART Board or Promethean Board. I have been piloting 5 Classroom Suite ver. 4 licenses out in 5 different school resources rooms this year ranging from elementary to middle and high school. My goal has been to train and allow a classroom to learn how to publish activities, set up student folders and start doing remedial support with it.
One school (the one taking off the most with it) has been doing early literacy activities with Classroom Suite on a Promethean board, having students work with an assistant in pairs and use the talking word processor tool, Intellitalk, and a virtual keyboard on the board, to get kids writing, spelling and hearing what they write read back to them. They have also used the board and Classroom Suite activities for a student who is visually impaired and needs to see things enlarged and close up. He is dragging word, picture and symbol cards in the phonemic awareness activites and getting the opportunity to do math manipulatives with it too.
I have 2 schools really training and using it, 2 that are struggling to integrate it at all and 1 that is somewhere in between. I have been available for support and have been working with the schools that request me and place a priority on integration.
I like to support free tools as much as possible, and there are free talking word processors and on-screen keyboards that could be used, but there are also many wonderful pay software supports out there as well. I am trying to find ways to help schools trial them first to make sure they really see the benefit where we think they are appropriate.
I would recommend pairing up the Classroom Suite Version 4 with a SMART or Promethean Board - you will be surprised at what it can do. Intellitools has done all the hard work for you to build easily adapted and personalized remedial activities in reading and math. They have a free trial available for download. I will have to share the free alternatives with you for another post.

All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Great Idea from Assistivetek Blog: Using Google Docs and Text Readers

2009-03-16T06:00:00.000-07:00

Sometimes great ideas just come to us as a burst of insight - we have solutions sitting right in front of us and they are just waiting for the right moment to come to life, for us to see how to use them. My friend and a valued mentor, Dr. Brian Friedlander, wrote a great post yesterday on his Assistive Technology Blog about using Google Docs to create accessible tests. Combining the Google Docs and a text reader, there are free versions out there, make this entire method free to you to use.
Brian shared his ideas with great examples and visuals here:
http://assistivetek.blogspot.com/2009/03/using-google-forms-for-making.html
This is a perfect example of pairing together software and online tools to create an accessibility solution. Perfect Pairings was our latest topic on the Assistive Technology Blog Carnival in February. If you like Dr. Friedlander's strategy, maybe you would enjoy exploring some more solutions and ideas on the A.T. Blog Carnival...

All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Edutopia Shares: Ideas to Get Classroom Supplies for Free

2009-03-13T06:00:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you, but budgets are growing thinner and thinner as we finish up the end of the school year here soon. In light of the economic struggles that are hitting all of our programs, Edutopia, from the George Lucas Foundation, has a great article that gives you ideas on how to get supplies for your classroom free. I extended it a little further by thinking that many of these strategies could help fund AT equipment for classrooms.
Why don't you check out the ideas and see what might help you...
"Free Classroom Supplies Through Funding and Donations"
All the best to you!
Lon

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Believe in the Impossible

2009-03-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

I was greeted at the door by a short, happy woman with a green St. Patrick's Day T-Shirt and a green beaded necklace with beer glasses hanging off of it. She laughed and said she had a green wig to wear for the Early Intervention Specialist that I had followed there, but when she saw I was there too, she thought it might be too much and overwhelm me! (Her birthday is March 17, I later found out.)
So started an afternoon visit to gather with other team members to share ideas on how to help a girl with multiple disabilities who will start her kindergarten year next fall.
Tanya, we will call her, accidently fell in a horse trough at the babysitters and drowned about 3 years ago. She was revived but experienced traumatic brain injury and now has CVI, a swallowing disorder, is orthopedically impaired and uses a feeding tube. The wonderful caregiver is a foster parent who hopes to see Tanya make some progress.
"The doctors have never let us believe for a second that there is any hope. From the beginning they were straight with us that she will never progress," the foster mom explained. "My sister and I just give her lots of love."
I was amazed at this woman who is of a retirement age and could be kicking back and relaxing, but gets her enjoyment through being a caregiver. The place was spotless, comfortable and Tanya was very relaxed and loved her foster mom to cuddle and hold her.
A vision specialist and speech pathologist soon arrived as well to give us 4 people to contribute ideas. We discussed eye blink and eye gaze strategies, but because of the inconsistency with her gaze, we decided to put that on the back burner for now. The vision specialist did some visual tracking exercises to see where she looks and how she responded but there were no indications that were consistent enough to tell us much of anything.
Finding an access point for switch hits was of interest to me. She loves music, a TV show she "watches" and has a stuffed bunny she loves. We decided to try a universal mount and Big Mack switch linked to a Powerlink 3 and a tape player/radio. We are going to start out by seeing if she will respond to keep music playing by hitting a switch. We don't know what movement she has that could help her access a switch consistently (maybe she can't) but we will do some trials to see. If she is able to access the switch to start the music going again, we know we have a starting place.
I left the session with my head full of the different strategies and ideas we came up with to get something going for this girl. It was great to feel a part of a caring group of people who desire to see great things happen for this girl. The foster mom shared several stories of Tanya over-hearing conversations and having consistent emotions and facial expression as a response to those discussions. There could be a very clear mind inside this girl waiting for us to find the way to help her reach out and contact us and open her world. What an exciting possibility! Can you believe in what sounds like the impossible?
I can.

All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Assistive Technology Services are Moving Mainstream - and it's About Time!

2009-03-10T06:00:00.000-07:00

One of my biggest frustrations for several years has been that the assistive technology tools I have and know support ALL learners have been basically restricted to students on IEP's only because my funding doesn't cover my services for any students other than what is IDEA-related. Well, in Oregon, we are finally shifting our service model at my ESD and working hard on a "paradigm shift" that involves our educational service district's providing a wrap-around service model that will support academic achievement for all students.
For too long, therapist's strategies (OT, PT, etc.) have been denied students that are falling between the cracks but not qualifying for an IEP. When I first started looking at assistive technology tools for remediating learning outside of special education, I was met with resistance because my requests were unconventional. The trend to move assistive technology into the mainstream of education is a victory worth fighting for and a task that means swimming up-stream for many of us.
Have you experienced first-hand how notoriously slow education changes? Bringing new ideas and systemic change is scary to many who have "always done it the old way." The saying "If you keep doing what you have always done, you'll keep getting what you've always gotten," is true in this instance.
What we hope to accomplish in my region, is to augment instruction and remediation built on professional learning communities, positive behavior support and response to intervention work already begun in our districts. If these are new terms to you, check the above links accompanying them.
We are developing a pilot project that will include one of each of the following: an OT, PT, SLP, School Psychologist, Assessment and data specialist, Assistive Technology and Instructional Technology specialists, Alternative education specialist and Austism, Vision and Hearing . All these folks will be available as a support team to be involved and dedicated to one district for customized academic intervention strategies. Each student needing interventions and remediation will be given extra support from the team - not waiting until students show up with an IEP.
Just imagine what we could accomplish for kids with that kind of support. And the cost? Well...we are going to have to make our dollars stretch. Our pool of funds is shrinking by the month and we are looking to this new model as a possible way to think outside the box to provide service in a different way that might cut down on so much travel and utilize technology and video teleconferencing more, etc. as well as being in the schools locally as needed - being a part of a team. The hope is we can see a new model that will align itself better with the shrinking funds our districts have and still provide quality services - even better services than before, on a smaller budget. We still have more questions than answers, but we have started a PLC of sorts with our specialists and leaders involved in the project to build what it will look like over the next few months.
We are reading "Professional Learning Communities at Work" by Richard Dufour and Robert Eaker, available here. I would highly recommend this book for getting yourself to think outside the box and look at how to develop a strong, committed professional community. As things develop, I will share more about what we are creating and how it is going as it progresses. I am just relieved that I am going to be able to use what I know to see more students succeed. These are challenging, but exciting times.

All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Assistive Technology Social Networking Spaces Share Great Resources

2009-03-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

Ning is a great place for folks to set up social networking spaces to share all about whatever their interest is. On the "Assistive Technology Blog Carnival", we received an invitation to explore "Electronic Assistive Technology webSIG" which has a lot of people joining and some interesting topics, videos, etc.
Another social networking space I have enjoyed is "Assistivetech." It was started by Brian Wojcik who operates the SEAT Center at Illinois State University. Karen Janowski of "Teaching Every Learner" has also been involved in starting the network. There are a lot of great leaders and thinkers sharing ideas.

Classroom 2.0 is my other pick to recommend for those of you wanting to jump in the sharing stream of a social network within technology, education and assistive technology. There are lots of discussions there on how to integrate Web 2.0 for accommodating learning styles and using online technology and networking innovation in the classroom. Last time I looked they had almost 4000 visits a day!

I have built some great connections and learned about new things that constantly spark my interest into different areas. Social networking for professional reasons can be a great thing.

All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Guitar Hero Motivates Middle School Use of Writing Support Tools

2009-03-06T06:00:00.000-08:00

"How many ways does Guitar Hero help your brain work better?" I asked. I was working with a boy that needed writing support for some slow processing issues. He was easily distracted and couldn't spell worth a lick.

"Hand-eye coordination," he said. He was very confident, sharp and really knew the laptop we were using. He shared he had a touch-screen tablet laptop at home.

"Good one!" I shared. "What other things do you do that would strengthen your brain?"

"I don't know..." he looked around the room. He was interested but had a hard time staying focused. I prompted him a little and said "You are getting distracted - pull it back in!" with a smile.

And so we worked - but I got him when I had him open "FreeMind" a mind mapping software and we typed "Guitar Hero" in the main cell. He began to label new ones connected with Hand-eye coordination, patterns and memory.

After doing the web of our little writing activity with the mapping, I opened "DSpeech," a talking word processor, and we chose a cool young guy with long hair falling across his eyes for the voice. I showed our student how to shrink both application's windows so he could see his map and copy the words of the main ideas into sentences he typed on the DSpeech text window.

He struggled with the first sentence, and hit "speak" to hear what he had so far. He caught that he had missed a space between two words when he heard them run together and fixed them.

When we were done, he had written 3 sentences, combined his ideas and had correct spelling. He liked to say, "Let's hear everything we have so far" and play it back. There was a sense of progress being made everytime he heard a little more. When he was done and listened to the whole thing, it was ready to be published or converted into an Mp3 sound file for others to hear.

He loved that he could downloaded the Access Apps Suite on a jump drive for free and access them. He could also save his homework on the jump as well - and nothing had to be loaded on a computer. It could all go between school and home.

I shared with the teacher afterwards that we could use DSpeech to write some writing prompt directions and save them to open so he could hear what he was going to do, then open Freemind and have an assistant help him organize his thoughts, then use DSpeech or another tool like Natural Reader by Naturalsoft to write and proof read through text to speech. These are two free tools that can really support developing ideas and provide an order to writing so a student gets guidance through the process visually. I showed him "The Sage" a dictionary and thesaurus that gives him word ideas. If he can't spell a word we will work with a free spell checker tool and get that going for him too.

I had buy-in and interest today as I worked on teaching this student these tools. Using Guitar Hero, gave me instant appeal factor for the assignment as well! Why not try some popular theme ideas to get your students to learn support tools that will strengthen their writing and literacy - maybe you will make self-accommodators out of them in the process!

