Starfall

Here is another great resource for young children. Starfall was designed for use with first graders but can be used with preschoolers to second grade. Starfall is a high quality website that works on developing a love of reading and writing. Starfall is played on the internet.

Address is: http://www.starfall.com/

Childsplay

Childsplay is a suite of educational games for young children. Also the use of the SDL libraries makes smooth animation and the playing of sound very easy. Childsplay uses a plugin system for the games, so you might want to check the Childsplay plugins page. (There are two built-in games: memory and a typing game.)

Available for Linux/Unix, Mac, Win

Address is: http://childsplay.sourceforge.net/

Large Pointers for Windows

Over 80 additional pointers and cursors for those with visual or perceptual difficulties. Icon styles include animated, colored, large, I-beams and circles.

The pointers have been designed here at the ACE Centre, so if you have a need or a suggestion for a particular pointer style, please let us know.

This is freeware available through the Ace-Center.

Address is: http://ace-centre.hostinguk.com/index.cfm?pageid=F5F26649-3048-7290-FEA80B8B637BF760

Click-N-Type

Click-N-Type is an on-screen virtual keyboard designed for anyone with a disability that prevents him or her from typing on a physical computer keyboard. As long as the physically challenged person can control a mouse, trackball, touch screen or other pointing device, this software keyboard allows you to send keystrokes to virtually any Windows application or DOS application that can run within a window. The

Click-N-Type Virtual Keyboard is a 32 bit application that requires Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP or later.

Oh yes, it's FREE.

Address is: http://www.lakefolks.org/cnt/

Scratch

Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web.

Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design.

Scratch is available free of charge.
Currently available for Mac OSX and Windows

Address is: http://scratch.mit.edu

Comic Creator from ReadWriteThink

Create your own comics online. There is a need to help support our students who may be poor writers. One way to do this is to give them a new and different venue to do their writing in. Why not have them write a cartoon. Comic Creator is from the ReadWriteThink group. Students can create a comic right online and then print it out.

http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/comic/index.html

Online Study Guides

Here is a website that has plenty of support for struggling students. Sparknotes is an online study guide site. On the site you can get help in the following areas: Literature, Shakespeare, Poetry, History, Psychology, Economics, Math, Film, Drama, Philosophy, Biology, Physics, No Fear Shakespeare, and Test Prep. Check this out.

http://www.sparknotes.com/

Community Signs

Here is a site for teachers to use to teach community signs. If you are on a windows machine you can download these signs for use in your classroom. These are real signs not line drawings.

http://webpages.charter.net/hope4all/signs/signs4windows.htm

What words do Kids need to know

Happy Holidays Everyone,
Have you ever wondered what words are truly the most important for all our kids to know? There is a website that lists not only the 100 most important but the 300 most important in sets of 100. What a great way to begin working on things with kids who have special needs. Never assume that kids will not learn these words. How about making flash cards using Powerpoint for the kids to work on independently.

http://www.myenglishlessons.net/most_common.htm

TuxPaint

I love being able to do doodling and art. So here is a free site for one of the cutest art programs.

Tux Paint is a free, award-winning drawing program for children ages 3 to 12 (for example, preschool and K-6 in the US, key stages 1 & 2 in the UK). It combines an easy-to-use interface, fun sound effects, and an encouraging cartoon mascot who guides children as they use the program. Kids are presented with a blank canvas and a variety of drawing tools to help them be creative.

Make sure that when you download this you also download the stamps. They are so much fun!

Address is: http://www.tuxpaint.org/

Windows to the Universe website

I can not believe it but I forgot to put the address in my blog! Please forgive me.
The address is: http://www.windows.ucar.edu/

Software for teaching beginning concepts

Sebran ABC is a lovely download that can teach some very nice basic concepts.

It's never too early for your child to become familiar with letters and numbers. Sebran's ABC's colorful pictures, pleasant music, and gentle games teach letters, numbers, simple math, and rudiments of reading.

The address is: http://www.wartoft.nu/software/sebran/

Try this out and see if your students or children enjoy having a great way to both have fun and learn at the same time.

A great On-line site

Here is a great on-line site.

Windows to the Universe is a user-friendly learning system covering the Earth and Space sciences for use by the general public. Windows to the Universe has been in development since 1995. Our goal is to build an internet site that includes a rich array of documents, including images, movies, animations, and data sets, that explore the Earth and Space sciences and the historical and cultural ties between science, exploration, and the human experience. Our site is appropriate for use in libraries, museums, schools, homes, and the workplace. Students and teachers may find the site especially helpful in their studying (and teaching!) Earth and Space sciences. Because we have users of all ages, the site is written in three reading levels approximating elementary, middle school and high school reading levels. These levels may be chosen by using the upper button bar of each page of the main site.

Powerpoint Add-on

Well, since I already talked about WordTalk I might as well talk about PowerTalk.

PowerTalk is a free program that automatically speaks any presentation or slide show running in Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows.

You just download and install PowerTalk and while you open and run the presentation as usual it speaks the text on your slides. The advantage over other generic 'Text To Speech' programs is that PowerTalk is able to speak text as it appears and can also speak hidden text attached to images.

You can find PowerTalk at: http://fullmeasure.co.uk/PowerTalk/

Windows Users - You need Word to talk

Good afternoon everyone,
Have you ever wanted your Word documents to talk? You need WordTalk. You can find this program at http://www.wordtalk.org.uk/.

WordTalk is a free plug-in developed for use with all versions of Microsoft Word (from Word 97 upwards), which can help people with reading difficulties use Microsoft Word more effectively. It will speak the text of the document and will highlight it as it goes. It contains a talking dictionary to help decide which word spelling is most appropriate. It sits neatly in your toolbar and is highly configurable, allowing you to adjust the highlight colours, the voice and the speed of the speech.

I hope that you will find this tool useful for your students and yourselves.

Just got home from CTG

Hello Everyone,

Just got home from Closing the Gap Conference. It has been a great week with lots of new ideas to share with you all. Over the next week or so I will be posting new ideas. Stay tuned for upcoming ideas straight from the movers and shakers at CTG.