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"Most timers have at least one thing in common: they display numbers as they count down. VisiTimer, however, does things a little differently. Instead of showing numbers, VisiTimer gradually reveals an image with a sweeping radial motion similar to the movement of the arm of a clock. It's a great choice both for kids and for adults who do better with visual representations than with numbers."

"Background: As a result of a variety of disabilities, some people are unable to speak using their bodies alone. Some of these people use voice enabled augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices sometimes called VOCA's. These consist of some form of input interface and generate synthetic speech. The user's choice of voices is very limited, usually constrained to selecting one of a small set of installed 'voices'. The result is that when a number of users get together it can be difficult to know who is speaking at any one time particularly if there are a number of people using the same voice."

"We all know that students find it far more challenging to answer word problems than simple equations. In Math Shake, learners practise the vital skill of solving word problems in a fun, focused way. Learners engage their critical thinking skills as they use the keywords to change word problems into equations and use interactive learning tools to visualise, image and work out their answer. Not only do learners have a range of learning tools at their fingertips, they can share their thinking by recording their working.Teachers and parents can also use Math Shake to teach learners with the interactive tools; including tens frames, number matrixes, fraction parts, number lines and counters. "

"Large numbers of consumers, parents, teachers, therapists and AT professionals  purchase mobile and handheld devices and downloading various apps to be used as assistive technology and educational software for people with disabilities. The ability to test and review every app that can be used in this manner is nearly impossible. To aid Maine consumers and AT professionals who may be interested in knowing more about what's out there, we have assembled this resource."

People, particularly teenagers, have an almost compulsive reaction to open text messages when their phones beep or buzz. So if you want to quickly deliver an important message to student or parent today, sending a text message is the best way to do it. Managing a list of cell phone numbers can be a daunting task. Here are seven services that educators can use to easily send and manage group text messages.

"SpeakIt reads selected text using Text-to-Speech technology with language auto-detection. It can read text in more than 50 languages. Usage: - First select the text you want it to read. - Then click the icon to start listening. - When it is ready to read, the number of sentences is shown on the icon. - To stop listening at any time click pause"

Are you overwhelmed with the number of Apps available? Have you purchased an AAC App and found that it was not what you expected? The AAC Apps Assistant can help ! ! ! The AAC Apps Assistant is a unique and powerful fee-for-service tool for researching AAC communication Apps for iOS devices (iPads,iPhone, iPods with other platforms to be added). It provides information based on our review of over 100+ current communication Apps on the market.

free preview until Jan. 15, 2012

"With over 300,000 apps it's easy to become overwhelmed by the number of app choices. It's also easy to spend a small fortune on a lot of useless apps. As a special needs parent I wanted to get right to the "good stuff" and figured you did too. Check out our guide that breaks down the best of the apps by skill set so you can easily find and buy apps that most benefit your child. Great for kids with autism, ADHD, apraxia, learning disability, sensory issues and more. Included are apps for iPad, iPhone, iPod touch and some Android apps. Get started right now by clicking on a category. "

"A "flash mob" is planned for Mohawk College in Hamilton, Canada, in celebration of International AAC Awareness Month. This will happen in November instead of October, as this works better with the students' schedules. Students from Mohawk will be helping to organize the event. A person who uses AAC in Hamilton has written a song, "I've Got a Lot to Say," which has been professionally recorded (ISAAC International helped with the production costs). The song will be programmed onto a number of AAC devices used by clients of the Technology Access Clinic at McMaster Children's Hospital. This is what will be used for the flash mob. The event will be videotaped, uploaded to YouTube, and posted on the ISAAC website"

Videos from Bruce Alter, AT Consultant Tutorials for a number of iPad, AAC and other things.

"Schedule Assistant is a multimedia scheduling application for individuals with significant literacy challenges that prohibit the effective use of mainstream text-based scheduling systems. Any number of appointments or events can be entered into the system by recording an audio message and designating the day(s) and time for the message to activate. A relevant digital picture or icon can also be displayed when the message displays. The combination of time-based audio messages and picture cues are ideal for meeting bus schedules, medication reminders, taking work breaks, maintaining classroom schedules or morning routines, and more! Schedule Assistant can be tightly integrated with AbleLink's Pocket Discovery Desktop."

"Combine your photos in innovative photo collages - the photos can be clipped in a number of different shapes! Add smileys to your photos then resize and rotate them. Do you want to point something out in a photo? Add an arrow and then change its color! All shapes have borders; you control the border width, drop shadow and the color."

"Write or Die is a web application that encourages writing by punishing the tendency to avoid writing. Start typing in the box. As long as you keep typing, you're fine, but once you stop typing, you have a grace period of a certain number of seconds and then there are consequences."

"Some groups of children are potentially more vulnerable and more at risk than others when using ICT. These can include children with emotional or behavioural difficulties, learning difficulties, and other complex needs, as well as those whose English is an additional language, and looked after children. Of course children with Special Educational Needs (SEN) can use the internet in educational, creative, empowering and fun ways, just like their peers. However, they may be particularly vulnerable to e-safety risks. For example: * Children and young people with Autistim Spectrum Disorder may make literal interpretations of content, which will affect how they respond. * Some children may not understand much of the terminology due to language delays or disorders. * Some children with complex needs do not understand the concept of friendship, and therefore trust everyone implicitly. They do not know how to make judgments about what is safe information to share. This leads to confusion about why you should not trust others on the internet. * There is also growing concern around cyberbullying. We need to remember that some children with SEN or disabilities may be vulnerable to being bullied through the internet, or not recognise that they are being bullied. * In addition, some children may not appreciate how their own online behaviour may be seen by someone else as bullying. We have also included number of resources that those working with children with Special Education Needs might find useful."

"We welcome you to our work-in-progress wiki for supporting iPod devices in education. Although our focus is K-12, many of the techniques should work for you at any level and with any number of devices. We are posting as many help and how-to articles here as we can and as quickly as we can so you can continue to be successful using iPod devices in your classroom."

"Productivity has to be priority number one when you're a student. Between class, study time, and extracurricular activities, there just aren't enough hours in the day. That's why free web apps exist. These no-cost products are specifically designed to make your life easier and less stressful. Some have been around for years and others are relatively new-but they will all do their part to boost your productivity."

As a service, Feedbooks is a unique solution for e-books: it provides an easy way to find, publish and distribute e-books in a large number of formats, while focusing on creating the best experience for e-books. In Kindle and pdf formats

"Dynamic Paper Need a pentagonal pyramid that's six inches tall? Or a number line that goes from ‑18 to 32 by 5's? Or a set of pattern blocks where all shapes have one-inch sides? You can create all those things and more with the Dynamic Paper tool. Place the images you want, then export it as a PDF activity sheet for your students or as a JPEG image for use in other applications or on the web."

"Minspeak is a way of representing language in a communication device. If you show people a picture of something simple, like an apple, they will naturally associate more than one idea with that picture. People usually say the most obvious idea first - "apple" - but then they start associating more ideas - "fruit," "red," "eat," "bite," and "hungry." Minspeak takes advantage of this natural tendency by using a small set of pictures to represent a large number of words in a communication device. "

"Introducing Speak it! 2.0, the most advanced text to speech solution in the App Store! Speak it! has been the number one selling TTS app, and now its even better than ever. " Costs $1.99