Better than Spell Check on Steroids

Have you heard about Ginger?

I was absolutely blown away by the demo at the AHEAD conference this summer. Ginger has the potential to completely change the way that students with dyslexia and other visual processing learning disabilities feel about writing.

"Why for how come so?" I hear you asking. Ginger takes the spelling and mechanics errors dyslexics can often make and corrects them by looking at the syntax of the sentence, rather than just the word in isolation. An example they have posted on their site:

Original: H ws nt fileing wale whan he retrnd
MS Word's corrections: H was not filing wale when he returned
Ginger's corrections: He was not feeling well when he returned


One thing you'll notice immediately about Ginger is the contextual help for choosing the correct word.

One other thing I also notice is that it's slow. Ginger does all of its work over the Internet, so even with my high-speed connection here in my office at SOU, there's still some wait time. Pretty much, that's the only downside I'm finding.

Currently, Ginger is in beta - which means it's free! Download it and give it a try; you may just find Ginger revolutionizing your writing.

So, Does 138+ Free or Cheap Tools for Learning Appeal to You?

I'm going to state up front that this is a shameless infomercial.

Having said that, fellow learners of the world, here's the scoop. Once again this winter, I'm teaching Technology for Learning. It's designed to give every student, regardless of major, abilities, or learning style, technology tools they can use to be more effective and efficient. Besides, it's fun! My basic philosophy: if properly chosen, technology tools can make a student's life much easier and improve their grades at the same time. This class is all about finding out which tools will do that for you, specifically. At the end of the class, you'll come out with a personal technology plan that lays out what your goals are, what tools you've chosen, and how you'll implement those tools.

An exciting new addition this time around is the Tech4LearnCourse Wiki. Through the wiki, students will collaborate on reviews of tools, their personal technology plans, a glossary and more. The coolest feature, however, is that your access to the wiki doesn't go away when the class ends! Every student who has taken the class still has access, so you can find out about new tools and contribute to the discussion for as long as you want!

Who should take this class?

• Students returning to college. If you haven't been around academic tools for awhile, there's some new stuff that can really help you!
• Students whose first language is not English. English breaks way too many of its own rules to be easy to learn! Use technology to help you.
• Students who need help in any of the following: reading, writing, math, studying, researching, organizing (yes, I know that's most of us!), or navigating the electronic campus
• Students with disabilities who would like to find more ways to interact with information independently and efficiently
• Teachers of any level who would like to find new tools for their students (and themselves)
• Anyone with an interest in learning new technology tools to make their work more efficient and fun!
  

Today being the first day of registration for winter, I'll also throw in the details - CRN 4309, USEM 199, 2 credits, 1-2 Tuesdays and Thursdays. Very low reading requirements, high play value, and a resource that extends long beyond the class... how can you resist?

Premier AT Home Ending Soon

I've blogged before about some of the great tools available at SOU in the Premier AT Suite. Last academic year, we had a little more room in the AT budget and were able to purchase a subscription to the Premier AT Home service, which allowed students to download as many of the tools in the suite as they liked, for free.

Faithful readers of this blog will know how I like the word "free." It's right up there with "chocolate."

Our subscription will be ending on November 22nd, and, budgets being what they are, we aren't going to be able to subscribe this year. I'm hoping to do it again next year, but it will depend on what the budgetary demands are. In the broader scheme of things, accommodations get funded first - and that's what's happened this year.

Bottom line, folks - if you've thought of downloading the Premier Suite but haven't done it yet, do so before November 22nd. The url, username and password you need are in the Disability Services channel of the MySOU portal.