Azu Ike

With the expansion of co-teaching as a means to improve student outcomes, technology can be an invaluable resource.  Co-teachers need to plan collaboratively, jointly implement lesson plans, and cooperatively assess student progress.  This reference guide provides practical  strategies on how technology can facilitate co-planning, expedite sharing of student data, and streamline many other tasks that ultimately assist in accomplishing co-teaching's goal: improved student outcomes. Whatever your preferred computer platform, co-teachers can apply these strategies and applications to accommodate all learners' needs. Written by the nation's foremost authority on co-teaching, Marilyn Friend, and Brian S. Friedlander, an expert in the use of instructional and assistive technologies, this handy tool  features an overview of co-teaching fundamentals, along with recommendations of over t...

I am happy to share that Co-Teaching & Technology-Enhancing Communication & Collaboration (a laminated guide) by Marilyn Friend and I will be released shortly and is packed with practical suggestions on how you can get the most out co-teaching and technology. With the expansion of co-teaching as a means to improve student outcomes, technology can be an invaluable resource.  Co-teachers need to plan collaboratively, jointly implement lesson plans, and cooperatively assess student progress.  This reference guide provides practical  strategies on how technology can facilitate co-planning, expedite sharing of student data, and streamline many other tasks that ultimately assist in accomplishing co-teaching’s goal: improved student outcomes. Whatever your preferred computer platform, co-teachers can apply these strategies and applications to accommodate all learners’ needs. Written by the nation's foremost authority on co-teaching, Marilyn Friend, and Brian Friedlander,...

I have been using MindView for years and is one of my favorite mind mapping applications. I use it to brainstorm ideas, plan workshops and for writing structured  proposals and documents. For some time now Matchware has been working on an assistive technology edition that has lots of great features. These include: text-to speech, high contrast, integration with TextHelp Read & Write 9 Gold and Dragon Naturally Speaking. If you are interesting in learning more about Mindview AT they are holding a FREE webinar on May 12, 2016 at 11:30 am - 12:00 pm EDT which you can register for by clicking on this LINK . MIndView is an exceptionally designed mind mapping application that has lots of great features to meet the needs of students who need the built-in supports. 

Well it is hard to believe that another year has come and gone and I will be off to ISTE 2103 Conference in San Antonio in a couple of days! It figures to be an exciting venue with over 18,000 educators attending. I am sensing a lot of energy this year which should make for a great show. I put this Haiku Deck together to give you a glimpse of what I will be packing. Enjoy-and stay tuned for some new product announcements on my blog! www.haikudeck.com

It is really exciting to see the traditional publishers of assistive technology jumping into the app marketplace and providing end users with powerful new apps that pack a lot of features. I had the good fortune to be able to review iReadWrite from TextHelp, Inc. which was recently released and am very impressed with the feature set. This is TextHelp's first foray into the iPad marketplace but they have been long standing publishers of Read Write Gold on the Windows/Mac platform and have a great deal of experience providing students with assistive technology supports. iReadWrite is a well designed app that works as advertised.  It provides students with text-to-speech , word prediction and vocabulary support. iReadWrite does not require an internet connection to utilize the program which is ideal for students who may be in schools with poor web connectivity. At the time of this writing iReadWrite can open rtf. and txt. files. Students will quickly gr...

Speakers.. Joan L. Green, M.A. CCC-SLP and Brian S. Friedlander, Ph.D Saturday March 9 th , 2013 9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. Register at www.ist.ticketleap.com Holiday Inn in Hasbrouck Heights           283 State Highway 17  Hasbrouck Heights, NJ 07604 COST: $175 per person including lunch Space is limited  Group rates available ·          Some scholarships are available- contact Joan at Joan@innovativespeech.com ·          1 st 10 registrants receive free copy of Joan’s book- The Ultimate Guide to Assistive Technology in Special Education: Resources for Education, Intervention and Rehabilitation                     Joan Green is a speech-language pathologist from the Washington, DC area with many years of experience helping a wide range of children maximize progress with th...

You can read my original review of Clicker Docs , which adds considerable writing supports for students that need word prediction, text to speech, and talking word wall support. Since my review, Crick Software has released an update to the app which adds some powerful new features. The latest version of Clicker Docs now supports external Bluetooth keyboards, Dropbox, as well as spell checking. While the word prediction feature was well implemented in Clicker Docs- it is now more powerful in that any word that is included in the grid automatically comes to the top of the prediction list when a student is typing. So for example if the student was writing about the rainforest and you had created a grid that included the following words: canopy, orangutan, understory, sloth, opossum, emergent layer, forest floor, etc.- these words would automatically come up to the top of list as the student was typing and could be selected from the prediction bar. You can see from the screen shot...

I had a chance last week to write a blog post for SmartBlogs in Education and wanted to share the link with you. As  Moore’s Law  would have predicted, the pace of technology has been accelerating at an incredible rate in the past couple of years, which has made it a challenge for educators to select and decide on which technology to bring into the classroom. While general education is now wrestling with how to handle the purchase of tablets (iPads) for classroom use, the decisions that have to be made with regards to using these technologies with students in special education has become even a bigger issue.   Continue to Read Article Your comments are welcome!

I have been meaning to write about Clicker 6 for some time now, but it has been an incredibly busy spring and summer and I didn't get a chance to sit down and reflect on the latest release. Truth be told I have been a big fan of Clicker for a long time now and with the current release I am even more excited with the potential of this program with students with a wide range of abilities. Having worked with a lot of assistive technology over the years one of the key criteria for me is that it has got to be easy to use. If it takes me awhile to learn how to use a software program then I know that it is doomed in the classroom. The latest release of Clicker 6 now includes Activity Wizards which make using the program a real dream. Just this morning I had the chance to use Clicker 6 with a student I was working with who had underlying cognitive and language disabilities and within seconds of selecting a Talk About Wizard I had developed a...

Just got back from attending and working with Ginger Software on the Exhibitor floor of the ATIA 2012 Conference  in Orlando, Florida. It is always so exciting to be able to attend this conference which is packed with passionate educators who are looking for the newest tools and strategies to assist their students. As much as I love walking the Exhibit floor looking for new products it is reconnecting with my fellow assistive technology colleagues that makes this conference very special. Having the time after hours to share ideas, resources and experiences is a great way to learn and expand on your skills. While I was at the ATIA 2012 Conference I had was in the Ginger Software Booth demoing the latest version of Ginger which is the leading spelling and grammar correction tool for students. When Ginger is analyzing the errors it is taking into account the context of the words in the sentence so that when it makes it suggestions it i...