Wordless Wednesday (Sorta)

This is Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs adapted into Mayer-Johnson PCS (in a rather blurry screen shot). The question is how do we as classroom teachers of learners with very signficant disbilities ensure that ALL of our students needs as people are being meet, not just the bottom one or two rows? How could we use this or a similar picture board to help us?

PHOTOsyms

PHOTOsyms is a free photo communication board creator. It allows you to use any image you have on your computer to make communication boards in grids from 2 to 24 symbols on a page (the sizes of the images automatically changes). I was able to use my own photos, images from the internet, (the free) Sclera Pictos, and (the also free) Imagine Symbols on boards. This is a quick, easy and free alternative to Boardmaker if all you need to do if make boards (no worksheets, activities, or anything else, just boards). (I could not get the Boardmaker PCS Metafiles to import into PHOTOsyms.) It runs in Windows and Mac.

There are no directions to speak of so here are some tips:

• extract all the files before you run the application
• put the images you want to use in the My PHOTOsyms folder (took me awhile to figure this one out)
• use the slider bar under the larger box on the left to resize the image
• use the slider bar under the grid on the right to change the number of boxes in your grid, this can be done after adding a few images and they will stay put
• after uploading a picture you should adjust its size and then click add to put it in the grid, repeat until you grid is full - it isn't easy to edit so plan out what you want
• make sure your images are saved as what you want them called in your grids because whatever they are saved as is how they will come up on the grid

Thanks to The Assistive Technology Blog for the link to this software.

Communicative Mouse Pad

Long a fan of Giving Greetings, the company that sells greeting cards and note pads (among other things) that utilize Mayer-Johnson Picture Symbols today I noticed this on their sister site, Say It with Symbols (which sells clothing and gifts) today. It is a mouse pad that has a communication board for the picture. Toss those old, stained mouse pads from computer companies, Edmark and local pharmacies and consider adding a few of these to your classroom for $15.00 each.

Wordzee Worksheet (and Communication Board) Designer

Wordzee is a free online program to make picture (non-standardized symbols, clip art and photos) based worksheets and communication boards. There are 16 different layouts to choose from including 4,6 or 8 images in boxes or not, with blank lines for labeling activities, arranged for matching activities, fill in the blank with a word bank or matching pictures to text. The software takes a few trials to get used to, don't get frustrated by error messages at first.

In Wordzee first use the search box on the left to choose images. Then assign pictures to boxes, title your worksheet and, finally, chose a layout. This is a quick, free, online alternative to using Boardmaker or similar software when you are in a pinch (i.e. no time to load up software, you don't have Boardmaker, you don't have your Boardmaker disc). Keep in mind you do loose the versatility, broad range of images and standardized symbol system when you use this instead of Boardmaker, but there is definitely a time and a place for Wordzee.