Thursday, April 9, 2009

Connect the Dots to Employment

  • Are you looking for work?
  • Have you been filling out job applications and not getting results?
  • Do you wish you knew what businesses are really looking for in job applications and resumes?
Plan to attend "Connect the Dots to Employment"
  • Meet local employers
  • Learn what employers are looking for (from employers)
  • Receive job search tips and assistance

There is no cost to attend and lunch is provided!
Date: 4/14/2009 at Nebraska Workforce Development Conference Room (3020 18th Street Columbus, NE) from 10am-3pm. Bring a copy of your resume, if you have one.

*The next Connect the Dots session will be held on Tuesday. June 23rd.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Ghotit Free Online Spellchecker Service

Ghotit was founded by people with dyslexia. Ghotit’s mission is to improve the overall quality of life of a person with dyslexia. Ghotit is not a treatment for dyslexia. It's a set of services that assists adults and kids to overcome their writing and reading difficulties by helping to convert their poorly spelled written limitations to mainstream English.

Kids and adults with learning disabilities, like dyslexia, are heavy users of spell checkers. However, standard spell and grammar checkers address the needs of the general population, who demonstrates average spelling and whose spelling mistakes are typing errors resulting in a spelling that shows high resemblance to the requested word. These spell checkers produce low results for users who demonstrate poor English spelling such as people with dyslexia, due to:

  • The written word spelling is ‘too far’ from the correct spelling
  • No support for confused/out-of-context words - the written word is a real-word that is spelled correctly but is used in the wrong context; for example: let’s meat later
  • No assistance provided to the user in selecting the correct candidate word

Focusing on the problems listed above, the Ghotit team has developed unique spelling algorithms which are at the core of the services Ghotit is developing for the people with dyslexia and other types of learning difficulties.

http://ghotit.com/home.shtml

Monday, January 26, 2009

Tizmos

Tizmos is a start page that lets you set visual thumbnail icons for links to frequently visited websites. Once you’ve registered and set it up, you have a start page that you can log in to from any computer. A teacher or parent of early learners can create a custom start page for each child. This might also be a great option for learners with developmental delays. Of course, most of us relate much better to visual symbols than to lists of text.

With Tizmos, you can choose the size of the thumbnails that represent websites–small, medium or large. It does not appear as though there is any limit to the number of websites that can be linked. with Tizmos. Your Tizmos page can be either private or public. Tizmos is extremely easy to use. www.tizmos.com

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Reducing Test Taking Anxiety

Test anxiety is when a student excessively worries about doing well on a test. This can become a major hindrance on test performance and cause extreme nervousness and memory lapses among other symptoms. The following are tips on reducing test taking anxiety:

  • Being well prepared for the test is the best way to reduce test taking anxiety.
  • Try to maintain a positive attitude while preparing for the test and during the test.
  • Exercising for a few days before the test will help reduce stress.
  • Get a good night's sleep before the test.
  • Stay relaxed, if you begin to get nervous take a few deep breaths slowly to relax yourslf and then get back to work.
  • If you don't understand the directions on the test, ask the teacher to explain it to you.
  • Write down important formulas, facts, definitions and/or keywords in the margin first so you won't worry about forgetting them.
  • Don't worry about how fast other people finish their test; just concentrate on your own test.
  • Focus on the question at hand; don't let your mind wander on other things.

    Visit testtakingtips.com for more test taking help.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act of 2008

Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act of 2008

The Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act of 2008 passed the U.S. Congress in September and becomes law on January 1, 2009. This amended legislation makes it possible for Americans with learning disabilities to access accommodations on high stakes exams (such as the GRE, GMAT, LSAT, medical boards and others) and in the workplace, in keeping with the original intent of the law.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Power Talk

PowerTalk automatically speaks any presentation or slide show running in Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows. You just download and install PowerTalk and while you open and run the presentation as usual it speaks the text on your slides. The advantage over other generic 'Text To Speech' programs is that PowerTalk is able to speak text as it appears and can also speak hidden text attached to images. Speech is provided by the standard synthesised computer voices that are provided with Windows. (Windows based only will not work on a Mac)
Visit http://www.oatsoft.org/Software/PowerTalk for more information and to download.

FREE and Open Soure Educational Software

Free and Open Source Education Software is an extensive cataloged collection of some of the best free software available to support learning at all levels. The collection has been organized by categories that make programs easy to find (categorized by the Key Learning Areas used in Education in Australia) If anyone simply wants to explore what is available, this is an excellent starting point. The site has made it easy to download software without actually leaving the site.
Visit http://os.cqu.edu.au/oswinsdvd/doc/README.html