Day 10: Boardmaker Plus!

How did Day 10 get here so fast? It seems like we just started and now we're at the beginning of the end! Learning Boardmaker Plus has been an easier experience since it reminds me so much of Clicker 5. Programming both are similar to each other, repetitive in nature, and both offer the advantage of having pages that are linked back to the previous. Just like Clicker 5 it chunks information into smaller parts easier for the beginning and emergent reader to absorb and integrate into working memory. Boardmaker Plus has the advantage of allowing its physically challenged users to easily access it through single switch scanning and selection.


In class we designed a communication board and a switch accessible book, using Boardmaker Plus, for a grade 7 student who was non verbal, an emergent reader, on an IPP for all subjects, had cognitive delays and was able to access the computer through indirect selection to an onscreen keyboard through single switch scanning with her elbow. Planning such a board and book that would be accessible to the student made me and my work partner, Sarah, think about the special needs that a non verbal, wheelchair dependent user would require and that information was pertinent in informing our decisions. Time constraints of our project forced us to make decisions that would fit onto 4 cell board pages, but this practice scenario provided us with enough insight to make us realize how important such a software package as this was to users like our imaginary student, Sara, in the real world.