HeroMachine lets you unlock your inner artist, enabling you to create professional-looking illustrations even if you can't draw a straight line. Just choose a pose, then pick a set and genre of items and click to add them.
Early Childhood Learning Kits
In an effort to assist teachers with fostering emerging literacy and math skills in young children, the T/TAC at VCU has purchased and augmented new early childhood learning kits. The kits are theme-based and contain material
Welcome to Tar Heel Gameplay, a collection of free, easy-to-play, and accessible games. Each game is speech enabled and may be accessed using multiple interfaces, including touch screens and 1 to 3 switches.
You may create your own games using videos from the huge collection at YouTube.
It's based on creating switch stop/starts in YouTube videos, and you can also set it up with your own videos by cutting and pasting the link. You just don't want to save those home videos to the GamePlay website where everyone searches.
http://tarheelgameplay.org/
It works best if you use it in a Chrome browser, but on my iPad, I've been using it in Safari okay.
Check out some of my favorites -
Disney Princess Medley - from one of my Bridge Camp buddies - A
Ornie the Pig - the stops emphasize action verbs that the character is going to do if you activate the swtich, not just hit the switch to make it go
Nascar pit Stop - if you want lots of switch activations and fast action
and of course, Scat - because who doesn't love ya some Ice Age squirrel thing?
Van Tatenhove, Gail (2009); The Pixon Project Kit, Pittsburgh, PA: Semantic Compaction Systems - Adapted by Marcia Sterner, OCPS AT Team Introducing Core Vocabulary on an AAC System
Establishing consistent use of core vocabulary can set AAC users up to me more effective and efficient communicators. Below are 12 modules designed to provide a plan for introducing sections of core vocabulary based on language function. Reinforce vocabulary within meaningful and motivating activities.
The results of this research add to the evidence
regarding the effectiveness of using AAC with people
with an ASD (Mirenda, 2001; Schlosser & Blischak,
2001), and adds to the knowledge of why AAC systems
are potentially beneficial for children with autism,
(The National Standards Report). Effective teaching
of motor plans, using the LAMP theory, can be seen
to allow for increased storage and retention of
symbolic information, resulting with more automatic
communication over time, and reducing the cognitive
demands associated with analysing and choosing
from different symbol sets, as described in the LAMP
Manuals (Halloran and Emerson, 2006: Halloran and
Halloran, 2012).
The goal of SciGirls is to encourage girls to find a passion of science, technology, engineering and math - or STEM. Each 30-minute episode highlights scientific and engineering processes following a different set of middle school girls who design their own inquiry-based investigations with the help of scientist mentors. The mentors offer the students a glimpse of exciting STEM career possibilities.
SciGirls educational materials
provide gender-equitable teaching strategies and hands-on inquiries based on the concepts modeled in SciGirls' videos.
GREAT RESOURCE for Core Vocabulary and implementation and general AAC support
See Core Samples for a nice variety of boards in a variety of symbol sets
"A blog of ideas, materials and resources. Our focus is on augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) across the day and across all settings, but other resources will be shared, too!"
"ModMath is an adaptive program to assist students in acquiring math skills from basic arithmetic to complex algebraic equations. The app, created in cooperation with the Christopher's Way Foundation, lets you type math problems right onto the touch screen of an iPad rather than write them out long-hand. You can then solve the problems using the built-in touch pad. And you can print, save to cloud services like Dropbox, or e-mail the assignments all without ever picking up a pencil.
The app is free. But we will be charging a nominal fee for extra features to subsidize the cost of future updates. Please know that the purpose of any fee is not for profit. But rather to expand the usefulness of ModMath to a broader range of students. We have a dysgraphic son too. We just want to see all our kids succeed. So even if you don't need the pay features, consider buying them as an investment in another child's future.
ModMath specifics:
- Provides students with a virtual piece of graph paper, where they can set up and solve math problems in a format that's easily legible.
- Allow students to solve basic math problems and more complex algebraic equations, all without ever picking up a pencil.
- Print assignments, email them directly to the teacher or save to cloud storage."
"Windows Speech Recognition lets you control your PC by voice alone, without needing a keyboard or mouse. The following tables list commands that you can use with Speech Recognition.
If a word or phrase is bold, it's an example. Replace it with similar words to get the result you want.
For info on how to set up Speech Recognition for the first time, see Use speech recognition."
This is a great step by step description of which core words to target during specific activities and how to do it! It applies to all well designed and robust AAC apps/page sets.
"Tips for Home and School & DB-Link Fact Sheets
The Nevada Dual Sensory Impairment Project has a number of tips available that may be helpful for use at home or in a school setting. These documents may be downloaded and printed. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view them.
Kiz Club has some excellent resources for those teaching young children with and without special needs. Indeed it has some nice resources that can be age appropriate for older children with special needs as well.
For the younger set the Stories and Props has some wonderful items you can print out and use with common early childhood stories. Buried in that section are some nice, simple, online, switch adaptable, read aloud stories for all ages. Be sure to give them a look.
SEE ME, FEEL ME, TOUCH ME, HEAR ME: Adapting Books for Divergent Learners PowerPoint Presentation Click on this link for a document containing instructions, considerations, samples, resources, specific units, and sites for assisitve technology support materials The A-Z of Adapting Books for Students with Disabilities in Virginia Click on this link for a document filled with resources specifically for adapting books by Ynez Peterson, OTR/L, AT Specialist Click on this link for ideas on how to fill your room with literacy while meeting the needs of diverse learners by Judy Owens and Gerald Abner SET-BC Accessible Books Video demonstrations on creating and FREE accessible books for downloading from Special Education Technology-British Columbia To download, open, edit and print these files, you must have Boardmaker® software , available at www.mayer-johnson.com .
At exactly 10:17am ET today the Jovian - Plutonian Gravitational Effect will impact the gravity on Earth. British astrophysicist Patrick Moore discovered that the combined gravitational pull of the alignment of Jupiter and Pluto will cause one to spend a significantly longer amount of time "floating" in the air when jumping up due to an increase in gravitational pull from the celestial objects. Experience the phenomenon by setting a timer and having your entire class jump up into the air at exactly 10:17am. The experience is said to be similar to that of riding a roller coaster or jumping in an elevator as it begins to descend. Experience Zero Gravity! The effect lasts for approximately one minute.
"The Jovian-Plutonian gravitational effect is a hoax phenomenon stated to cause a noticeable short-term reduction in gravity on Earth that was invented for April Fools' Day by the English astronomer Patrick Moore and broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on 1 April 1976."
There are three basic types of mnemonic strategies:
Keyword - A keyword is a familiar word that sounds similar to the word or idea being taught. Keywords are generally used with an illustration of some type. Pegword - Pegwords refer to a set of rhyming
See and Learn makes it easy to support children with Down syndrome at home, in individual and group therapy settings and in the classroom. See and Learn offers activities designed to promote the development of language, reading, speech, memory and number