TECH Tidbits from TASK
Team of Advocates for Special Kids' Assistive Technology E-Mail Newsletter 

August 2016

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Upcoming Assistive Technology Workshops
  

Apps for Older Students
Tuesday, August 23
9:30 am - 11:00 am
Lynwood LA Care FRC
Plaza Mexico
Lynwood
Please call (213) 743-3079 for more information or to register.

  
Getting Your Hands on Proloquo2Go
Thursday, August 25
9:30 am - 12:30 pm
Family Focus Resource Center
North Los Angeles County Regional Center
Please call (661) 945-9598 for more information or to register. 


Apps for Older Students
Tuesday, August 30
9:00 am - 12:00 pm 
TASK South Gate
Please call (562) 529-5599 for more information or to register.
   

Apps for Older Students
Thursday, September 1
9:00 am - 12:00 pm
TASK Anaheim
Please call (714) 533-8275 for more information or to register.


Apps for Older Students
Thursday, September 15
9:00 am - 12:00 pm
UCP San Diego
Assistive Technology Center
Please call (714) 533-8275 for more information or to register.
  
 
For more workshops, including our workshops on special education and parental rights and responsibilities under the law, please visit the full workshop schedule on the TASK website.  
  
  
  
TASK Membership  
  
  
Please consider joining TASK as a member! Members receive the following benefits: 
  • Free TECH Labs
  • Bimonthly 28-page TASK newsletters 
  • Membership is tax-deductible
Membership is as low as $35.00 per year, per family. We need your support to continue to provide a central resource center for legal rights and responsibilities information and to continue providing TECH Center services. You can join online; visit the Membership page on our website for more information. 
  
  
 
August is upon us and it's almost time for our kiddos go back to school. Summer sure did fly by! We had a great time here at TASK, especially during Camp TECHie. If you haven't already, please take a look at the pictures on TASK'S Facebook page.

In anticipation of the new school year, we are thrilled to have many new software titles in our TECH Center. Below are some of the titles and descriptions. If you are interested in trying out any of these titles, please call (866) 828-8275 and make an appointment for an individualized technology lab.
Software Titles:
  
Animated activities provide lots of exciting real-world math practice - at a drive-through diner, a lemonade stand, an apple orchard and more! This software features four different activities that explore beginning operations concepts-and reinforce addition and subtraction facts for numbers 1-12. Players just follow the simple audio instructions to work through each problem right on the screen - as they pick apples from the trees, grab cookies from the baking sheet and more.

Children race to collect valuable gold coins - polishing important money skills as they play! This action-packed game provides engaging practice with coins and their values, complete with high-tech animation and sound effects that add to the fun. Players simply move around the screen by solving word problems with realistic-looking coins. Each correct answer earns them a gold coin - but tripping hidden alarms will cost them a turn! The game even has an interactive work space, so kids can work out the problems right on the screen.

Players drive around the block collecting scrumptious slices of pizza-identifying fractions from halves through twelfths as they race to the finish! This action-packed game provides engaging practice with fractions in both bar and circle form - complete with high-tech animation and sound effects that add to the fun. Players simply solve problems to race around the screen and collect pizza slices. Each correct answer earns them another slice of pizza...but potholes and oil slicks may slow them down!

Practice nine key areas of number sense. Number sense is foundational to mathematics. Stages Math is a number sense app curriculum for assessment and instruction. Activities improve students' number sense and correlate with math standards for typically developing students in pre-K to 3rd grade. Research surrounding differentiated instruction and universal design for learning has guided the development of this software. Instruction and assessment activities are provided in nine key mathematical skill areas. Each skill area has learning scaffolds with customizable settings. For example, you can select activities like counting money, academic goals like the coins and bills presented, and student access methods like a mouse or switch use.

This is a research-based program for students ages 10 to adult who struggle to read text written at the 4th grade level and above. The program provides systematic and targeted instruction, and includes three components:  software, Teacher's Manual, and the Passages to Reading book. Ideal for remedial reading, RTI and resource programs. Aligns to state and national standards, including the Common Core.

Students make sense of what they read when they develop six research-based reading comprehension skills. This program has 60 narrated stories and 480 multiple-choice questions.  Customize instruction by: targeting specific reading comprehension skills, comparing and contrasting, figurative language and exclusion, making inferences and drawing conclusions, paraphrasing and summarizing, sequencing and problem solving and more. Choose readability level, ranging from 2.0 to 4.9. Many customizations available. (Grades 2-5.)

Teach six reading comprehension skills that good readers use!  The content is appealing to older students. The program has 60 narrated stories and 480 multiple-choice questions.  Customize instruction by targeting specific reading comprehension skills, fact and opinion, figurative language, making inferences and drawing conclusions, paraphrasing and summarizing, problem solving and understanding everyday information. Choose readability level, ranging from 4.0 to 6.9. The reading comprehension questions are similar to those found on classroom and national reading comprehension tests.  Questions challenge students to think about the reading passage and use reasoning skills. (Grades 6-Adult.)
Useful Articles:

Every iOS device comes with a standard set of accessibility features that are ready to use as soon as you take the device out of the box. Let's take a look at a few of these features that can benefit all users in the spirit of Universal Design.

This article includes seven ideas for how to make the most of the end of summer while preparing children for the transition back to school. Please feel free to share this article and any other Sandbox Learning article with parents and professionals.                   
VENDOR SPOTLIGHT: ReadSpeaker

Prepare For The School Year With Read Aloud Tools For Struggling Readers
TASK is pleased to announce a partnership with ReadSpeaker, a Swedish company that creates text-to-speech technology for reading content out loud. Bimodal presentation, or listening while reading along with the highlighted text, is a powerful tool that improves comprehension, increases motivation, allows for autonomy and raises self-esteem for struggling readers of all types, whether dyslexics, language learners or the learning disabled. With ReadSpeaker TextAid, readers can listen to any text, including ebooks, pdfs, images and even text as they write it. ReadSpeaker TextAid can be used on any device, and sound files can be downloaded to be listened to at a later time. Call TASK at (866) 828-8275 and make an appointment to try it in our TECH Center and learn more, or sign up for a free trial. For more information about read aloud technology and how it can help, you can access their text to speech library.

THANK YOU TO READSPEAKER FOR DONATING THEIR AWESOME PRODUCT TO US!
That is all for this month!
 
As always, if you would like any information on our TECH programs or specific questions about assistive technology interventions, please feel free to contact me at  [email protected] or call our toll-free number, (866) 828-8275.

Happy APPing!
 
Laura Simmons-Martinez
Assistive Technology Program Manager
Team of Advocates for Special Kids

TASK is a nonprofit Parent Training and Information Center that serves all ages and all disabilities. TASK is funded in part by grants from the U.S. Department of Education and the California Department of Education. The views expressed in this e-mail newsletter do not necessarily represent those of TASK, the U.S. Department of Education, the State of California or any other funding source, nor are they an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of any bill before congress. Advertisements or refernces to trade names, commercial products or organizations do not constitute endorsement by any of the above.