Yuichi's Games

Move the Mouse!

2010-02-10T22:28:00.005-05:00

A number of years ago I was working with a student who was using a touchscreen to access the computer. I wanted to se if I could interest her in using a mouse, but her attention seemed focused on the screen, not on this little plastic thing down on the desk in front of her. I wanted an activity where she would be rewarded for any movement she could make using the mouse -- just moving the mouse, not moving it to a specific spot, clicking on something, or dragging something.

So I wrote this simple program, Move the Mouse! It shows a circle on the screen that will follow the cursor around. It will change colors and play music, but only while the mouse is being moved. If you stop moving, the music stops and the colors stop changing.

Although we were not successful in transitioning this student to becoming a mouse user (for motor control reasons), if you are looking for a very early introduction to mouse cause-and-effect, you may want to give this a try.

Also, every adult I have shown this program to finds it oddly hypnotic and relaxing, so you may want to download it for yourself too!

Download Move the Mouse! here

Boardmaker Calculator

2010-01-12T23:45:00.000-05:00

I posted a simple talking arithmetic calculator that I designed in Boardmaker Plus. It can do addition, subtraction, or multiplication, and will work for up to 9-digit numbers. I was planning on posting this a while ago, but I never got around to getting the division working, but I figured I should post it anyway. It should be fully accessible through switch scanning.

It's available on Adapted Learning, at http://www.adaptedlearning.com/SingleFile.aspx?ID=268081

Curriculum Companion Demo Videos

2010-01-12T23:13:00.000-05:00

Much of my past year was spent working on the new Curriculum Companion line of products in Boardmaker Plus. A number of people have asked me if there was any way for them to get a better idea of what was included in each one. Well, I'm happy to say that there are now video demos of each of the 12 Curriculum Companions available online, that will give you a better idea of what they are.

I've created a playlist that you can view on Youtube, or you can watch them all below.

Closing the Gap this week!

2009-10-12T21:18:00.000-04:00

I'll be off to the Closing the Gap conference this Wednesday, so if anyone is going to be there, please come find me at the Dynavox & Mayer-Johnson booth to say 'hi'!

I'll be doing a presentation with Dan Herlihy on Thursday from 12:30-1:30 titled "Creating Accessible Interactive Books and Writing Activities with Boardmaker Plus V. 6". Dan is always fun to watch and has amazing ideas. We'll have a couple of really cool things to show.

I'll also be joining Patti Bastiani Weismer and Linda Bastiani Wilson for their presentation on "Ebooks for Switch Users at the Accessible Book Collection", on Friday from 9:30-10:30. I blogged a while ago about the Accessible Book Collection and the Boardmaker Plus books available their, it's a fantastic resource.

Power Templates on Adapted Learning

2009-10-07T10:19:00.001-04:00

Over the past year, we've been posting a wide variety of templates on AdaptedLearning.com that help you quickly create sophisticated activities without having to program any buttons. I've mentioned a number of these on my blog in the past. Previously, it was a little hard to find these on AdaptedLearning, but now they are all tagged with the keyword "powertemplate" (all one word, no space!). So go to AdaptedLearning.com , type in "powertemplate" into the search window, and they will all pop up!

Here is a list of all the PowerTemplates currently available:

Talking Book: http://www.adaptedlearning.com/SingleFile.aspx?ID=13491
Talking Book with Symbols: http://www.adaptedlearning.com/SingleFile.aspx?ID=13492

Sorting: http://www.adaptedlearning.com/SingleFile.aspx?ID=44522
Multiple Choice: http://www.adaptedlearning.com/SingleFile.aspx?ID=35101

Word Scramble: http://www.adaptedlearning.com/SingleFile.aspx?ID=53582
Matching Word to Picture: http://www.adaptedlearning.com/SingleFile.aspx?ID=81229

Flashcards: http://www.adaptedlearning.com/SingleFile.aspx?ID=65680
True-False: http://www.adaptedlearning.com/SingleFile.aspx?ID=121155

Yes-No Questions: http://adaptedlearning.com/SingleFile.aspx?ID=159562
Draw a Picture: http://www.adaptedlearning.com/SingleFile.aspx?ID=102299
Hidden Picture: http://www.adaptedlearning.com/SingleFile.aspx?ID=89853

My Latest Activities on Adapted Learning!

