ClozePro: Accessible Cloze Activities for All Abilities
Presenter(s)
John Crick
Crick Software
14687 NE
Day Phone: 425-467-8260
Fax: 425-467-8245
Email: john.crick@cricksoft.com
ClozePro is a software program from Crick Software, creators of the
widely-used Clicker. Cloze Pro is fully switch
accessible, enabling all users to access the program.
Activities
can be created in seconds-just copy and paste the text into Cloze Pro and
choose the text to remove. You can remove every fifth word right through the
text with just two mouse clicks. Or you can be more selective and highlight the
exact text you wish to remove. This could be words, phrases, or groups of
letters.
It’s
easy to make different versions of the activity to suit students of different
ages and ability levels, and everything is fully accessible with switches as
well as keyboard and mouse.
You
can remove whole words, phrases, parts of words or individual letters. As the
teacher takes out the words, a ‘grid’ of missing words is automatically created
in the bottom half the screen, ready for the user to make selections when the
activity is run. Software Speech and a library of 1000 pictures are included,
so that additional support can be given to younger or struggling readers. The
Mayer—Johnson PCS library (available separately) can he used for symbols
support.
Activities
can be as simple or as complex as you like, and whatever the access method, the
student is always firmly In control. Very simple
activities can contain just one sentence on a page, supported with pictures,
and with just one gap. The grid offers a choice of words, which can be selected
with a mouse click or a switch press. The user can then move on to the next
page, which could contain another single sentence.
More
able students can tackle longer texts with many missing words, but can still
use the speech support if required. For those working away from the computer,
activities can be printed out as worksheets.
ClozePro keeps a careful track of everything the student does, and
produces clear, concise and structured reports for the teacher. Reports can be
accessed at any time, for any student and any activity, so progress can be
carefully tracked.
This
is a truly versatile tool that can be used right across the curriculum with all
ages and abilities. In addition to all the activities shipped with the product,
hundreds of ClozePro activities are available for
free download from Crick’s popular LearningGrids
website, updated every two weeks.
Access via keyboard, mouse and switches will be demonstrated, and the teacher-friendly editing tools will be used to show how easy it is to create materials for students of all ages and abilities. Speech and graphics support will be used to further demonstrate the ways in which activities can be differentiated.