Workshops

Next Steps and New Frontiers with Classroom Suite 4!

Some upgrades are minor tweaks from the previous version. Classroom Suite 4 takes a big leap in power and possibilities! Learn new hidden features, utilize new actions, learn how to work with Tables to create Journals, Adapted books, or customized fact books for student report projects. Work with Scriptable Bins, Timers, new Math Tools, and more. Create labeling quizzes containing drop down selection lists along with new student reporting features. An introduction into the new Advanced Scripting features will take you along the first steps of creating powerful, interactive activities. Imagine it, design it! Sample activities and templates provided.

This is an Intermediate to Advanced workshop. Participants must be proficient with the basics of Classroom Suite 4.

Using Clicker 5 & Clicker Paint - Building Accessible Foundations for Learning

Clicker 5 is incredibly easy to use program for creating activities for struggling readers & writers, English language learners, and your more able students. Powerful and user friendly, it allows you to differentiate the learning to meet the needs of all students while promoting Universal Design for Learning. Clicker 5 is both a writing support tool and multimedia tool as well, allowing learners to write with whole words, phrases or pictures, as well as recording their own voice, supporting every area of the curriculum. In this workshop learn how to quickly and easily create accessible writing activities in minutes incorporating vocabulary, sounds, digital pictures and video. Learn how to utilize Clicker 5 and Clicker Paint together to develop student’s motivation and engagement in the learning process. Clicker Paint can be easily launch from within a Clicker 5 writing activity allowing students to illustrate, and then import their creation directly back into their writing activity. The goal of this hands on workshop is for you to walk away with the skills to immediately begin using Clicker 5 and Clicker Paint in your classroom, as well as how to utilize the downloadable online Learning Activities from Crick’s website.

Clicker 5 and WriteOnline – Extending Classroom Supports Home!

Learn how to create accessible books and curriculum focused writing templates for classroom use. Extend the lessons and support to the home environment with writing activities and templates containing images, embedded hyperlinks for research support, customized word prediction dictionaries and wordbanks that correspond to those activities. See how students can access them anytime, online from any computer, using WriteOnline. Create online homework assignments with built-in text to speech support as well as switch accessible. Learn how to embed pop-up comments into images for writing prompts. Looking for more traditional support? Learn how to drag and drop support grids to documents for printing, allowing traditional paper writing assignments. Anytime, anywhere supports for struggling students!

Clicking in the Fast Lane with Clicker 5 & Clicker Paint

Clicker 5, incredibly easy to use for creating activities for struggling readers & writers, English language learners, and your more able students. Powerful, yet user friendly, allowing you to differentiate learning to meet the needs of all students.. Quickly and easily create accessible writing activities in minutes incorporating vocabulary, sounds, digital pictures and video. Learn how to utilize Clicker 5 and Clicker Paint together to develop student’s motivation and engagement in the learning process. Be ready to take Clicker 5 to new dimensions in your classroom in this hands-on session using digital video cameras, digital microscopes, internet resources and more!

You Can Take It With You: Running Applications from Your USB Flash Drives, iPods and SD Media Cards and the Web!

We are a mobile society and our students are part of that world. Often the applications that they need to use, and the information needed to use with them, are not in the same place! Let the applications and information travel with them, from home to school and class to class! When you see an iPod, flash drive or SD card do you think portable application devices? This hands-on session will introduce you to a world of applications that can be installed directly onto, and run directly from a flash drive, iPods, SD cards as well as free applications that are run directly from the web. Participants will also explore free programs that are installed to the computer as well. Bring a flash drive and test drive!
PC Lab (Mac listing provided). Participants will receive a CD of free applications.

Switch Access from A to Z

Connect all the dots in your understanding of switch access. Ever wonder “Can this switch work with that program?” Find the answers here! We will start with the hardware: how to connect a switch to a computer – which switch interface and why? Then we will move to Software: How do you access programs that have built in access? How can you create access with keyboard commands for those that don’t – such as for iTunes? We will end the journey with how to create access to any program on the Mac or PC using software programs such as Discover Pro, Envoy, SwitchXS and more. Join Dan Herlihy for a guided adventure through the jungle of switch access.

Creating Accessible Interactive Books and Writing Activities with Boardmaker Plus v.6

Learn how to create interactive books that can be accessed over and over with different story outcomes and story lines. Then, connect the stories to questions to assess their comprehension, and capture their responses! Since reading and writing go hand in hand, learn how to create accessible, interactive writing activities containing pop-up choices for characters, settings, etc. enabling all your students to write with supports ranging from direct select, switch access, touch screen, auditory supports to alternate access keyboards. Support emergent reading and writing development as well as motivate learners with a supportive and engaging environment. Participants will receive handouts and a CD of templates and sample activities.

Knowledge & Accessibility: Promoting Higher Ordered Thinking in All Students!