2009-09-26T21:59:00.000-04:00

I haven't been doing a posting on this blog for each time I upload a new activity to Adapted Learning. So here's a quick run-down of the latest activities I've posted:

Interactive Spinners: This is a set of interactive spinners. Click on the spin button, watch the spinner go round and land on one of 4, 6, or 8 choices. Include a blank spinner templates with 4/6/8 choices that you can fill in, as well as number spinners going to 4/6/8.

Shuffle Buttons Macro - Updated: A macro for automatically shuffling the buttons on your board. I posted this a while ago, this is an update that can handle up to 30 buttons at a time.

WordMaking Activity v2 - Updated: This is another activity I posted a while ago, for doing word-making activities based on Patricia Cunningham's Making Words method. This update has a bug-fix that kept you from swapping letters in the same location more than once.

Interactive Calendar: I took the MJ 2009 Calendar and made it interactive, so that you can jump from month to month and hear the days and months read aloud.

Swat!: This is a targeting game where you have to swat the flies on the screen. Comes with 3 choices of backgrounds.

Maze Muncher: This is a Pac-Man style game where you navigate your character through a maze, munching the apples as you go along. You can customize the character and the munchables to whatever you want.

Basic Skills Assessment: This is a set of interactive boards designed to assess basic skills. It tests items similar to those in assessments like in the Brigance, like recognition of community signs, lower case vs uppercase letters, common sight words, and word identification for body parts, colors, and shapes.

Twitter Mis-Behavin'

2009-09-23T00:37:00.000-04:00

The Twitter bar was freaking out today, displaying a whole bunch of tweets from random people. I've disabled it for now, I'll turn it back on in a few days after it is hopefully fixed!

Now Tweeting!

2009-09-01T00:11:00.002-04:00

Just wanted to let you all know that I am now on Twitter, www.twitter.com/yuichisgames. I plan on using Twitter to post short tidbits of information and links to activities I make or like, hopefully on a more frequent basis than my blog posts!

Using MS Word to "Draw" in Boardmaker

2009-08-31T23:48:00.002-04:00

Boardmaker is a great tool for creating symbol-adapted materials, but it doesn't have some of the fancier graphics tools that you might find in a pure graphics program. So do you need to go out and buy Photoshop or Illustrator? Only if you are a (rich) sado-masochist! Even other good paint programs are often hard to use when all you want is a nice arrow, speech-bubble, or maybe some fancier text. Also, with Paint programs, you often end up with the "jaggies" -- jagged edges that appear when you resize the objects to the size you want.

But chances are that you already have a very easy to use drawing tool that has many ready-to-use objects, that you can copy and paste into Boardmaker and that will scale to different sizes with no problem! I'm talking about the Autoshape tools in Microsoft Word.

The drawing tools should show up at the bottom of the screen when you open up a Word document (everything I'm writing here applies to MS Word 2000 & 2003 -- can't speak for later versions). Make sure you have the Drawing tools turned on, under View Menu->Toolsbars->Drawing.

Pick the object you want to use (they have great arrows, speech bubbles, and basic shapes and drag it on to your Word document to the size and orientation that you want. Double-click on it to set the line-width and the colors, and then paste it into Boardmaker. You'll find that graphics that come from Word don't have any problem with jagged lines.

I use this to draw an arrow to something in Boardmaker; add a speech-bubble to a symbol (when I don't feel like using the Speech Bubble PCS symbol); draw a color box that I want for the background of a board, but for only part of the board (try out the color gradients and textures under the Fill Effects option, they look really nice!); or when I want some fancy-looking text, I might use the AutoText option. You could even bring in clip-art from Word into your Boardmaker board.

Lots of New Boardmaker Books at Accessible Book Collection

2009-07-16T11:27:00.004-04:00

I'm very happy to announce that there are now over 100 accessible picture books available at AccessibleBookCollection.org. This is the only organization I'm aware of that provides accessible versions of popular children's books. You can read my original post about Accessible Book Collection if you want to know more about them, or read about and download the accessible book template here.

My Favorite Boardmaker Plus Tips

2009-07-13T23:19:00.004-04:00

These are a few of my favorite, not-so-well-known Boardmaker Plus tips. Most of these are documented somewhere, but given that Boardmaker has so many options, it's not surprising that they're often overlooked.

