I am about to return the Special Education classroom. It brings back memories.

I began my career as a special education teacher and, frustrated by the difficulties the early computers provided, I formed a company and created the ami Computer Keyboard. To put this in historical perspective, it plugged into the games port of both the Commodore 64 and the PC. It was a customizable keyboard and teachers could create their own overlays that might include coins, pictures of food, photographs of their classmates, numbers, Braille symbols or virtually any other items. At the time, the graphics of the early computers didn’t have the resolution necessary for detailed illustrations so my keyboard provided easy to see images as well as large keys for students with fine motor skills.

Earlier this year I discovered that a version of the software my programmer created works on the Smarboard. I use it for my grade 3 and 4 students and they even request it as a free time activity. The students themselves can make quizzes for each other.