Learn how to utilize Blooms Taxonomy of Educational Objectives as a tool for planning, and creating accessible activities providing a continuous pathway to successful learning for all students with Clicker 5, IntelliTools Classroom Suite, Test Me Score Me, My Own Bookshelf, Inspiration and more. Research shows that instruction in thinking skills promote higher ordered thought processes, leading to successful learning in all students.
This hands on sessions will be comprised of three components:
1. How to analyze your activities as to what level on Blooms Taxonomy they are focused on.
2. How to create activities that address specific levels to promote higher ordered thinking.
3. How to create accessible tests and quizzes to assess and document knowledge gained.

Clarifying Assessments and Capturing Understanding with Boardmaker Family Products

You’re using Boardmaker Plus, to teach your students each day. Learn how to then use those same tools for assessing what they’ve learned using those same tools! We will begin with a review of various types of assessments and points to consider when providing assessments to diverse student populations. Next – Creating! Learn how to utilize the Boardmaker Software Family to create a variety of curriculum-based, performance-based, portfolios, and alternate assessments in an innovative fashion incorporating movies into portfolios, capturing student responses by recording their voice during an assessment, as well as integrated data tracking. Clarify assessment and capture their understanding!

Creating Accessible Quizzes, Test Preparation & Alternative Assessment Activities

Do your assessment activities really gauge what your students have learned, or are they traditional testing activities that haven’t ideally captured and reported the progress your students are making. In this hands-on session we will be using software and hardware that was traditionally viewed for special needs students, and explore how it can be utilized to create seamless solutions for assessing what all your students have learned, as well as being accessible by all students. Hands-on creating activities and access using Kurzweil 3000, IntelliTools Classroom Suite, Test Me Score Me, Read & Write Gold, Inspiration 8, Clicker 5, Test Talker, Test Maker, voice recognition software, programs from Vcom3D and more, as well as an array of hardware and communication devices for alternate access.

Now I “See” It!

Hands-on creating access and added supports to curriculum materials using animated PCS symbols, sign language videos, ASL animations, embedded prompts for multi-sensory support including supports for auditory and visual impairments, voice recognition, add captioning to QuickTime movies, tactile support for the IntelliKeys keyboard and more. Narrate into answer fields or create sign language video clips for activities in IntelliTools Classroom Suite activities along with an active signing dictionary allowing students to click on words in toolbars they don’t know and see the word or the definition signed back! Utilize Mayer-Johnson animated PCS libraries, Vcom3D’s ASL animations or their new VReader for on the fly text to sign language translation within Kurzweil 3000, Clicker 5, Classroom Suite or Inspiration for added support. Learn how to quickly create custom symbol libraries for Inspiration using the animated PCS, ASL symbols or sign language clips to create accessible templates, or for student use. Quickly and easily create activities using Clicker containing animated word banks utilizing all of these ideas. Add tactile support to overlays for IntelliKeys keyboards along with fine tuning auditory support allowing visually impaired uses to access the same activities.

Make It Real – Using Digital Images in the Classroom as a Teaching and Learning Tool

A hands-on workshop designed to teach participants how to use digital technology including digital cameras, camcorders, scanners, microscopes, wireless devices and more, to integrate them as part of your classroom toolkit. Learn how to create adapted books, accessible Social Stories, claymation type animated movies and other classroom materials using digital images. Give your students a means for self-expression! Learn how to get movies and pictures into a computer, edit them and export for use in other applications such as Inspiration, Kidspiration, PowerPoint, IntelliPics Studio, and BuildAbility.

Incorporating Technology into the Classroom – Creating Access on the Fly

Incorporating technology into the classroom does not have to take you hours of preparation ahead of time. In this workshop you will learn tips and techniques for creating access to curriculum without hours of prep. Learn how to get the most from scanners, digital cameras, digital microscopes and the Internet to make your lessons exciting and accessible. Quickly and easily scan text directly into a talking word processor and provide students with a variety of ways to answer questions. Grab today's current events or weather maps and create instant access to the information. Use Co:Writer with Inspiration running from an IntelliKeys keyboard! Learn how to utilize products from Don Johnston, Inspiration, IntelliTools, Vcom3D and more along with a variety of tech tools to bring it all together for your students.

IntelliTools Extreme: Taking Your IntelliTools Products to New Heights

In this hands-on workshop learn how to take your IntelliTools software and IntelliKeys keyboard to new heights! Use the IntelliKeys to create access to digital cameras, music (playing and composing), as well as run other programs. Use IntelliMation in ways you never imagined, work with foreign languages, wireless access, scan text directly into the program. Create accessible poetry activities, journals students can narrate into and more. Utilize IntelliTools Classroom Suite with all the tools in your toolbox –– from Inspiration, Boardmaker AlphaSmart and more. See how they all play well together. Step into a whole new world of possibilities!

Creating Writing Adventures for Students

Create interactive and accessible writing prompts for your students using a variety of programs –– from IntelliPics Studio, BuildAbility to PowerPoint and more. Using your own digital images create activities that give students the ability to write or narrate and then decide what happens next in the story using direct select or switch access. Learn how to create buttons in a scene that branch off to different scenarios. One button compiles everything into the student's own story! The templates you create can be used over and over to create stories with different twists, turns and outcomes. Pre-made templates and scripted directions are provided to use with your own images along with a CD of sample activities.

