SPECIAL NEEDS TECH NEWS

A newsletter celebrating enabling technology, the people who use it, and the developers that make it possible.

March 2005 Volume 4 Issue 3

INSIDE

Editor's Corner

This issue of Special Needs Tech News carries information about the Special Needs category nominated products entered in the 2005 Software and Information Industry Association's (SIIA) Codie Awards competition. This is the third year that I've judged the Special Needs Category.
I've included my contestant reviews and my selections for the top five special needs category products entered in the 2005 Codie Awards.
To find out more about the 2005 Codie Awards software competition, visit SIIA's site at http://www.siia.net/codies/2005

Please feel free to make complete copies of this publication to share with others.

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Mouse Tracks

Online Technology Tutorials
Check out the links to free and fee-based resources at this site: http://www.kent.k12.wa.us/KSD/IT/TSC/prof_dev/tutorials.html

Tech Tips & Training
See what's available online at the Georgia Instructional Materials Center: http://www.gimc.org/technology.htm

MATR Tutorials
Find AT tutorial links at Michigan's Assistive Technology Resource: http://www.cenmi.org/matr/tutorials.asp

Tech Connections
AT Works: Online Tutorial Series
Registration is required, but access to the tutorials is free: http://www.techconnections.org/atworks/index.cfm

SIIA Codie Awards
Special Needs Category Product Reviews

Just 2 Days, Special Needs Edition
WILL Interactive Incorporated.

RANK: FIRST

This software utilizes realistic video clips to guide participants through a storyline on a high school gun violence scenario.

Strengths: Using this product was like participating in an interactive television documentary. The product's unique approach went beyond a simple point and click experience to involve participating students in the story of four teens and the roles they played in inciting or defusing the escalation of aggression and violence. It helps students to understand how socialization and peer influence can affect a student's response to events. I liked the options within this program and the inserted narration that helps students understand the consequences of teen behavior.

I had several groups of grade twelve students in a psychology class "test drive" this product. The product certainly held the attention of the students and facilitated interesting discussions about the story. The overall impression of these students attending an academically focused grade 8 to 12 school in central British Columbia, Canada was that the storyline was not a realistic scenario for their educational environment. Basically, the students laughed at the plausibility of students pulling guns on each other. One boy remarked in disbelief "Who would do that?" While we're aware of weapons issues afflicting some urban and American schools and appreciate the innovative presentation style of this software, it's a product that would not be marketable in communities where there is no school culture of gun violence. It was clear to the students that this wasn't an appropriate product for them, but unfortunately was an appropriate product for many students who must live in environments where there is a fear of guns in their schools and communities. Although the content didn't fit the secondary school learning environments where I've lived and worked, I think Just 2 Days is one of the most unique instructional software products I've seen.

Areas for Improvement: I'd love to see more titles from this developer using the same interactive video presentation method, but looking at decision-making and bullying issues that are more universally applicable. I've ranked this product first because it reaches students on an emotional level as well as an instructional level.

Bring It On
Ripple Effects Incorporated

RANK: SECOND

This software includes a collection of topic areas for supporting at-risk students in their social, emotional, educational development. The wide range of content is suitable for students in elementary and secondary schools.

Strengths: Bring It On has several installation options that allow users to run the program on their computers with or without CD insertion. The full install allows the user to run the full program without the CD, but takes up the most drive space. The partial install options allow users with minimal available drive space to run the program while being prompted to insert CDs when required for video clip examples, etc. The user can pick topics of personal interest such as making friends, bullying, shyness, etc. The content is truly customizable to individual student's needs. Students are provided with general information, video clips, as well as links to online resources for extended learning. I especially like the privacy option that allows students to quickly cloak the screen so that others won't know which topics they're viewing. It would be best to have this software available on a laptop or desktop computer that is not widely visible to others. I like the suggestions that users are given about related topics.

Areas for Improvement: The user interface seems somewhat cluttered, which may confuse some users. A cleaner design would make the product more visually appealing.

First Words Sterling Edition
Laureate Learning Systems

RANK: THIRD

This is an early literacy word recognition drill program that could be useful for young children, ESL students, and/or older students with intellectual disabilities. It can be used by anyone serving these groups.

