Portable Touch Typing Tutor

Tipp 10 has been around for five years, and had over 1.4m downloads, in German. This month they launched the English version, which is Portable. That is, you can put it on a USB memory stick. looks good but I ahve not tried it yet. Also, it is available for Window, Mac and Linux!

Tipp 10 Typing Tutor

Free ebooks for kids

I was asked by a friend for ideas for free reading books for children. Here is a great website which lists many.

Free e-books

Grammar and spelling

Today somebody asked me for a recommendation of something free to use instead of Ginger Software, to help with their grammar and spelling. So I made a quick check on the internet, and I found Paper Rater. And while I am generally enthusiastic about most things, this was wonderful! It works differently, but I am sure it will do the job.

PaperRater

Balabolka

I was recently asked for a "Manual" for Balabolka. I could not find a really comprehensive one. But I did find these:

http://rsc-ne-scotland.org.uk/MyStudyBar/balabolka_p1/balabolka_p1.html

http://rsc-ne-scotland.org.uk/MyStudyBar/balabolka_p2/balabolka_p2.html

http://rsc-ne-scotland.org.uk/MyStudyBar/balabolka_p3/balabolka_p3.html

http://www.rsc-ne-scotland.org.uk/msb_word_tutorials/Balabolka.docx

List of Dyslexia Resources

That is it - No more, no less. Just a (good) long list.

70 Excellent links for dyslexia support

Webinar

Even thought I tend to use the newsletter now, I will keep you informed of other things that are going on here. So here is one. It is a webinar (a across between the web and a seminar) that I am doing on 24 Feb 2011, at 7pm UK time.

Assistive Technology – Why pay?
In a social model of dyslexia support, appropriate assistive technology would be supplied free to everybody, irrespective of the extend of their disabilities and the paperwork to support it. However, current policies provide money to the lucky few with little analysis of impact, productivity and value for money. Professor Ian Smythe shows that there is plenty of free software available, and often it is as good as the commercial versions. A dedicated web page with resources will be available after the talk.

http://training.dyslexiaaction.org.uk/events/351

Newsletter update

I will continue to feed information into this blog. But I am also starting a regular newsletter for all those interested in what is happening in the world of dyslexia. It is most about free resources that are available online, and mostly free. Please send me an email at ianssmythe@googlemail.com if you would like to be added to the mailing list.

Offline PDF to Word

Here is an offline converter for PDF to Word. And it is free.

Free Converter

PDF to Word

I recently had a need to find a way to convert a PDF to a Word document. Here is the online service I used. I strongly recommend it.Quick, no registration, no hassle.

PDF2Word

Lost in Translation? No more

All I can say here is - check out this video! It speaks for itself. Awesome! I am not an iPhone fan, but this is just amazing, and so dyslexia friendly!

Word Lens

Caldys2 - Teaching languages to dyslexic individuals

The new Caldys2 project has started a blog that looks to provide information not only on its own activities, but also links to the wider world of teaching languages to dyslexic individuals.

Caldys2

Google Instant Preview

Have you seen the new Google Instant Previews yet? It emulated the visual view for searching that I have been reporting over the past few years. Just click on that magnifier at the end of an entry, and up pops an image of that web page.

Saving memories from the Blackberry

I am always worried when I change phones how I can retain all those old sms and email that are on the Blackberry. I can forward emails, but text messages are more problematic. Today I found some software that can read all my old messages (on a 30 day trial, but I can convert to pdf if I want and then I don't have to pay!) They have many other converters too.

Blackberry message converter

Gumnotes

Want to attach a Post-It note to a document. Here is how to do it, whether it is a web page, Word dot of email.

Gumnotes

Talking OCR on an iPhone

I have been watching the fall and fall of the cost of taking a picture of text with a phone and then having it read out. The lowest I have seen (of a commercial kind) is "Prizmo for iPhone 1.0 is available worldwide exclusively on the App Store, and costs $9.99 (USD). A speech synthesis voice is available as In-App Purchase for $2.99 (USD)." That is around £10 for the whole system!

Link to the iPhone OCR

Whitesmoke - Improve your writing skills

I keep meaning to find a way to improve my writing. Here is a video that has convinced me to take a closer look at this software.

Whitesmoke

iSheds Resources available

The EU funded iSHeds project - Identification and Support in Higher Education of Dyslexic Students - has now launched its major resources:

• an ebook for dyslexic students
• an ebook for those supporting dyslexic students
• mini-profilers to help identification of dyslexic students
• assistive technology for dyslexic students

All these are aimed at those in the Balkan states with resources available in EN, BA, HR, HU, RO, RS, SI.

iSheds

Embed Resources

Embed is a project that has, over the past two years, been refining a series of outcomes from a diversity of EU funded projects, whcih are no available in one central portal. The main ones are:

• Online profiler for children
• Online profiler for adults
• Online e-book for parents and teachers
• Online e-book for dyslexic adults
• Self-audit for institutions
• Self-audit for support workers
• Self audit for dyslexic adults
• Using technology

EMBED

Live language translation from Google, on a mobile phone

If you had trouble with learning a language at school, but want to communicate in a language other than English for business or pleasure, then this may be of interest to you.

It seems that Google have just demonstrated speech translation (English - German) using an android smartphone. You speak the English, it speaks back German. Think of the possibilities of that! But no launch date announced as yet.

Google voice translation

Languages and projects for dyslexic adults

I have recently compiled a list of EU projects to accompany the article "Dyslexia related resources in different language" in Journal of Inclusive Practice in Higher and Further Eduction. Here is the link to the page.

Link to Resources for dyslexic adults