All the best to you,

Lon

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Sharing Assistive Technology in the Midst of Many Demands

2009-03-04T22:29:00.000-08:00

I stopped mid-sentence on an email, to answer the phone, pull a file, set a calendar date on my on-screen calendar and print off an administrator approval for a laptop trial. I prepped the laptop I will deliver tomorrow to an OT an hour and a half away, set up a home visit for next week, finished converting a VCR video of a student trial to digital, burned it on a CD, helped an administrator set up Dragon in her office and then ran to get in the car and drive 30 minutes to a training of an assistant on Intellitools Classroom Suite.

After the training, which I made an effort to make interesting - having her set up a word wall for a writing activity and test it out on a Promethean board, I asked her if this would work for her to use with the student.

"Oh, I guess so..." sounding not too thrilled. Here we were using what I consider cutting edge technology and she was saying she "guessed" so?

"You don't sound like it is going to work too well." I said, just doing a check to see if I was on the right track.

"It's fine. I am just really tired today."

Wow. Tired...hmmmm. Who else knows the meaning of that word?

I got home at 7:30 tonight and it is now 10 PM. I am not complaining, it is just that I am doing my darndest to spread AT enthusiasm and cheer at job sites, schools and online with you too...

and I know one thing - most everybody reading this out there has many demands on them from morning til night. We are all tired if we let ourselves be tired! I am nothing special and I don't want you to feel sorry for me. That's not the point.

I just believe that sharing the incredible freedom that can come through assistive technology is an honor and joy for me. I sat this afternoon and watched a little kinder boy with CP grin from ear to ear as he accessed a laptop talking word processor with a word wall and images in Clicker 5. He was able to type and tell me about his parents, the weather and what he was learning at school using the symbols and word buttons.

Amazing. I am not tired when I see that!

So, if you find misspelled words in my posts I write at 11 PM before bed or I get some information wrong - or maybe don't get a radio interview in for awhile - just know I do more than sit at a desk and write blog posts for the day. Just like most of you, I am juggling a daily life of training, teaching, supporting, driving and then taking care of my own family at the end of the day. But for me, that is what makes this blog mean something - I am an AT professional using it daily in the field - not speculating on what it might do. I am learning what it CAN do. And those things give me ambition to start a new day.

I hope your day is filled with purpose and joy. Be encouraged, you are heroes and pioneers!

All the best to you!

Lon

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Adventures in Juice-making and Routine Building Using Assistive Technology

2009-03-02T11:18:00.000-08:00

"This is HUGE!" exclaimed the parents of a middle school boy last Friday as we sat and watched a video of their son using a Big Red switch, Ablenet Powerlink 3 and and a juicer to make pear juice.

The SLP, assistants and myself have been working on getting this boy to be able to learn routines and he gets it! The motivating factor is that he can access practical activities that motivate him. We had to find out what would make him want to follow a routine or use a switch and the first experiment was with music. If you are a regular reader, you may recall my post a few months ago where we had hit a hot button for this boy when he made the connection to use the switch to control a radio and music.

Now after several months, he has learned how to wash hands, wash and dry fruit for a juicer, use a butter knife to cut up the fruit with hand over hand guidance from an adult. He then can put the pieces in the juicer top, press the switch to make the juicer run and push down the pestel pusher on the top of the juicer to feed the fruit through - all at the same time!

As we sat on chairs in front of the media cart in an alcove at the middle school, the parents watched the process. They were thrilled to see him make such progress over the past months. He is moving to a new residential community next month that is associated with a local university special ed program. He will receive top notch care and guided activities. The staff wants a video of his work and the tools we are using so they can continue building on this new skill set being developed. We are sending this student on into good hands!

It is so great when you feel that success of seeing AT and practical application take hold and make a difference for kids.

All the best to you!

Lon

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Free Web-based CalcuType Adds Scanning to Math Functions

2009-02-27T06:00:00.000-08:00

We are always looking for math interfaces for assistive technology. CalcuType is a simple browser-based switch-accessible writing tool with word prediction that also does mathmatical equations and writes out your work.

Dr. Gary Bishop, Progessor of Computer Science at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill has co-developed and is sharing their program and asking for input. He let me know that although there are other programs out there that do what theirs does, they have added a couple of special features he shared:

"First, the word prediction also does arithmetic. If you type 3+5*2 the suggested completion will be =13. It handles complicated expressions and enables the student to show their work by including text and equations along with their solutions. We think all the vendors of word prediction systems should integrate mathematics into their software. Additionally it allows the student to write on a worksheet represented as an HTML form... It still needs work but we'd love to get feedback from users who would benefit from it."

Calcutype uses an on-screen keyboard with a math window interface. You can configure the setiings you want and open a URL window with it ready to go or use a regular keyboard. You use it to write a document, fill in a form, do math homework, etc. On their web page they share that this is a web-based application that works within the browser and has an embedded calculator. I got the best results using the Firefox web browser. I would highly recommend using the CalcuType with Firefox. I had some problems with IE and Google Chrome, although that might be a problem with our security and firewall at work and not in the program. I love thta it is customizable and works off of the web - so there is nothing to install.
I used a switch interface USB and 2 jelly bean switches for scanning access and it worked great. The developers would really like your input too. They were great to respond and work with me to answer questions. Check them out below.

CalcuType link

It could be interesting to add text to speech and play with a text reader toolbar with it to see what it does. There are several. The click speak embeds in the Firefox browser and Natural Reader is a floating toolbar anywhere on your screen.

All the best to you,
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Great Variety Pack of On-Screen Keyboards For Alternate Access

2009-02-26T06:00:00.000-08:00

How do you help a girl who types with her toes very well, is self-concious, is going into middle school next year and uses a mouse with her hands fairly well?

We have been using the Click-n-Type On-Screen Keyboard with her and an open Word document. I have used the Click-n-type because it is free, has word prediction and is size-adjustable. But for this particular student, we have a need to adjust her keyboard more and today I found Comfort Software's On-Screen Keyboard Package. You can get a basic set for $9.95 or the fully customizable set with all the bells and whistles for $19.95. You can download it for free and use for 30 days to try it out.

I found over 40 different styles of keyboards with word prediction, opacity settings, and thematic backgrounds such as jelly beans, watercolor art, bubbles, dew on a leaf, etc.

There are multimedia keyboards, ergonomic keyboards, split ones, vertical ones, circle key keyboards, etc. There are fully assignable hot keys and you can design and save your own customized keyboards. All this for $19.95.

I have experimented with a lot of on screen keyboards and for the price, this one is terrific. I would love to try it out on a Dynavox V Max with the Touch screen PC part turned on!

I would highly recommend checking Comfort Software out...

All the best to you!

Lon

kidthing and NEA Offer Four Free Dr. Seuss E-Books for Read Across America

2009-02-25T06:00:00.000-08:00

Read Across Amercia and the NEA join kidthing to give you Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs & Ham, Hop on Pop and Horton Hears a Who free starting March 2nd.
I have been sharing how cool this reader is and how you can let kids read for themselves and attach a switch interface and jelly bean to do the mouse click and turn the pages. If you are a teacher or specialist, you can download the player with an NEA password to get books. Check it out...

Go to: www.kithing.com/nea

All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Wii Therapy: Using the Wii and Wii Fit in Special Education

2009-02-24T06:00:00.000-08:00

Yes, you heard me...Wii therapy.

Maybe you have already discovered it and I am slow to figure it out. I received a call from one of our directors telling me that there were two Wii's from a residential program that closed. "Do you think you could use them in some way with students for therapy?"

"Sure," I said, "I bet we can find some occupational therapy uses for them."

In my online search for some uses for the Wii in education and therapy, I found a blog, WiiHab - by the "Wii OT". In this blog it mentions how th Wii Sports and Wii Fit board can work to address coordination, bilateral integration, crossing the midline, motor planning and visual motor integration.

Another Blog, "All Together We Can," by Samule Sennott, shares some great Wii resources. One is on how to use a Wii remote to build an interactive white board. Another is on adapting a Wii for access.

I am beginning to gear up and see how I can use this to work with students through our OT's. We will have two in our equipment center to check out now and use for therapy. I am excited about the potential.

If you have any resources or experiences to share , please comment or email me to let us know.

All the best to you!

Lon

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February 2009 Assistive Technology Blog Carnival is Live

2009-02-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

AT Blog Carnival February 2009 Edition: "Perfect Pairings" is now up on AT Blog Carnival.
We have some great suggestions for SMART boards, using laptops, software supports and games for the blind, tools used to access the web by a blind photographer, preserving your handwriting as a font, how to build your own interactive whiteboard with a Wii remote...and more!
Check it out and enjoy some great reading and ideas!
All the best to you...
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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"Dear Mr. President" Free Ebook at kidthing

2009-02-19T06:10:00.000-08:00

kidthing just released "Dear Mr. President" on President's Day. Sifting through 4,500 submitted chidren's drawings and text, the published collection shares 150 top submissions. You can read an article about the project here.

You can download your own free kidthing player and your free copy of "Dear Mr. President" by going to: http://www.kidthing.com/dmp.

AT Blog Carnival Submissions deadline this weekend.

If you have a submission for our next Assistive Technology Blog Carnival, send it to me at lonthornburg@nolimits2learning.com The Carnival will be up Monday. You can read more about it at http://atblogcarnival.blogspot.com/

All the best to you!

Lon

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A Tribute: Remembering A Voice That Could Have Been

2009-02-17T06:00:00.000-08:00

"I am leaving it up to you guys to work on getting a communication device. I wouldn't know where to start." I was talking to the mom of a terminal boy that I was visiting at home this past fall. I had come to check out how things were going after summer break.
I had visited last spring and had done an assessment of what was needed in AT after meeting with our service team, the OT, PT and SLP. They had been concerned that the student was losing his voice and the use of his hands.
"He likes to play video games and spend time on his computer," shared the occupational therapist. "Maybe you can help the family out with some ideas as to what would be helpful for him over the summer so he can access the computer at home."
I had met with the student at school and had found out that he loved to record rap music on a Mac computer he had received from the Make A Wish Foundation. You might recall my post last spring, "How to Rap While Losing Your Voice," which told the story of how I got to know this young man and how I heard his rap music on his computer.
I had written a piece at the end of the school year last June entitled, "Leaving the Ninety-Nine for the One" which shares my heart when it comes to wanting to do everything possible for a child. I mentioned this boy in that post as one that I couldn't wait to help out more.

So, here I was, this past fall, looking to set up a device for him for communication. The state had funding through his case worker to pay for the device - it just meant that the AAC representative, the school case manager, the SLP and myself needed to coordinate to start the procedure. I made all the initial contacts with these folks and began the process of setting up meetings. Before long, it was time for the holidays and I had not heard back from everyone. The day to day appointments and projects crowd out ones that are in a holding pattern and you have to be diligent to pursue them. Winter storms forced missed days and early closures of schools in December and a whole week of time was lost.
In January we started in earnest to set up a loan. I had met 2 times with the SLP and had been communicating with a regional consultant from an AAC company. We were setting up a time for starting a trial when the news came...I was in a state meeting in Portland last week when my cell phone buzzed in my coat pocket.
I went out in the hall and checked my voice mail. "Hi Lon, this is the speech path for ---, can you call me?"

