Goblin Tools

Do you have students that struggle with large projects or to-do lists? Do you sometimes struggle with where to start on a task?

Goblin Tools can compile my brain-dump into a list of tasks or help tame the challenge of large tasks or assignments, especially for our neurodivergent students. This is a free online suite of AI-powered mini-apps designed to conquer chaos and boost productivity.

With Goblin Tools you can break big tasks down into manageable steps with 'Magic To Do" or estimate how long a a task might take with 'Estimator'. Do you need help verifying the tone of someones writing or does your writing need to be more formal?  Check out 'The Judge' or 'Formalizer'.

Goblin Tools helps you get organized and achieve your goals, one bite-sized chunk at a time.

Free Teen Audiobooks

Sora by Overdrive has paired with SYNC to offer 16 weeks of Free Audiobooks aimed at teens 13+!

You can download 2 FREE audiobooks each week, starting April 28th and running through August 17th!
 

Register and sign up for e-mail reminders or text reminders at http://www.audiobooksync.com/.

Check out the SUMMER 2022 SYNC TITLE PAIRINGS (https://bit.ly/3K0cZf1) page for the list of available books this summer.

Free to anyone books in Bookshare

Bookshare.org is a program that makes reading easier. People with dyslexia, blindness, cerebral palsy, and other reading barriers can customize their experience to suit their learning style and find virtually any book they need for school, work, or the joy of reading.

Although Bookshare is designed for students with reading struggles, it has over 10,000 freely available books published under the public domain or creative commons license. These books can be read by anyone and are useful for conducting demonstrations and trainings. check out the free book at the links below.

Demo Books - https://www.bookshare.org/browse/collection/353677

Ebook Sources - https://www.bookshare.org/cms/help-center/learning-center/learning-at-home/more-ebooks

Visor

Visor (https://bit.ly/3KVq0b7) is a Google Chrome extension that is a screen dimmer and reading aid. Visor may also help with fluency, eye-strain, concentration and comprehension whilst reading.

 
Visor offers overlays and point of focus features that may assist users with visual perceptual difficulties such as Dyslexia, Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome and Visual Stress. 

Visor also uses a point of focus feature, designed to help further reduce visual confusions and the tendency to skip lines. Visors horizontal focal point tracks your mouse, giving you full focus to the content being read, while reducing the visual noise of the surrounding page.

Text-to-Speech - Chromebook & iPad

Text to Speech is a tool that has multiple uses. It can be used to help with reading and writing. It can be used by students and teachers.

I use text to speech to edit my writing. I listen to what I have written to help with sentence structure or misused words. It helps me improve my writing. I use text to speech to edit many of my blog posts.

Text to Speech can be a useful tool for struggling readers, English language learners, or readers with dyslexia as well. Using Text to Speech as a reading tool can help a variety of students and adults.

Most devices have text-to-speech built into the operating system. On a Chromebook it is called Select-to-Speak (https://bit.ly/38NeLjv). On an iPad it is called Speak Selection (https://bit.ly/2XmxZYD).

To view the tutorials on how to enable and use these features select the apporiate link above.

Try it out for yourself.  I am sure you will love it!

~~~~~~~~~~

To use Text-to-Speech on a MacBook or iMac, follow these directions (https://bit.ly/2YusABr) to enable Text to Speech.

Speech-to-Text, Google Voice Typing

As a district we have moved to 1:1 enviornment.  Every YCS student has access (or can have access) to a district issued device.  Take a moment to consider your students. Think about the ones who struggle to get their ideas onto paper. How about the students who struggle with spelling or have fine motor control issues.

Speech to Text is a tool that can help these students and many others. Speech to Text is an Accessibility feature built into most computers today. It is a tool that allows a writer to dictate their thoughts and ideas into a document. Many Speech to Text options also allow you to speak the punctuation and a multitude of other voice commands for editing purposes.

Google Docs has a built in Speech to Text option called Voice Typing.

Google offers a fairly comprehensive instructional guide for Voice Typing. The guide includes a list of languages supported by Voice Typing as well as a list of punctuation that can be voice enabled. The guide also includes a list of voice commands for formatting or editing your document in the sections under “Voice commands”. There are also some troubleshooting tips located near the end of the guide.

Voice Typing is also available on iPads via the microphone icon that appears next to the keyboard when typing.  

Give it a try! Your students will love it (and so will you)!

~~~~~~~~~~

Voice Typing is also available as a built-in features on the staff MacBooks.  Please reach out to me if you would like a tutorial on how to set it up for your use.

ModMath

ModMath is a free iPad app that helps kids with dyslexia and dysgraphia do math.

ModMath assists students who struggle with Mathematical notation. The app lets you write and solve math problems on the iPad using the custom keypad.  You can also print, email, or save to cloud services like Google Drive and Dropbox.

ModMath lets you:

• Write and solve equations with a piece of virtual graph paper, greatly improving speed and legibility.
• Solve basic math problems and more complex algebraic equations, all without ever picking up a pencil.
• Print assignments, email them directly to the teacher or save to cloud storage.

You can visit http://www.modmath.com/ to see a short video of the app in action and to learn more about the app and the family that created it.