Episode Overview-

Hey everyone,

Episode #46 features another excerpt from the presentation for the Individual Differences in Learning Association in Howard County, Maryland.  This excerpt describes WordTalk; a free text-to-speech plug-in for Microsoft Word.

The episode features a bumper from Karen Janowski who is an assistive technology consultant, an assistive technology specialist for a school district in Massachusetts, adjunct faculty member at Simmons College, and school board member in her town.  She is also one of the innovators behind the UDLTechToolKit wiki, which contains a plethora of resources useful for differentiating instruction.

A.T.TIPS In This Episode-

A.T.TIP #72: WordTalk

WordTalk is a free text-to-speech add-in for Microsoft Word. You can find all the details about which versions of Word it works with along with other frequently asked questions, installation instructions and more over at the WordTalk download page.

1. WordTalk SlideShare Tutorial –  This tutorial, created by Paul Hamilton, describes everything you need to know about WordTalk.

Additional Resources Mentioned-

1. www.iste.org/chewat – Select “Notify Me” to sign up to get an e-mail reminder when the book comes out.

2. Eight is Enough Presentation – This is the slideshow I used during the presentation for IDL.

3. 2009 Edublog Award Winners – Congratulations to all of the winners!  Let me recommend you head over there to check out all of the nominations and winners. The A.T.TIPSCAST placed seventh out of 26 in the category of “Best Educational Use of Audio“.

4. CliCk, Speak – A free, open source text-to-speech extension for the Firefox web browser.

5. Text-to-Speech in OpenOffice – Open Office is a free suite of programs including a word processing program.  OO Text To Speech is a free download for this program.

6. Word Magnets – Type or paste text (words or letters) into a box that then makes each word (or letter) a separate moveable object.  Perfect for word scrambles or sentence generation on an interactive whiteboard.

Drag words to make sentences

Drag letters to make words

Upcoming Presentations-

Alternative Professional Development – Assistive Technology Industry Association Conference 2010 – Orlando, Florida – January 28 – 2:45pm – 3:45pm EST

UDL 2.0 presented with Beth Poss – Assistive Technology Industry Association Conference 2010 – Orlando, Florida – January 29 – 9:15pm-10:15pm EST

Contact Information-

Join the A.T.TIPPERS group on Facebook and/or Classroom 2.0 ! You can also follow me on twitter.com/attipscast.

Leave a comment down below or drop me a line at attipscast@gmail.com. Let me know what you think of the show! You can access the podcast and register as a fan of the show from here:

Thanks everyone and happy listening!