I knew...our boy was gone. I just knew.
I called back, and yes, my hunch had been right. I had known he was deteriorating but had no warning or word that he had been pulled from school, was staying home now, etc. If I would have known, I would have gone to see him one last time and share with the family where we were in the process. Maybe it had been sudden and no one had known it would happen.
I regret that we didn't get to see him use a device and give him a way to tell his family some of the things he was wanting to say. I wish I would have been able to gather everyone up faster and have expedited the trial and purchase of some AAC. It is frustrating that we have so many people to coordinate, with so many schedules and appointments - people who have huge case loads and are trying to fight for meeting times in between. Life and death don't wait while we try to order our lives. I want to blame myself and say I failed him. There is no one to blame even when we want to find someone or something.
He was a courageous boy, full of desire to get all he could out of life. He knew his limitations and he knew he was living on borrowed time. His mom had shared with me that they had talked about it often. There was an unspoken realization between them all the time.
My heart goes out to the family today.

I got a wonderful email from his physical therapist. Our team is going to purchase a tree for the family to plant in his memory. When I replied, asking them to count me in, I got this reply:
"Thanks Lon we will and will let you know your portion.
I just wanted to say I appreciate all your efforts with working with ----. I know that you had some great ideas to make his life better for communication as well as improving his own personal fun on his computer.
You are wonderful—I look forward to working more with you and learning more about assisted technology."
I replied:
"Thanks. I guess no matter how much you do, you always wish you could have done more."

The answer came back: "Oh, so true."

All the best to you,
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

The Transporter DVD Brings Faces and Feelings to Children with Autism

2009-02-16T06:00:00.000-08:00

The Transporters is a fun and effective way to build understanding about emotions. I showed it to 3 first grade children who were glued to the screen the whole time. It was definitely a hit.

Each episode has a short quiz that asks students to pick which of two faces from the story was mad, sad, happy, etc. The style reminds me a lot of the Thomas the Train series and the animation and story lines are terrific.

The setting is a bedroom and any kids dream of a center play table area, with a cable car tram, water, a ferry, etc. The developers share that the mechanical nature of the toys attract children with autism and the faces on them teach the emotions. With regular viewings, the video has increased children's expression and ability to recognize emotion.

Developed in partnership with The Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University, this DVD has been designed incorporating the latest research on what works with autistic children to help them develop accurate reading and expression of emotions. The Transporters website says that just 15 minutes of viewing a day over 4 weeks can make a big difference.

If you work with or have an autistic child, you need to check this one out.

All the best to you,

Lon

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What We Need to Know in Assistive Technology

2009-02-13T10:10:00.000-08:00

Gayle Boswer Shares: What We Need to Know in Assistive Technology

Today I am in Portland, Oregon area at a state-wide inter-agency meeting. Gayle Bowser, AT pioneer opened our morning session with a presentation: "AIM-ing for the Paradigm Shift"
"The AIM initiative is involving everyone in a conversation about making accessible instructional materials available to those who need them. This is a shift as significant as when IDEA came out to say that all IEP's must consider AT." Gayle shared that we have to change in our approach to technology use and change in our teaching strategies. How do we teach differently with electronic books introduced into the classroom?
We are just now learning how to implement this and have a shared vision. Build the practical steps to implement.

IDEA Section 300.172
Defines provisions within the Individuals with Disabilities Education improvement Act for providing texts and core materials instruction in a timely manner.

Core materials published with the texts are defined as written and published primarily for use in an elementary and secondary school instruction. These materials are to be supplied in:
Braille
Audio
Digital text
Large Print
These are for use exclusively for use by blind or other persons with disabilities
Section 121(d)(4) of title 16, United States code

Not all students with reading difficulties meet the criteria for "print disabilities" under the Chafee Amendment of Copyright Law. IDEA 2004 requires that state education agencies make provisions for providing accessible core instructional materials for students that require them in a timely manner.

As we work to implement IDEA mandates for AIM we need to ask:
Who is going to be in charge of finding the titles and acquiring them for our students?
Who is the state level designated NIMAS authorized representative where we get these titles?
How do we involve our state-level text book adoption committees in requesting NIMAS standard electronic files of all text books?
We have a lot of work to do, but we are beginning to understand what we need to do so we can move forward. Our goal needs to be to inform all the key players in education so they are able to support this initiative.

All the best to you,
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Prosthetic Hand in Top 5 for National High School Engineering Competition

2009-02-12T06:00:00.000-08:00

Look what a Catholic high school engineering team designed...for $20.

Here is the link to the article and video if you can't see it above:
Prosthetic Hand Article

All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Build Your Own Free AAC with Foretype, Natural Reader and Win XP

2009-02-11T06:00:00.000-08:00

"What free programs for text readers come with word prediction?" a special education teacher asked on an email yesterday.
I had to answer that I didn't know of any off-hand, but that got me thinking, and so I thought I would spend some time researching what was available. One free shareware program stood out - Foretype. It utilizes Microsoft's Autotext capabilities to let you design abbreviations easily for your own quick words and phrases. Add a text to speech tool like the free version of Natural Reader, and you have a free AAC communicator right on a Word document - running on codes and abbreviations, which saves energy on typing.

Here's what I did:
I built some custom shorthand abbreviations for comments I wanted to make within the easy Autotext engine that comes with Foretype. You enter your abbreviation shortcut and in another window you enter the text you want it to type. You can also just write but it doesn't come up as much as I would like, It definitely is nice for phrases, signatures, etc. you build into it.
I tried: brb=be right back, nhp=I need help please, ml=maybe later.
I opened the miniboard in Natural Reader on my screen, and as I wrote the shortcuts, I pressed "enter" for the real text when it appeared in the box. Then the real text would be on the page. I highlighted text and pressed play on the toolbar and it said my phrase.
That's all there was to it!

Some limitations:
If you have someone who is orthopedically impaired, all the key shortcuts for highlighting text could be helpful as listed on Learnthat.com . There is the free Click n type on-screen keyboard that can do scanning that could be a possibility to get to the keyboarding piece with a switch or just the use of a mouse/trackball/trackpad. Because there is a lot of navigation for the speech part with the highlighting and pressing of play with the text to speech toolbar, it might be inappropriate for certain individuals. I also did not see a version for Vista or for Mac OS.

This combination is especially ideal for someone who has lost their voice and has partial to full use of their hands to do regular navigation on the screen to write and talk - and is experiencing a tight budget.

All the best to you,
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Where Are We with Stimulus Plan Support for Special Education?

2009-02-10T06:00:00.000-08:00

The New York Times Sunday shared the following update on the Senate stimulus plan as it addresses education:
There is slated "$79 billion in state fiscal relief to prevent cuts in education aid and provide block grants; $25 billion to school districts to fund special education and the No Child Left Behind K-12 law; $14 billion to boost the maximum Pell Grant by $400 to $5,250; $1.1 billion for Head Start."
This totals approximately $119 billion.
You can read the entire article on the "Wide Variation in House and Senate Stimulus Plans" from an online edition of the San Fransisco Chronicle.
I had shared last week in a post on special education and the new stimulus plan that there was a proposal of $150 billion for education, and that $17 billion of it would be for special education and students with disabilities. This was to be an increase from $11 billion in the past.

Based on a comparison of old with the new numbers, we are seeing a decrease in proposed funding for education in general, but an increase in funding and support for special education - a jump from $17 to $25 billion. President Obama's message to the nation last night identified education and technology in the new century classroom areas where money would be placed, but congress has yet to nail down the specifics of what the end result will actually be.
Please contact your state representatives and your sentaors to let them know how important it is to see support continue so we can meet the needs of our special needs student population.

All the best to you,
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Teenager Shares: Surviving TBI and Having a Great Life After High School

2009-02-09T06:00:00.000-08:00

"I was a popular girl in my high school, a cheerleader. This is me with my date for the prom. Here I am with my friends. I made a bad choice and now I am in this wheelchair and can hardly talk to you."
I was at a TBI conference this past fall, listening to a young woman share about her traumatic brain injury through a Powerpoint slide show. She was able to talk to us, but her condition was a far cry from the person we saw in the pictures on the screen.
" I thought nothing could happen to me. I was at a summer outdoor rock concert with some girlfriends. Some boys we met wanted us to leave with them and drive around. I called my mom and dad and told them what I was going to do. They said "No, come home now," and I got mad and told them off, hung up and went anyway. Our car was t-boned by a big pick-up and I was taken to the hospital."
There had been alcohol involved, and the one of the group was killed in the accident. Our speaker shared about her recovery and how hard it was. How she had to learn to talk, to read and write again. She talked about choices young people make thinking they are indestructible.
"You might think this will never happen to you. You need to listen to your parents because they know more than you think. They are trying to protect you even when you think they are being mean. I had everything, good looks, lots of friends and popularity. I still have my family and friends but I lost a lot of who I was and what I was. Don't be like me. Stay away from situations where you can get hurt or killed. Make the right choices."
I was amazed at the courage this young woman had. She had been taking her show "on the road" as it were to share in high schools throughout Oregon. She wanted teens to hear her story and maybe think twice before getting in a situation where this could happen to them. She has a woman friend/care giver and business partner that she works with to manage and operate a therapy pool center in their community as well as a business doing gift baskets.
I am heading to another TBI training here in a couple of weeks, and in conversation today, this girls story came up. I will have to ask at my next meeting about more specifics on her name and contract information and see if she has a website. If I can, I will get some information to you. I just thought her story would be an encouragement to all of us that we can make our life into anything we want, no matter the circumstances, if we are able to see our potential and work to do the right things. Have a great week!
All the best to you...
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Load Up Free Assistive Technology Tools with Access Apps

2009-02-06T06:00:00.000-08:00

Load up Your Flash Drive with Incredible Free Access Apps

Access Apps from RSC in Scotland - (Regional Support Centers, UK,) have some great open-source assistive technology software. I bought a 2 gb flash drive the other day and downloaded "The Works" from the site. It was a compressed version that I unzipped and then I dragged the folders onto the jump. A small icon on your system tray tells you it is plugged in. Click it and you get a small launch window with all the apps - nothing is ever loaded on the computer - it all runs from the jump drive so you can take it wherever you go.

Great Tools:

The applications are listed under headings like planning and organization, Reading and writing support, Visual support, Accessible browsers, keyboard/mouse alternatives, Multimedia tools, Presentation tools and the whole Open Office Suite (the open source answer to MS Office). There are even some fun games like sudoku and Jooleem - kind of a Jewelquest game finding sets.

The Apps include:

Open Office - word processing, spreadsheet, data base, slide presentations, etc.

Free Mind - mind mapping

Sticky Notes - on-screen notes

Sunbird Calendar

Amis - DAISY Reader

Click-n-type Keyboard

Audacity - sound recording

Dspeech - text to speech and speech to text, plus Mp3 conversion

Type Faster - typing tutor

Wink - screen capture

Art Weaver - art tools

Virtual Magnifying Glass

Camstudio - on-screen video tutorial maker

The Sage - dictionary and thesaurus

Power Reader - Dyslexic Reading Support

And the list goes on... I will be highlighting some of them in the weeks to come in-between other news. I would call this a one-stop-shop for many helpful tools all on one little flash drive. Life will be easier for anyone who uses a computer once they discover all the cool things you can do with these tools.

Also: If you have some ideas for great pairings of AT, don't forget the call for submissions to the February AT Blog Carnival (see sidebar) AND thank you for all of you who come here to read - January was our biggest month yet - I have had almost 2,500 vistors with 3,500 pages read since January 5 - a great way to launch 2009!

All the best to you!