1. Turn off the Board Change Indicators.
The board change indicators are the little green arrows that show up at the bottom of every button that links to another board. If you are doing a lot of communication boards, this can be handy clue for your student to know which links will take him or her to another page. But if you are doing educational activities, at best they may be distracting, and at worst they may give away which button is the right answer!

To turn off the Board Change Indicators:
-- Go to the Dynamic Boards menu->Show->Board Change Indicators
-- Uncheck the "Show Board Change Indicators" option.

2. Use Switch-Scanning and Direct Select At the Same Time
If you are working with a student who uses auto or step scanning with the switch, this can cause problems when you want to navigate their boards, or when they want to do an activity collaboratively (like play Yuichi's Games) with another student who is not a switch-scanner. You CAN set up Boardmaker Plus so that you can also click (or use a touchscreen) buttons at the same time that the machine is set up for scanning.

- Go to the Dynamic Boards->Access Method->Scanning menu.
- Check off the Allow Direct Select When Possible option.

Make sure that you are not using the mouse click in order to activate the scanning, or else you will not be able to use the mouse click to directly click on buttons.

3. Another Tip for Using Boardmaker Plus with Scanners:
One other thing I like to do is set up an extra key as the "exit loop" key, that way if you have a keyboard hooked up and your student keeps getting into the wrong scan group, you can hit a key to get out, rather than having to wait for the computer to scan through the entire group. I usually pick the Page Up key or other not-often-used key.

To set up an extra key to Exit Loop:
- Go to the Dynamic Boards->Access Method->Extra Switches menu.
- Click on the field next to Exit Loop.
- Type the key you want to use to Exit Loop.
- Click on OK.

4. Tips for using Boardmaker Plus on a V.
If you're using Boardmaker Plus other touchscreen device like a V, that normally has no keyboard hooked up to it, you may find it's really hard to get into the menus and change settings on the fly for your student. Rather than hooking up a keyboard every time, you can have the menus showing at the top by going to the Dynamic Boards->Show menu and checking off the Menu Bar in Use Mode option. If your student is using the touchscreen, this may not be a good idea as they can get into design mode and mess up a board, but if they are a switch scanner, this can be really handy.

5. Maintaining the Quality of an Altered Image (from RoseMarie Gallagher of Boardmaker YahooGroups)
I just read this tip from Rosemarie Gallagher on the Boardmaker Yahoogroups last week, and it is brilliant! Any time you edit a Boardmaker symbol, it gets converted to a bitmap, which usually ends up looking pixelated with jagged edges. RoseMarie shared a great tip to minimize this. Below is her posting, which I'm passing on to you:

You can greatly preserve the quality of images that you convert from metafile to .bmp. The trick is to zoom in on the button as large as you can BEFORE you select the image to flip/recolor/etc. Zoom ([Ctrl] + 4 or double size under the "view" dropdown menu does it well), select the image, select the button for the type of conversion you want to make, "OK" the question about changing to .bmp format.

Try it with both the enlarged zoom and with normal view...you will be happy with the results of zooming first!

Using the Print Editor Beta

2009-04-08T23:09:00.006-04:00

Those of you who are AdaptedLearning.com members may have noticed that there is an announcement for beta testing of the Print Editor, which will let you modify and print Boardmaker boards, all through the web. You can sign up and try it out right now.

Once you've signed up, you need to copy a file into your "My Files" section in order to open it up in the Print Editor.

Then you need to go to your My Files section (link at the top, next to "Home"). You'll now see an "Open in Print Editor" option. So just click on the file, then click on "Open in Print Editor", and you'll be able to modify the board right through the web!

It's All About the Money!

2009-02-18T23:38:00.007-05:00

Well, I've been making some activities for a girl with Rett's who is now learning about money. She is using a computer eye-gaze system for most of her computer access, so I have to make them with an eye (no pun intended) towards easy operation via eye-gaze. Fortunately I've found that Boardmaker Plus works very well for this purpose.

Here are a few of the activities I've done so far. All of these are available for free download at AdaptedLearning.com.