Strengths: The software installs easily and has an intuitive interface, which eliminates the need to read a lot of manuals and documentation before being able to operate it. It is designed for accessibility with configurable scanning access and voice output. The user is required to make simple selections to identify the correct word and object between two choices on the screen. The uncluttered activity view prevents students from accidentally escaping the exercises while working, as there is no exit button on the activity screen. The keyboard's escape button must be used to exit the activity.

Continuous repetition of noun choices with variable pictures makes it a good exercise for low-level learners. Instant reporting capabilities present educators and parents with documentation of student progress.

Areas for Improvement: The repetitious nature of these exercises could make it tedious for continuous use over time. Many students learn these vocabulary words through day-to-day interaction with their environments. The program is more suitable for development of verbal and visual word recognition skills, rather than written language skills.

Failure Free Reading Online
Failure Free Reading

RANK: FOURTH

Strengths: There are new data management and reporting features for Failure Free Reading that will assist educators and administrations in their efforts to track progress and meet accountability standards. Failure Free Reading uses talking software that turns the computer into a personal reading clinic. This facilitates learning independence for students working to improve their reading skills. The purpose of Failure Free Reading is to give students what they need in order to be successful. Repetition is the method used by the software to gain word recognition and fluency skills. Students are tested to determine individualized starting points for reading skill building. The reporting and accountability features are aligned for No Child Left Behind compliance.

Areas for Improvement: I would like to see greater cross-platform compatibility for a subscription education product such as this. If students or schools are alternative operating system and browser users, that may pose a barrier to subscription access from some school and home computers. Administrator system requirements are Windows 95 and later (Internet Explore 5+). Students' system requirements are Windows 95 and later, or Mac OS 8.1 and later (Internet Explorer 5+ or Netscape 4.7+).

Thinking Reader
Tuck Everlasting
Tom Snyder Productions

RANK: FIFTH

This software helps students who struggle with reading comprehension. The Tuck Everlasting edition is just one of a collection of titles available in the Thinking Reader series.

Strengths: The software includes a number of reading supports such as natural voice text-to-speech and highlighting features. It is also customizable so that teachers can provide additional cueing and coaching comprehension strategies for students who have difficulty understanding what they read. Unfamiliar vocabulary words are hyperlinked to explanations that students can review with a quick click. It looks like a wonderful format for students who want to work independently while receiving the support they need to succeed.

Areas for improvement: It would be good to see the support materials/booklets available on the disk in an editable format. This would allow teachers to modify the content or layout of these materials. Unfortunately, the demo disk I was sent did not work and I could only access the product overview. I emailed the support department at 2:30 pm on Dec. 16/04 about the CD failing to install on two different computers. As I did not receive any response to my concern, I could not fully explore the product for this competition. As I had no way to actually run the program and the email I sent to ask@tomsnyder.com was never answered, I must rank this product fifth out of five.

Product Announcements

WEST PALM BEACH, FL - March 2, 2005 - A nationally-recognized distance learning school, National Professions, has announced the addition of a Broadcast Captioning program.

National Professions is known for its high quality distance learning court reporting program. Brenda McSwigan, the President and founder of National Professions stated, "The Government has declared that all television programs are to be captioned by the year 2008, but at this time there are hardly any schools teaching captioning and there are nowhere near enough captioners to fill the jobs. This high tech, high paying career is an exciting opportunity for new students as the captioner goes on the air directly from the privacy of their own home."

National Professions is also well known for quality education by court reporting firms around the country and is fully licensed by the Commission of Independent Education, which is part of the Florida Department of Education, to give an Occupational Associate Degree in Court Reporting and also in Broadcast Captioning.

"We are very excited by the Broadcast Captioning Program," added McSwigan. "Students can now learn this new career at home and at their own pace, and all they need is a high school diploma or a GED."

When asked how the program worked for students at a distance, McSwigan explained, "Students are sent a combination of text books, video tapes, audio tapes and lesson instructions, and in addition, a portion of the program is online. However, students can go online any time of the day or night. They don't have to log on at a specific time." She continued, "Actually, the lessons are so structured that students are told exactly what to do every single study hour of the program. Our students love it."

About National Professions

National Professions is located in Lantana, Florida, about five miles south of West Palm Beach. The school is operated by Brenda McSwigan who has 30 years experience as a Court Reporter, first in the Crown Courts of London, England and then later in the New York Supreme Courts and finally in the Florida Federal Courts. She has been training students to be successful court reporters for more than fifteen years.