Lon

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IDEA Funding Levels Challenged in U.S. Senate

2009-02-05T06:00:00.000-08:00

This is an action alert from the Council for Exceptional Children:

Opposition Threatens to Derail Historic Funding Increases for IDEA Tell Your Senators How IDEA Funding Will Save Special Education Programs, Jobs!
"This week, the Senate is will vote on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, legislation which would provide unprecedented funding increases for IDEA programs for school aged children/youth as well as for infants and toddlers with disabilities. This funding comes at a time when states are struggling to provide programs serving children/youth with disabilities. On January 28 the House of Representatives passed similar legislation.

However, opposition to this legislation has been steadily increasing. And while the measure passed the House, opposition continues to grow:

At a Capitol meeting last Thursday night with Senate Democrats, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag questioned the level of education spending in the House and Senate bills. And by all accounts, the $26 billion provided for Title I and special education programs is close to double the administration’s request. – Politico

We know that this infusion of resources for IDEA will help deflect job layoffs, help ensure program continuation, and free up resources for other critical initiatives.

But we need YOU to explain to your Senators how budget cuts have impacted you,your school or your early intervention program! "

There is an email or printed letter engine that has a prepared text. You can customize it and send it to all U.S. Senators from the bottom of the article.
Let our leaders know we need their continued support for funding IDEA.

Other links on the page:
See how much money the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act would bring to your school district in the areas of Title I, school construction and IDEA Part B.
Click here for background information, including a chart of education funding in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Let's Re-define Student Use of Computers in Special Education

2009-02-04T06:00:00.000-08:00

How many times have you seen special needs students on computers doing busy work or filling time that should be used for instruction? Often it is set up as a "reward" so they get to do pointless games online, full of ads and pop-ups. You might say, "No way! Not in MY room." or you might be saying, "Ouch! I have to work really hard to keep our kids and staff from falling into that routine."
I had a special education teacher recently start training with me on Classroom Suite 4.0 by Intellitools. I showed her the templates for phonemic awareness and math, full of activities that can be designed with pull-down menus prescriptively to meet specific remedial needs of students.
We set up an activity that could match ending sounds. The teacher previewed her new activity and set it up in a student folder she had designed for one of her students to do the new activity this week. I showed her the creativity tools. We did some switch-accessed Early Learning activities that used boardmaker type symbols for up. down, crawl, bounce, etc. The student can learn to recognize these movements and the symbols for them. If you never got to climb or bounce, you might like making a kite or a ball do it for you - complete with sound effects. (OT's would love the reinforcement of movement concepts that this teaches for kids who can't do them.)
I showed her how to enter text and make it talk along with an open book and a switch, so that the student could hit the switch at the start of each new page and get the story to read off of the computer. (it just creates some fun variety in the way to read.) We built a story starter about space where the students could write and put space pictures on the page and animate them. They could record their own voice reading the page and when the book was done, play it for others and print it out to go home.
"Wow, I might get my kids to actually write something!" was the teachers comment. "This might be a way to get the computer to be used for something academic instead of games that waste time."
"If students have motivating activites with a point to them, " I said, "they will get in a routine and do those things instead. The trick is to have activities on the computer in their CS4 folder every week and train them to go look and do what is inside."
You have to make kids do these things. By human nature, they will press to go the easiest route. School is a place to learn, not play video games that have no academic base. We don't need to apologize and let ourselves feel like we are mean because we don't let them play online games during school or do that worn out CD program that has been by the computer forever. There are plenty of software programs and educational sites with academic goals to their games, but I hear teachers and parents say, "My kids find them boring and they don't want anything to do with them. They want to do the fun games."

Well, I'm sorry, but some things need to be re-defined. How we use the computer in special education (if we are lucky enough to have one for kids to use) is one of them. I can't expect to change a kid's computer appetite overnight and send him back to the computer alone to do busywork. Setting up a new routine can be like weaning a calf off its' mama or taking a drug addict off their fix, but when you stick to your guns and spend some one-on-one time guiding them into the routine, the pay-off will show in dividends. Especially when you can prescribe real remedial tools that ARE fun, challenging, boost self accomplishment and self-esteem and bring kids up to the academic standards where they need to be.
Let's try and press in as we are already in February. Let's use every available moment to reach the goals we so want and need to meet with our students. If we are creative, we can still make it fun at the same time.

All the best to you!
Lon

I think we need to look at the ISTE standards and adapt them to have our own set for student self-accommodation. Maybe there is a list out there already - if not, we need to think through motivating approaches to teaching life skills on the computer in special ed as well as using it as an academic tool. If you have thoughts on this, or know good links, please share them.
Maybe I have a topic for an AT Blog Carnival in the next few months!

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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DSpeech: Terrific Treasure for all kinds of Text and Speech Operations

2009-02-03T06:00:00.000-08:00

DSpeech gives you free text to speech, text to mp3 and wav conversion, voice recording and speech to text - all from a flash drive!
I was exploring Access Apps, a free downloadable accessibility suite from RCS in Scotland, that runs from a flash drive. I was exploring for Mp3 conversion tools and one of the tools was DSpeech. I will be sharing more on Access Apps on another post, but wanted to specifically share the DSpeech today. You can opt to download it from the link at the top and just use it off a flash drive or your computer if you don't want the full downloaded suite in AccessApps. (More to come on the tools on the AccessApps suite.)
DSpeech can import text files in many formats and read them aloud. There is a box to check that shows tracking so that words are highlighted as they are read. Text can be converted to wav or mp3 files to download and listen on a portable player or they can be heard through the computer.
I used the speech to text tool and found that if I spoke slowly and clearly, I could get most of what I said to print okay. I could then save that as a text file. I found that under options, if I configured the ASR (automatic speech recognition) with the pull-down menu choice, SAPI Developer, I got better results with the computer interpreting my voice. There are recorder buttons on the program also to record messages and read text outloud to create Mp3/wav files as well. The website says you can do conversational things with the text and set up new voices by blending other voices - I haven't explored it that deep yet, but it has great potential. When you choose a voice, you get an avatar at the top that blinks and talks when the text to speech is activated. This will definitely be a draw for students!
I recorded some sound files, used the speech to text, copied an article from Word I had taken off the Internet and turned it into an mp3 file. Everything worked great.

Because DSpeech can run off a jump or flash drive, nothing has to be installed on a computer. A student can carry the jump drive with them and store files on it as well. The interface uses any voices you have on a computer. Mine had the Voiceware VW Paul and VW Kate. I liked them the best. I think I got them when I downloaded a free version of Natural Reader. The voices extended themselves over to the DSpeech which made a much more natural sounding voice so you might want to try downloading the free version of Natural Reader and see.

If you are looking for some great accessibility tools for voice, text and mp3, check out DSpeech. It's a great tool.

All the best to you!

Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Will Stimulus Package Benefit Special Education Programs?

2009-02-02T06:00:00.000-08:00

Stimulus Plan could Reshape U.S. Education Policy to a Stronger Fed Voice.
Saving jobs and programs could result in loss of state and local control.
The federal investment in education would more than double under a proposed stimulus package pending in Congress. It includes $150 billion in new education spending, which would change the federal government's role in education. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said the money will prevent hundreds of thousands of teachers' layoffs and money also will go to support early childhood education, repair aging school buildings and improve special-education programs. The pocket of money for disabled children would increase from the current $11 billion to $17 billion. The question is, what strings or requirements will come with this money and will it be what care-givers and educators deem best?
Read the article at the International Herald Tribune.
Taiwan News, I read Sunday night, where it was already Monday, gives us a glimpse of Obama's bi-partisan White House Super bowl party Sunday and the struggles in passing the stimulus package under intense scrutiny this week. This is an interesting article too.

All the best to you!

Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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DAISY Pipeline SOftware Provides Free Text to Speech Conversion

2009-01-30T06:00:00.000-08:00

"I have a university class starting next week and have scanned my textbook into Word and used the "Save As DAISY " plug in to convert it all. I can't seem to figure out what to do from there to get it finished. Can you help me?"
I had this question from the UK this week (I am paraphrasing it a little). The question came from a student with Dyslexia who is not able to qualify for the files she needs and needed to get this text converted ASAP.
I had done a series of posts last June '08 on Converting Text with DAISY where some great advice was shared by DAISY Consortium developer Romain Deltour. I had meant to use his information to do a tutorial with steps for this process and never got around to it. Now with this question, I had a reason to get something organized, written and available.
I would like to get it perfected as a more visual tutorial and maybe a video one down the road, but for now, I have created a free pdf with links to the tool downloads and the steps start to finish from the Word text to an Mp3, wav or DTB 2.02 file that will play in DTB players and on Windows Media Player, iTunes, Quicktime Player, etc.
You can access the tutorial on my NL2L website at the bottom of the Training page at this link.
Here is also a helpful link to DAISY Consortium with all their conversion tools.

Don't Forget!
"Romancing the Phone" Courting and romance sparked a new phone speech assistant for the speech impaired - a visit with Jay and Melissa Blocksom. Tonight, Friday, January 30 at 7 PM Pacific. Blog Talk Radio/No Limits 2 Learning Live!

AT Blog Carnival for February - call for submissions on "perfect pairings" of AT.
Deadline for submissions is Friday, Feb 20. The carnival will post on Monday, Feb. 23.

All the best to you!

Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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New Cell Phone Interface for Speech Impaired Highlighted on Blog Talk Radio

2009-01-29T06:00:00.000-08:00

New Blog Talk Radio/No Limits 2 Learning Live Segment "Romancing the Phone"

Use any phone with "The Speech Assistant" developed by couple/user team Jay and Melissa Blockman.
While courting, Melissa developed spasmodic dysphonia and the couple had to resort to a voice relay system to communicate over the phone. Out of a desire to see a seamless and private way to communicate, Jay began working on a system that could interface a computer's text to speech software with any phone to communicate.
Tune in this Friday, January 30 at 7 PM Pacific to hear Jay and Melissa tell about their journey and use their Speech Assistant to share with us.
You can tune in and call to ask questions and comment on the show site or catch the archive afterwards on my blog sidebar player.

All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Proloquo2Go Pocket AAC for the iPod Touch and the iPhone

2009-01-28T06:00:00.000-08:00

AAC is finally coming to the iPod Touch and the iPhone. Assistiveware and Sennott Consulting are collaborating on this new AAC solution called Proloquo2Go. I received an email announcing the release/shipping in March of 2009.

You can attend presentations on Proloquo2Go at ATIA and CSUN:

ATIA 2009, Orlando: S0802 - Beyond Mac or PC: iPhone, iPod and Modbook as AAC solutions. Saturday, Jan 31 - 8:00 am - 9:00 am, Bonaire 7/8.

CSUN 2009, Los Angeles: AAC-1030 - AAC in Your Pocket: Meet Proloquo2go for iPhone and iPod. Thursday, March 19 - 8:00 am - 9:00 am, Renaissance - International A.

You can read more about it online at: http://www.proloquo2go.com/

All the best to you!

Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Call for Submissions, February Edition of Assistive Technology Blog Carnival: "Perfect Pairings"

2009-01-27T06:00:00.000-08:00

February is almost upon us and what better theme for an AT Blog Carnival than "Perfect Pairings"

Send in descriptions, links and ideas about your dynamic duos, your ultimate combos, your paired AT equipment and software that do wonderful things for you or those you teach or care for.

You can read more about the upcoming edition on the AT Blog Carnival site.

Deadline to send in submissions is Friday, February 20, 2009.

The February issue will post Monday, February 23, 2009.

