Two New Products from Mayer-Johnson

Mayer-Johnson has two new ways to bring the power of Boardmaker Plus.

The Boardmaker Plus Player Subscription allows teachers and therapists (and families) to access the Boardmaker Plus content by through an online membership. Costing $39.00 a year this is an alternative to the Boardmaker Player Disc at $125.00. You can install the subscription version of Boardmaker Plus Player on as many computers as you would like, but only one location can be logged in at a time (unless you buy multiple subscriptions).

This seems like a great solution for school and communities that have great internet access, but for those of us in schools with limited internet access or communities where families may not have a fast internet connection (yes, people still use dial up), I think we are STILL holding out for Boardmaker Player on a Flashdrive. You know what else? It seems to me that if you buy a Boardmaker Plus Player disc it should come free with one online subscription.

The next product is the Mobile Activity Player. This is a portable net book pre-installed with Boardmaker Plus Player either three or six of the Curriculum Companion series of activities. The net book has a touchscreen that rotates so it can be used as a laptop or tablet, and has a nifty handle. It is WiFi enabled (and can connect via wires) so you can download activies via AdaptedLearning.Com. The netbook has an Intel®Atom™ N270 1.6 GHz Processor, 1 GB RAM, and a 60 GB Hard Drive. For connections it has an Ethernet Port, USB Ports, Headphone Jack, Speakers, VGA port, and a 2-in-1 SD/MMC memory card reader. No word on how loud the speakers are (meaning if you could use the device as an AAC device in a loud place). Battery life is 5 hours. If you want to install anything else, such as pre-made board sets you already own you will need to either buy an external DVD or CD-ROM, put everything on a flashdrive to move it over or move things over via the internet. You will need to purchase a switch interface or use one you already have for your switch users - the netbook does not have switch ports.

The Mobile Activity Player retails for $749.00 to $949.00 including Boardmaker Plus Player depending on how many Curriculum Companion activities you choose to have pre-installed. Given that many school can't afford paper, books or the endless supply of H1N1 preventing Purell right now (not to mention teachers/aide having pay freezes, 2% pay cuts and the state of Hawaii having nearly every Friday as a unpaid Furlough day) I don't know how a product just under a thousand dollars is going to sell, but perhaps some (rich) schools/districts/parents can afford a Mobile Activity Player or they will use the illusive "stimulus money" we all hear about and never see in our classrooms.

Fun Things We've Been Up To in Kate's Class

We have been having a rocking good time in my classroom lately. Here are some of the things we have been up to:

• Playing Hoops on the Help Kidz Learn site. Set on "easy" you still need to wait until your player aims to score a basket. We had the student nearest to the computer use a wired switch and the student further away use the Jelly Beamer. Only one of my students is a regular switch user and he has been kicking some rear end in this game. We adapted it for low vision by simply having all the staff shout, "now!" for the student with visual impairment.
  
• Learning about and playing dreidel using Classroom Suite, our new Jelly Beamer and the LCD Projector on the big screen (we don't have a SMART board.) The Hannukah and driedel activties were downloaded from the Intellitools Activity Exchange. We listened to the information about Hannukah and driedels and then we switched over the the driedle cause and effect activity, from the same author on the exchange and passed around the Jelly Beamer to spin the driedel. We played three times today and the same student won every time!
• Making "stained glass" candles for Hanukkah (yes, I know it isn't until December 21st) using the free symbol based directions from Slater Software, which we posted on the "big screen" via the LCD projector and used the Jelly Beamer to scroll down the directions as we worked through each step.
• Reading Hoover's New Wheels, also downladed from the Intellitools Classroom Exchange and played a yes/no comprehension game.
• Working on 1:1 correspondence, counting and greater than/less than using Power Point Presentations based on the counting candy canes presentation available from Jefferson County Schools. We do this on "the big screen" as well, and even without a SMART board it is very, very fun. One of my student inparticular is VERY motivated to point to things on the "big screen" and his accuracy increases by merely using it.
  
• Playing "Christmas Squares" another power point from Jefferson County Schools with customized holiday questions to continue our work on yes/no.

For Christmas I would like either administrative privileges (or at least an administrator to install a few things) on the computer connected to the LCD projector or a way to make Boardmaker Player run from a flashdrive like Classroom Suite Player can. That way we would have a world of Boardmaker Activities to use on the "big screen" in addition to Classroom Suite Activities.

Boardmaker Plus Player

Mayer-Johnson is now offering a Boardmaker Plus Player which will play any interactive set of Boardmaker Plus Boards for $80.00.

Remember Boardmaker Plus can do everything Boardmaker SDP can do except abbreviation expansion and word prediction.