Play Clay—The Basic Recipe --teach shapes the fun way

Play Clay is so simple. It’s safe, Inexpensive, and encourages children’s own creativity. Kids can have hours of fun shaping, cutting, and making anything their mind can come up with. Add cookie cutters to show shapes.
Download your free recipe now:
Play Clay—The Basic Recipe --teach shapes the fun way

Free Online games for blind or autistic children

Only using the arrow keys, just about anyone can move around and navigate this website. Go to a multitude of different games and have fun by answering questions with yes, just the arrow keys. Try this site out: Hark the Sound

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.

Don't just Graduate, but LEARN along the way

This situation comes up more often than is good for the blind/low vision population. Having parents who want their child to graduate so badly, but do not really care if they learn along the way. Or, somehow they believe that when they get to that graduation stage all the things they did not learn will somehow miraculous appear through osmosis, escorted by a para of course because the child failed to learn how to walk around on their own. Along the way, the parents insisted a para do the work with minimal effort from the child and when the child went home, the parents pushed the lessons to completion, only to have her do poorly on tests. Parents getting angry because of the low scores, they have the student's work reduced even more. She does not learn the same content as her peers, which will harm her in the future.

The parents do not realize that all their efforts in getting the child's workload reduced and having a para glued to the child's side all day will have a very negative effect on the child's life, her confidence, self-esteem and how she views what or rather what  a blind person cannot do because she was never given the chance to prove herself. They essentially are telling the child: "You cannot do it on your own. You need help all the time. You will fail without help."

The solution--backup. Don't push through, but increase blind skills learning so the classes that are being taken, the student can do on their own. Instead of taking 5 general education classes, reduce that to 3 or 4 (depending on how low the child's skills are--maybe even think about a School for the Blind) and The Teacher of the Blind gives instruction on how to complete the assignments without help from a para or parent. The child's esteem grows as they realize they can do the work on their own, take a bus, go and do what they want.

Yes, this most likely will take longer than 4 years in High School. That is OK...they have a life time to now go out and achieve their goals with their own skills.

If you find you were one of those students...don't lose hope. There are great training centers for the blind around the country. One great one to check in to is Louisiana Training Center for the Blind

iPhone is so easy to use with voice over, anyone can send a message

♥   HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

Easy lessons at: Mac/iTools

Come see Presentation on technology in action in ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO

I will be giving a presentation on all the different types of technology that help blind/low vision students achieve success in school, on February 23-24. On the 23rd, I will speak on the what and when of technology at 1:30-2:45 and on the 24th will be speaking with a panel on the different types of technology used throughout schooling.

If you are in the area, please do come by and join the conversation of success in school.

2012 NEW MEXICO AER CONFERENCE FEBRUARY 23-24, 2012

SHERATON ALBUQUERQUE UPTOWN HOTEL

ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO

Making a Promethean Board flipcharts (smart board) accessible to blind students

How many out there are in school districts where a smart board or  Promethean board with flipcharts are used? These are graphic pictures that anyone with sight can easily see, but to a blind student, it is empty space. Many paraeducators have to take the pictures and turn them into text or braille for the blind student to read. There is the long way to do this, typing one character at a time ( as you cannot copy the images)  or a fast way.

Here is the fast way. You can download a personal  viewer from the company to load on your machine. Open the viewer then the flipchart, go to file, then to print. When the print box opens, you will see the "export as PDF" so save it as such. Place a folder on the desktop with these PDF files, so they are easy to find, especially if you are going to teach the blind student how to do this, and after all, that is what we want. Open Openbook or Kurzweil and go to open file. Go find the file on your desktop and have your OCR program open it. After it opens, go to launch it into word and it opens in Word. All the great text is there. Now be aware, all those pictures will not translate...they will turn out as a list of letters and symbols, so just go through and delete out what was meant for a picture. Now, all that needs to be done is those pictures are created 3-D by the para to go with this work.
One huge advantage I have discovered is on test day, the students can use their notes. If the flipcharts are in text format, then the blind student can do a quick "find" command on their computer and jump to the theorem they need ....actually faster than a sighted student pouring through their notes visually. Once they have the theorem, they alt+tab back to the exam and continue on answering all the problems.
Now this is just 1 way, but where there is a will there is a way to make the world more accessible.

Watch Video: Dr Robinson teaches-Making a Promethean Board flipcharts (smart board) accessible to blind students

iPhone, iPod Touch-VoiceOver, using Notes and the refreshabraille

Many students were fortunate and acquired an iPhone or IPod Touch for Christmas. Frustration soon turns to success with a few lessons. Learning how to use features in Notes makes these students successful any where else on their iTool. Once they can learn how to Turn contractions on and off, use auto correct features, use the rotor, move around with characters, words, lines,  edit, copy, paste, delete, move and undo mistakes, then Email note to whomever they desire their frustration turns to joy, then they stretch their wings and begin exploring other parts of their iTool.

Lesson at: iPhone, iPod Touch-VoiceOver, using Notes and the refreshabraille

Speech Recognition and Word-using numbers and words-audio/visual

Learn how to start using Speech Recognition, which is already built into Windows 7. You will go into word and begin to learn how to speak numbers and words and then how to correct any problems. Move around easily, copy and paste items you need.
Train your voice first and get set up on Speech recognition, as the more you train the better the outcome when you speak your commands at this lesson-just click to learn: Speech Recognition and Word-using numbers and words-audio/visual

Using a Braille display in WORD

Many students want to just use their adapted laptop or refreshabraille display to braille in content and move around. Click on this link: WORD and BRAILLE DISPLAY to see lessons to help you and your students learn how to
Go in and out of typing mode or braille mode
Using contracted and uncontracted mode
Navigating your pages
Moving around characters, words, sentences
Selecting and unselecting characters, words, sentences
Save, open and print
Moving around the ribbon and inserting a picture