Autobiography of a person who uses AAC
Posted by 14 on the 25th July, 2011
You may be interested to read the newly published autobiography called Ghost Boy of Martin Pistorius who lost his speech at 12 years old. He uses AAC and has succeeded well in life both personally and professionally.
New Phonics boy on the block
Posted by 14 on the 22nd June, 2011
Maybe everyone else already knows about Mr Thorne, but I didn't (Thanks for the tip, Angie McC!!) Wonderful website with videos. It's aimed at teaching / reinforcing synthetic phonics to young children (and parents) but also useful for older children as it's not too babyish (well, OK, giraffe ...
The Scottish Male Voice is chosen!
Posted by Paul Nisbet on the 14th June, 2011
Well the votes are in and we can now reveal that the winner is....... SPA! We emailed samples of six male voices out to people who had downloaded Heather, to key contacts in local authorities, FE colleges and Universities, to ICTSLS, members of SICTDG, members of Augmentative Communication in Pr...
New Kindle for PC software has text-to-speech
Posted by Paul Nisbet on the 31st May, 2011
The Kindle for PC Accessibility Plugin is now available for UK customers (and also for users in Australia, Canada and the U.S.). Kindle for PC is free software for reading Kindle eBooks on your Windows PC. The main feature of the new plugin is a text-to-speech tool which means that blind, visually...
The Dazzling World of Apps
Posted by 14 on the 25th May, 2011
This is an interesting newsletter (from the USA) that draws together a rich list of resources and provides a useful set of iPad/iPod/iPhone App links but also offers some very sensible words of caution about the risk of being 'swept away' by an unrealistic expectation that iPad Apps can meet every...
Fun Stuff - download Pete Wells\' delightfully silly Sensory Stories etc.
Posted by 14 on the 7th May, 2011
A new website (for Portland College, a special school in Sunderland) provides a convenient new location where you can download a pile of delightfully rude and silly sensory stories created by the one and only delightfully silly Pete Wells. Downloads include a multimedia Powerpoint file and a Word fi...
Adobe Reader X and Acrobat Pro X: Pro X is much better for making accessible digital resources
Posted by Paul Nisbet on the 30th March, 2011
Adobe have just released new versions of Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat Pro. Adobe Reader is the free program that most people use for reading PDF files, such as the Hodder Gibson textbooks that we distribute for pupils who cannot read the paper versions, or the SQA digital exam papers. Acrobat Pr...
New \'How to Use Digital\' Papers guide
Posted by Paul Nisbet on the 28th March, 2011
We have added a new section to the CALL Digital Exam Papers web site, with information on how to use the SQA digital exam papers. There's also a new page where you can download user guides and information sheets on using and making interactive resources in PDF.
Adapted Prelims available from Perfect and P&N
Posted by Paul Nisbet on the 21st March, 2011
Both Perfect Papers and P&N Publications are now supplying digital prelims with answer boxes - the same format and style that is used for the SQA digital question papers. This should make it much easier for schools who use these commercial prelim papers to provide them for students who need ad...
Funding for a male Scottish Voice approved!
Posted by Paul Nisbet on the 7th March, 2011
We are very pleased to announce that the Scottish Government has awarded us funding to work with CereProc to develop a male Scottish computer voice: a 'brother for Heather'. The funding will also pay for a licence for the entire public sector in Scotland, so that the voice can be used by school-ag...
Newsletter: join thousands of other people
Our social media sites - YouTube, Twitter and Facebook