Now I see it! Incorporating Signed Video into Computer Activities

Create accessible curriculum materials allowing students to meet standards, provide students with tools for communication, including recorded signing, using IntelliTools Classroom Suite, Clicker 5, Inspiration 8, Sign Smith Studio, inexpensive web cams.

Objectives: Participants will:

Learn how to utilize software programs to create accessible curriculum materials that are universally accessible incorporating signed video
Understanding the potential of each software program and how each can used by students as well as teachers
Learn how to use inexpensive web cam cameras allowing teachers or students to record their own signing, and import video clips into other applications

Video on a Shoestring Budget

Work with low cost ($100.00 or less) digital camcorders for use by teachers and students to enhance teaching and learning across all curricular areas. For the student video provides an alternative means to demonstrate learning that has taken place. It can also be a creative outlet to explore math concepts, document science or social studies projects, public speaking, patterns in the world and more. This workshop will teach you how to import video into a computer from a digital camcorder and how to edit, add music, transitions and titles. During the workshop you will use a variety of inexpensive and easy to use editing software such as iMovie for the Macintosh computer, Ulead Video Studio and Pinnacle Systems Studio for the PC as well as QuickTime Pro by Apple Computer on both Macintosh and PC platforms for quick editing, adding narration and sound tracks. Learn how to incorporate video for adapting books and enhancing access to the curriculum.

Adapting Books Using Multimedia & Video

This hands-on workshop will teach you how to create adapted access to books using the multimedia programs BuildAbility by Don Johnston, IntelliPics Studio by IntelliTools and My Own Bookshelf by SoftTouch. Participants will learn how to scan the pages of a book into the computer, edit them, create access to the written text and how to import video or sound. Create extension activities for your students and access to them from within the story or from a table of contents that ties all of your activities together. Learn the final process of creating and burning cross platform CDs and auto start CDs that launch activities automatically for independent student use of the activity. The final product will be burned on a CD that travels with the book and can be played using the free players for BuildAbility, IntelliPics Studio and My Own Bookshelf.

Creating Access to the Arts Using Technology

Accessible arts programs have traditionally been lacking in special needs programs. All kids love to imagine being a rock star, but how many children with disabilities have access to creating and playing music? Learn how to use technology ~ computers, software, adapted keyboards, headpointing devices, switches and wireless devices to create access the arts and music in a variety of ways. Create adapted access to music for creation and participation. Create accessible poetry, creative writing, art and animation activities on both Macintosh and PC platforms using a variety of software from freeware/shareware to commercial off-theshelf products. Learn how to utilize devices such as the IntelliKeys keyboard, switches, voice output devices and others for student participation. Creating access to a drum, piano, guitar or even a flute is only a switch click away. Explore how to use sign language software to provide access to music and songs for the deaf or hearing impaired as well as creating access to playing a CD for students with severe physical disabilities. Demo CDs of many of the programs will be provided along with detailed handouts.

High Incidence – Low Incidence: Disabilities We Face in the Classroom of Today

Classrooms of today contain a mix of students as never before. Mainstreaming, ELL students and changes in society present the classroom teacher with a myriad of student needs and disabilities. High and Low Incidence disabilities will be discussed, along with strategies for the teacher to use to create a classroom environment that meets the needs of all. Hands-on strategies with software and hardware tools for the students to use in a classroom environment will also be covered. Resources, research, as well as websites for lesson plans, rubrics and more will be included.

Make it Real – Math in Their World

Add the spice of real life to your math lessons. Using digital cameras, video and a variety of software from IntelliTools Classroom Suite, Geometers Sketchpad, Tom Snyder Productions, and more, as well as utilizing the Apple Learning Exchange, create lessons and student projects allowing them to experience and relate to math as it appears in their own environment. Increase awareness, participation and understanding with hands on for the visual, auditory or kinesthetic learners. Create low level – high interest activities for your older students that help them understand concepts by relating it to the world as they experience it.

Customized Workshops

Workshops on the following products may be booked as full day or half day sessions and can be designed to meet your professional development needs.

Crick Software Products including Clicker 5 and Clicker Paint
Don Johnston Products
IntelliTools Products
Inspiration & Kidspiration
Kurzweil 3000
Boardmaker
My Own Bookshelf

Educational Technology & Consulting Services

On Line – Your Time – Training

Utilizing the web based technologies, we offer school systems, individuals, groups and centers the ability to receive live on-line training without the travel. Interact with the software being presented, and have your questions answered and demonstrated right on the spot. Contract with us for short, sessions (during school or after school) to keep your professional development moving forward on a continuous basis, and at an affordable cost. Give your professionals the ability to say, "Now I see it, now I understand!" Schedule customized workshops and allow for opportunities to address specific needs. With flexible scheduling, affordable rates, and the ability for participants scattered around the country, and the world, to participate, connect from wherever you have access to the Internet.