Win one of TWO FREE registrations to attend the Inclusive Learning Technologies Conference 2010!

We have heard from several delegates who attended the Inclusive Learning Technologies Conference 2008 that they are finding their sturdy conference satchels really handy for all sorts of things. That’s great to hear. So we thought it might be fun to run a competition to see how far and wide the satchels actually do travel!

We have received some great photos from all across Australia and New Zealand – along with photos from the UK, Ireland, Europe, India and the USA! Keep them coming in! We have just been told that someone is taking their satchel to Peru next month for a shot in front of Machu Picchu! Cool.

We will keep posting the photos up onto the Conference Satchels Competition webpage and the Conference Facebook Page as they come in. The final winners will be announced at the end of December 2009 – giving you lots of time to send them in (and to plan exciting outings for your satchels too). Please email all photo entries to the Conference Committee at conference@spectronicsinoz.com with details of where the photo was taken. All entries will be considered!
 

Do YOU want to present at the conference yourself?

Just a reminder that the Call for Papers is now open! Click here to submit your proposal online. Submissions close 30th September 2009 - only three months away now! As usual, one complimentary three-day conference registration will be offered for each presentation accepted for the final program (valued at $595).

And if you are ready to register already, click here to register now and be sure to reserve your place!
 

(Back to Top)

At Spectronics, we are always trying to think of ways to make it easy for you to keep up-to-date with new technologies and initiatives as they emerge. We appreciate that you are busy and having to visit our website to check out if anything is new can be a bit of a time-consuming pain! So we have started building RSS feeds into pages on our web.

What is an RSS feed? You may be across this already – but if not – it is simply a way of setting up a “reader” page where all of the posts from your favourite websites and blogs can be viewed in one place. It saves you having to visit each of them to see if anything new has been added since your last visit. The news then automatically appears on your “reader” page as it is posted up on your favourite sites. Many free readers are available and one of the most popular of these is Google Reader.

If you are more of an email person, you can even arrange for this info to come straight to you as an email too using a tool like feedmyinbox.

Two pages on the Spectronics website now have RSS feeds to which you can subscribe. The first is our “Recent Additions to our Website” and the other is the new Spectronics Blog. Simply subscribe to these to be totally up-to-date with new technologies as they are added to our web and new happenings which we think you might like to know about as the Spectronics team discovers them!

A series of helpful videos and a printed guide to setting up these Spectronics RSS feeds can be found on our RSS Help page or if you want to watch a quick and entertaining video outlining how this RSS feed thing works in general, check out “RSS in Plain English” up on YouTube.

By the way! Why not call in and check out the new Spectronics Blog? If you post a comment within the next two months, you will be in the draw to win a free copy of Texthelp Read&Write Gold Mobile USB version (worth $800)! The winner will be randomly selected from all comments posted online and will be announced in our next newsletter. We look forward to hearing from you!
 

(Back to Top)

One of the biggest buzzes in the AAC world for 2009 is the release of Proloquo2Go software for use with an iPod or iPhone. For less than $1000, users can configure their own “very cool” communication device by purchasing and downloading the software from the Apple iTunes Apps Store and installing it on their iPod or iPhone. For your convenience, Spectronics also offers a ready-configured Proloquo2Go bundle – comprised of an 8GB iPod touch with Proloquo2Go software pre-installed and tested, and housed in an iMainGo2 Portable Speaker. This bundle includes access to Spectronics’ comprehensive technical support and advisory services (not available for software purchased directly from the iTunes store).

Proloquo2Go’s flexible and innovative features include:

• Natural sounding text-to-speech Acapela voices (US English voices initially with British English voices soon to be available)
• 8000 SymbolStix symbols
• Support for picture and/or text-based communication
• Flexible VocaSpace vocabulary of over 7000 items
• Powerful automatic conjugations
• Quick access to recently spoken items for the last 15 minutes/last hour - all the way up to one week back
• Typing view for typing full paragraphs
• Extremely easy to use
• And it just looks cool!

Visit the Proloquo2Go website for more information and to join the active Community discussion list to exchange experiences and ideas with Proloquo2Go. David Niemeijer, from Assistiveware in the Netherlands, and co-developer of Proloquo2Go will be presenting in the hands-on Apple Mac laptops and iPods Lab at Spectronics' Inclusive Learning Technologies Conference 2010 in May next year too!

(Back to Top)

Another VERY cool new technology is CapturaTalk! This clever program allows your Window Mobile phone to take a photo of written text and then have it read aloud for you in a clear UK English voice! It will also read aloud text in documents on the phone - including emails and SMS messages received along with web pages visited.

Click here to view a short video which highlights how CapturaTalk makes it easy to instantly read text anywhere that it can be photographed. The content of books, menus, schedules and work directions are all instantly accessible and understandable to struggling readers. It will even read aloud definitions of words which a user has difficulty understanding. This new technology was also recently featured on BBC news.

To learn more about CapturaTalk and the Windows Mobile smart phones with which it is compatible - visit the Spectronics website.

(Back to Top)

A new introductory money and maths skill program has just been released by the Attainment Company. It includes clear images of Australian and New Zealand coins and features four progressively more challenging activities: Naming, Sorting, Matching and Vending. You can select which currency, which specific coins and how many of each are to be presented to each student. Individual student performances on each of the activities is tracked by the program too. The large clear images of the coins on uncluttered backgrounds make this program ideal for use with touchscreens or interactive whiteboards! Visit the Spectronics website for more information.

