Create work, send to student using Dropbox, student opens on iPad, completes work then sends back to teacher using email

Learn how to create work on a Mac or Pc and send to your student on their iPad, ipod or iphone using Dropbox (iPad example is given, but same techniques work for other iTools). After the student opens and completes the work, they send it back to the teacher for correction.

Watch video at Youtube: Create work, send to student using Dropbox, student opens on iPad, completes work then sends back to teacher using email

iPad, Braille display with read2go -refreshabraille demo, but any will do

Learn how to download books from bookshare and read them in read2go APP. Use audio, braille display or both.

Watch the video that can make the difference:   iPad, Braille display with read2go -refreshabraille demo, but any will do

Web Site Resources for Blind/Low Vision games/products/tools

This list has been on going for years of all the many resources I constantly use with my students and parents. It is in no particular order yet, as it is constantly growing. If you use a particular site that has helped you greatly and is not on this list, please let me know and I will add it for everyone else also. Download your free copy by clicking on link below, add to cart and check out and a digital download will be waiting for you in Your Lessons (a link at that top right hand corner of the site)

Web Site Resources

ebooks for your iPad or other iTool-Read2go

Read2Go is the most accessible e-book reader app for readers with print disabilities. Directly from within the Read2Go app, Bookshare members can find, download, and read books all on a single Apple device. No need to download books to computers, transfer files, or decompress files! Just download and READ! from the Read2Go website--watch the video

Read2Go Highlights

• Browse and search Bookshare’s entire collection
• Download and automatically unzip books
• Store books on the Read2Go bookshelf
• Connect via blue tooth to specific braille displays to read in braille
• Read books multi-modally (see and hear words at the same time)
• Read in text only or text-to-speech mode with built-in Acapela voices
• Control font size, color, background, reading speed and more!
• Volume purchase discounts available for schools

This ereader is truly one of the easiest readers to use. Once you type in your basic information and pick your configurations, just type in the title you want and it will instantly download from the bookshare site. Go out and find other periodicals and more with this incredibly easy reader. It will bring the world to your finger tips. Anyone with a reading disability will achieve the ability to see and hear a books.

Special Needs--There’s An App For That!!

“The Technology is brilliant, but the magic is in the teaching.” Phyllis Brodsky

       Just like any other learning medium, before using an iPad with your child or student, you

must first know the child’s vision and hearing, their level of foundational information, what

additional supports are needed. Apps should be chosen based on the desired outcome.

Think about what skills you are trying to teach, think about accessibility – can the child

see it, hear it? What additional learning supports need to be in place to make this understandable.

As with all aspects of teaching a child (either at school or in the home) you

must first ask why. What is the purpose of this activity? Is this to assist in communication, for

helping the child in concept development, to use in social interactions, to increase independence,

or to promote more positive behaviors. There are many apps that can be

used in each of these areas. Let’s separate them out!

 • Communication: Answers Yes No, First Then Visual Schedule, Proloquo2go, Tap To Talk

• Check out this video about Victor’s Voice!  http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/

us/2011/01/17/dnt.ipad.helps.boy.talk.WFMY

 • Concept Development: Uzu, Cosmic Top, Pocket Pond, Vocal Zoo, Peekaboo Barn

• Social Interactions: Fruit Ninja, 10 Pin Shuffle, 2 Player Xylophone, 1 on 1 Hockey, Align

Four, Tic-tac-toe

 • Literacy: Pop Out! The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Bob Books #1, Alphabet World, Letter

Tracer Preschool Letters, Flying Word

 • Math: Math Ninja, Math Bingo, Baseball 1 – 6 Facts

 • Independence: LookTel Money Reader

 • Behavior: That’s How I Feel, iReward,

 • Other Uses: Fluidity turns your iPad into a Light box!

          A simple but powerful app, That’s How I Feel, uses brightly colored and easy to understand

illustrations to help children express their feelings. The app is easy to use. Designed

with a traffic light in mind, the app uses three primary colors to express different emotions.

