Cognitive Levers Project
This project is to design new technologies for people with cognitive disabilities and is funded by the Coleman Initiative. Researchers are working with teachers, parents and students with cognitive disabilities as they build new devices.
Input is desired! http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~l3d/clever/
Summary Street
WHAT IS SUMMARY STREET? Summary Street is free, on-line software developed by researchers at C.U. that helps students write summaries by giving them immediate feedback about summary length and content. Check it out at their website (you can login as a guest) http://www.colit.org/
HOW DOES IT WORK? Summary Street can be used from any computer with Internet access, including students’ home computers.
- Open your regular web browser such as Internet Explorer, Netscape, etc.
- Go to the Summary Street website at www.colit.org
- Login (you can login as a guest if you don’t yet have a password)
- Summarize an article or chapter from the library of text that has been entered into the program. If there is an article or text chapter you would like to have students use but is not already on the list, the researchers can have it entered for you if you make a request far enough in advance. Summary Street works better for expository rather than narrative text.
- Type your summary into the text box in the Summary Street window or paste your summary from another text document such as Microsoft Word, Student Writing Center, or WYNN.
- Press the “Submit” button below the text box.
- Summary Street will give feedback on summary length and content.
- Adjust your summary and re-submit as many times as you want. Summary Street will give you feedback every time.
- Use the Redundancy and Irrelevancy checks as often as you need for suggestions on how to improve your summary.
- When all the feedback bars are green, your summary is the appropriate length and has adequate content. It is ready to turn in for grading. Success!
WHAT CAN IT DO FOR ME? In addition to having summaries turned in that already meet teacher specifications for length and content, Summary Street tracks student use for teachers. You can see how many times each student has submitted their summary and how they did.
WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF SUMMARY STREET? • Summary Street has been shown to increase students’ time on task for summary writing. • Teachers can set parameters for summary length and content. • Students can get feedback as many times as they need. • Students and teachers can work at their convenience • Teachers can see what students did at home
Sketchup
SketchUp is a deceptively simple, amazingly powerful tool for creating, viewing, and modifying 3D ideas quickly and easily. SketchUp was developed to combine the elegance and spontaneity of pencil sketching with the speed and flexibility of today’s digital media.
Design software has been around for decades and is clearly here to stay. But we think something has been missing—the freedom, flexibility and fun that should go hand-in-hand with the design process. SketchUp is being put to good use by everyone from industry giants creating sky scrapers and football stadiums to elementary school kids using SketchUp to learn about shapes. As a company we receive thousands of emails from customers around the world. One thing that surprised us was the number of emails from parents who were using SketchUp in their professional lives - but who wrote to tell us about their positive experience in exposing their children who have autism to SketchUp.
We soon came to understand that people with autism tend to think and learn visually, and that many children with autism are spatially and artistically gifted. Since SketchUp has made such an impact with design professionals (another group who tend to be spatially and artistically gifted), it seemed like a natural fit for us to get more involved in the development of life skills for these kids. So while SketchUp is certainly not for every child with autism, we’ve seen that it can make a positive difference for many. Seeing this potential has made us passionate about bringing SketchUp to the autism spectrum community.
Our company has named this initiative, Project Spectrum. We encourage our employees to volunteer their time, both on and off paid company hours, to Project Spectrum. We receive no funding or financial gain from Project Spectrum. Our time and our software are given to Project Spectrum participants at no charge.
Click here to download free Sketchup
For more information, contact Anja Kintsch.