Spectronics Update

In this Issue

14th December 2005

---

1. Winter School Full-day Pre-Conference Workshops
2. Clicker 5 FREE Updater File - Now Available!
3. Clicker 5 Training Guides by Spectronics Team
4. New Australian Literacy Support Program - ReadOn!
5. Word Prediction Programs - At-a-Glance Comparison Chart
6. Launching Applications with IntelliKeys USB - Cool Tech Tip!
7. DynaVox 3100 Repairs Notice

Winter School Full-day Pre-Conference Workshops

---

Because of many requests received by Spectronics over the past few months, we have decided to add on a Pre-Conference Workshop day on Monday 22nd May 2006 – the day before the Inclusive Learning Technologies Winter School 2006 kicks off.

Five full-day Pre-Conference Workshops have been scheduled!

1. ATLAS (Assistive Technology & Language Assessment Software) Workshop Presenter: Adam Wing (Laureate Learning Systems, USA) B.Y.O. Laptop recommended
2. The World of Boardmaker: A Comprehensive and Interactive Workshop Presenter: Lisa Petit (Mayer-Johnson Inc., USA) Hands-on Computer Lab (3 to a computer)
3. textHELP Read&Write GOLD Presenter: Angeline King (textHELP Systems Limited, Northern Ireland) B.Y.O. Laptop recommended
4. Clicker 5 Presenter: Ann Crick (Crick Software, UK) B.Y.O. Laptop recommended
5. Creating Materials for Inclusion using Communicate: In Print and Communicate: By Choice Presenters: Mike and Tina Detheridge (Widgit Software, UK) B.Y.O. Laptop recommended

Each workshop will cost AUD $195 (incl. GST) except for the ATLAS Workshop which will cost AUD $759 (incl. GST). Given that you receive almost $5,000 worth of Laureate Learning Systems software FREE at the workshop – this is great value!

The ATLAS workshop does not require you to register for the Winter School, but all other Pre-Conference Workshops are only available to delegates registered to attend the Winter School. A full program will be available early in the 2006 school year. We have been working on it daily for months and the range of sessions are looking great!

To whet your appetite … here is the content to be covered by Lisa Petit from Mayer-Johnson in her Boardmaker Pre-Conference Workshop. Lisa is an excellent trainer – as she is a Special Education Teacher with a Masters Degree from Johns Hopkins University in Special Education. She is in much demand and travels the world presenting trainings and workshops using Boardmaker and add-on programs.

The World of Boardmaker: A Comprehensive and Interactive Workshop

A lot is changing in the World of Boardmaker! Attendees will receive the most up-to-the-minute information and training on the products and applications that the World of Boardmaker can now offer, including the new Boardmaker Plus. Break-out activities and resources provided are geared to target the specific goals of each attendee. This workshop will be a combination of hands-on training on new versions of the software and an examination of innovative end products. Additional skills along with lesser known features of the programs will be reviewed during the hands-on component of the training. The workshop will culminate with small group, cross-curricular planning and the creation of print-based and onscreen activities with Boardmaker Plus. This comprehensive and interactive workshop will leave attendees with a thorough understanding of Boardmaker and Boardmaker Plus both technically and conceptually, in addition to a plethora of ideas and strategies to create innovative applications to address the diverse needs of multiple learning levels.

Places will be limited for all Pre-Conference Workshops and will be allocated on a first-in basis. So be sure to register as soon as you can to ensure your place is booked!

Clicker 5 FREE Updater File - Now Available!

---

A free updater for your copy/copies of Clicker 5 is now available!

What extra features are added by updating to Clicker 5 (Release 2)?

1. Single and two-switch scanning
2. High contrast display styles for users with visual impairments
3. Child-friendly spellchecker
4. Ability to choose which tools are displayed in the toolbars
5. Import and export of user preferences and user access settings

Do you need to update your copy of Clicker 5?

If you purchased Clicker 5 before the end of November 2005, you will have the first release of the program. If you wish to add the extra features built into Release 2, you will need to run the updater. From December 2005, all Spectronics stocks of Clicker 5 have been replaced with Clicker 5 CDs which include all of the features of Release 2 built into the Clicker 5 CD itself.

We have written two instruction sheets to guide you through the process of updating. One provides instructions for updating using a file downloaded from the Web and the other guides you through the steps which you need to follow to install the update from a CD. If it is difficult for you to download files from the Internet, Spectronics is happy to send you a copy of the updater file on CD with the printed instruction sheets.

• How to install the Clicker 5 (Release 2) updater from the Internet
• How to install the Clicker 5 (Release 2) updater from a CD

Comments from the Spectronics team

Here are a few comments from the Spectronics team after putting each of these new features through their paces over the past week.

1. Single and two-switch scanning
   You can now choose between having no special access method selected or opting for ‘single-switch auto scan’ or ‘two-switch user scan’.

