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Hi Everybody … The Spectronics Email Updates are back – and here is your first one for 2005! Where did we go? We have been so busy at the Spectronics office that I just didn’t have time to sit down and write to you. But we are back on track now and I will be sending out regular updates from now on. What has been keeping us busy? In response to the many requests from our customers, we have set up Spectronics in New Zealand. We have also added two more staff for training and support across Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. Penny McCulloch, Special Education Teacher, and Jane Farrall, Speech Pathologist, are the new faces on the team. Both have years of experience in using our technologies and will help us to meet the growing number of requests for training received by Spectronics each week. We receive so many requests now that we had to seriously look at ways of addressing this need. We have also been planning for two exciting new professional development activities to boost your skill in using technologies for students with learning difficulties or disabilities. See the articles below about the ATLAS Workshop in September 2005 and the Inclusive Learning Technologies Winter School in May 2006. Oh … and we have also built a whole new look website. Have you seen it? It is still up at the old address of www.spectronicsinoz.com – but it has a host of new features built-in based on feedback from our web visitors. We have plans to build in a lot more for you over the next 12 months too. If you have time, could you please log on and check it out. If you have any suggestions at all about how we could make our website work better for you, please send an email to me on barbara@spectronicsinoz.com. We have heaps of ideas of our own – but your ideas as our web user will always be more important to us! So please do let us know what you need our website to provide to make your life easier. Cheers til next time. |
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Spectronics in New Zealand
 We are excited to announce to our New Zealand customers that we established Spectronics New Zealand in early 2005! We have appointed Trev Willson, who formerly filled the Technical Support position at AbleTech, as our new Manager of Spectronics New Zealand. Trev will be based in Hamilton in the North Island, but is available to answer assistive technology enquiries from all areas of New Zealand. He will also be able to repair many of our technologies – saving you the inconvenience of having to ship them back to Australia or to the USA for repairs. Trev will be supported by the full Spectronics professional team in Australia – all with many years of experience in the assistive technology field. See the line-up above! We will be presenting workshops and will be available to answer your assistive technology questions in person at several conferences in New Zealand this year. Come up and say hello (and give us the inevitable hard time about how we say “Sydney” and “six”)! We are also building our Spectronics New Zealand website which will be up online at www.spectronics.co.nz in the next month or so. This website will feature the full range of technologies available from Spectronics in Australia – but will list their pricing in New Zealand Dollars with NZ GST issues covered too. We aim to have as much in stock as possible at our New Zealand office to ensure that your orders are filled much more quickly than has been the case when dealing with Spectronics in Australia. All orders will also be shipped free of freight charges. We are always willing to consider whether we can match other quotes too. Feel free to contact Trev to discuss your assistive technology needs or to suggest ways in which Spectronics New Zealand can be of assistance to you. Email: trev@spectronics.co.nz P O Box 21 201 |
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textHELP Read&Write now speaking with Australian voices!
The latest versions of textHELP Read&Write (Version 7.1) and Read&Write GOLD (Version 7.1) were released in January of this year. They incorporate many improved features, including MUCH better accuracy when using Read&Write GOLD to scan printed documents (or pages of textbooks) with complex combinations of text and graphics into the computer – ready to be read aloud by the computer. See more info about these enhancements up on our website at www.spectronicsinoz.com/library.asp?article=19116. But do you know what excites us the most about this new release at Spectronics?? FINALLY, we have a program which speaks using Australian accents! For years and years, every time we have demonstrated any of our programs which speak out text on the computer, the very first question anyone in the audience asked was always, “Can you get a computer voice with an Australian accent?” For years, we have had to say that it was not an option. But 2005 is the year in which the computer learned to speak with an Aussie twang courtesy of textHELP Read&Write using the new ScanSoft Solo voices! (It is still not quite right for New Zealand – but it is much better than that ugly computer-generated US accent!) Visit the Scansoft website to listen to the Australian RealSpeak voice (Karen) and the male RealSpeak voice (Lee). To hear these high quality voice files, you need an audio player installed on your computer – like the free-to-download Windows Media Player. However, once you install textHELP Read&Write GOLD or Standard, you do not need any audio player to hear the voices. They are automatically installed and are ready to read out all of your documents in great Aussie accents as a built-in part of the program! More info about the programs is available on the Spectronics website at www.spectronicsinoz.com/browse.asp?cat=15708. If you are wishing to upgrade from previous versions of textHELP programs, we have built a textHELP Upgrades Calculator for you to use to help work out the cost of upgrades. See http://www.spectronicsinoz.com/tools/texthelp_upgrade.asp to use the calculator to help with your planning. |
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Boardmaker Plus! - Boardmaker plus classroom tools
Note that Boardmaker Plus! does not replace the Australian Version of Boardmaker – still our most popular program for creating symbol-based resources for supporting communication, PECS programs and other classroom applications. This new release is simply designed as a tool for use by the students on computer in addition to being used for creating all of those valuable printed resources. For more information, please visit the Spectronics website at www.spectronicsinoz.com/browse.asp?cat=20749. PS The Australian version of Boardmaker for the Macintosh has just been released for Mac OSX – and after a long three-year wait for Mac users, finally includes ALL of the features of the Boardmaker for Windows program. See www.spectronicsinoz.com/product.asp?product=16637. |
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Clicker 5 - Coming in June 2005
 Clicker 5 for Windows, the completely rewritten version of Clicker 4 was announced at the start of 2005, but we are still waiting on the actual program to ship! The latest advice from Crick Software in the UK is that it will be released in mid-June. They have thousands of copies on back order worldwide now. So, if you are waiting patiently for your Clicker 5 to arrive – hang in there – not long now! Clicker 5 is firmly based on the tried and tested Clicker 4 interface, and continues to be an easy-to-use writing support and multimedia tool that enables students to write with whole words, phrases or pictures. But many aspects are even easier to use. Crick Software has also redesigned the detail of how grids are displayed, giving a new, cleaner look-and-feel that helps students to find the words and pictures they need for scaffolded on-computer writing. New Features in Clicker 5 At-A-Glance:
Want more details?
