The True Story of Hoover the Disabled Dog will Warm Hearts

If you want a story that will get kid's to understand the will to overcome disability, try the free downloads of "Hoover's New Wheels", and "Hoover's Newest Wheelchair". These links can be found on the Learning Magic home page, under Intellitools-based Goodies.
Hoover was in a freak accident that paralyzed his back legs. The two-part download goes through the story of his adapting to a "wheelchair" for his back legs to ride in. Byron Wilkes, the Learning Magic CEO and a colleague, fitted the chairs and helped Hoover get back to squirrel chasing and be truly mobile again. These downloads play with the ITAN player which is free also. If you want to adapt the pages, use the template for student writing, etc. you need to be able to open it as an activity in Intellitools Classroom Suite. These two stories are a part of a series of activities in the CD "The Writing Bin II" that will be available July 2008, and can be used as writing prompt activities. The stories use still images and video. Just having the free version to play and discuss in class on a SMART board or from a data projector would be great. Having Intellitools Classroom Suite to play this and other free goodies from Learning Magic makes it even better.

Byron Wilkes has been designing educational software activities for a good number of years. After time with Intellitools, Byron left the company to start Learning Magic and collaborate with specialists and academic leaders in special education to develop titles that instruct, develop reading and writing skills, social skills, teach science and ecosystems and math skills. The Learning Magic titles play on software such as Intellitools Classroom Suite, Clicker 5, My Own Bookshelf and Test Me Score Me. Byron has successfully combined his personal passion for nature with his desire to develop a catalog of quality high-interest titles for lower cognitive and academic skill levels.



Byron will be my guest in a 30 minute interview on No Limits to Learning Live, Blog Talk Radio, Wednesday, June 4th at 10:30 Pacific time. Learning Magic is also the sponsor of the free software give-away for our start a blog contest.

Note on the contest - drawing:
I have had folks ask whether someone who just started a blog this year could join in the drawing
even if they didn't start it specifically for this contest and the answer is "YES!" Email me your link to your blog on disability, assistive technology, the classroom, etc and get your name on the list for our Learning Magic free software of choice. The deadline is June 16th.