Coin Identification

This activity uses the Multiple Choice template that we just posted to Adapted Learning. The template makes it really quick and easy to create a Multiple Choice quiz with randomization and reporting. This one asks the student to identify pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.
Download here

Bill Identification

This one was also done with the Multiple Choice template . I did a few little modifications to make the bills fit on the screen better. This one asks the student to identify one, five, ten, and twenty dollar bills.
Download here

Counting Coins

Each time the student clicks on a coin, it is dropped into the purse and the total amount in the purse is counted aloud. This activity uses my animation macros to animate the dropping of the coins. There is also a "count-off" button, which will count off each coin in the purse. There is a pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters option.
Download here

Wordmaking Cards Activity

2009-01-12T02:34:00.004-05:00

I just uploaded a Wordmaking Cards activity I designed to go along with Patricia Cunningham's "Making Words" phonics instruction book. This method, which I learned about from Dr. Karen Erickson of the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies and is also the basis for the software program WordMaker, has students learn spelling and word-patterns by constructing words from letters on cards. I found that WordMaker was not particularly accessible for a student using a headpointer or an eyegaze system, as it required click-and-drag and the buttons are quite small, so I designed this activity to be similar but more accessible.

You pick up to 10 letters to place on the board. The student creates words by clicking on a letter and then clicking on one of the available "slots". The letters are animated to "fly" to the slot when selected. When a word is created, the corresponding symbol from the Boardmaker Symbol Library is automatically shown and the word is read aloud. This activity was designed to minimize the amount of 'clicking' needed to exchange letters (if you click on a slot with a letter already in it, that letter is automatically swapped out for the one you wanted), and NO clicking-and-dragging is needed.

The file has been posted to AdaptedLearning.com -- if you are currently logged in then you can get to it directly by clicking on this link. If you use it, please email me and let me know any suggestions you have for making it better!

Here's a video demonstration if you want to see it in action. I've switched to TeacherTube, since YouTube is blocked in a lot of schools. However, on TeacherTube it has to get approved first, so it might not be available to view until later on today.

UPDATE: I'm having some trouble getting my videos uploaded to TeacherTube, so in the meantime here is a YouTube version:

The Mouse that Roared

2008-11-25T23:51:00.001-05:00

Up to now I have really tried to keep my blog focused on Boardmaker Plus, as opposed to assistive tech in general. There are a lot of other great AT blogs that I follow (see my AT links to the left), so I have tried to make my contribution in a more focused area.

But I want to digress for one post to talk about my two favorite technology items that very few people know about. These aren't items that will change the world for you, your student or child. But they are very cool, very useful, and very affordable!

The first item is my prize finding --the Tritton USB portable speaker. This little speaker is a little round circular disk about 4" inches wide and 1.5" thick. It has a sub-woofer built into the base, and two little speakers that flip up. It is entirely powered by USB -- and it is the LOUDEST portable speaker I have ever heard. A vendor at a conference had one of these a few years ago, and it was the only speaker I could hear clearly in the noisy exhibit hall. Seriously, when I use this for presentations, I usually have to turn the volume down. The sound is the clearest and fullest I have ever heard from a portable speaker, and the fact that is is tiny and needs no power-cord makes it even more amazing. On top of that, it is PC and Mac-compatible, comes with a place to wind-up the cord and store it, and -- here's the amazing part -- is available for $24.88 at Walmart.com. Or if you're anti-Walmart, you can get it from Amazon.com for just a few dollars more. The sound is also sent through the USB cord, so this speaker will only work with a computer, not with an iPod or other MP3 player.

My second favorite item is the Logitech Tiger Mouse. This is a portable mouse designed to carry around with a laptop, but this is actually the mouse that I use all day. It has cool orange and black stripes and its shape is just right for people with smaller hands like me, which also makes it great for kids. It's small but not ridiculously tiny like a lot of portable mice. Its buttons are very easy to press (unlike some portable mice, which require a lot of force to depress), and it has a scroll-wheel. Like the Tritton speaker, it comes with a wind-up for the cord. I originally bought this mouse for elementary-age students, but was surprised to find that even high-school students liked it. I got mine on close-out for $5 each, so I went ahead and bought five of them. Unfortunately I think I cleaned them out, so you'll need to pay a a whole $12.50 at OfficeDepot.com for yours.

A Quick November Note

2008-11-16T22:56:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't posted anything new to the blog recently. I have been busy working on a few things for AdaptedLearning.com, which open this Tuesday! I can't wait -- if you haven't already heard about it, please see my post from October on it.

I have already uploaded all of the boards and activites I've posted on my blog up to AdaptedLearning.com, so you'll be able to download all of them there if you are having any trouble with MediaFire (the file-storage service I've been using to host my files up until now). In the future I will probably just host all of my boards on Adapted Learning, but I do plan on continuing to post tips and info to this blog.