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SOLO - the new look Co:Writer and much more
Combining the Write:OutLoud talking word processor and the Co:Writer 4000 word prediction program is a well established and powerful literacy support strategy used for struggling students in many schools across Australia and New Zealand. In early 2005, the Don Johnston company totally revised these two programs and now offers them in combination with two other programs to form the new “SOLO“ integrated software package. SOLO is specifically designed as a support tool for students with learning difficulties and is made up of:
By using these tools together, SOLO aims to allow a student to move seamlessly between reading comprehension and written expression. However, each of the individual programs are available for purchase on their own too for those students who require specific supports, but not the full SOLO suite. Please contact Spectronics if you would like to receive a Don Johnston catalogue which outlines each of the programs and how they work together in more detail. Information on each program is also available on the Spectronics website at www.spectronicsinoz.com/browse.asp?cat=18709 |
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ATLAS Workshop - with $5000 free software!
Laureate Learning Systems Software – What is it about? Laureate Software is a series of programs focused very much on developing the language skills of students with communication impairments. It starts at early cause-and-effect level, for students with significant levels of disability, and then moves through a series of 50 different programs for students who reach the high level skills of mastery of irregular verbs, advanced categorisation and complex sentence structure. It is the most comprehensive language development suite available and all Laureate programs are based on solid current linguistic theory and research. Click here to view a guide to choosing Laureate software based on each student’s language skills. What is an ATLAS Workshop? An ATLAS (Assistive Technology and Language Assessment Software) workshop is made up of two parts: the Toolkit of Laureate Learning Systems software and the training. By walking away from a one day ATLAS workshop with both – an ATLAS user has both the equipment and the instruction they need for success with students experiencing significant language and literacy difficulties. Even the best technology can’t help individuals with special needs if there is no one who is properly educated in how to use it! The Training and the Toolkit? For the past eight years, Adam Wing has worked in training and product development at Laureate Learning Systems. He has presented at hundreds of conferences both in the USA and internationally and has worked with thousands of parents and professionals to help them identify and implement appropriate assistive technology. He specialises in conducting language assessments and providing individualised software solutions for children and adults with special needs. He has a B.A. from St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland USA where he also studied The Great Books Program. The Toolkit provided at each ATLAS workshop includes a comprehensive manual and language assessment guidelines with recommendations for intervention starting points. It also includes full copies of 12 of Laureate’s software programs – valued at close to $5000! The Cost? Australia’s first ATLAS one-day workshop is scheduled for 28th September in Brisbane and will cost $690 (plus $69 GST). Given that you receive almost $5,000 worth of software FREE at the workshop – this is great value! And you leave the workshop knowing exactly how to use the 12 programs included in your Toolkit! Contact Heather Jones at Spectronics on heather@spectronicsinoz.com or phone (07) 3808 6833 to receive further information about the workshop. Or click here to download a registration form for the workshop (PDF format). |
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Inclusive Learning Technologies Winter School 2006
Remember to pencil in those dates of 23rd to 25th May 2006 to attend the next Inclusive Learning Technologies Winter School – hosted by Spectronics! Plans are coming ahead with confirmation that two of the most talented assistive technology presenters in the USA will be our keynote presenters. Both are heavily booked and we were lucky to be able to have both say that they would love to spend a week on Australia’s Gold Coast! Scott Marfilius is an Assistive/Educational Technology Consultant based in the USA. He is a teacher who specialised in working with students with intellectual impairments and/or learning disabilities. For the past 14 years, he has been involved in implementing assistive technology at various levels – within integrated classrooms through to district-wide system changes. His business partner is Kelly Fonner, who was the popular keynote presenter at our Inclusive Learning Technologies Summer School in 2004. Like Kelly, Scott has a particular skill in presenting “practical applications” of the features of many assistive technologies for students from primary school through to post-secondary settings. Dan Herlihy, also from the USA, is an Assistive Technology Resource Specialist and Technology Integration Specialist. He started in the special education classroom before moving onto establishing his own business – Connective Technology Solutions, Inc – providing assistive technology professional development and resources for teachers. He is also the author of the innovative “IntelliTools Extreme“ book. He will be an excellent “hands-on” workshop facilitator at the 2006 Winter School – allowing participants to explore programs in depth! If you wish to be kept up-to-date with plans for the Winter School 2006, please contact Heather Jones at Spectronics and she will add you to the growing list of people to contact as plans progress. |
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You have received this newsletter because you told us at Spectronics that you would like us to keep you up to date with technology changes. If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter, click on the following link to unsubscribe: http://www.spectronicsinoz.com/email/unsubscribe_me.asp or click on the following link to change your subscription details: http://www.spectronicsinoz.com/email/edit_me.asp Please feel free to forward this newsletter or sections of it on to your colleagues. You are also free to post it up onto the web. All we ask is that you acknowledge the source as Spectronics Email Updates and list our contact details below with any posting. Past copies of our email updates can also be found at http://www.spectronicsinoz.com/library.asp?library=email_updates
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Boardmaker Plus! is the latest version of the Boardmaker program to be released. It combines all of the features of