ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY BLOG | INVENTIONS FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

I was thinking about all of the options we have today to put up slide presentations on the web that were just not possible a couple of months ago and thought it would be helpful to do post on them. One of the really exciting areas with Web 2.0 is being able to share and post our...

I just completed the 3rd day of a conference on Universal Design for Learning and am really excited to be able to part of the State's initiative on helping New Jersey's Public Schools apply and put into practice Universal Design for Learning. Universal Design for Learning makes you look at the curriculum through another lens so that we can remove barriers...

For those of you that are using the Mimio Interactive you should visit the Mimio website and check out the Mimio Interactive lesson plans. These are free lesson plans that you can download on-line an use with your Mimio Interactive. Here you will find a core of easy-to-use, instructionally...

Odessa, Ukraine, October 29, 2007 – CS Odessa today announces availability of ConceptDraw Business Suite for Mac OS X 10.5 operating system. An integrated business software package that consists of diagramming application ConceptDraw 7, project management tool ConceptDraw Project...

I just got back from attending day 1 of a three day training presented by the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) on the theory and practice of Universal Design for Learning in today's classrooms. I have always been a big fan of CAST, and in fact I spent a week there about 15 years ago when they were running an assistive technology institute....

As many of you know I am a big Macintosh fan and it is really heart warming to watch individuals with disabilities use the Macintosh with the software application that were created and developed by David Niemeijer of AssistiveWare. If you have a chance take a look at the videos and listen to the podcasts to see what is possible.Press release: Mac users...

What better way is there to get my graduate students excited about technology than by modeling for them what is possible with today's Web 2.0 tools. Using programs like Skype and Yuuguu has enabled me to make my graduate classes so much more dynamic and has allowed me to bring in...

Mindjet, Inc. just recently released the Mindjet Productivity Pack for MS Office which is a straightforward set of handy MindManager 7 mind maps demonstrating step by step how to get the most out of MindManager 7 and Microsoft Office. The Mindjet Productivity Pack for MS Office takes...

I had a chance today to do a run through of my webinar, Innovate using MindManager Pro 7 both in and out of the Classroom-which will be hosted by Mindjet, Inc., on Thursday, Novemeber 8, 2007, Time: 10:00 am PST / 1:00 PM EST. I hope you can join me as I share how I am using MindManager...

Here is some important news from Bookshare for students with a print disability. Effective October 1, 2007 Bookshare will be offering their service free of charge now making it possible for students to have access to their books in an accessible format. Here is the news from Bookshare....

By all accounts the Web 2.0 workshop was a real success! I had a small group of teachers for whom this was an eye opening experience. Having a chance to work with some of the major Web 2.0 technologies helped them to grasp the power of the technology and gave them a lot of food for...

I am just collecting myself tonight and doing some minor tweaks for my Web 2.0 Workshop to be held at the Middlesex ETTC, East Brunswick, New Jersey. I am really excited to be doing this presentation and have a lot of ground to cover. I understand that there will be a small group...

What better way to get students engaged in a project then by having them use authentic data. I was reading today's New Jersey Star Ledger and there were several articles about the crime statistics for the tri-county area where I live complete with tables of all the crimes reported...

Kurzweil Educational Systems announced today the release of Kurzweil 3000™ USB for Windows. With this release students can access all of the features of Kurzweil 3000 on any Windows computer by virtue of plugging in the device into a USB port. Kurzweil 3000™ USB for Windows is available...

Mango Software for 1 day is having a special promotion on XMIND 2008 for Macintosh. XMIND 2008 is a full featured mind mapping application complete with templates to jump start the process. XMIND 2008 allows you to attach notes, files, hyperlinks, and audio files to your mindmaps....

I recently came across the Wowio website which has a number of free PDF books that you can download for free once you have registered. Take look at the directory-it looks as if they have a nice size library and a varied list of books on various topi...

As I thought about a Web 2.0 workshop that I will be doing at the Middlesex ETTC, East Brunswick, NJ on October 19th, I wanted to harness the power of the web and share with teachers the changing landscape. I have been trying to move away from paper handouts when I do presentations...

In July, I shared with you information about a free screen casting application called Jing from TechSmith. If you haven't taken a look at it you really should. It has been indispensable to me in the training that I do. Now instead of making handouts, I create some screen casts which...

I had a chance to take a look at the new Web 2.0 word processor called Buzzword which is in beta right now. Buzzword is Flash based and feels very much like a full featured application that you would have installed on your computer. It supports headers, footers, lists as well as adding comments. You can also add images and tables to your document....

I came across this neat application called Sketchcast which gives you access to a whiteboarding feature that could be ideal for creating instructional videos. Sketchcast works right within the browser and allows you to record what you are writing for future playback. In the video that I produced I am using the microphone from my webcam and a Wacom...

One of the tools that I use on a regular basis to support others who are using technology are desktop screen sharing applications. For the past year I have been using a commercial product which allowed me to share my computer desktop with others. Having the ability to share my desktop...

I finally had the chance to use OoVoo today with my colleagues at the College of St. Elizabeth where I teach and have to say the video is wonderful. It was very easy to start the conference and the user interface is first class. I was able to start a 3 way video conference in seconds...

Last week I had a chance to talk to Philippe Schwartz, the CEO of OoVoo.com at the DigtialLife 2008 conference held at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York city. OoVoo is determined to do for video conferencing what Skype has done for voice over internet protocol (VOIP)....