Also, Adapted Learning lets you add people to your "friends" list, similar to the way Facebook and MySpace work. When you have someone added to your friends list, you automatically get to see any boards they uploaded recently. So anyone out there, feel free to send me a friend request. Just do a search for "People" and type in "Yuichi", and then you'll see the option to send a friend request.

See you on Adapted Learning!

Happy Halloween Activities

2008-10-24T23:38:00.004-04:00

In the spirit of Halloween, I'm posting a couple of Halloween activities I made. These are pretty much just for fun. I'd love any suggestions or feedback:

Make sure to download the update to the most recent version (v6.1.3) of BM+ before using these activities!

Make a Jack-o-Lantern: download it here
Make your own Jack-o-Lantern by choosing the eyes, nose, and mouth. With spooky sound effects! This one only works in Windows, sorry to all you Mac users.

Halloween Word Search: download it here
Find all the Halloween words. Click on any letter in the word to select the word. You can complete it on the computer and print it out when you've finished, or print it out blank and circle the words on paper. This one works just like the Word Search game in Yuichi's Games, without the different levels and editing capability.

Cause-and-Effect Puzzle Activity

2008-10-20T20:50:00.000-04:00

Here's a cause-and-effect puzzle activity that's very easy to use. It places the four pieces on top of any picture you choose. You can click anywhere on the screen (or activate it with a switch) to remove the pieces one at a time. A random sound plays each time a piece is removed.

I've included a couple versions with sample photos. To create your own, open up the template version and then do a File->Save As to save it under a different file-name. Then simply drop in a picture of your own.

If you want to change the sounds, you can also do that by editing the "play sounds" macro.

Download it here

AdaptedLearning.com is coming!

2008-10-20T09:11:00.003-04:00

Well, I'm excited about finally getting to tell people about the new AdaptedLearning.com website. This is going to be the new online Boardmaker community hosted by Mayer-Johnson, and it will be pretty amazing. I've had a chance to play around with it a little and it is really slick. Here are some of the highlights:

It's FREE!

Share boards that you've made with others around the country/world

Easily find content that others have created (including free content from other people as well as commercial add-on's) by category, grade level, or keyword

Preview boards before downloading with thumbnails of each board, description by the author, and ratings and comments from other users.
Create public groups where you can share files and have discussions on specific topics

Create private groups where you can share files just for your class, district, etc.

Use AdaptedLearning.com as your private storage space for Boardmaker boards -- load a file to your account from school, then access it from home and continue working on it. No more carrying around everything on a flash drive!

Send messages to other users and create a 'friends' list.

I really think this could change the way we use Boardmaker and Boardmaker Plus. I know I am preparing a bunch of templates and boards to upload to the site, and I'm sure lots of other people are as well. We had a ton of people sign up for the site at Closing the Gap this past week, so I have no doubt there will be a ton of activity on it.

The site will officially launch on November 18, but if you visit AdaptedLearning.com now, you can set up your account, then you will automatically receive an email when it's ready to use. There is also a nice little video tour of the site you can take.

Fill Your Boards with Color

2008-10-14T00:55:00.002-04:00

I'm off to Closing the Gap tomorrow, so here's a quick and handy tip to hold you over until after the conference. If anyone is going to be at CTG, come find me at the Mayer-Johnson booth and say "hi"!

You know how Boardmaker has a somewhat limited selection of colors in the color chooser? Well, here's a great trick I learned from one of our graphic artists that will let you get around that limitation and use pretty much any color you want.

The key is the Eyedropper tool that is available in bottom row of the Color Tool. You may have used it before -- it lets you pick a color by clicking on another button or picture, and it will automatically match the color of whatever you clicked on. I always thought it only worked if you clicked on something that had one of the colors in the color picker. But it turns out that the Eyedropper tool will match the color of anything in your Boardmaker window. This means you can choose any color you want!

In order to give myself a nice large selection of colors, I created a color chart based on the same ones they use to do web design, and then I imported it into a Boardmaker Board. Any time you want to pick a color that's not in the color picker, just open up the color palette board, pick the Eyedropper tool, and click on one of the colors in the color chart!

I've uploaded my color chart in a Boardmaker board for you to use. You can download it here.

