Yes Tech!

This is the 3rd session of the day and I have great hopes that it will be GREAT!  The presenter is Ira David Socol, a teaching and research assistant at Michigan State University (where I went to school a few times).  He has a blog called SpeEd Change and his presentation is available there on Slideshare.  He’s got a Today’s Meet backchannel set up, which is very cool.  I’m not sure if the audience knows what a backchannel even is, but I sure appreciate it.

I’ll be taking notes of the free tools that are shown.  He considers the following tools as “Basics.” 

• Google Docs
• Google Calendar – will send text messages as reminders to appointments, assignments, and tasks.
• Firefox plus Add-Ons (ClickSpeak is a reader that works GREAT!)
• Firevox for Mac
• Skype
• Voicethread
• Webspiration
• Ghotit – is an add-on for Microsoft Word; is a context-based spellcheck especially for those with dyslexia and those who speak English as a Second Language. Free download for schools if you ask.
• Vista has really good speech recognition built in-
• Speech recognition from the UK – DSpeech
• Mobile Keypad Input – DKey and Tapir
• VozMe – enter text and make an mp3 of it. 
• Phone Text-to-Speech:  Dial2Do & VLingo
• Phone Speech to Text:  Abbyme
• Phone Picture – Text Conversion:  Qipit, topocr, Scanr
• Online Books – Project Gutenberg, Project Gutenberg Australia, University of Virginia, Literature Network, ABC Books, Bookshare
  
• Simple Downloadable Windows Text to speech – Natural Reader, Read Please
• Downloadable MS Office Text-to-Speech – Word Talk
• Free USB Flash Drive-based Accessibility Suites – Will install on a 2G flash drive or more.  Plug into any PC and access is there.  It is a full accessibility suite (reader, magnifier, and many other programs to support writing, reading and planning as well as sensory, cognitive and physical difficulties).  The students can take this device with them and use on any computer.  A guy in the audience has used it with students with great success.
• Audacity – free audio recording/editing program
• Tx2ph – Instantly turns your internet-enabled cell phone or PDA into a book. No download/install.

OK, this was the session I came to the conference for.  I can easily share some of this with teachers in my district and beyond.