"What makes our training unique," adds McSwigan, "is the depth of knowledge of our instructors together with the structure of our lessons. Also, students learn the stenotype machine using an interactive computer tutorial, which is just like having an instructor sitting next to them. There is just nothing else out there at this time that compares to our program."

Solaris 10 released, with accessibility built-in! Also FreeTTS 1.2 released

The Sun Accessibility team is utterly delighted to announce:

- Solaris 10, with a rich set of accessibility features and included assistive technologies, is now shipping and available for immediate web download for both SPARC and x86/x64 architectures. Solaris is the premier UNIX operating system from Sun Microsystems, favored by customers for mission critical environments. Among the many new features in Solaris 10 release is the GNOME graphical desktop with accessibility support built-in. Solaris 10 accessibility features include: complete mouseless access to the desktop; theming support with high contrast and large print themes; a collection of keyboard accessibility features including StickyKeys, MouseKeys, BounceKeys, SlowKeys, and ToggleKeys; a full-featured screen reader and screen magnifier with Braille access; a powerful dynamic on-screen keyboard with many features no other on-screen keyboard can provide.

With Solaris 10, accessibility support can be configured for use even at the login screen, so users with disabilities can have their theme or assistive technology working before they log into the system!

Solaris 10 also includes a rich collection of web and productivity applications such as Mozilla for web browsing, Evolution for e-mail and enterprise calendaring, and the StarOffice suite for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation authoring - all of which fully support the GNOME accessibility architecture and included assistive technologies.

- FreeTTS 1.2, the free, open source text-to-speech engine written in the Java programming language is now available. FreeTTS partially supports the Java Speech API, and can be used and redistributed in Java and web-based applications. FreeTTS ships with Solaris 10 and is used by the screen reader that comes with Solaris 10.

The Solaris 10 Operating System

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Solaris is Sun's "enterprise-grade" UNIX operating system. It runs on the SPARC line of 64-bit processors as well as x86 (and the new 64-bit editions of x86, known as "x64") processors. Used both as a server operating system and for workstations, Solaris powers a large portion of the businesses on the Internet, and serves as the backbone of many companies' Information Technology systems.

Solaris is an extremely scalable operating systems, capable of running systems with one microprocessor to systems with over 100 microprocessors.

Solaris 10 includes a host of new features, most of which aren't available in any other operating system. The new features include: DTrace - a comprehensive dynamic tracing framework for troubleshooting systemic problems in real time; Solaris Containers which allows you to turn one computer into multiple virtual computers; ZFS - the zettabyte file system which is a next generation self-healing, self-managing 128-bit file system; and dramatically increased network performance.

In addition to the powerful, base operating system features noted above, Solaris 10 includes a rich graphical desktop with a large collection of productivity applications. Solaris 10 includes the Java Desktop System - a graphical desktop based on the open source GNOME environment - with a number of key additions from Sun.

The Solaris 10 desktop includes StarOffice 7, a powerful productivity suite with a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation package that can read and write Microsoft file formats. Also included with Solaris 10 is the Mozilla web browser, and the Evolution e-mail and enterprise calendaring application.

With this release, Solaris is now also a very accessible operating system! The Java Desktop System release 3 - the recommended graphical desktop that is part of Solaris 10 - provides a tremendous amount of support for users with disabilities.

Accessibility support in Solaris 10 includes:

- complete keyboard operability of all supported applications and functions on the desktop. This of course includes the productivity applications in Solaris 10 like StarOffice and Mozilla and Evolution, and of course all of the Java applications. This means that people with a range of mild physical impairments can operate Solaris 10.

- the collection of keyboard enhancements pioneered by the TRACE Center

- StickyKeys, MouseKeys, BounceKeys, etc. This functionality allows people with a variety of mild to medium physical impairments to operate Solaris 10 (e.g. hand tremors from Parkinson's disease).

- a themable desktop with support for a range of desktop themes. These include for accessibility: High Contrast, High Contrast Inverse,and Large Print themes. And of course the supported graphical applications in the Java Desktop System respect these themes(including Staroffice, Mozilla, Evolution, and all of the Java applications). This allows people with a range of mild vision impairments to operate Solaris 10.

