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Answer:
Contact your county office of education and SELPA
(special education local planning area) to see if there are area-wide
assistive technology services and resources. Many counties and
SELPA's have established lending libraries of technology equipment
for students with disabilities.
Consult with assistive technology groups and/or
arrange to visit their sites to review software programs and equipment
or participate in training activities. For example, The Center
for Accessible Technology, in Berkeley http://www.cforat.org,
510-841-3224; ACRE (JR-INSERT CONTACT INFO); Sonoma County Adaptive
Technology Center, (JR-INSERT CONTACT INFO)
Purchase software and other technology devices
from companies that have at least a 30-day preview policy.
Use freeware, shareware and demo programs to conduct
trial-use periods before you purchase.
Glenda Hampton Anderson, an Assistive Technology
Consultant with Butte County Office of Education has compiled
a GREAT resource list of freeware and shareware, SCROLL-ON-DOWN
to see a few examples. The entire list is available at: http://www.resa.net/atrc/Freeware.doc.
Freeware, Shareware and Demo
Programs on the Internet
Glenda Hampton Anderson
June 2003
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Cursors can be enlarged
or animated for better visibility. There are several sources
on the Internet, here are a few:
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Demos
There are many free 30-day demos available on-line. A couple
of my favorites:
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Drawing, Coloring and Creating
programs:
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BlockCAD is a freeware
program for building virtual models with Lego-like bricks.
You can save your models, or save pictures of them (.bmp,
.jpg), even reuse a complete model as a part in another
model. Everything can be controlled with the mouse, but
it's also possible to use the keyboard for most of the commands,
making 'routine building' more effective, and there is a
minimum of text involved, to make it easier for kids. Follow
this link to download BlockCAD http://w1.161.telia.com/~u16122508/proglego.htm
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Educational Games and Programs
that you can play on-line or download to your computer:
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E-Text
(Electronic Text) free books online - Electronic text provides
access to digital materials for students with learning, sensory
and physical disabilities. The Internet provides many sites
for gathering e-text. Here are just a few:
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Graphics:
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http://www.google.com
Select the Image tab and type in your image search request.
To copy just hold down the mouse on the graphic and there
will be a little pull down menu that has Copy to Clipboard
as an option. Select that and return to your document and
select Paste. You can also select to download the image
to a disk or your desktop and then insert picture from the
pull down menu.
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http://www.pics4learning.com/
includes "copyright friendly images for education" including
American Sign Language. The Pics4Learning collection consists
of thousands of images that have been donated by students,
teachers, and amateur photographers.
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Graphic Organizers
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A picture is worth 1000 words."
This is so true, and when students are juggling new concepts,
a graphic organizer can be an excellent teaching aide.
http://www.freeology.com/graphicorgs/
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Keyboarding:
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Math Support
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MathType™ is an interactive
tool for Windows and Macintosh that lets you create mathematical
notation for word processing, web pages, desktop publishing,
presentations, and for TeX, LaTeX, and MathML documents.
30-day trial provided.
http://www.mathtype.com/en/
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Modification (Curriculum)
Checklists:
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Mouse Skills:
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On-Screen Keyboards:
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Click-N-Type is an on-screen
virtual keyboard designed for anyone with a disability that
prevents him or her from typing on a typical computer keyboard.
As long as the person can control a mouse, trackball or
other pointing device, he or she can send keystrokes to
virtually any Windows application or DOS application that
can run within a window. Click-N-Type is a 32-bit application
that requires Windows 95 or later. Freeware
http://www.lakefolks.org/cnt/
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Text-To-Speech:
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Please Read 2003
English, Spanish, German, French, UK English
For Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP
Freeware. Works in word processing programs and in e-mail.
http://www.readplease.com/
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Talk-To-Me
For Windows
Read your E-Mail to you, Instant Messages, web pages,
your letters and documents. Send Animated Messages to
friends. Greet you daily with the date, time, and a personal
message and set alarms to remind you of events. A thirty-day
demo version can be downloaded at http://www.talk-to-me.net
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Tools
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WordWeb is a thesaurus
and dictionary for Windows. It includes a comprehensive
English thesaurus and dictionary, and can be used to look
up words from within most programs. WordWeb works
from a small icon in your system tray. To look up a word
in almost any program just double-click on the word to select
it, then click the WordWeb icon or use the keyboard
shortcut. If you are editing a document you can select a
synonym and replace the look-up word. http://wordweb.info/free/
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Final Word: Don't forget that each operating
system comes with its own supports to provide people with
disabilities access to the computer. "To enable people and businesses
throughout the world to realize their full potential." To learn
more about the built-in solutions available on your computer:
Consult with assistive technology groups and/or
arrange to visit their sites to review software programs and equipment
or participate in training activities. For example:
The Center for Accessible Technology, 2525 8th
Street, 12-A
Berkeley, CA. 94710. Phone: 510-841-3224. http://www.cforat.org/
The ACRE Center, 47 San Benancio Road, Salinas,
CA. Phone: 831-484-6945.
Sonoma County Adaptive Technology Center, 7351
Bodega Avenue, Sebastopol, CA, 95472. Phone: 707-824-6418.
ITECH Center, Parents Helping Parents, 3041 Olcott
Street, Santa Clara, CA. 95054. Phone: 408-727-5775. http://www.php.com/dopage/itech
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