The app contains children’s most powerful feelings. Simple voice recordings convey appropriate

intonation for each feeling on That’s How I Feel.

 For more on iPads go to:

 •  Apps for Children with Special Needs

 • Apps for Digital Storytelling

 • Babies with iPads

 •  iPad Academy

 • iPodsibilities

 Taken from the West Virginia SenseAbilities newsletter, Winter 2012, pg. 8

What a blind child should do when the class is asked to create a Poster Board

When a child is asked to create a poster board or anything with paper and pencil and cutting out pictures, I direct them toward a PowerPoint presentation.

Blind children can easily create an elaborate or simple PP depending on their skill level. Last week, such an event came up with one of my newer students. Her skills are basic so we kept the PP basic. We went into the Internet and copied all the pictures out that she needed...yes she did this all by herself with just my verbal cues---she learned how to route her JAWS cursor to where it needed to be and use a special right click on a keyboard that brings up all those special options to do what you need to do--on a laptop as the commands are different on a desktop--this is not the applications key. There are many tricks in getting the perfect picture and she is on her way to learning these skills. When she saved all her pictures, she went back to her PP and inserted them where they needed to be. We did all the placement of the Title and pictures and over the weekend she did all the writing for each slide in the correct text box.

Any graphic information that she is unsure of, the assistant makes a 3-D item so she can feel---happened to be science --wikki sticks,pipe cleaners--and you can burn off different parts of the pipe cleaners to make a multitude of different textures (she created a peptide model), placed with braille labels ( braille label out with just as much blank space so you can bend the whole braille label around the pipe cleaner to stick it, which can be easily read by the blind student).
Lessons to help you teach:
PowerPoint, save pics from Internet and place in presentation-audio/visual lesson
PowerPoint Office 2003, taking you from Basics to Presentation with JAWS
PowerPoint Office 2010-taking you from the Basics to Presentation with JAWS

Teacher's computer connects directly to Student's iPad or iTool wirelessly

How many of our blind/low vision students are sitting in class now with an iPad, learning the new way of technology, but are not sure now to access what the teacher is demonstrating on her iTool or PC on the screen in the front of the room?

The Air Display APP has changed all that. By downloading Air Display onto your PC or Mac and iTool--which happens to be an iPad the majority of the time in the classroom, whatever the teacher is doing on her computer can be immediately projected on the student's iPad. If the teacher asks the students to demonstrate their skill in the front of the room, the blind student can sit at her desk and input the information right on their iPad and it will project on the teacher's computer and onto the front room screen. Technically, ALL the students can use this technique right from their desks. Our students just happen to be using Zoom effects---they still need to work on the Voice Over with Braille Display...there are still too many hiccups with this use.

If you would like more information on how to accomplish this task, go to avatron.com/apps/air-display and create that extra monitor that can be interactive or just viewed up close and personal.

Books Featuring Characters With Blindness and Visual Impairment

Hundreds of titles about stories of Books Featuring Characters With Blindness and Visual Impairment-(click on link and open file)-Find the right book for your situation. You will need to add to cart and check out to open the file.

This list is taken from many resources, most of which were in print without information of where it came from. They were scanned and added all together.

 If you know of other titles that are not here, please let me know at yourtechvision@gmail.com so I can add them to the list.

New iPad 3-A Touch Screen you can FEEL

In about a year Seneg and Apple will be putting a tool out there where you will be able to feel pictures and graphics on a flat screen iPad. Where schools are switching to using iBooks and etext, this could mean the chance for blind/low vision children to interact with the graphics in the text book. If you would like to read more about this incredible upcoming tool, go to:

Rumor: New haptic feedback touchscreen bound for the iPad 3
and another View of the Retinal Display

Evolution of Braille

Anyone interested in reading about the evolution of Braille and the importance of this medium is invited to read all about it at the Braille Authority: February 2012: BANA releases complete article on the Evolution of Braille

Braille Touch to text on a phone

Georgia Tech iPhone App Could Help Blind Users Text

Watch the full video from the link above on how anyone can learn how to quickly braille text for messages on a phone and only on a phone.