Special Education Teacher’s Success
with IntelliTools Classroom Suite

I have been using IntelliTools products in my classroom with my students with special needs almost since I started teaching. It all started with a project proposal that I wrote in 1999 to allow my inner-city students to access their community.

I determined that my students needed to gain skills in all areas of literacy (reading, writing, math, and spelling). They needed to increase their vocabulary, and learn how to perform everyday tasks such as finding specific food in the supermarket or ordering and paying for a meal at a restaurant.

Grant-based project proposal accepted
With these tasks in mind, I wrote a project proposal that incorporated not just experiences in the community, but also a rather ambitious portfolio plan that would be the keystone for the project. Using grants of material from other commercial partners was part of the proposal so that the students had access to cameras, film, and other materials to assemble their portfolios.

Just as important was giving the students the ability and confidence to compose text independently. The portfolios contained pictures of community activities with captions, work samples, and award certificates or any other items the students considered important.

Most of my students were non-readers and non-writers. They did not know how to compose a sentence, and if they did write a sentence, they needed somebody to read it to them. With a class of five students, this made it difficult to complete any writing assignment, as they all needed one-on-one attention. Initially, we had no computers in the classroom, but another grant provided two Macintosh computers for us to use. I started looking for technology that would allow all of my students to participate, including those with physical access needs.

I found IntelliTools
Within days of getting copies of IntelliTalk, IntelliPics, and Overlay Maker through a grant from the company, I had the software installed on the computer. It took me a few more days to figure out Overlay Maker, but my students had IntelliTalk figured out within hours of my installing it on the classroom computer.

We had to have sign-up sheets with blocks of time during “free writing” or free-time because the students preferred IntelliTalk to either of the other two talking word-processors we had in the classroom! We also had copies of ClarisWorks for Kids, and another talking word-processor.

By the end of the year, my students who had been non-readers, and non-writers were composing sentences that described the pictures in their portfolios, saving and printing work for the book, and proudly showing the “in progress” (because a portfolio is never finished!) work to school board members and business partners. Most of the adults were astounded that students with multiple disabilities had composed such professional projects!

A new district and new student needs
The following year, I moved to another school district in another state. I was destined to be the first teacher for students with mental retardation in this particular school. In the past, all students with mental retardation had attended a center-based placement instead of their neighborhood school. This was being changed at the district level, and this particular school was slated to get five students who had never before attended their neighborhood schools: three students with severe physical disabilities, and two students with mental retardation and/or autism.

I was to have the three students in the seventh grade. Upon enrollment, I was told that the one student with a severe physical disability was also likely significantly cognitively impaired. I was told that he didn’t communicate, he didn’t write (with a pencil), and all of the other things he didn’t do.

The first day I met the student, he read his class schedule to me. I started to wonder if the description of what the student could not and did not do had been truly accurate (or accurate at all!). I had brought the Macintosh computer and IntelliTools software from my old classroom with me, and had also recently received a copy of IntelliTalk 2. I stationed this student in front of the Macintosh computer, and jury-rigged a stand out of a cardboard box and a binder clip.

All I had to do was turn on the computer and stand back. I was convinced that the student was not cognitively involved at all, but just needed access to technology so he could learn. He spelled just like he spoke, and had significant difficulty with reading since he didn’t track text with his eyes. He couldn’t write a sentence. We worked hard that year with IntelliTalk 2, and by the end of the year, he was writing and dictating complete paragraphs. By the time he went to high school, he was writing whole papers using his own laptop and IntelliTalk.

Next stage: IntelliTools Classroom Suite
In the next three years, I continued to use the software, and convinced the school I was at to upgrade to IntelliTools Classroom Suite. Using IntelliPics Studio 3 and IntelliTalk 3, I designed curriculum materials to teach the parts of the computer to my students with severe disabilities as part of our technology education curriculum. We also began using IntelliTalk 3 as a modified “screen reader.”

One of the projects that I’ve done with many of my students involves researching a career that they might be interested in obtaining: they complete a vocational interest inventory with assistance, and then look for a job on-line using a classified ads website. Once they have found their job, the students are sent to the Bureau of Labor’s website for the Occupational Outlook Handbook.

For my students who cannot read, this part of the project is time-consuming and laborious. By instructing the students to “copy the text,” “open IntelliTalk,” “paste the text” and then “select READ ALL,” many of my students were able to independently access the websites and complete this part of the project. I’ve since modified the project more to have the entire worksheet in IntelliTalk, so the students can listen, then copy and paste the part they need to answer the question. This adaptation makes all of my students successful, and allows all of them to complete the project requirements.

By allowing my students to access the IntelliTools software, many of them have completed tasks that people said were not possible for students with their disabilities. My students have proven that with access to appropriate technology, they are able to become independent learners and apply the knowledge that they have been exposed to.