Students + Teachers + Low Cost Hardware + Accessible Software = Change
By Sennott, Samuel; Bowker, Adam; Closing the Gap, Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 8-10Publication Date: June/July 2009
Article discusses combining low cost computer hardware with free and low-cost accessible software to create a curriculum for special needs students. Low-cost laptop computers such as the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) XO can be used to download free, easy-to-read, accessible books from the Tar Heel Reader (http://www.tarheelreader.org). Qualifying students with reading disabilities can gain access to Bookshare (http://www.bookshare.org), which includes a free version of Don Johnston’s Read:Outloud software. A subscription to the Internet-based visual and multimodal learning platform Vizzle (http://www.govizzle.com) can benefit students with autism. Another subscription recommended for developing a special education curriculum is the News-2-You newspaper, part of the Unique Learning System accessible curriculum solution (http://www.uniquelearningsystem.com). The combination of an iPod touch or iPhone with Proloquo2Go software affords a portable, discrete solution to students with communication disabilities, providing text-to-speech voices, up-to-date symbols, automatic conjugations, and a default vocabulary of 7000 items.
Assistive Products Discussed: PROLOQUO
Published by: Closing the Gap, Inc. (Website:http://www.closingthegap.com)