Linking to other programs or websites from Boardmaker Plus

2008-10-07T23:49:00.000-04:00

For a while now I've been wanting to write about how to link to a website from Boardmaker, but I couldn't -- because it didn't work! But it does now -- in the latest update to version 6.1.3, which is now available for Windows on the Mayer-Johnson website. It's mostly bug-fixes and internal changes, but this is the one thing that stands out to me as really useful.

So once you've got your v6.1.3 update, you can use Boardmaker Plus to launch other programs or websites. There are two tricks to doing this, both of which use the Launch Application action.

If you haven't used it before, the Launch Application action is listed under the Cool Stuff tab in the button actions lists. Normally if you click on Launch Application, it will ask you what shortcut you want to launch. However, it will only list shortcuts that have been placed under in the "SDP Externals" folder in your program directory. This is NOT easy to find, and placing shortcuts in that folder can be a real hassle.

So here are two tricks that will make the Launch Application action a whole lot easier to use:

Trick #1:
1. Hold down the SHIFT-key and click on the Launch Application action. This will bring up a standard Windows File Dialogue window, from which you can choose any program, file, or shortcut on your computer. This lets you run other programs from your Boardmaker board, turning it into a very capable "desktop". I've often used Boardmaker boards to launch all of my Clicker 5 and Intellitools activities, Living Books programs, you name it.

Trick #2:
2. Hold the the CONTROL-key and click on the Launch Applications action. This will bring up a little dialogue box that you can type into. Now go to your web-browser and go to the website you want to link. Copy the website address at the top of the browser, return to Boardmaker, and paste it into the dialogue box. Hit the OK button and go back to Use Mode. The button should now take you straight to that website, using Internet Explorer, Firefox, or whatever web-browser you have set as your default. You can use this to easily organize websites for your child, or to offer links to motivational websites (YouTube videos, Starfall) upon completing an activity.

So have fun linking away!

Symbolated Book Template

2008-10-06T02:15:00.002-04:00

I had a request for a version of my Boardmaker Plus Talking Book Template using symbolated text (text with picture-symbol supports) instead of straight text. So here it is:

Symbolated Boardmaker Plus Book Template

It *SHOULD* work just like the regular text template, except of course you'll need to use the Symbolate tool in order to edit the Symbolated Text. If you run into any problems, please let me know!

Youtube Doesn't Like Me Today

2008-09-30T12:13:00.002-04:00

I've gotten a few people letting me know that they are getting errors when trying to view my videos that say that the video is no longer available. The problem seems to come and go -- one moment the video will play fine and the next it won't. I have no idea what's causing it, but the problem seems to be on YouTube's end, so I don't think there is much I can do about it. All I can say is, please be patient and keep trying the videos, hopefully they will work for you at some point!

New Short Yuichi's Games Overview Video

2008-09-29T01:05:00.003-04:00

I did a quick overview video of Yuichi's Games, for anyone who hasn't seen them and is interested in learning more. This is a lot shorter than the previous videos and just gives you a quick idea of what games are included and what they look like. If you want to know all the features, then you can look at the old posts.

Interactive Talking Book Template

2008-09-28T22:13:00.005-04:00

I've been meaning to get this up for a while, but some computer problems have prevented me from doing the demo videos that I wanted to do. But with the help of a new computer, I can finally get this up.

I'm uploading the same Boardmaker Plus template that I developed for Accessible Book Collection. It is a really easy-to-use template that lets you quickly generate talking books with Boardmaker Plus. These templates are used for adapting commericial trade books at AccessibleBookCollection.org, but you can also use it to write your own books for your kids. You don't need to program buttons or scripts -- all you need to do is edit pictures and text. All the pages are automatically linked, and you can hide or show navigation buttons, switch into a slideshow mode, and turn the auditory previews on or off, without needing edit any boards.

Click here to download it

If you're curious what it looks like, take a look at the video overview below, or watch the full tutorial below it.

OVERVIEW OF BOOK TEMPLATES:

COMPLETE TUTORIAL ON HOW TO USE THE BOOK TEMPLATES:
(Sorry for the strange sounds when I do the control and alt keys, my recording software didn't like that.)
Part 1:

Part 2:

Boardmaker Plus Accessible Books

2008-09-11T19:05:00.003-04:00

The non-profit organization, Accessible Book Collection, is now carrying electronic versions of popular children's picture books in Boardmaker Plus format. For those not familiar with Accessible Book Collection, it is an organization that provides "high interest/low reading level digital text to qualified persons with disabilities". Their Electronic Picture-Book project has provided accessible versions of picture books in Clicker 5 and Intellitools Classroom Suite formats, with the original text and illustrations. Now Boardmaker Plus has been added to list!

