Highlights and Buzz:
(Some I attended or viewed, some I did not, in no particular order)
- Dan Herlihy's IntelliTools Extreme - included a "Well, duh!" moment for me when he talked about using Speech Recognition to target specific words only (not the typical all or nothing approach). For example, just train Yes/No, True/False, etc. to help students complete tests in Forms format independently. Another very cool app he mentioned, MASH, a PC only program that brings in animated characters into any program and you can add motions, actions and recorded voice or text-to-speech. (includes free 30 day demo) This I plan to play with as soon as I get home!
- Karen Kangas' irreverent presentation on seating and positioning. Throw out everything you believe about S & P (why DO we pummel?). She showed videos that demonstrated that her unorthodox views WORK and that's what it's all about.
- Anything from Linda Burkhart, Judy Sweeney (Wow! What you can do with PocketMod and Adobe Professional!), and Karen Erickson.
- Joy and Jane's "Doing the Data Dance," Susan Stokes and Paula's "Please Teach me to Communicate - Strategies for Pre/Non-Verbal Communicators with ASD"
- The fast paced and very fun Wiki's, Blogs, Podcasts and RSS Feeds presentation from Brian, Nora, David and Kirk from Illinois. The room was packed to overflowing with only a handful of participants actual bloggers. It will be exciting to see how many go back to work and add Web 2.0 tools to their repertoire of AT tools and strategies (UDL!)
- Clicker Paint from Cricksoft
- The latest release of BoardMaker (version 6)
- Spark Space (another graphic organizer solution) Trial it for 30 days.
- The AT Profile by Darlene Brodbeck - a very thorough AT checklist and record-keeping tool
- The booths for shoppers - many items sold out at Beacon-Ridge
Look for more with my next blog post. (It's 5:30 in the AM here in Minneapolis and I'm sure there are many more that I'm overlooking!)
Please add your own favorites and highlights!
3 comments:
I'm really interested in the Clicker Paint application but I'm finding it hard to get any information. Did you see it? If so, what did you think. I think we really need a switch accessible paining package.
Barry
I saw Clicker Paint demoed. It will be released in January 2007. That's why you haven't seen it yet. But it is coming, it is very nice and affordable at $49 for 1 license.
I was impressed with the Fusion that Advanced Keyboarding Technologies was displaying. It is a portable word processor with all of the features of The Writer (writing prompts, keyboarding lessons, built-in word prediction), with the added bonus of a large viewscreen, adjustable font size, and text-to-speech. For around $350. Since it was still in the testing stage, I couldn't hear the voice quality. However, if it is good enough, they might have an economical product for students with learning disabilities and communication disabilities.
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