(Back to Top)

Australians need a no fault insurance scheme for everyone who has, or acquires, a significant disability. The National Disability Insurance Scheme is a strategy for all Australians that will provide significant long-term improvements in meeting the needs of people with a disability and their families. This proposal is now gaining attention from both the media and at the highest levels of government. Imagine a future where people with a significant or complex disability had free and ready access to all the services and equipment they need. Lend your voice to the cause!

A nationwide petition has been issued in support of this initiative with organisers hoping to gather at least one million names to present to parliament and strengthen political will to reform the disability sector. We encourage you to download this petition for a National Disability Insurance Scheme and circulate it to your family, friends, colleagues and networks.

You can also show your support for the National Disability Insurance Scheme by telling the government about the difficulties faced by you, your family or your colleagues. Your comments will help shape the National Disability Strategy – a vision of what life could be like for people with a disability and their families in Australia. Post your comments now!

 

(Back to Top)

We are frequently asked about the differences between three of our most popular literacy support software programs - Texthelp Read&Write GOLD, ClaroRead Plus and Kurzweil 3000 for Windows . To help you to compare the features of each, and to determine which options may best meet the particular needs of your students, Spectronics' teachers have put together a useful and comprehensive comparison chart. View this comparison online or click here to download the PDF printable version.

(Back to Top)

At the recent AGOSCI Conference in Canberra, several eye gaze systems were on display – allowing users to control computers and/or speech generating devices simply through their eye movements. One of the newer systems featured was the DynaVox EyeMax accessory for the DynaVox Vmax speech generating device. The EyeMax enables users to control a DynaVox Vmax with their eyes. It gives users fast and easy access to the thousands of pre-programmed InterAACt software communication pages built into the Vmax – as well as affording access to any customised pages made using the DynaVox Series 5 software. EyeMax users can also send a text message or write an email just using their eyes.

The EyeMax can be added to any Vmax device, although some older Vmax units may need to be upgraded. For more information, click here, or to arrange a trial of the EyeMax and Vmax together, application forms are available in the Equipment Trials section of the Spectronics website.

Another eye gaze option scheduled for release in late 2009 is the Tobii CEye Eye Control Unit for Tobii C12 speech generating device. We will provide more details about this system once our Speech Pathology team have had a chance to evaluate the CEye on its launch.

If you have specific questions regarding eye gaze systems, please contact Jane Farrall, Spectronics’ AAC Support Services Manager on janef@spectronicsinoz.com or phone (07) 3808 6833. She will be happy to assist.
 

(Back to Top)

Our Speech Pathology team has been busy creating activities for use with Boardmaker Plus! Version 6. In fact, two of these activities have been featured as the “Editor’s Pick of the Month” on the Adapted Learning site featuring thousands of freely downloadable Boardmaker Plus! boards and interactive activities.

Two of their recent collections of boards and activities are now downloadable from the Spectronics Activity Exchange too.

Pandas Activity Set by Jane Farrall

The Pandas Activity Set for Boardmaker Plus! contains four separate literacy activities. A simple talking book with photos, based around the onset rime word family “-eat”, an onset rime activity, a Panda facts book and a simple comprehension exercise. An excellent resource for early readers of any age - including original Panda photos taken by Jane on her recent visit to Ocean Park in Hong Kong! Click here to download the Activity Set. Additional resources to support the activities are available in the Visual Stack also created by Jane.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Activity Set by Katie Lyon

This activity set was created in Boardmaker Plus! to accompany the fabulous children’s story book by Eric Carle. It contains a range of resources including print-based activities such as a matching activity and a colour-by-number sheet. It also includes many interactive onscreen activities such as a butterfly life-cycle, more or less activity, write a story, find a sound and interactive games including bingo, sorting and noughts and crosses. It also has room for you to develop a talking book, provided you have a copy of the original Very Hungry Caterpillar book. Click here to download the Activity Set. You can even watch the engaging movie courtesy of YouTube.

For help with importing these activities into your copy of Boardmaker Plus!, read the FAQ “What do I do with a board package after I download it?”
 

(Back to Top)

• Do you have a legitimate copy of Boardmaker for Australia/New Zealand?
  
  It has come to our attention that one supplier in Australia is selling Boardmaker software that is not sourced from Spectronics, even though DynaVox Mayer-Johnson has appointed Spectronics as the exclusive Boardmaker distributor for Australia and New Zealand and does not authorise reselling of the Boardmaker program if it is not originally supplied by Spectronics. So if you are purchasing Boardmaker, be careful to ensure that the copy you receive has been published by Spectronics (jointly with DynaVox Mayer-Johnson) - readily recognisable by the Spectronics logo on the DVD case. You will then be assured of Spectronics' support and ease of future upgrade paths. 

• For a great collection of links to free technology tools supporting Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in the classroom visit the cool UDL Toolkit Wiki 
   
• Popular downloads this month from Spectronics website have included the comprehensive Texthelp Read&Write GOLD Version 9 Training Guide from our recent Australian Training Tour and the "What's New in AAC" booklet prepared for the AGOSCI conference in Canberra in May. Click on the links to download your own copy of each! 
   
• Gerry Kennedy, IT Consultant, has been busy writing a comprehensive series of 12 articles around the topic of “Universal Access” using a wide range of technologies! Click here to view these informative articles! 

(Back to Top)