Assistive Technology and SimpleK12: An expanded look

An excellent blog post from the SimpleK12 blog, Assistive Technology:15 Ideas for the Classroom from Lisa (And Yes, they really do wear blue bunny slippers at conferences )

From the

SimpleK12

website

We'll post on each of the 15 Ideas to give you some ideas, resources and options you can use to implement the Technology at either no cost (free) or low cost. For each of the AT Ideas mentioned in the article, there are commercial and sometimes very expensive solutions. An Alternative Augmentative Communication (AAC) device can run many thousands of dollars and may be the best solution. But as a stopgap or fill-in there there are other ways to reach the same goal – student involvement and learning.

There are lots of programs available which for one reason or another, the developer has chosen to make available at no cost and even provides the program code to allow others to extend the features and improve the program.

Sometimes the simplest solution is the best (Occam's Razor)

So stand by to look at some new programs with exciting features AND looking at features in old programs you might have missed.

Listening and Notetaking

Nowhere in anyone's curriculum are study skills, either at the secondary or post-secondary level. One of the most important skills for learning is note-taking.

Note-taking is usually learned OJT (on the job) which means there's a big learning curve. I can't really tell you when I learned to be efficient at taking notes, but by my Sophomore year I was reasonably proficient.

Which brings up the old joke:

How do you tell the Senior from the Freshman in the classroom?

When the Professor enters and say “Good Morning”

The Senior says “Good Morning”

The Freshman writes down in his notebook, “Good Morning”

A quick online course that you or your students can review for note-taking tips can be found on the PepNet website. It's under revision, but is still informative.

The course can be found here: http://www.pepnet.org/projects/notetaker/index.php

Inspiration Maps

Inspiration Maps for the iPad!

Now one of the most used mindmapping programs is available for the iPad. Two versions available, Inspiration Maps Lite (free) and Inspiration Maps ($14.95). 

Inspiration Maps Lite, a preview edition, is available free of charge in the App Store. The Lite version differs from the standard version as follows:

• Limited to 5 documents total
• Cannot create a new document (but can modify an existing one)
• Cannot copy a document
• Cannot create folders
• Cannot access the template gallery
• Transfer to Dropbox and iTunes is disabled
  

A move forward for Inspiration. Hopefully, there'll be an Android version available in the near future.

Obesity, Autism and Pregnancy

Since the Lancet article linking Vaccine and Autism has been shown to be fraudulent, researchers have been looking for other probable causes. In an epidemiological study published in the May issue of Pediatrics, Obesity during pregancy was linked to ASD.

From Science News:

“Reporting in the May Pediatrics, researchers also found that women who were obese or had some form of diabetes during pregnancy were more likely to have kids with developmental delays other than autism. And tests show that a woman’s obesity, diabetes or high blood pressure during pregnancy might even have an effect on her otherwise healthy offspring, placing them at risk of slightly impaired learning....The authors note, however, that the findings show associations — not causes — of autism or developmental delays. “We can’t establish causation from this study,” says coauthor Irva Hertz-Picciotto, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Davis. “But it is interesting that obesity and diabetes are increasing as autism incidence is.”

In addition, the researchers also showed links between obesity, diabetes and hypertension during pregancy for impaired learning.

“In this study, we observed that diabetes, hypertension, and obesity were more common among mothers of children with ASD and DD compared with controls.

Furthermore, diabetes, in particular, was associated with statistically significantly greater deficits in expressive language among children with ASD, although the magnitude of the deficits was relatively small.”

Full article can be found here.
Maternal Metabolic Conditions and Risk for Autism and Other Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Now - How to Listen

In a previous post, one of the main features of Balabolka is the ability to create an audio file to listen on your MP3 player or computer.

If you're using your computer, you have many options. One would be the Windows Media Player which is part of the Windows Operating System. Another would be the Video Lan Player.

I use VLC (which initially stood for Video LAN Client) as the default media player for my computer. I use Windows, but the VLC player is also available for LINUX and MAC operating systems. In the time I've been using it, it has opened and played almost every video and audio file I've thrown at it.

The other reason I use VLC – Time Compression

With digital audio and video files, it's possible to play the file faster or slower with very little distortion. Unlike playing a 33 1/3 record at 78 rpm and getting Alvin the Chipmunk, there is very little distortion. (Kids if you didn't understand that last example, talk with your parents/grandparents).

After downloading my podcasts or videos, I usually listen to them at 1½ speed. It takes a few seconds to pick up the slight change in rhythm, but my hearing adjusts and I can compress my listening/viewing time for certain podcasts. If it's information I need to review, I can pause it, slow it down or replay it.

By having the ability to control how I want to listen to the video/podcast, allows me to process more information in less time. 

VLC also has a bookmark feature allowing me to easily mark a passage and jump to it when I'm ready to review or relisten without having to move through the entire file.

BTW, I don't use the speed up technique with music or entertainment videos.

In case you can't use the links.  Here's the link to download if the links above don't work- http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ 

Have fun watching - Time to download and view your favorite TED presentations.

Chatter On

Balabolka means “Chatter” in Russian. Balabolka delivers by making your computer a real conversation piece by adding text to speech to your arsenal of “reading” and learning programs.

Developed by several Russian programmers, Balabolka is a free download. This is a Windows only program. Sorry MAC and LINUX. It is also available in a portable version.

Balabolka will open AZW, CHM, DjVu, DOC, EPUB, FB2, HTML, MOBI, ODT, PRC, PDF and RTF files, If you don't recognize all of those, the most common ones you'll use will be the DOC (and DOCX), MOBI, EPUB, PDF. RTF and possibly HTML files. AWZ files are formatted for the Kindle and often have Digital Rights Management (DRM) preventing them from being read by open programs or without some type of id. CHM files are the help files for programs stored in a compressed format. ODT is the Open Document format which almost all word processing programs can open.

One of the big features of Balabolka is the text to speech feature. Opening one of the file types above, you can have the text read back to you. The program uses the Speech Application Program Interface (part of Microsoft Windows) to talk to you. Specific text can be selected or the entire file can be read. As well as reading the text aloud, the program will track (or block) it to add a visual element to the reading. This can sometimes increase comperehension for persons with learning disabilities.

The other distinctive feature is the ability to save the text as an audio file. It can be saved as a WAV, MP3, MP4, OGG or WMA file Unless you're familiar with the other formats, most of your audio files will be saved as MP3 files and then transferred to your MP3 player.

Read On or in the case of Balabolka, LISTEN ON!

Low Vision and Computers

How many times have those of us with less than perfect vision (even corrected) had to put our face almost on the screen to read some small print or worse a horrible font and background color combination?

Too many.

Office Clip Art

There are several solutions that you can use.

One – the built in Windows magnifier. Not perfect but when all else fails, it helps. Information can be found here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-xp/help/turn-on-magnifier

Two – Using Firefox as a web browser, the keyboard shortcut CTRL + “+” will enlarge the font (CTRL + “-” will reduce). If a page is not setup correctly, then you'll get some funky duplication, but for most pages and text, it enlarges very well. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Accessibility_features_of_Firefox#Resizing_page_text

Three – Using Internet Explorer same basic technique as in Firefox http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Zoom-in-on-a-webpage

Four – a simple screen enlarger program name DeskTop Zoom, which does not need administrative privileges to install or use. It can also be used from a flash drive as a portable program. Download the program from here http://users.telenet.be/littlegems/MySoft/DesktopZoom/Index.html

Other tips and tricks to come in later posts