- a full-featured, commercial quality screen reader and screen magnifier. Unlike the very limited screen reader and screen magnifier shipping on other desktops, the one in Solaris 10 works with all of the supported graphical applications in the Java Desktop System - you can use them to browse the web and edit documents and spreadsheets and presentations and read your e-mail and track your calendar. Solaris 10 is also the first graphical desktop to interoperate with Braille displays,out of the box! This allows people who are legally blind - or completely blind - or even deaf-blind! - to operate Solaris 10.

- an industry leading on-screen keyboard which reaches inside running applications and dynamically builds "keyboards" to rapidly interact with every supported graphical applications in the Java Desktop System. This functionality goes far beyond anything available on other graphical desktops - either bundled with or purchased commercially - and offers *dramatic* speed improvements to people with significant physical disabilities. The on-screen keyboard in Solaris 10 monitors what you are doing with applications, and offers immediate access to things like the menu system, toolbars, hyperlinks, and the controls in dialog boxes. Of course it also includes a range of optimized alphanumeric keyboards with word completion. The Solaris 10 on-screen keyboard can be driven by a wide array of access methods (including automatic scanning with switch selection, dwell selection with a head pointer, and of course direct selection). This allows people with a range of severe physical impairments (including quadriplegia, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, and ALS) to operate Solaris 10!

The accessibility features of Solaris 10 can be used not just only at the graphical desktop - but from the moment the user begins to log into the system! Once configured for accessible login, a Solaris 10 system will invoke the screen reader or magnifier, or on-screen keyboard with a simple gesture from the user - even before they have authenticated themselves. Users can also have a Large Print login screen if they desire it, or choose any other included accessibility theme. Of course the accessible login screen is also fully keyboard operable, and the TRACE suite of keyboard enhancements can be enabled there as well.

Sun is making Solaris 10 source code available under the Common Development and Distribution License, an open source license recognized by the Open Source Initiative. In addition, all of the accessibility work developed by Sun for Solaris 10 has been contributed back to the GNOME, OpenOffice.org, Mozilla, Evolution, and X communities under their respective open source licenses.

You can download Solaris 10 for SPARC or x86/x64 processors at:

http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/get.jsp

View the Solaris 10 Accessibility Guide at:

http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/817-7307

View a more lengthy description of the Solaris 10 accessibility features, complete with links to pictures of much of the accessibility functionality, at:

http://blogs.sun.com/korn/20050209#solaris_10_another_first_for

FreeTTS 1.2

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FreeTTS is the free, open source text-to-speech engine written In the Java programming language. FreeTTS is based upon Flite, a small,fast, run-time speech synthesis engine, which in turn is based upon University of Edinburgh's Festival Speech Synthesis System and Carnegie Mellon University's FestVox project. The FreeTTS package includes two English languages voices, a limited domain English language voice,support for importing a variety of other voices developed elsewhere.

FreeTTS supports the MBROLA family of voices (developed under a European Union initiative and free for non-commercial and non-military use), and also the new ARCTIC high-quality unit selection voices.

FreeTTS partially implements the Java Speech API, and can be used with gnome-speech and the Gnopernicus screen reader/magnifier in Solaris and GNU/Linux.

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Assistive Technology: An Introductory Guide for K-12 Library Media Specialists

This unique book offers valuable information on accessibility and assistive technologies for educators including K-12, public and postsecondary librarians. The content covers: Inclusion and accessibility topics; School reform, legislation, and funding; Operating system and browser accessibility; Add-on assistive technology hardware and software for special needs; Open Source and proprietary software; Captioning technologies; Portable and assistive devices; Internet resources, conferences, and professional development. Expert contributors from the United States and Australia are featured in sidebar and chapter content throughout the book.

As inclusive education partners, librarians are in a strong position to assist information users with special needs. Until now, it has been difficult to find a library-focused resource on enabling technologies, strategies, and products to enhance library accessibility and services for clients with special needs. Assistive Technology: An Introductory Guide for K-12 Library Media Specialists is a well-organized, fifteen chapter book that introduces assistive technology information to educators unfamiliar with this emerging field and its important applications in libraries and education.

Buy the book online
Amazon.com
Amazon.ca (Canadian site)

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