   Single and two-switch scanning both work beautifully with the Crick USB Switch Interface. The key shortcuts sent by each switch-press are F7 to select and F8 to move. As they are not keys that are available on the DJ Switch Interface Pro 5.0 (USB), it’s no longer possible to use the DJ Interface with Clicker. You can’t change them although you have a lot of control over what the switches do. For example, in single-switch scanning, you can also have a second switch plugged in. The default on this is that it will play the right click sound, but you could also set it up to do a range of other functions, such as exiting a scan group if you wish to exit, etc.

   It is important to note that, as with Clicker 4, the scanning built into Clicker 5 is NOT able to be used with a switch-adapted mouse. The easiest switch interface option to set up and use with Clicker 5 is definitely now the Crick USB Switch Interface.

   Auditory scanning also works well, and can be set up to use a beep or to speak out the right mouse-click sound as scanning progresses. Altering scan speed and more advanced features like acceptance delay, debounce delay and auto-repeat delay is easy too.

   Toolbars can be set up to be scanned allowing independent control of the program by switch users.

2. High contrast display styles for visually impaired users
   You can choose whether you want the colour scheme the grid was designed in (normal) or high contrast black and white; high contrast white and black; high contrast blue and yellow; high contrast yellow and blue; or simple Windows colour scheme. We can see some of the high contrast schemes being great not just for people with visual impairments but also for people learning to scan as they make the item/s being scanned really stand out. You can also specify a default font and whether or not Clicker Writer is magnified, up to 500%.

3. Child-friendly spellchecker
   The spellchecker was not available in the first release of Clicker 5 – so this is a very useful reason to update to Release 2. You can choose to have words underlined in the squiggly red line which will be familiar to Microsoft Word users. As when spellchecking in Word, a user can right-click on the underlined word and have a list of suggested spelling corrections listed.

   If the user requires more support to make a choice, they can select the spellchecker button on the toolbar to run the Clicker 5 spellchecker which launches a pop-up window containing the suggested words. The user can then have the words read aloud to assist with selections. To further assist, there is the option to have pictures appear to support making the correct choice. The Clicker 5 pictures automatically appear – but if you have installed the PCS Metafiles (a separate purchase), you will also have access to a spellchecker with PCS symbol support. This is very helpful for students who need more words supported with illustrations as there are over 7000 PCS symbols – compared with the more limited set of just 2000 images supplied with Clicker 5.

   The spellchecker pop-up box is automatically scanned when a switch user is driving the program.

4. Ability to choose which tools are displayed in the toolbars
   You can now choose which icons appear on both your writer toolbar and your grid toolbar for the grid set you are in – or you can hide the toolbars altogether. The changes only apply to the grid set you are in and the program asks whether you want to save them when you leave the grid set.

5. Import and export of user preferences and user access settings
   You can now export a set of user preferences, and import them back again. Once you have exported them they appear in Clicker Explorer – so you could set up “John’s preferences”, export them and call them “John”, and then when John goes into Clicker, he simply finds his name in the list in Clicker Explorer and double clicks to load his preferences. Not quite as simple as the user log-on built into the opening screen of Clicker 4, but easy to do and very elegant and caters for those people who didn’t like the user log-on and found it difficult to turn off. There is also an option here to load default preferences, which returns both User Preferences and User Access choices back to the program’s default settings.

What is still to come for your copy of Clicker 5?

1. Ability to edit pronunciation.
2. Ability to “Tag” MP3 sound files so that words can be highlighted as they are spoken aloud. At the moment, highlighting of words is only possible when they are spoken aloud using the computer voices. Crick Software is in the process of building their own MP3 tagging program. We are not sure if it will be released as a separate program which will need to be purchased as an add-on to Clicker 5.
3. Compatibility with Penfriend XP – to allow for word prediction support to be provided in Clicker grids. Now tipped to be ready by mid-2006.

We will let you know via the Spectronics website and emailed updates when these features are available.

Please contact us if you have any queries at all, we are always happy to help. In Australia phone (07) 3808 6833 or email mail@spectronicsinoz.com. In New Zealand, phone (07) 854 5100 or email trev@spectronics.co.nz

Clicker 5 Training Guides by Spectronics Team

---

The Spectronics Professional Training Services Team has been busy creating training guides for several of our popular programs. We have posted up two new hands-on workshop guides for you to download and use for your own individual learning with the program – or for use in workshops.

Clicker 5 – BeginnerÀâ„s Hands-on Half-Day Workshop Guide
Clicker 5 – Hands-on Full-Day Workshop Guide

As noted on the files, we simply ask that you acknowledge Spectronics as the author if you are sharing the guides with others, or using them for workshops. Our Professional Training Services Team is also available to conduct customised workshops for your school, organisation or for individuals needing specific training. To download more information about the training services available and our Schedule of Fees, visit www.spectronicsinoz.com/downloads/flyers/Training_Services_Flyer.pdf.

Our team will continue to add training guides and help sheets to our web answering the questions most frequently asked of us at conferences, workshops and in phone calls to our offices.

Coming in next Emailed Update … “How to use PCS symbols with Clicker 5”. We are always being asked for help on this issue! We will have a hands-on guide for stepping through the basics of Kurzweil 3000 available for you too.

New Australian Literacy Support Program - ReadOn!

