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Jane Ibell

My thoughts on Boardmaker with Speaking Dynamically Pro

Description of the program:

An easy to use program with application for all ages and all ability groups for designing in and out of school communication devices.

The program is easy to use, with a good tutorial to give the user an understanding of its range of applications as well a how to use its features. Its similarity to many common graphics programs will make mastery simpler. In addition to this, it is a powerful tool for giving speech to those who would otherwise be silent and dependent.

In comparison with the older Boardmaker with which I am familiar, this one is easier to use and allows for adjustments to symbol descriptions, sizes, fonts etc more readily. The Speaking Dynamically Pro features would enable students with no oral language to take part in class discussions or to give oral presentations as these could be prepared before hand and activated when required.

Lucy Barnham – Speech Pathologist

1. In one sentence, how would you describe this program?
   A comprehensive tool for making no tech communication aids, which also gives the option of turning your computer into a versatile voice output communication system.
2. In two paragraphs… what do you think of the program?
   
   I think it will take a while to learn and discover all the features available – there seem to be so many! Overall, toolbars and functions more streamlined and user friendly than older versions. I’d say this related to the fact that they seem similar to toolbars in a lot of other drawing programs, and therefore feel more familiar. It was fairly easy to learn to navigate both Boardmaker and SD Pro, with occasional references to the manual. It certainly helped me to have had previous experience with older version of both software programs. (I felt it gave me a head start in understanding the concept and uses of the programs, allowing me to focus on the actual structure and workings of the programs. It would probably have been somewhat more difficult otherwise). New layout on the monitor of Boardmaker (providing view of dictionary and board/multiple boards at the same time) is fantastic. I can see it would be very convenient in many situations having both programs combined, in terms of designing boards and turning them into SD Pro pages – much more streamlined.

   So far, I’ve only come across two minor shortcomings with the program. The option to display one or multiple picture matches in the dictionary is great. However, I did find that not being able to scroll through the multiple pictures if there are more than displayed in the grid was a minor disadvantage. The other problem I encountered was that I wanted to import some jpeg files into cells on one board, but wasn’t able to. Was able to overcome this by converting them to bitmap files first, but this was a little tedious. Overall, though, I’m very positive about using the software, and am having fun exploring its potential!