Tar Heel Typer

This entry is taken wholesale from Sam Sennot over at All Together We Can Do Our Best:

Posted on November 13, 2007 by alltogether

by Samuel Sennott

The Tar Heel Typer is an excellent new open source writing tool that is a flexible alternative pencil with word prediction that is both available online and as a standalone download. Created by Daniel Parker, a Computer Science Student at UNC Chapel hill and is a collaboration with The Center for Literacy and Disability at UNC. The program runs best in Firefox and is created in Flash and Java. Here is what you first see when you are setting up your alternative pencil. (only a portion of the whole menu)

You can choose your input type between the options of Braille, a keyboard, automatic single switch scanning, and two switch step scanning! There are excellent customization options during scanning such as seeing one letter at a time, or for seeing the whole alphabet. Additionally, you can set for group scanning. The word prediction is a bit basic involving importing a list of your own, but this level of control may be helpful for scaffolding the writing of early learners and I am sure that a text file will float around soon to augment the sample list provided. There are some fun extras as well, including a music player, which in the future could be modified to be a juke box. Also there is a helpful feature that allows you to email the writing when you want!

Here is what it looks like to two switch step scan seeing only one letter at a time. Click on the image to go to that setup.

This project is not only valuable to use with learners right away, but it shows the power of open source software for who we are trying to help provide learning technology to individuals with special needs. This project, as it is created in Flash and Java, running on Firefox, can be easily adapted to run on the XO laptop as well. Just think of what else can be created to run on a machine like that. It will be interesting to look at how the Hawking Toolbar can be integrated with this writing tool on the XO. Thanks goes out to the creator for the excellent work done on the Tar Heel Typer!

Click-N-Type Free Software

You probably already know what Joy To Key is from my previous entries (a free program that allows you to assign mouse or keyboard actions to any gaming joystick or controller). Click-N-Type is a free, customizable on screen keyboard with word prediction capabilities. It can be used with any pointing device, mouse emulator or touchscreen and it can run in scan mode. It also has text to speech capabilities. There is a built in autoclick/dwell feature. There are over a dozen versions of the keyboard to download and try. (E-mail me or comment if you want to try my own personal "speed keyboard" adapted to require minimum joystick movement, especially for buttons like space, shift and delete.)

A little creative thought and Click-N-Type can be used with learners with cognitive challenges. You could make a board using the Click-N-Type designer that just has the letters of a students name or you could make a board with just numbers for a student to enter answers to math questions or use an onscreen, but not accessible, calculator. You could even make a board of all macros for higher functioning students to use to enter certain strings of text while they are using a regular keyboard. I am sure there are dozens of other ideas as well.

Click-N-Type is a remarkable piece of software and is well worth spending some time getting to know. It is hard to believe it is free, especially when you compare it to other, similar programs (which can cost from to $350 dollars to $500 dollars).