We're using a new book template which offers the user the ability to easily customize the interface, and even includes a "slideshow mode" for advancing to the next page by clicking anywhere on the page.

For now there are 11 BM+-format books on the site. Dynavox & Mayer-Johnson are helping to adapt the books, so hopefully that number will grow quickly.

Membership is $50/year and does require proof of disability. Check them out at:http://www.accessiblebookcollection.org. And let me know if you have comments on the template or if you have suggestions for books to be adapted in the future!

Target Practice -- Fire Away!

2008-09-08T09:18:00.006-04:00

Sorry I haven't posted in a little while. I've been busy working on some projects that I think are pretty exciting. Hopefully I can give a preview of those in the not-too-distant future.

In the meantime, here is a Target Practice activity I made for a young woman I work with who is learning to use an eyegaze system. It's simple -- a target is moved around randomly around on the screen and you click on it. It would also be a great activity for a headmouse or any other kind of pointing method that you want to practice. There are different difficulty levels, you can add distractors, and you can change the symbols. It also keeps data on all of your scores and saves them in a table. If you go to the "data" folder, there is even an Excel spreadsheet so you can analyze performance.

Here's the
link to the file.

P.S. There was a bug in the last version that made the 3x2 w/Distractors level not work properly. This has been fixed as of 9/28/08 and the link above is for the updated version.

P.P.S. Another bug was reported with the 4x3 w/Distractors level. It's been fixed. Hopefully that's the last one!

Files and Folders -- Free Yourself!

2008-08-20T00:34:00.004-04:00

One thing that drives me nuts about Boardmaker Plus is the fact that you have to put all of your boards in one folder in order to be able to link from one board to another. If you have a lot of boards, this gets very confusing. It can become hard to even find the board you're looking for.

Let's say you have a "bookshelf" board, named "bookshelf". Then you also have an electronic version of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", with 10 boards, named "page1", "page2", etc. What you'd want to do is put all the "Hungry Caterpillar" files into one folder, and then link your bookshelf file to the "page1" board inside the "Hungry Caterpillar" folder. That way you can have different folders of books, all linked to the one "bookshelf" board.

There IS a way to do it, although it is a little tricky. Here's how you can do it:

1. Create your folder (in this example, called "Hungry Caterpillar") and place your boards inside that folder.
2. Create your bookshelf board located outside of that folder.
3. Create a button that you want to link to the board inside the "Hungry Caterpillar" folder. We'll call that board "page1" in our example.
4. Double-click on the button like you normally do to edit the actions.
5. HOLDING DOWN THE CONTROL KEY ON YOUR KEYBOARD, click on the Change Board action. Now instead of just getting a list of the boards located in the same folder, you get a little window where you can type in the name of a board.
6. Now type in the name of the folder, followed by a "/", followed by the name of the board you want to link to. In our example, it would be "Hungry Caterpillar/page1". Make sure you type it in correctly -- any typo will make it not work!
7. Click on the OK button.

Now when you go into Use mode, the button should be linked to the "page1" board inside the "Hungry Caterpillar" folder.

If you want to link from the "page1" board BACK to the bookshelf board, you can do the same thing, except you'll have to enter "../bookshelf". The "../" means that the board I want to link to is located one folder UP from where I am. Those of you who have used Unix or DOS will recognize that this is the standard notation used by most computers to specify the location of a file on the computer.

Note that if you link between boards located in different folders, the Change Board Back action will NOT work. This is a little inconvenient.

It is a little extra work to link boards in this way, but to me it is worth it to be able to finally organize my boards in a decent fashion!

Macro for Shuffling Buttons

2008-08-01T00:09:00.006-04:00

In Boardmaker, you can randomize the locations of a group of buttons while in Design Mode using the "Shuffle Buttons" option under the Edit Menu. But what if you want to shuffle the buttons on the fly in Use Mode -- say, at the start of every activity? My Shuffle Buttons macro makes it easy to do this. You can take up to 10 buttons on any board, and have them automatically shuffle their locations when the board opens or when you click on a button.

