Free Goodies Available at Learning Magic: Closing Doors end of 2012

Learning Magic, a pioneer in interactive learning on the computer will be closing its doors the end of December 2012. The company, founded by Byron Wilkes, has been dedicated to developing materials and templates for students with special needs to access the fun of learning through motivating topics such as wildlife, nature and ecosystems around the world. Byron teamed up with experts in the SPED Learning and Speech Language Pathology field to develop materials that addressed key learning concepts in fun and motivating software.  Many of these activities featured hundreds of photographic images Byron took of fish in coral reefs, roaming under a rain forest canopy or trekking across Kenya with camera in-hand to capture the "magic" that led to learning in a special way. I thought of him as a Marty Stouffer, Marlin Perkins, Jacques Cousteau and Crocodile Hunter rolled into one for special needs kids. His packaged units, complete with vocabulary, writing starters and lesson plans were designed to play in software such as Intellitools Classroom Suite, Crick Clicker 5 and SoftTouch My Own Bookshelf.

A set of his photography available to use in your own lessons, PCS and Topic/Communication Boards:

I first met Byron when he came down and participated in an Eastern Oregon Summer Institute for teachers. He spent a couple of days with me helping in my classes and sharing his software and concepts for interactive and adapted learning that fostered writing and reading in high interest titles for students with learning or physical impairments. Byron donated his product library to our Assistive Technology Center for our teachers to trial for purchase. Through the years I have run into him at many national conferences and sessions and he has had a great impact on me.

Byron sent out an email sharing:

"We want to first thank the thousands of teachers/therapists/parents and others who have worked with us in the creation/testing and use of our proven products.  Our website (www.learningmagicinc.com) will go off line at the end of December, so we encourage you to go to our "Goodies" section and download as many of the free IntelliTools Classroom Suite, Clicker 5 and My Own Bookshelf activities as you would like.

Our commercial products will remain available throughout the end of the calendar year or until inventories run out.  If you would like product or pricing information please feel free to email us at info@learningmagicinc.com.

Thank you again for your support and encouragement throughout the years"

Thank you Byron for your investment in children and the thousands of students who have had more fun learning because of you and your efforts! I am looking forward to hearing about your next great adventure!

You can listen to Byron share about his life's work and his thoughts on the future of technology and special needs on Blog Talk Radio, Wednesday November 28th at 10 a.m. The archive will be available on the side-bar player afterwards as well.

All the best...
Lon


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