Now you can use your iDevice to change a photo (or screenshot) into a PDF for free!

But first, did you know that you can annotate on photos with iOS 10?  Click here for quick instructions

 Turning Photos into a PDF

   

How To Use Google Keep

To Work Towards Your Goals

Where? Oh Where, Can I Find Free Online Switch Accessible Activities???

If you use switches in your classroom, you may find it challenging to find free switch accessible websites and activities .  Thanks to Andrea (an Assistive Technology Specialist) and her husband Gene, this just got easier.  Gene made it for her because she couldn't find anything online that she could set up with large image-based links.  This was important to her because she wanted her students to be able to choose their own activities.  Between the two of them, Andrea and Gene developed a wonderful website and have graciously agreed to share with us!

The website is essentially a scannable (2-step switch scan via any switch interface, using "space" and "enter") launcher with links to free, online-switch accessible activities that you can play from any browser!  There are single switch activities, two-step, mouse practice, etc.   It has auditory prompts as

 well.  

Check out the site below!

It's still a new , so keep checking back for updates and/or changes. 

https://Meaningfulmaking.org/app/vscan/switch-activities

3 NEW Accessibility Features in iOS 10!

First things first...here is a list of the devices compatible with the upgrade

1)  Updates to Speak Selection
The last big update came with Speak Selection and Speak Screen options.  iOS 10 now provides the option to highlight words and/or sentences with the speak selections!

2)  Typing Feedback 
Now, you can choose a feature that  will allow you to hear words aloud as you type them.

3)  Hold to Speak Predictions 
The free word predictions is already great, but with the "Hold to Speak Predictions" feature, you can hear the word before you use it!

For more information on how to find and set up these features, check out the YouTube video below.

Is Your iPad Running Slow? Here are some quick tips to speed it up.

Reduce special effects

If you are running iOS 7 or, later you might have noticed screen movement. You can reduce these motion related effects

Go to Settings>> General>> Accessibility>> Reduce Motion and turn the toggle on.

Stop background refresh

Background app refresh is one of the multitasking features when enabled lets the apps to fetch content in the background.  Most of your apps don't need to be updated all the time.

Go to Settings>> General>> Background App Refresh and disable the functionality.

Quit Spotlight

Spotlight allows you searching a lot of content such as Applications, Contacts, Music, Podcasts, Mails and more, while you might need it only for a few only. Uncheck the apps you don't want to search from:

 Settings>> General>> Spotlight Search.

Clear browser cache

Whenever you visit a webpage, Safari will automatically save its content in its memory cache but over time the browser cache fills up to an extent that it can slow down your browsing experience.

In Settings, find Safari on the left side and tap on Clear Cookies and Data on the right site. Affirm by tapping Clear in the popup window.

Turn off notifications

Many apps, when first launched, ask you whether you want them to notify you about important updates and other stuff. After a while you have a ton of apps that want to push notifications and it slows things down.

In Settings, go to Notification and clear out all the apps that you really don’t’ need notifications for.

This information was taken from the following article:

 iOS 9 update makes your iPhone/iPad sluggish? Check out the tips to improve performance

Use A Jeopardy Game to Review Concepts!

Someone has done the work for you!  Just open this template and follow the directions to save it and make it your own!

CLICK HERE TO GET THE TEMPLATE

New Features in the Read&Write for Google Toolbar!

A few districts in our SELPA use the Read&Write for Google toolbar.  A couple new tools came out after Thanksgiving break.  Check them out!

"Screenshot Reader" allows you to read inaccessible web content, such as text that is embedded in images, PDFs, Google Slides, ,online books,etc.

The "Speech Input" tool now uses Google's Voice Typing technology.  In addition, you can now use the "Speech Input" tool on other pages within the Chrome browser.