You can send in your post links to: lonthornburg@nolimitstolearning.com

All the best to you!

Lon

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Using AAC to Build a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich (For the First Time!)

2009-01-26T06:00:00.000-08:00

"I have a big project for us today." an SLP I have been training to use a Dynavox said, as I entered his work area Friday. We have been working with a Down's boy who has not responded to much in the way of communication strategies or anything on a computer so far. We have been hoping that a Dynavox Vmax might be the answer, but we have been trialing the software version on a computer first and trying activities to see whether it would be an option.

"I want us to use the software on the computer to have him make a sandwich. We have a volunteer boy, a friend, that will come in to receive directions. I have the bread, a butter knife, plate, peanut butter and jelly. I need you to help me make up a page with all the buttons ready for him to use to tell us what we need and how to make it. Do you think we can do that?"

I was all for it. There was motivation with the food (what middle school boy doesn't want food 24/7? There was purpose - make the sandwich - and a friend to tell how to make it.

In the past, we had shown this student the computer and the boards and customized buttons but he would click on them a little and then get bored.

"OK," I said, "let's do it!"

We set up a 6 button page and put the symbols knife, plate, bread, peanut butter, and jelly on it. We tested it and the voice was fine - everything seemed ready. Our student's friend came in to help and the SLP had them clean off the table and then prepared the student, we'll call him Juan for easier reference, so Juan could see the button of the home kitchen, lunch and then the sandwich choice.

"Here are some things you need to make a sandwich Juan. Would you like to make one today?"

"Se," said Juan (he has a small vocabulary he uses.)

While they looked at the screen, Juan was asked to say which thing we needed first. He looked at the buttons and pointed to the plate. (We had never seen him interact quite like this before.)

"Say plate Juan," said the SLP. Juan turned to try and say plate to his friend but he couldn't say it.

"Use the mouse and click on the plate - say it with the computer." said the SLP.

Juan clicked on the plate button..."Plate," it said. He smiled. We cheered.

This went on through each item. Juan's friend would get each thing and bring it to the table and we would ask Juan, "Did he bring the right thing?"

"Se," Juan would say and smile - you could see his wheels turning inside. Someone was following what he said when he gave directions with the buttons.

Once everything was ready, we had Juan use the buttons again to tell his friend what to do: Get out what? The bread. What do you spread things with? The knife. What do you spread? Spread the peanut butter, spread the jam, put the bread together - we didn't have a button for this but Juan folded his hands together to show putting it together!

As they worked through the process, now and then Juan would get excited and say, "Go Tyler, go!" Then they cut it in half.

"Now you get to enjoy your sandwich. You worked hard for that sandwich," said the SLP.

They both sat and munched. You could see a sense of pride and new awareness in Juan's demeanor as he ate. He looked and acted very grown up. This was his sandwich and he had been able to use his own system of communication to guide someone to make it.

It was one small step - just a simple sandwich - but yet it was a giant step for this young man - the door is open and he has the world ahead of him - just you wait and see!

All the best to you!

Lon

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New Study Published on Using Technology to Enhance Special Needs Writing Skills

2009-01-23T07:07:00.000-08:00

Use some of the following facts and figures to support the purchase and implementation of writing support technology with your students...

New Research on Using Technology to Enhance the Writing Skills of Students with Special Needs Published by The Journal of Special Education Technology

Don Johnston announced the publication of a new and independent research study by The Journal of Special Education Technology (JSET), a Division of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC). The study "Using Software to Enhance the Writing Skills of Students with Special Needs" examines the impact of assistive technology on the writing skills of students with disabilities. This research compared students' writing outcomes using word prediction and talking word processor tools to their handwritten work samples.
Jennifer Cullen, Dayton Ohio Public Schools, Stephen B. Richards and Catherine Lawless-Frank; University of Dayton, performed the study to measure the impact of assistive technology writing tools on 5th graders' writing skills over a 7-week period at an urban elementary school. Don Johnston's Co:Writer(R) word prediction program and Write:OutLoud(R) talking word processor were chosen as the writing accommodations to support students during their daily district-mandated writing activities. The study demonstrated that the technology helped students improve their writing outcomes in four key measures: writing rubric scores, accuracy, spelling and number of words written.The complete research study is available in the October 2008 JSET Issue, Volume 23(2), pg. 33-43.
View the online summary:
www.donjohnston.com/products/cowriter/research.html

Ben Johnston, Director at Don Johnston, said, "A high percent (65%) of students referred for learning disabilities have a writing disability. (Mayes, Calhoun, Crowell, 2000). Many of these students have physical, cognitive, or learning differences and can't reach their potential with conventional writing tools. This study demonstrates that students can thrive in the right environment provided they have the right tools. Over 20% of school districts use Co:Writer and Write:OutLoud as accommodations to support students who struggle in writing. We are pleased that more research is being done to match students to the right environment where they can excel."

Results of a Previous Study:
In 2006, JSET published another study on the "Impact of Word Prediction Software on the Written Output of Students with Physical Disabilities", Volume 21, No. 3, prepared by Pat Mirenda and Kirsten Turoldo at the University of British Columbia and Constance McAvoy, Special Education Technology-British Columbia (SET-BC) Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. This research examined the impact of Co:Writer on the written output of 24 students with physical disabilities. The study included surveys from students, teachers and adults after observing ten-minute writing samples in three modalities: handwriting, word processing, and word rocessing with Co:Writer. Two-thirds of students and over half of the adults believed that Co:Writer helped students spell better; use a wider variety of words; write faster; produce neater, easier-to-read work; and write more correct sentences. Another two-thirds believed that Co:Writer helped students write more with less fatigue and frustration and read what they had written. This research concluded that using word processing and Co:Writer together resulted in higher percentages of legible words, correctly spelled words, correct word sequences; and longer lengths of consecutive sentence sequences than by writing by hand alone.

Additional research and case studies about the benefits of assistive technology to support students with disabilities can be found at the Don Johnston website at
http://www.donjohnston.com/
and at the Journal of Special Education Technology's website http://www.tamcec.org/jset/index.htm.

RESOURCE LINKS:Download this case study at: www.donjohnston.com/pdf/cowriter/cow_wol_research_study.pdf
Watch Co:Writer demo:
www.donjohnston.com/media/flash/product_demo/cowriter/index.html
Read a summary of this and other Co:Writer research and case studies: www.donjohnston.com/products/cowriter/research.html

All the best to you,

Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Spellquizzer Software puts Spelling Practice on Steroids

2009-01-22T06:00:00.000-08:00

Have you heard of Spellquizzer?

Enter your child's spelling list and make audio recordings of the words in your list. Spellquizzer quizzes the child, playing each word back one at a time and checks the words as they are typed in. Any misspelled words are quizzed again once the first pass is completed. Students can enjoy practicing their spelling words without nightly spelling battles. 5 or 10 minutes a night with the Spellquizzer can make all the difference in Friday test scores according to the Dan Hite of Spellquizzer.com. He shared his product with me a few weeks ago through an email and I was excited to share this program with you.

Go to http://www.spellquizzer.com/ to view a video demo and try a free download trial. The cost is $29.95. If you battle the ongoing spelling list practice at home, this program might add the punch to bring higher scores.

All the best to you!

Lon

2009-01-21T06:00:00.000-08:00

Are you looking for hands-free computer access at a low cost or even a free price tag?
I had a question come in on email yesterday concerning on-screen keyboards for writing access. The question was asking if I knew of an on-screen keyboard that would work for a person with no fine motor and only movement with the head. They asked about scanning possibilities as well as eye gaze. One of the problems was the cost - this would have to be on a shoestring budget.
Here is my answer:
Eye gaze technology is pretty spendy, but the next best thing if you have controlled head movement is the Track IR. Right now, they have one for $129. The Track IR uses a track clip or a reflective dot that can be placed on the bill of a cap, bridge of glasses or even the forehead. A little camera callibrates the computer so the dot makes the cursor/mouse move. When you dwell on a key on an on-screen keyboard, it will press the key and type the letter. The company utilizes the TrackIR more for hands-free gaming than AT. They have the "Smart Nav" that is an upscale computer access solution at about $499. It includes an on-screen keyboard software in the package. The Smart Nav would be the better access application if you can afford it.
The on-screen keyboard I use all the time is the free Click-n-Type from Lake Folks. They have a companion word prediction add-on to download as well. If you want scanning, this keyboard has a setting that can set the speed of the scan. If you aren't going for the hands-free access, by using a switch interface (see Don Johnston's pro 5.0 )and a button or appropriate switch, you can select the key you want to type by activating the switch when a set of vertical and horizontal cross hairs come together over the key. The keyboard can be re-sized and floats on top of an open word processing window to type.
With an ensemble like the free Click-n-type, and a Track IR, you have a great starter system to get that hands-free computer access going at a very reasonable cost.

All the best to you,

Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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2009-01-20T06:00:00.000-08:00

I don't know about you, but the only thing better than learning new things in the company of others is the opportunity to use the skills we are learning, to build something practical at the same time. Today I will be doing a Boardmaker in-service training all day at an elementary school with the sped teacher, the SLP and all the assistants. They are bringing a list of projects for communication boards, strips, charts, etc. for us to work on.

After the basic how-to demonstration and practice, we will get down to specific projects applying the skills learned. We will be printing, laminating, using velcro and file folders to get materials produced. We will have to take some pictures of our finished projects and share them with you.

If you can arrange and coordinate it, I would encourage you to try one of these make and take trainings. They are a lot of fun and let folks get their hands on the software while producing materials they can use.

If you want to sit under the queen of make it and take it trainings, check out the nearest Linda Burkhart training near you, or check out her how-to CD's and plans online.

All the best to you!

Lon

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Assistive Technology Comes with Some Good Tears

2009-01-16T06:00:00.000-08:00

I drove down the Eastern Slope of the Blue Mountain Range, into the vast expanse of the Grand Ronde Valley, on through Ladd Canyon, past the Elkhorn Mountains and finally arrived at the Haines, North Powder cut-off. Here is where, to the right, another 25 minutes gets you to the Anthony Lakes Ski Lodge, and to the left, a small rural school complex in a mountain town - my destination.

I was there to help the special education teacher at the high school level and a regional speech pathologist build blogs to convert text to Mp3 and then load the e-text on jump Mp3 players that had been purchased for them through their ESD for servicing print disability and given out in a training I had done in early December. These teachers were chomping at the bit to get started.

I was surprised and happy to have the superintendent join us for a discussion on what tools and options were available for them. We discussed Bookshare.org, who qualifies and who doesn't , the ins and outs of public domain titles versus copyright material, scanning text and converting, etc.

By the time we got to the computers to get the blogs up and going, the team was looking to get a district Bookshare account for their qualified students and begin to trial a Natural Reader pay version with Mp3 conversion and some wonderful voices.

We set up Gmail accounts and then the Blogger accounts. We went to Gutenberg.org to find public domain titles to publish and then copied and pasted them into Word documents for clean-up. We then pasted each of 4 chapters into blog posts. Once we had the posts published, we added the Odiogo widget which turns a post into an audio broadcast and allows you to download the audio as an Mp3 files.

The excitement built as we plugged in the USB jump drive RCA Mp3 players and dragged the Mp3 files of their chapters onto the device. As the sped teacher turned it on and listened, her face lit up..."It's on there!" she exclaimed as if she couldn't believe it.

"You did it!" I said.

