Assistive Technology
Planning, writing and
editing with Smart
Ideas and Premier AT
Presented by: Shelley Burnside
Itinerant Teacher – Assistive Technology
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
What is Assistive Technology?
• A device or software designed to help perform a task.
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Before & After Using Co-Writer
Before
After
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Why use Assistive
Technology?
• Students today are the digital natives. They are engaged by
technology.
• Assistive Technology benefits everyone, not just those with special
needs.
Universal Design and Differentiated Instruction Applications
• Students can access curriculum with specific support for learning
needs
• Students can demonstrate learning in a variety of ways
• There are many different ways to assess learning
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
Types of Assistive Technology
• Assistive Technology for Reading
( Premier, Kurzweil)
• Assistive Technology for Writing
(Dragon = speech-to-text)
(Premier, Co-writer, SpeakQ/WordQ, Write Out Loud = auditory channel and/or word prediction)
• Assistive Technology for Concept Mapping
(Smart Ideas)
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
What are we doing here?
• Learning to use Smart Ideas
and Premier to produce
written work.
• Playing, exploring and
creating without fear of
making a mistake
• Gaining and sharing
understanding of the
applications of these
programs that will improve
achievement of ALL your
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students.
How?
• Plan using Smart Ideas
to create a ‘map’ of your
thoughts and the
connections between
them
• Write using Smart Ideas
to support working
memory, sequencing and
detail
• Edit using Premier AT to
‘hear’ your workOur Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
Smart Ideas – a picture is
worth…
I have personally used Smart Ideas to:
• Assess reading comprehension (!)
• As a first draft plan for a small writing
assignments ( newspaper article,
opinion paragraphs)
• As the research component of a
summative assignment (including
web links to relevant sources)
• As an assignment/guide for a senior
English essay
• As a study tool in Learning Strategies
and other courses
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
Let’s start …
• Start Menu ( Green at the
bottom left of your screen –
don’t laugh… I am an
immigrant to this ‘world’ )
• Select Smart Ideas from All
Programs
• Add it to the Start Menu by
right clicking and selecting
“Pin to Start Menu”
Click
here first
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When you ‘right
click’ on a
program found
in the ‘All
Programs’ menu
you can select
‘Pin to Start
menu’
Smart Ideas-Double click to
open
• File => Open Template OR
Select => Template tab
Click on
template
tab
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Smart Ideas
• Take a look….( explore )
• Double click on the templates
to see some of the ones your
students could use to plan
their work.
• Talk about it…. ( share )
• Share an interesting pre-set
template and how you would
ask your students to use it
with your neighbour.
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
Smart Ideas
• Look under ‘Getting Started’ and find
the ‘Short cuts’ page.
• Turn to your neighbour and say,
‘when you forget where this page
is…ask me and I’ll remind you ’
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
Smart Ideas
• Select a blank template
• Look at the left hand side of
the window
• Click through the Symbols
and Connectors and see them
change in the window
underneath
• Click on a Symbol at the side
and ‘drag and drop it’ into the
middle
• Notice the Blue connector and
Green arrow
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Explore ( and make mistakes!)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Double click on the Symbol so that
you get a cursor
Type in ‘DRAGON FRUIT’
Click outside/inside the symbol
Make the Symbol bigger by clicking
and dragging on the bottom right
corner
Make the text bigger by highlighting it
and adjusting the font size in the tool
bar at the top
Move it by clicking on it and dragging
it to a new spot
Select a different Symbol and put two
of them in your template by dragging
and dropping them
Dragon Fruit
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
Plan continued…
•
•
•
Move symbols by clicking on them
and dragging them to a new position
Label the two new symbols ‘Inside’
and ‘Outside’
Click on the Dragon Fruit symbol (that
you created first) to wake it up
•
Click on the blue connector at the
bottom of the Symbol and drag the
connection to the symbol you have
labelled ‘Outside’ .
•
Repeat this process to connect
Dragon Fruit to the symbol labelled
‘Inside’.
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
Here we go…
I am going to:
• Give you an experience (text) that ( I hope) is new to you and guide your
discovery (structure and sequencing that leads to writing)
You are going to:
• Try something new
• Use Smart Ideas to capture your thoughts, reactions and experiences
• Ask if you need help
• Take risks
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
This was my picture….make
your own as we experience the
fruit.
You can ‘see’ thinking in
moments
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Add a link to a website
You can add a link to a website
that you want your students to
access OR they can create a
link to a site that they used to
do research by:
• Going to the site
• Copying the URL
• Click on the ‘Add Link’ button on the Smart
Ideas tool bar and paste the URL in the
dialogue box
• Click on and drag the link to the spot you want
it in
• TRY IT!
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
Ready to write ?
•Now we are ready to turn our picture into a sequenced prompt for writing.
•This will be fantastic for students who need support for working memory,
sequencing, next steps, staying on task….It is all right there for them to use.
•You have filled in all the parts of the picture that you can, now click the
‘outline’ tab on the top right of the Smart Ideas window.