---

ReadOn is an all-Australian software program designed to support students who struggle with reading and comprehension. It offers a clean, clear and easy-to-understand interface to support reading of documents and writing. The popular Australian RealSpeak voices of “Karen“ and “Lee“ will be available in the program soon too.

What is special about ReadOn?

We know there are several programs available for reading aloud text on the computer – but ReadOn offers some uniquely valuable features to support struggling students.

• Interface easy for early primary school students to understand – making it a great precursor to more complex programs such as textHELP Read&Write GOLD
• Audio-visual tutorials supporting all features of the program – spoken aloud in an Australian voice
• Variety of reading display styles to suit the needs of a diverse group of students
• Simple visual tracking exercises to encourage visual scanning and comprehension of the whole word – often not done well by students experiencing reading difficulties
• A Word Bank (unique to each student using the program) is created each time a student calls on audio support to help with comprehension of a word. The word bank even records the number of times a student seeks assistance with each word – assisting in identifying areas of decoding difficulty for each student – and encouraging independent targeted revision of “problem words” by the student.
• OCR scanning of printed documents – to allow them to be read aloud
• Option to create customised visual cues allows pictures to pop-up when a problem word for that particular student is clicked on. Some students have great difficulty understanding some words because they are not able to form a “visual image” of what the word means. This tool allows for any image to be tied to a word. Work with the student to find an image that makes sense to them – then create a visual cue using that image – so everytime the student encounters that word in text, they can click on it and see the visual reminder of what the word means! Very clever.

For more information about ReadOn, visit www.spectronicsinoz.com/product.asp?product=22022 or download an information brochure in PDF format brochure for Australia or New Zealand.

Jane and Phil Mangano, developers of ReadOn, come from Special Education and IT backgrounds, and will be presenting at the Inclusive Learning Technologies Winter School 2006 going into detail as to WHY certain features of the program were developed and exactly how they assist students with learning difficulties.

Word Prediction Programs - At-a-Glance Comparison Chart

---

Word prediction software programs are those which offer an onscreen list of suggestions for the words the program thinks a student may be trying to type. These programs offer powerful supports for students who experience difficulty with putting their thoughts down on paper. Using the programs to support a struggling writer consistently improves their spelling, the volume of written work and the richness of the vocabulary used. Students are also less reluctant to participate in writing activities. For students with physical disabilities, word prediction programs allow them to type with far fewer keystrokes – significantly enhancing their typing speed.

Several software programs offering word prediction are available from Spectronics. Some exclusively offer word prediction, whereas others offer word prediction as just one of a host of features. Penny McCulloch, Spectronics’ Special Education and Learning Difficulties Consultant, has put together a chart comparing the features of several programs which offer word prediction including:

• Co:Writer SOLO
• textHELP! Read&Write 7.1 GOLD
• Kurzweil 3000 (Version 9)
• Penfriend XP
• Penfriend XL
• ClaroRead
• Soothsayer
• IntelliTalk 3

Visit www.spectronicsinoz.com/library.asp?article=22248 to view the Word Prediction Comparison Chart to help you to decide which program best meets your needs.

At Spectronics, we feel that Co:Writer SOLO is definitely the “Rolls Royce” of word prediction programs. See www.spectronicsinoz.com/library.asp?article=2190 for an article from Don Johnston Inc. (the company which developed Co:Writer SOLO) for more background information on how Co:Writer’s clever logic works in suggesting predicted words.

Launching Applications with IntelliKeys USB - Cool Tech Tip!

---

Ever wondered how to include cells on your IntelliKeys USB overlays that let students launch applications? It’s simply a matter of knowing your keyboard commands! Windows has a series of keyboard shortcuts that enable you to open up folders, applications and generally navigate your way around the desktop without having to use a mouse or mouse device. (You can view keyboard shortcuts through the Windows Help section on your computer.)

To set a key to launch an application, include the following commands and text:
[Control] [Escape] r (path to the application) [Enter]

So, for example, to launch Internet Explorer:
[Control] [Escape] r C:Program FilesInternet ExplorerIEXPLORE.EXE [Enter]

Contact Penny McCulloch at Spectronics on email penny@spectronicsinoz.com or phone (07) 3808 6833 if you would like more information about using your IntelliKeys USB in this way.

Interested in learning more about using your IntelliKeys USB to the max? Suzanne Feit, talented trainer from the IntelliTools company, and Dan Herlihy, Assistive Technology Consultant and Trainer, will both be travelling out from the USA to present sessions at our < a href=“http://www.spectronicsinoz.com/info.asp?info=winterschool”>Inclusive Learning Technologies Winter School 2006. They have many great IntelliKeys USB tips and tricks to share – and will inspire you to re-look at the possibilities opened up for your students by using your IntelliKeys!

DynaVox 3100 Repairs Notice

---

We have recently received word from Dynavox that some spare parts are no longer available for some Dynamyte 3100 units and Dynavox 3100 units. This only applies to devices which are older than five years. If you have any questions, please contact Jane Farrall on jane@spectronicsinoz.com or on (03) 9848 4812.