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MarcoPolo
State Administrator
Professional
Development Coordinator for Alabama's Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use
Technology Project
fritschi@mindspring.com
As always, vendors debut their ìlatest and greatestî at the annual Closing the Gap conference in Minnesota. Listed below are some of this yearís new products. This is not an endorsement nor was an attempt made to create an exhaustive list of every new product. Here are some of those that caught my eye:
http://www.freedomscientific.com/wynn (WIN) $399
TestTalker is a dedicated product developed to assist students in test-taking and worksheet completion. It provides a computerized version of a test, worksheet, or other form that can talk. As with WYNN, it simultaneously highlights words as they are spoken aloud. Teachers can scan printed documents and configure them for student use. TestTalker supports True/False, Multiple Choice, Fill-in, and Extended Answer tests. An exciting feature is the PDF converter that allows teachers to simply open a PDF file in TestTalker without needing to scan.
Bookshare provides thousands of accessible digital books to people in the U.S. with print disabilities (low vision, blindness, reading disabilities, and mobility impairments). An exciting new development is the additional option for purchasing called, ìInstitutional Accessî. This will be available in January 2004 and will allow an institution to purchase a pre-set number of books. A school or group's staff will be able to download these books and deliver them directly to qualified students or individuals signed up under their account.
Stages Report Wizard is a great compliment to the Stages Alternate Assessment Process. Stages Report Wizard converts saved Stages Assessment report data to plot graphs and analyze content. It generates two types of reports: an Activity Summary and an Annotated Report. The Activity Summary contains graphs and content analysis of learner performance over two or more assessment sessions. The Annotated Report consists of a single activity report with notes specific to the session.
www.softtouch.com (MAC/WIN) $130
My Own BookShelf is software that allows users to create books
and 
categorize
them into bookshelves. Students can pick their books from the bookshelf
and read using a variety of access solutions. Data is collected on each
studentís reading experience. This provides students the opportunities to
self select books and read them as many times as they want.
Victor
Reader Vibe, a digital talking book, is a DAISY player that also
plays regular Audio and MP3 CDs. It looks like a portable CD player
and provides embossed tactile markings for access for the visually impaired
and print disabled.
www.prentrom.com $6,995
The Vanguard, a full-sized dynamic display, has been newly redesigned and named the Vanguard II. It features synthesized and digitized speech, computer emulation, and infrared environmental controls. As a result of a partnership with Madentec, it now has an integrated headpointing system, Madentecís Tracker technology.
The DV4 and MT4 feature VeriVox natural sounding voices, as well as onboard universal remote control options and computer accessibility.
In addition to the basic Dynavox features, the DV4 and MT4 ship with seventeen pre-programmed page sets that are appropriate for children, teens and adults with varying cognitive and physical abilities. Templates are also included to enable quick and easy ways to add custom vocabulary reducing the need to invent communication pages from scratch.
www.creativecommunicating.com $100
The popular Adapted Stories to Go are similar to ìBook of the Monthî clubs. These stories are great tools for teachers, parents and therapists who work with children at an emergent literacy level and who need extra visual support. Debuting are Adapted Stories to Go for middle and high school students at the Emergent Literacy Level.
www.judylynn.com (WIN) $39
Scan
and Paint is an exciting new program designed for students with a 
cognitive
age level of approx. 1 year and up. Students can use up to two switches
to color over 60 simple pictures. The option is available to import your
own graphics as well. Scan and Paint introduces many different concepts
while the student enjoys coloring pictures in categories such as animals,
food, holidays and color matching pictures.
http://www.onionmountaintech.com $150-$385
Onion Mountain Technology provides six types of LoTTIE Kits (Low Tech Tools for Inclusive Education). These kits are collections of low and mid tech tools that help students function in inclusive settings. They are designed for teachers, classroom aides, and support professionals to use with students (grades K-12) who have special needs. At CTG it was announced that a new kit will be available soon called LoTTIE Kit MyWay. You will be allowed to customize your own LoTTIE Kit which will include only the items you select.
www.donjohnston.com (MAC/WIN) $149
WordMaker is the phonics, phonemic awareness and spelling program that combines the two activities of The Four-Blocks Literacy Model. It provides students opportunities to manipulate letters to make words, and discover the patterns as they do this. Then students are asked to sort the words into rhymes and use the rhymes to decode and spell new words.
© 2004 ConnSENSE Bulletin