Ahh..Word Prediction

I got this link off of a post on the tech listserv. I figured I'd put it here to refer to for later. What an excellent resource on word prediction.
link

Printing Skill Links

Since I am an Occupational Therapist in the school setting, I'm always looking for nice sites to help my students with their writing. Here are some helpful resources I've found.

This is an ongoing work in progress, feel free to contribute

How to form letters Resources:

Literacy center network : Very good animation shows beginning printers how to correctly form all the upper case and lower case letters using standard lined paper in the proper sequence. It will also show prewriters how to correctly sequence simple shape drawings.
Handwriting for Kids: Animations to help form letters including cursive. Also various printables for practice worksheets.

First-School : Many excellent printable worksheets free to download to practice letter formations. Also blank writing paper of various styles.
Enchanted Learning: You name it, you can print it from this site free! Tons of printables.
Tampa Reads: Some good printable letter activities for Lower Case letters. Lots of following directions as well.
TLS Books: Nice fine motor and writing printables categorized by grade level and subject area as well.
Incompetech: PDF paper generator to create custom graph and writing paper. Cool!

Typing Alternatives:

literacy center also has a simple, basic program that allows students to type keys and have them spoken by the computer.
Alphasmart - ways to use an alphasmart

Tech Tip #1: How to Make Tiger Speak

Text to Speech is now built into the new Mac OS. Follow these steps to read out loud any text you can highlight including scanned documents and web pages. 287 Macs must currently be logged in as staff in order to access system preferences.



1. Choose System Preferences under the apple icon the upper left hand portion of your screen.



2. Select the Speech icon at the bottom.



3. Click the Text to Speech box to open up controls. You may now select from a variety of digitized voices and manipulate the speaking rate.



4. Click the box to place a checkmark next to “Speak selected text when the key is pressed”. You will then have to set up your “Set Key”. Click the button.



5. A new window will appear. Simply choose a combination key stroke in order to tell the computer to “speak”. “Command+R” was chosen in the example above, but you can choose what you want. Click OK and now your Mac can speak! Close the control panel windows and begin working. You will not have to repeat this process on your machine unless you want to change the voices or key stroke for speaking.


6. Play around with text on the internet or in documents. Simply use your mouse to highlight areas you want read. Once highlighted, use the keyboard to enter your keystroke combination chosen earlier (Command+R in the example). The Mac will then read the selected text. Watch your student smile in delight!

Tip: Make sure your sound is turned up and not muted (:

Cool Educational Links

1. www.littleclickers.com/ - Lots of cool links to free web activities
2. www.funbrain.com/cashreg/ - learn how to count change $$$
3. www.funbrain.com - lots of fun games and activities
4. www.literacycenter.net - Very basic, but fun literacy
5. www.starfall.com
6. www.humboldt1.com/~hope4all/software.htm - Basic skills freeware for PC only – environmental signs included
7. www.attainmentcompany.com/downloads.html - free download demos – making change, literacy
8. www.rjcooper.com - downloadable switch demo
9. www.northerngrid.org/sen/NetSwitch/index.htm - senswitcher - training on-line switch activities.
10. PrioryWoods - It's hard to beat this site. Awesome switch training and mouse pointing activities set to highly motivating media. An acceptional resource.
11. Carl's Corker - Tons and tons of lesson plans, ideas, printable books, etc...
12. Legos.com - nice puzzles and activities for younger kids.

Using wheelchair controls to navigate the computer

I just got assigned to working with a student who has trouble accessing the computer due to his CP. He is going to start with a power chair and I was thinking of trying his joystick controls for computer access. I found this link which may be helpful. I need more info on this.

link

Troy's AT resources

Welcome to my Blog. My hope is to use this site as a traveling portfolio, if you will. I will host here my knowledge of assistive technology resources as they relate to use in the special education setting.