Tears began to well up in her eyes as she heard the recording of Huck Finn Chapter 1.

"I can't believe we actually got it...now to be able to do it the next time!" she said.

I tried to re-assure her, "Oh, you won't have any problem. Besides, you have the tutorials to walk you through and you can always get in touch with me."

I left with another scheduled training coming up on bookshare and downloading the files and using the free player software.

As I left, I thought about the small welling of tears that were held back at that magic moment when all the focus, effort and concentration paid off. Wow. I need to remember how important and special this is for folks. I use this technology everyday and after awhile I can take it for granted. Here was a small town school, grateful for the tools and training, appreciating what they were entrusted to share with their staff and students.

Days like these make me thrilled I get to do what I do.

All the best to you,

Lon

Ablenet "Impulse" Offers New EMG Access Switch

2009-01-15T06:00:00.000-08:00

Ablenet's new Impulse Switch offers a wireless EMG switch that is the closest thing to imitating a thought frequency switch through an EEG. I have been exploring the EEG switch idea for over a year and every time I see something new like this I think, "Someone's done it!" Well, not yet, but this comes mighty close. Instead, it senses small volitional muscle twitches and movement anywhere you need to place the device. It uses sensors that have a sticky side which attaches to the skin. They are disposable ( a pack of 120 is $90) and I don't know the wear on them as to how long they will last.

The switch comes with software that converts the signal to a switch hit/mouse click. This can integrate with software and tools you already own to communicate, write, do research online, shop, etc. The complete set up is $2100.

The Impulse switch:

The Impulse is equipped with Bluetooth for wireless access and can work up to 30 feet. The switch comes with a receiver for the computer.

Ablenet lists these Product Features:

Allows user to completely control their computer using any muscle with voluntary control.
Wireless connectivity allows your caregivers to attend to your needs without being hampered by wires or disturbing switch alignment.
Wireless connectivity allows you to remain connected to the computer even while being transported short distances (such as to the bathroom).>
Bluetooth Class II connectivity up to 10 M (30 feet)!
No wires means the Impulse looks better cosmetically than many other similar switches available today.
Wireless Active Electrode design gives Impulse ultra clean EMG signals and greatly reduces interference.
Incredibly fast response time (<30)>Integrated with major Speech Generation System Providers.

Ablenet is working on getting some demo video up soon so check back with them to see it in action.
Impulse is available for ordering on-line here.
Shipping January, 2009

All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Questions About Using Dragon Naturally Speaking in the Special Education Setting

2009-01-14T06:00:00.000-08:00

One of our readers sent me a question regarding Dragon Naturally Speaking. I thought it would be helpful to throw it out to everyone for comments and suggestions and asked for permission to post it. I have presented the question below and my answer after. I have had a lot of difficulty getting it to work with students and our discussion below explains why. If anyone has something to share on this or a fix you have found, please share a comment...

Question:
"Thank you for sharing all of your valuable information on your blog. I always learn something new and helpful when I visit your blog! I am trying Dragon Naturally Speaking with a young lady who has some significant physical disabilities and is struggling with using the mouse to access the computer. She speaks very softly- we have been working with her to "turn up her volume" which she is getting much better at. The Dragon also is having a difficult time recognizing her words correctly. For example she will say "The cat is black" and it will recognize "At it's plant be" or "The top is blue" is recognized as "Time is blue" and when she says "period" it recognizes it as "daily". We are using the headphone that came with the Dragon but after doing some research I saw that perhaps changing the headphone may make a difference?
We also are using Dragon 9.5 and maybe should upgrade to Dragon 10? I also read that the Dragon has difficulty recognizing speech of folks who have an accent- she doesn't have an accent per se, but maybe her word pronunciation is affecting the outcome?
Again, this is my first time using Dragon with a student and could use any advice/suggestions that you could think of. I have visited several sites that discuss using the Dragon, but still am feeling like I'm missing something or wonder if there might be another program that would work more efficiently for her?"

My answer:

"Dragon is a great program, but the limitations you are facing are common to my own experiences with it. The students I have worked with generally have poor pronunciation and volume when reading aloud. Shyness and lack of confidence can also be a factor. Mix in the issues of disabilities and, as you can see, it can be tricky to get this "miracle software" to work.
Here are some ideas:
1. Get a better quality microphone (as you suggested)
2. Go in and highlight the incorrect words and change them so that the computer learns that when the student says a word and consistently gets a different one, it will make the change automatically. This is done by selecting a misspelled/mis-interpreted word and correcting the word you want it to be from a word list, or typing it in yourself. If this can overcome the errors in interpretation, then you might be able to get it to work OK.
3. Sometimes a sound shield around the student stops ambient room noise from disrupting the ability for the software to hear the reader.

Our version in my AT closet is an older version and so I have not experienced the new versions - you are working with a newer one than we have. I use it a lot to write papers, etc. and have trouble too sometimes - I don't know of anything better. I know that the Mac has built in speech to text - it might work better. Because of the very issues you have brought up, I tend to steer teachers away from using Dragon unless the student has a good speaking voice - logistically, it just breeds frustration unless someone is OK with spending lots of time."

What have your experiences been using dragon?

All the best to you,
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Share Your Input on Future of Education with Arne Duncan, New Secretary of Education, Jan 21

2009-01-13T06:00:00.000-08:00

Carol Broos is one of 12 teachers asked to be on a round table committee with Arne Duncan the new Secretary of Education under the new Obama administration, meeting on Jan 21. She is asking for input on her Wiki relating to what you feel is most important to share with the new administration about education, NCLB, etc. If you would like to share or just read what folks are writing go to:

http://education20.pbwiki.com/FrontPage
You can add a comment or add to the wiki text under edit. The topics are in the column on the right.

You can see Carol’s home page under classroom 2.0:
http://www.classroom20.com/profile/beatechie

and the forum for teachers to share on the future of education is:
http://www.futureofeducation.com/

All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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Wisconsin Assistive Technology Initiative (WATI): New Look, Still Great Resource

2009-01-12T06:00:00.000-08:00

Wisconsin Assistive Technology Initiative or WATI, has been a great resource. I have used their consideration guide as a handout to sped case managers so they have something to look at as they think about low, mid and high tech AT. I can't be at every IEP meeting and oftentimes the team isn't sure yet whether or not they need me. The guide helps kick-start the discussion and give ideas in my absence.

There are some nice documents and guides in the free resources area. The WATI Assessment materials (Student Information Guide, Consideration Guide, Environmental Observation Guide, AT Planning Guide, and AT Checklist) are used throughout the United States. The consideration guide and the AT checklist have been especially helpful. They are both included in the WATI Assessment materials. Download the whole set to get these components. WATI has updated the site and it looks terrific and their links are set up nicely.

When I was a Closing the Gap in Minneapolis last October, I ran into the director of WATI in the exhibit hall and we talked about the site. I had heard it is their last year of grant funding and I wanted to know if the online materials would still be available if their funding ran out. The director shared that she had been working hard to get the new site up and hopes to continue the archive of materials. We discussed having her on No Limits 2 Learning Live - Blog Talk Radio, and I am going to set up a time to have WATI share with us.

In the meantime, take some time to head over to WATI and checkout their resources. If you like what you see, send a friendly email to WATI and let them know how important their materials and services are outside Wisconsin. We can all use a little WATI!

All the best to you!

Lon

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Assistive Technology Implementation: Keep it Simple!

2009-01-09T06:00:00.000-08:00

Do you ever get dragged down in the mire of trying to think out each step of how to successfully implement assistive technology? Do you get into the "detail-itis" until it grows into a formidable project that you just aren't implementing well at all? Join the club!

I had a huge "Ah-ha" moment today and I want to tell you about it...
An SLP, a sped teacher and myself have been working on finding the right augmentative communication device for a middle school student. Last spring we trialed one make and model and are in the process of getting a trial kicked into gear on another. We have the software for the dynamic display device on a computer for the student to practice on until we get the real one for a 2 week loan. The problem has been that between all three of us as specialists, we have been trying to learn the software, get digital pictures on it of teachers, places around the school, etc. and find meaningful activities to practice with and see how the student responds. He is of regular cognitive ability, just has a real pronunciation and a language processing problem.
With tight schedules to work with, winter storms and closed schools before the holidays and the the holiday break, we had yet to get the student on the computer to explore the software.
Today the SLP and I sat at the computer and debated on how many folders were on the screen, how complicated it could be and confusing for him, etc. Finally, I said, "I would just like to simplify this whole process and let the student explore and look around the software awhile with me today. We are spinning our gears and making this whole thing too complicated. He can't drag this desktop computer around anywhere, so it can't be a real portable communication device for socialization in the lunchroom, etc. Let's wait until we get the real one to put some pictures and topics on. We have just got to bite the bullet and jump in - sink or swim!"
Even though the SLP agreed, she was still nervous that the student would just click around randomly on everything and not really accomplish anything. I re-assured her I would guide him
in his exploration and see what he could do. I wasn't upset with anyone and I wasn't frustrated, I was just feeling like I had been procrastinating and using "getting it right" as an excuse to not dive in where I was in unfamiliar territory. My message to you is - when you get that feeling, it is time to dive in!
So...enter the student.
We have worked together for several years and I have supported various SLP's in Elementary and now middle school that have worked with him. He is so ready for and wants a device. He has been very patient but is very motivated to communicate right now. He and I get along great and he had decided last summer that he wanted to try this new device out this year. I just felt bad that it had taken us until now to start. He sat down and I showed him the general main screen board and where it linked, how to write a sentence with the icon buttons and then click to hear it. He got excited.
We went to panels that were scenes: a classroom, a fast food restaurant, etc.
It was almost lunchtime and he began to build a sentence. "I want a hamburger." He looked at me and smiled. "I want a cheeseburger, chicken strips, pizza, pickles..."
"You must be VERY hungry!" I said. He laughed.
He checked out sizes of drinks and asked for a small drink icon and fries after it in the sentence strip, meaning a small fry. He wanted me to help him get small and large size buttons on the food menu page so he didn't have to use the cup size buttons. We set up the sizes in the foods and he was able to order sizes he wanted and build the requests.
By the time he was ready to go to lunch, he had made sense out of several of the boards, found things he wanted, was frustrated because some of the buttons didn't have the speech activated, and had me set the behaviors on them to speak the label. He watched me and by the last few, he was even doing the programming! (That says something about the software too - it was Series 5 semester ware for the V and Vmax from Dynavox.)
Do you think I felt like I shouldn't have jumped in today? No way! It was a huge success. By letting go of the fear of the unfamiliar and exploring with the student, I learned about him, the software and his potential. I found out that he can do much more than we give him credit for. He learned about me and how I can partner with him to get the most out of the device and I learned something about me too today - keep it simple and dive in. Kids are more flexible than we think and they survive more of our idiosynchrasies than we would ever wish to admit.

All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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High Tech Helps Autistic Kids Communicate on NBC Video

2009-01-08T06:00:00.000-08:00

I was excited to see a human interest story on the Los Angeles NBC affiliate news this past weekend. The Hope Technology School in Palo Alto, CA was featured. The video showed students combining their use of a Lightwriter for text to speech communication and the new HP TouchSmart touchscreen PC.
After watching, I explored links to both the school and the technology and found the video to share with you here. I want to look into the program being used on the TouchSmart. If anyone knows about it, please share a comment on it with us.
Enjoy the video!

