ELR Software produces a range of computer programs designed by speech pathologists for speech, language & literacy intervention. Our programs may be used interactively within therapy sessions, to increase efficiency in service delivery, and to improve access to the Internet for people with special needs. We are also available as consultants to clinicians and research projects in the fields of literacy and accessibility issues associated with the Internet.
The aim of this newsletter is to inform you of developments and changes to our major products eLr (Extra Language Resources), Build-a-Sentence, Word Meanings, Rude Readers and EIA (Enhancing Internet Access). We welcome the opportunity for feedback and questions, and will be pleased to consider including reader contributions and announcements.
This Newsletter (and previous editions) as well as a "print-ready" PDF version of the current edition is available online at www.elr.com.au/news. An email version is also sent monthly to members of our mailing list (See Subscribing/Unsubscribing).
In this issue -
We have decided that we'll use the Speech Pathology Australia conference in Darwin next year to celebrate several eLr milestones. In particular eLr is now 10 years old, and by June 2011 will contain more than 11,000 activities in almost 1,000 categories. A recent analysis of the eLr website statistics indicate that both "Guest" and "Registered Users" will each top 1,000,000 tasks and 200,000 sessions by the time of the conference. And for the record, the most used task to date with almost 5,000 uses is 1017-104. This uses the "DragCentral" model to practice (an old favourite) words that start with the /f/ sound.
The other reason for celebration is that our updates this year allow eLr to work with a range of browsers, in particular several on the Mac computer. And now this month (see below) also the iPad! Our original concept that eLr could be the clinicians "toolbox" wherever she/he may need it, has advanced considerably since March 2000.
So, to help us celebrate and thank you for ongoing support, we will be offering a free Apple iPad to be drawn at the Darwin conference. Anyone whose subscription is or will be current at the time of the conference may enter. If you have a multiuser subscription, all those covered by the subscription may individually enter. We'll ask in return that you provide us some feedback about what you like about eLr and what you'd like to see added or changed. More details of this draw will be in ELR-News next month.
This month we've concentrated mostly on fine tuning the cross-browser compatibility for eLr, and we've also revised the "User Guides" to ensure that all recent models are discussed. The "User Guides" were introduced 3 years ago - they appear on the main "loader page" along with the eLr Directory, just below the Quick Load List. New users can use them for a quick overview, and existing users may find some areas you haven't yet explored. Those supporting inservice training to integration aides and assistants should also find them useful.
Each User Guide has a descriptive paragraph or two about a topic, followed by an example set of annotated eLr tasks with a "thumbnail" image of each task. It's possible to directly open any of these example tasks by clicking on the "thumbnail" image. There are 4 sections in the new User Guide Library.
1. The "Usage and Rationale" section describes the design principles behind eLr tasks which are intended to be used within an interactive language session. This section has 5 "User Guides" describing how to get the most out of eLr, and addresses some of the common questions, such as "why no sound", "why no scoring" etc.
2. The "Directory" section has 7 "User Guides" outlining each of the main sections - Phonology Skills and Early Sounds, Phonology - Later Sounds, Phonological Awareness, Semantics, Reading and Spelling, Sentence Processing and Using Language. The contents of each section is described, and examples of illustrative tasks are provided for you to explore.
3. The "Models" section has 6 "User Guides" describing all the 53 models (or game types) currently used in eLr. Models are often used in a number of different sections, so the "User Guides" provide an example task, and a comment about how it may be used in the various sections.
4. The "Sample Clients" section provides you with 3 "User Guides" covering different fictitious clients, eg a young child with phonological and language delays, an older child with literacy impairment, and an adult with an acquired language disorder. For each of the clients, a selection of appropriate tasks are illustrated and discussed.
Following our recent efforts to ensure the eLr website will work on Apple Macs, some further adjustments now allow us to announce that it will also operate on the Apple iPad. These are certainly exciting machines and our recent experiences suggest that children especially will very much enjoy "doing their eLr" on these neat little touch screens.
As with eLr-Offline which we discussed last month, Build-a-Sentence won't run natively on a Mac computer, but it will run perfectly on "Intel Macs" with BootCamp, Parallels/VMWare Fusion or Virtual Box. These options also require that you install a copy of Windows, but there is also a way to run Build-a-Sentence without Windows using a program called CrossOver. Please contact us if you'd like further details.
As an occasional feature of this Newsletter, we include simple, unpaid announcements of products developed by other small, independent developers, who, like ourselves, are practising clinicians who have put their ideas and experience into resource materials for general distribution. Links and brief information about these sites may be found at www.elr.com.au/links/developers.htm. To date we have listed -
If you would like your materials listed on this page (at no charge), please contact us.
ELR has a number of free or evaluation files available for downloading directly from our website. Please see www.elr.com.au/downloads.htm for specific details. For other supporting materials and documents available for free download, please see www.elr.com.au/support.htm.
ELR Software is now able to offer eLr support and short tutorials over the web. We can provide this sort of support to individuals, or to groups who would like to have an overview of eLr. Please contact us for details.
You are receiving ELR-News because you are an eLr subscriber, or have expressed an interest in either eLr, Rude Readers, Word Meanings, Build-s-Sentence or EIA. To subscribe or unsubscribe, send an e-mail with details to news@elr.com.au
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