Week+8+-+March+8th+-+March+14th,+2010

=**My First Comic Life**=




 * I absolutely love this program. I think I may buy it for personal use. An obvious problem of using copyrighted images still comes up. I was able to use Google Images search for copyright-free images, but the selection is just so...Mediocre. We must promote more Creative Commons!
 * Upon further reflection, I find some of the image manipulation in Comic Life irritating. Perhaps this is just a "new user" thing, but I had an inordinate amount of difficulty putting cloned images into the same comic panel without the program freaking out and deleting one of the images. Why Comic Life? Why?


 * Acceptable Use Policies (AUPs) and the OCDSB AUP**
 * Absence of trust is never a good thing and AUPs need to make sure they aren't overly restrictive. As far as you have mentioned, Bruce, it sounds like OCDSB servers filter a fair amount of websites. Some with good reason, but it sounds a bit limiting.
 * Theoretically, I have no problems with AUPs. I read over the OCDSB AUP and I didn't notice anything crazy. OCDSB provides the technology and owns the school, they can generally decide what users can do with it. Restricting access to information, otherwise known as censorship, I take some issue with. Make it clear we trust the students, and we may be surprised with the results over time.


 * Assistive Technologies**
 * These are reason enough to continue development. Assistive technologies give students that would have been screwed in the 20th century a chance to experience what others, like myself, take for granted.
 * Co Writer was neat, I ended up using it as an example writing software for my Teaching Students with Exceptionalities class. We've learned about many other types of software though, many of which are free for Ontario teachers.
 * [|Kurzweil 3000]: reading, writing, and study support.
 * Dragon Naturally Speaking: Trainable speech-to-text software. I saw Dragon in action at my first practicum school. A student that had been using it for a few weeks was drafting an essay with it. It was **fantastic.** Students that have trouble writing can now express themselves, possibly faster then I could!

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 * You liked the comic. I know you did. Comment on it!