All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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The Fusion Keyboard Offers Full PAckage for Writing, Communication and Text to Speech

2009-01-07T06:00:00.000-08:00

I have discovered a keyboard that I have been playing with and recommending for trials lately. It is called The Fusion keyboard. It is made by Advanced Keyboard Technologies (The Writer Learning Systems). When I first heard about the keyboard at a state-wide A.T. meeting, I looked them up online. They had a place to request a demo to be sent and so I requested one with text to speech. I received one promptly and the company was very easy to work with. Because of this, I have been recommending this demo loan to teachers who want to try one for students in their classes who need text to speech support. One thing I will mention is that the standard demo shipped is the Fusion without text to speech. You will need to contact them and request a text to speech version keyboard.
When I received the keyboard it came with a manual, a charger/power adaptor, a case, headphones and a wireless USB receiver for a computer to send documents from the Fusion to a workstation. In the manual it said that to send a document, you open a blank word processing document and then with the receiver plugged in, press send on the Fusion and it will load onto the page. I used the Fusion to write this review and used the send feature to get it on my computer. It typed out on my Word document as I watched. Very cool.
The Fusion has some great features that were helpful for me from an assistive technology standpoint. First off, since my eyes get tired easily, I used the backlight on the screen. I accompanied this with a large font size for easy reading. I used the text to speech, set to read each sentence after the period so I could proofread by hearing it read back to me. In addition, each word was highlighted as it read so I could follow along as it read - a great feature for students that need the extra support. You can use the option key and speak key to speed up or slow down the rate of speech.
I turned on the word prediction and used it too. I found that you can set the word prediction choices to be read back to you. By selecting the numeral for each one, you can hear it, and then selecting it again enters it in the sentence.
There are some nice features for working with students on keyboarding or writing. If you are wanting to have students write using vocabulary words, you can set up a split screen and have a word list on the right for students to use in a set of sentences. There is a set of built-in writing prompts to choose from for building writing assignments, or you can write your own and save them as internal documents. You can also set up internal folders under topics and save assignments.

There is a built in score feature that allows the student to press the "score" key after doing a writing assignment and it will give feedback on time spent, any errors and advice on making the piece more interesting (the ifactor). There are 8 or 9 "good writing checklist templates" that can be used to check writing samples. You can also set up your own custom writing checklists as well.

Built-in Keyboarding Software
The Fusion has a built-in keyboarding tutorial program with 120 lessons and practice drills. These drills build skills and reinforce homerow. The drill assessments are timed for WPM and accuracy. Reports can be sent to a computer as well as sending documents for printing.
The Fusion has a dictionary, spell checker, thesaurus and a translate key. You can highlight text, cut copy, paste and delete text easily. A compact flash memory card can be plugged into the back of the Fusion to save and transfer files with a card reader.
The settings include a sticky keys on/off, an on/off on writing helpers to disable for assessments, and full menu settings for speech, word prediction, writer tools, send and setup.
The basic Fusion word prediction package is $249. The text to speech packaged Fusion is $369.

The Fusion fills an AT need:

I have been looking for a compact, portable and lightweight way to give text to speech communication to non-verbal students and this has been the best setup I have found so far. I like that the speaker is built in to the Fusion so there are no clunky external speakers sticking out.
I would recommend the Fusion trial to you if you are looking for text to speech, writing or communication support tools for AT as part of an IEP. The fact that you can borrow one for 30 days and use it first, gives you the option of borrowing theirs instead of purchasing one of your own for trials within your school or district. Although, in talking with one of our OT's yesterday, we already think we will be needing one to trial often enough for short show and tells before a longer 30 day trial, that we should probably have one anyway.
I can't say enough about the positive experience I have had with the company. They have package prices for lab sets to be used in classroom instruction to check into as well. I believe your time exploring their Fusion Keyboard will be time well spent.
All the best to you!
Lon

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Remember the Credo for Support

2009-01-05T09:18:00.000-08:00

Welcome to 2009!
A mother of one of our students visited my office before Christmas after checking out my blog and site. I had visited her office a year ago or so and on the wall was a poster, "Credo for Support" and I had appreciated what it said. When she came in to see me, she said she had noticed that I had videos on my blog and brought me a link to the You tube video version of this credo and thought I might like to share it on the blog.
Whether you have seen this before or not, it makes good sense to listen to it now and then to remind all of us in education, advocacy and therapy, how we should relate to those with special needs. I hope it challenges you as you step into a new year of service.

I wish you the best as we move out together into new projects and and new goals.

Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

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2008-12-30T08:23:00.000-08:00

Want to Super-charge your writing program in the classroom? How about adding regular blogging as a journaling activity with your students? If writing goals are a part of your 2009 strategy then you will want to explore the resources on the blog post below...
Paul Hamilton's Blog, Free Resources From the Net for Special Education, posted a great blog post sharing online tutorials and lessons for teachers who want to integrate a blog program for their students in the classroom: Blogging Lessons (Online Resources), posted Dec. 27, 2008. Along with 2 resources to get you started, Paul has posted video of students from a classroom he visited recently as they share about blogging.
In our region, our instructional resources team instructs our tech cadre of teachers on how to integrate blogging in the classroom. I haven't done as much of it as a special education initiative for sped students, but we have been using the blog platform as a medium to modify curriculum for text to speech and print disabilities. You can find my tutorials under the training link at my companion site, No Limits 2 Learning.

I hope you enjoy the last few days of 2008. Here's wishing you the best for 2009!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

UDL Tools Need to Play Role in NCLB Reform

2008-12-29T06:00:00.000-08:00

What would the inclusion of Universal design for Learning tools in testing and all-around learning school-wide do to our AYP and School Report Cards? In a U.S. News and World Report Article, entitled: Education Reformers Tackle NCLB Flaws, the head chancellors of education for New York City, Washington D.C., Chicago (Arne Duncan - nominated by Obama to be the new Secretary of Education) and others, shared their input last July, on what reforms should take place in NCLB. This was in preparation for a revision of the NCLB document.
In a nutshell, this is what I saw as the recommendations before the committee:
1. A higher set of standards based on global content and comparisons - getting us to move from state standards to an national set of standards that reflect an even higher global based set of educational objectives - the one world school approach is on its way.
2. Merit pay for student scores - bonuses for leaps in achievement and higher scores.Nothing was said about remediation, comparing students to their own past personal best and weighing personal achievement vs. a standardized average score. If we teach students how to accommodate their learning styles and give them the tools to read, write and do math, higher test scores will follow as a natural by-product. One of the problems is that UDL tools on a computer aren't allowed to interface with the standardized test online programs for security reasons without penalty of being considered a modified test.
As to introducing a global set of standards, beyond language differences, words and numbers are used the same way world-wide whether we have a national set of standards or global ones. Let's address how we assess academic success and look at the content as it applies to real life problem solving and skills - not content to pass a test.Most of the comments from educators after the blog post from US News and World report, showed concerns about merit pay based on scores. The concensus was that teachers will push to teach to the test only - forget about anything else. Concern was that stress would fill the schools as teachers try and squeeze out student performance in higher scores.
I wrote this comment at the bottom of the blog:
"I am scared to see us go from comparing ourselves to each other state-wide with our "school report cards" based on standardized test score for meeting AYP, to a movement of comparing our country to other countries. Since all trends economic and political seem to point to a globalistic society with one "ruling committee", now we see the trend moving into our actual education hearings in D.C. before an overhaul of NCLB- surptise, surprise - no surprise.My guess is that the powers at the top will just dilute our education system's potency by getting us to teach to more standardized testing rigor and drop off two things:1. Teaching real content, skills and lifelong learning tools.2. Basing student achievement on individual past year scores vs. comparing with an ever higher bar standard.There are many universal design for learning tools that can support learning and accommodate HUGE print disability issues that many students have that are pulling down achievement scores, but they have to be implemented. We need to be allowed to give remediation and real life learning strategies for students - not global comparisons and teaching to tests. We also need to allow students with print diabilities the opportunity to use their tools in the testing process without penalty. If that is what they will use for real life in their world, let them use them now too. We are not getting it right yet by comparing ourselves to each other at home let alone the rest if the world."
I know I am just addressing the tip of the iceberg here, but there needs to be some changes to what we are doing and how we are doing it to see real student success - not just a passing score.

All the best to you...
Lon

Parent Advocacy Vital Catalyst in Federal Policy

2008-12-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

If you are an active advocate or are in the wings thinking about what you need to do towards advocacy but maybe are scared to be too forceful, etc., let me encourage you...an advocate impacts the community in a larger arena even though their primary purpose is their child.
I shared this advocacy topic on the FCTD discussion thread yesterday and thought it was a good one to post here as well The catalyst was a well written piece on the Special Needs 08 blog yesterday (link below) and a wonderful guest commentary from Patriciae Bauer's Disability News that really shares the impact parent advocacy has had on Federal Disability Services and Special Education law. Please check these links out today - they are terrific.

I shared on the thread:
"When you advocate for services and coordinate and draw others to collaborate together on awareness of those who have been underserved, you are creating a ripple effect that impacts many. On the blog, Special Education Truth, the author explained in a post titled "History Says: Advocacy Starts with You", that "Rud Turnbull, a special education expert at the Beach Center on Disability at the University of Kansas, says his most effective work has been not as a professor, but as a parent." You can read the guest commentary by Rud here: http://www.patriciaebauer.com/2008/12/20/turnbull-guest-commentary/
One of his points is:
"First, the future of any child with a disability born in this decade is promising largely because of the private action –- the community organizing — that parents of children with disabilities began more than 50 years ago."
Rud goes on to share the impact that family advocates have had in shaping disability services and policies. On a similar note, in my own practice, it has been shared that clarification of law and instances of grey areas in interpreting special education law, will be clarified through practice and litigation - meaning, that when a lawsuit challenges, it causes clarification and brings us closer to accurate definitions. That is a sad commentary on how things sometimes get done, but that process again is triggered by a parent advocate or advocacy group oftentimes.
I would encourage you to read both of these posts in the links above. There is a lot of wonderful information in them and I am excited to find these new and informative resources.
Also, stop by the FCTD Discussion on advocacy I am co-moderating through the end of December. We would love to have you share your thoughts - or just stop by to read what folks are saying.
All the best to you,
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

Obama Shares on Reform in Education and New Secretary

2008-12-22T06:00:00.000-08:00

Obama says: "Well, I think it’s time we raised expectations for our kids all across this country and built schools that meet – and exceed – those expectations." This is taken from President-elect Obama's press release on the nomination of a new Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan. He shares his reasons for his nominating Mr. Duncan and gives us some inkling of his views on education reform.
One of the things I appreciated in his release was this:

"For years, we have talked our education problems to death in Washington, but failed to act, stuck in the same tired debates that have stymied our progress and left schools and parents to fend for themselves: Democrat versus Republican; vouchers versus the status quo; more money versus more reform – all along failing to acknowledge that both sides have good ideas and good intentions.We cannot continue on like this. It is morally unacceptable for our children – and economically untenable for America. We need a new vision for a 21st century education system – one where we aren’t just supporting existing schools, but spurring innovation; where we’re not just investing more money, but demanding more reform; where parents take responsibility for their children’s success; where we’re recruiting, retaining, and rewarding an army of new teachers; where we hold our schools, teachers and government accountable for results; and where we expect all our children not only to graduate high school, but to graduate college and get a good paying job."