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
Smart Ideas
• Voila  your picture becomes
an outline to prompt writing.
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Save your picture and outline
as a word document for easy
printing
• You can also ask your
students to go to File =>
export =>Microsoft Word
Document to save it as a word
document and drop it into your
hand-in folder or even print it
as a draft or proof of research,
assessment for/of
learning…etc!!
• You can also export as a
picture/image
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
Smart Ideas
• Save your
template as a:
• .ipr file
• .rtf file
• .jpeg file
You will need to
name it each time
you save it as a
new ‘type’ of file.
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
Add Premier Talking Word
Processor (TWP)
Re-size this
screen so that you
can keep it on your
screen while we
move on to Premier
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
Premier
• Find Premier Tools and pin it
to your start menu
• You can also choose to pin
individual parts of this suite of
programs…just the TWP to
start, for example.
• The Tool bar will allow easy
access to the complete set of
programs with only one ‘pin’ to
the Start Menu
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Premier
• Click on the Talking Word
Processor from Premier Tools
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Premier
You should get this:
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Premier set up
Select a voice
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Select ‘Read’ – ‘Reading
Options’
Read
Reading Options
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Reading Options
• Select ‘Multivoice Reading Options’ so you can
use different voices to read different colours of
highlighted text (yellow for plot/blue for
character traits….yellow for fact/ blue for
opinion etc….)
• De-select ‘Word Pause’ by clicking on it. This
gives a more natural pace to the reading.
Slower processors may want this pause
between words…try it.
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
Premier
Linked to online video
demonstrations = AWSOME!
Same as Word
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OK….let’s go
• Minimize Premier Talking Word Processor (TWP)
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Split Screen
Play with the size and placement of your screens until you have both open
beside each other just like having two pieces of paper on your desk.
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
Premier
• Click on the Premier document to get a cursor and start typing your
introduction to dragon fruit using your outline as a ’next step’ prompt.
• Make a mistake on purpose and see if you ‘hear’ your mistake.
• Most of us will hear a mistake before we will see it in our own writing.
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
Premier
• Save your dragon fruit document….sorry you can finish it later

It saves as a word document ( *.doc)
YEAH!
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Premier :
Other cool things to try
• Remember the tool bar?
Scan in worksheets or PDF Equalizer allows you to
tests etc. to then use manipulate and edit pdf files,
with the other tools
add text and even change
them into MP3 files!
Universal Reader reads text from
websites so you can use your
auditory channel to ‘scan’ for
information you want to use.
EReader reads texts that you have
acquired in e-text format. It can
summarize the text among other
things.
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
E-Texts and Graphic
Organizers
• http://www.eastoftheweb.com/shortstories/childrenindex.html
• http://www.magickeys.com/books/
• http://www.popularchildrenstories.com/
• http://www.his.com/~pshapiro/stories.menu.html
• http://aero.psbnet.ca/aero/Splash.aspx
• http://www.freeology.com/
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
Assistive Technology for
EQAO
• Students currently using
Assistive Technology and who
have an IEP are eligible
• Available in alternative
formats including Premier and
Kurzweil (Text to Speech)
• Students who use Dragon
(Speech to Text) software can
use it to respond on the
assessment
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
EQAO and CASI Links
Ontario Literacy Test - Assistive Technology Resources
(scroll far down the page)
• http://www.eqao.com/Students/Secondary/10/10.aspx?Lang=E&gr
=10
CASI for Kurzweil (Save to your documents then open using Kurzweil)
• http://tech2learn.wikispaces.com/Kurzweil+%26+Assistive+Tech
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
Recap: What have we done?
• Used Smart Ideas and Premier - Talking Word
Processor (TWP) to think about, plan, write and edit a
piece of writing about dragon fruit.
• Created and saved a Smart Ideas template as a ‘rich
text format’ (.rtf) Word document and as a picture file
(.jpeg).
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We have also…
• Created and saved a document with Premier’s TWP.
• Seen/tried some of the other features Premier has to
offer.
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
Now what?
1. Think about how you CAN USE these tools to improve
student achievement.
2. DO IT!!! ( I’ll help)
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
Resources
www.sburnside.pbworks.com will take you to my
pbworks
site and there you will find:
• This power point presentation
• Download-able ‘hand-outs’ that relate to Premier, Smart
Ideas, Dragon, Kurzweil etc….
• An overview of Assistive Technology and trouble
shooting help for saving/opening and printing files.
• Smart Ideas Templates that I have made and used.
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
Time for more?
Demonstrations of:
• Dragon?
• Kurzweil?
• Others?
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
Assistive Technology Is Not
• a quick fix – students have to work at learning how to
use it
• not for everyone – some students do not respond to it
• 100% dependable – always try it out before hand
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community
Feedback
Shelley.burnside@ocdsb.ca
I am learning so please help me by ‘beaming’ me with
constructive feedback…(’more x and less y’) to help me
do better next time.
Our Focus: Learning, Leadership, Community