Download the template here (this includes a "Find the Shapes" activity that illustrates the Shuffle Buttons macro):
http://adaptedlearning.com/SingleFile.aspx?ID=137

Here's a video demo on how it works:

'Convert to Freeform Button' Explained!

2008-07-24T17:00:00.003-04:00

Those of you who watched the video for my last post may have seen me use the Convert to Freeform Button tool. This takes any picture and turns it into a Freeform Button, meaning that the shape of the button follows the outline of the picture. It's great for any movable button activities or any activity where you want to be able to click on different objects within a scene.

Only one problem -- it is NOT a feature that is available from your normal user mode. You have to change into the "poweruser" setting, which unlocks this and some other advanced features. To do this, you need to go into the Dynamic Boards menu and select "Password" (on a Mac, go to Boardmaker with SDP menu and select "Preferences", and then Set User Access Level), and then enter in "poweruser".

Now when you right-click on a picture (control-click for you Mac users), you'll see a "Convert to Freeform Button" option at the bottom. Note that this only works if your picture is NOT already on a button, i.e. directly on the background of the board itself.

Click here to find out a little more about the Power User mode on Mayer-Johnson's website.

Counting Template

2008-07-20T20:39:00.005-04:00

One of the things I feel is really helpful in any online counting activities is the ability to count off each object as you point to them. In this Boardmaker Plus activity, as you click on each object, the current count is spoken and also shown on the object itself. I've included a macro you can use to easily create your own counting activities. This is a nice support for children still learning to count, especially if they are switch-users or otherwise unable to point directly to the screen.

You can download the template here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?ovltnw1kxx9

Here's a video that explains how to use it to create your own counting activities:

Using YouTube videos in Boardmaker Plus

2008-07-14T01:08:00.007-04:00

One of the cool features of Boardmaker Plus is the ability to play videos right in your boards. A lot of people have asked if there is a way you can download YouTube videos to use in Boardmaker Plus. YouTube doesn't let you directly download their videos, but you can do it using www.mediaconverter.org . This is a free website that will convert YouTube videos into downloadable files we can use in Boardmaker Plus. I prefer this website over ZamZar.com (another popular free video conversion website) for 2 reasons: 1) it is much faster, and 2) it lets you select only the part of the YouTube video you want.

I use the www.mediaconverter.org website to convert YouTube to WMV video format. There are a lot of video format choices, but Boardmaker Plus works only with AVI and WMV files. I prefer WMV because they are more compact and smaller. If you're a Mac user, you'll need to download the Mac Windows Media components here in order to play WMV files.

Once you've download the file from mediaconverter.org, you should be able to play it in your Boardmaker Plus boards. These files can also be played back on your computer in Windows Media Player, for when you're not using Boardmaker.

Here's a video tutorial:

"Yuichi's Games" - What are they?

2008-07-07T23:05:00.005-04:00

First of all, I want to say that calling them "Yuichi's Games" was NOT my idea. But the folks at Mayer-Johnson liked it and so it stuck.

"Yuichi's Games" is a set of 9 interactive, customizable games designed for special education settings using the Boardmaker Plus software from Mayer-Johnson. Most of the games are version of popular games that work on memory, logical reasoning, and visual perceptual skills. All games can be played with a mouse, touch-screen, or using switch-scanning.

I designed them specifically with the idea of making them accessible both physically and for users of different cognitive levels. You can also customize them WITHOUT having to know how to design boards in Boardmaker.

They're available from Mayer-Johnson for $59, at http://www.mayer-johnson.com/ProdDesc.aspx?SKU=M1MJ282. You need to already have Boardmaker Plus v6 or Boardmaker with Speaking Dynamically v6 in order to play them.

Here are some video demonstrations for each of the games:

Animated Buttons in Boardmaker Plus!

2008-07-07T22:40:00.009-04:00

Boardmaker Plus does not really have much support built-in for animation, aside from playing movie files. One thing you can do is make your buttons move using the "Set Button Position" action. But even a simple animation to move a button across the screen can require a long series of actions. The following video demonstrates a macro I wrote that makes this process MUCH easier. It lets you quickly and easily make one button fly across the screen to another one. You can also adjust the speed.

Feel free to download the macro at the link below and use it in your own activities. It's pretty easy to use, but I may work on a video tutorial as well.

Video demo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ9ymBIHso0

Download the macro to use in your own Boardmaker activities:
http://www.mediafire.com/?jixmdmhmtmm