Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Adapted Keyboards

Earlier we discussed adapted keyboards in the chapter questions. Here are some other keyboards that could help students with disabilities in the classroom.

There are many different ways to adapt a computer so every child can use one in school. One alteration can be the keyboard. Below is a list of the different types that are available. 


  • Large key/print keyboards- students that have sight difficulties
  • Braile keyboards- little pins on each key- students with little to no vision
  • Mini keyboard (requires no strength)- Students with little to no hand movement
  • Expanded keyboards- students with sight difficulties
  • One-handed keyboard- students with only the use of one hand
  • Key guards- students with limited fine motor skills
  • On screen virtual keyboard- for students that can only control a mouse or a scanning switch
  • Intellikeys adaptive keyboard- uses standard overlays: alphabet, basic writing, QWERTY, web, math access, and mouse access- for students with visual, physical, or cognitive disabilities
(CSU Ohio, 2013)
    • Tutorial:  Intellikeys ( http://www.intellitools.com/intellikeys.html )
    • (YouTube, 2013)
      •  This unit comes with a board powered by USB. It has several overlays that have various keyboard layouts (QWERTY, alphabetical, basic writing- a qwerty but less keys, math overlay, mouse keys and a settings/set up overlay)
      • You can customize overlays on the website
      • Slide in the overlay and wait for the beep
      • Start typing 
      • It's that easy!
      • You can turn down the response rate to make it not type until you hold your finger down on a key.
      • You can use key guards on top.
(Intellitools.com, 2013)







References


CSU Ohio (2013). ADAPTIVE TECHNOLOGY LAB EQUIPMENT AND SOFTWARE. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.csuohio.edu/offices/disability/at/equipment/ATL_Equipment_List.pdf [Accessed: 22 Oct 2013].

Intellitools.com (2013). Computer Accessibility through Programmable Keyboards | IntelliKeys. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.intellitools.com/intellikeys.html [Accessed: 22 Oct 2013].

 YouTube (2013). Young student using IntelliKeys USB. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9hdMJmAZ5Q [Accessed: 22 Oct 2013].

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