You can read the entire release and draw some of your own conclusions about where education is headed over the next 4 years. I didn't see anything about special education there, but you can go to Jim Gerl's Special Ed Law Blog and read what he says about it. I will be doing some research and seeing what I can come up with for you. Ever since Don Johnston told us in his interview about the re-authorization of NCLB and the opinions he had about trends coming, I have been trying to find out more.

All the best to you,
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

This and That: Snow Day, Political Special Ed Blog Discovered and More Toys for Special Needs.

2008-12-19T07:36:00.000-08:00

The snow has been falling - you can see how much snow we have in our field. We have been Cross-country skiing up our mountain the past week or two. All our schools in our region are shut down today. A big storm came through yesterday - which means I am home today. My son was supposed to have a pajama party morning at school with his class, with the Polar Express movie, so guess what I will be doing this morning? Eating pancakes, drinking cocoa and watching Polar Express with 2 feet of snow piled outside. Yup. Polar Express Pajama Party time! I taught elementary school too many years to not know a good thing when I see one.
So if you are in an office or school somewhere today, I hope you will enjoy your day while I spend mine watching Polar Express and sitting by the fire sipping coffee and writing some posts for the up coming vacation. I will be sharing some articles and blogs of interest and pre-posting them so they are up over the next 2 weeks. I will throw in a few of my own updates in between as well.
I hope the shopping ideas and switch adapted toys were helpful. I sure wish you all a Merry Christmas - but I will save the real Christmas posts until Christmas Eve and Christmas day.
I wanted to give you a link to an article that I have found very informative:
"Toys for Kids with Special Needs" is from a blog I just discovered that you need to check out.
I have recently added it to my sidebar after the author, Mark Miller, had left a comment on a post of mine concerning the adapted toys. I visited his site and was impressed. I thought I would add his post on adapted toys today. Check out his blog, Special Needs Truth '08, where Mark comments on the political scene and special education. He has been following the new Obama administration in regards to education and I will be referring to some of his research and writing in some posts coming up.
Have a great day - All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

Resources for Adapting Toys and Using Switches

2008-12-17T19:13:00.000-08:00

Toys at Christmas are a big part of what makes Christmas what it is. If there isn't something to play with, even for adults, then something is missing. Imagine the children with disabilities who would love to have a switch hooked up to a toy so they could make it go themsleves. I have tried to give folks some information on this so they could go out and get what they need to do just that.

Electric Toys and Powerlink Units:
I shared a blog post, linked here, on some toys and devices that work with a Powerlink control unit. This unit, available from Ablenet, allows you to plug in appliances, radios and electronic toys to control the power to it via a switch. It can run fans, juicers, popcorn poppers, Lite Brites, etc. You use the switches you can get from Ablenet, Enabling Devices, etc.
I had recommended a slot car race track to use with a Powerlink, and later found it was battery operated. I edited the post to show a new electric race track set that would work with a Powerlink and let folks know I had not seen the tiny words on the box saying "runs with batteries" until I had zoomed in on it on a second visit.
This brought up a discussion with a fellow blogger who had gotten excited about using the race set. We discussed how you can use a battery interruptor and rig your own switch access to the battery operated set as well. I thought I could compare the two methods and share a little more on the battery type of switch access.

Battery operated toys and switch access:
If you have a toy that has a simple on/off switch to run it, you can put a battery interrupter inside between the positive end of the battery and the metal end plate in the compartment that holds the battery. The interrupter is a small copper disc that has a wire welded on each side for positive and negative. When you plug a switch into a jack on the end of the interruptor cord, and hold the switch down, the curcuit is closed and the battery juice goes on in. When you let up on the switch, the circuit is now open and the power stops. If you turn the toy on before you use the switch, it is ready to be operated by the switch - does that make sense? If the toy isn't on first, then obviously it won't "go" whether you have the switch pressed down or not.
The trick to adapting toys like this is that if you don't have a simple on/off switch on the toy - let's say it has multiple actions and there is a control unit up inside, sometimes using the battery interrupter won't get it to do the thing you want.

I bought a Curious George train engine once that tooted and ran in a circle, but you had a middle switch setting for off and a sound switch setting and a run the train setting. There was a brain up inside the toy and I would have had to tear it apart to get to it to bypass the other switch and get it to do what I wanted. To do this would have called for hard wiring. I have included a site with directions on how to do surgery on an Elmo to get to the brain up inside and adapt it that illustrates this hard wiring.
So when it comes to that race car set I told you about, you would definitely have to look at it up close first and see how it works before you would know how to adapt it. That's one thing I like about Enabling Devices. They do all the work for you so the toys are ready to play with. Whether you use a Powerlink Unit, a battery interrupter, do it yourself or buy a pre-made model, switch activated toys are great for kids with disabilities.

Let's get to playing!

Links to tutorials and supplies you might find helpful:

1. Link to purchase battery interrupters and other supplies.
2. How to install a battery interrupter.
3. Converting a toy via hardwiring - WARNING: Shows graphic pictures of Elmo in surgery!
4. Article on a non profit - RePlay for Kids which adapts recycled toys to give away - great idea.
5. Tutorials on Switch Adapted Toys - including how to make your own switch.
6. Adapted play and switch toys, shares on the importance of adapted play.

All the best to you!

Lon

Desicritics.org: Children With Learning Problems - It's the Schools, not the Kids, Stupid!

2008-12-15T21:37:00.000-08:00

Desicritics.org: Children With Learning Problems - It's the Schools, not the Kids, Stupid!: "No one really knows how many children in India have learning disabilities (LD), but it looks like a staggering 20 to 50 million might be affected. And still, there are very few schools that have any mechanisms in place to identify children with LD, or offer remedial therapy. The real tragedy is that LD children are not 'stupid' - some of the brightest minds of our time, from Einstein to Edison to Pasteur, have had LD."

2008-12-15T08:44:00.000-08:00

Ho, Ho, Ho...you have ten days left until Christmas to get that last minute shopping done. You also have just a few days left to shop online and guarantee that you get what you ordered in time.
If you are stumped with what to buy and you are a parent, relative or friend of someone with a disability, then you might need some suggestions. We haven't seen or read a "Top Ten Special Needs Gift Ideas" list on any popular mainstream publications so I thought I would put out a call for suggestions from other assistive technology bloggers. We had a great response!

There are all kinds of cool gadgets and gifts in various price ranges. What is nice too is that the authors have given us their opinions and reviews on many of these items.

Read the Holiday Edition of the AT Blog Carnival, "My Favorite Things".

Enjoy...and Merry Christmas!

Lon

Voicethread Subscription Makes Great Holiday Gift for Families, Teachers and Parent Advocates

2008-12-13T06:00:00.000-08:00

Voicethread is a subscription that can support networking and connectivity for advocacy or for fun inter-family communication and sharing...Imagine being given a year subscription to a service that allows unlimited Voice (microphone) and text commenting, Images, docs and videos, Doodling, Embedding, Moderation, Identities, Sharing up online AND the ability to have unlimited voice threads (or recorded comments) about the above media posted by friends, family or colleagues online. I think it is wonderful. The free version gives you 3 free voicethreads, where the $59.95 a year pro version gives you unlimited.
Here's a little story to illustrate how it works:
We were at a friends house for dinner yesterday and our hostess told at dinner how she had been working with an elementary teacher that day, helping get student-drawn pictures for Christmas with comments done, scanned and in a Powerpoint. They found that the the writing of the words each student would do with their picture would take up too much room on a PowerPoint slide, so they decided to record the students voices reading the text on the slides.Then they had a thought...if they dumped the pictures into a Powerpoint as a slide show from My Pictures, and then uploaded it online to Voicethread, it would be there for each student to comment on and tell about their individual pictures and then be there to share later as well.
Once you post a family video, a photo album, etc. and send the link to family and friends, they can go online and as they play the video or slideshow, they can record comments, actually write and doodle on the image, and use it to moderate discussions or do an analyisis of a topic.
I can see all kinds of potential in this for parents who are sharing videos of children with family members, maybe wanting an assessment from a specialist who is too far away to come visit personally, share school projects and assignments,etc.
You can watch different samples of what they do with Voicethread on the site. If you are looking for a unique and fun gift for someone who is really into online networking and communications, this could be a really great gift. Here is a breakdown on the difference between the free and paid versions. PricingBrowse what it can do HERE.There is an educational version designed for the classroom as well.
All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!

Holiday Assistive Technology Gift Idea: Switch Access Electronic Toys

2008-12-11T06:00:00.000-08:00

Electric toys like a Light Brite, slot car race track or a train set, can be fun at Christmas, but how fun would it be if children with orthopedic diabilities could use a switch to run them? Don't skip these toys because a child can't access them...here's how!

Enter the Powerlink 3. These are what we have in my equipment center for trials. I am going to explain how to use electrical toys using a switch, without having to adapt or modify the toy or use any wires. The Powerlink 3 has two plug receptacles that allow you to plug in electrical devices and operate them with a switch. The switch (or switches when using 2 toys) is plugged into the Powerlink 3 and then the toy is plugged in. By pressing the switch, the child allows power to pass to the toy.

The Powerlink has 4 modes: (Described off the Ablenet website)

Direct: Keeps appliances ON as long as the switch is activated.

Timed Seconds: Runs appliance from 1 to 60 seconds with each switch activation.

Timed Minutes: Runs appliance from 1 to 60 minutes with each switch activation
Latch: First switch activation turns appliance ON; second activation turns it OFF.

We have been using one of these to teach cause and effect in order to develop switch access communication down the road. Activities have included a Lite Brite and a juicer to make fresh apple juice. The Powerlink can be a way to link electric devices that help teach strategies that will be used in life skills, but besides that they are just plain fun when hooked up for kids that normally can't do things. It is a thrill for them. If you want a memorable Christmas, hook up one of these and a special toy and watch what kids do - if it is the first time they have had control over a toy like this, the excitement is worth it all.
Ablenet, has a holiday gift ideas page. They are announcing 20% off on selected items in the holiday buyers guide area. The Powerlink 3 is listed there at $200. Check ebay too.

Some toys that will operate with a switch and a Powelink:

I found them at Amazon.com -
Slot car race set - I found one on Amazon for $34.99
Portable Radio - I found that a small portable radio makes a great music source. If it has a cassette and you have some old tapes, it works best. A DVD or CD doesn't work with the power interrupting because you have to start it again and have to press the play button to go again.
North Pole Christmas Express Train set - $44.99
Lite Brite - a whole bunch of them...
Stir Crazy Popcorn Popper - Kids love to watch the wire kernel pusher go and turn around. There switch can control it.

There are a few to get you started. You can get a switch from Ablenet as well.

All the best to you!
Lon

Mobile Library Tools Using Assistive Technology

2008-12-09T06:00:00.000-08:00

Mobile Library Tools using assistive technology, mobile phones and other strategies are the topic of a post from 2 Cool Tools. Although the post is geared towards the librarian, there are some great ideas and free services.
Read about the use of an iPhone, Cell phone tours, Jott, and other great services. You can know for some of these, there is a higher cost, but the strategies are sound.

Assistive Technology Blog Carnival submission date closing soon.
The AT Blog Carnival is taking submissions on your favorite post that has to do with Christmas, great gift ideas, etc. The deadline is this coming Friday night the 12th. You can send them to me at: lonthornburg@nolimits2learning.com. One of the main topics for this edition will be some great posts by bloggers sharing what they want for Christmas and their lists of hot AT items for that special needs someone on your list.
All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!