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One of Britains’ longest-established and still independent software publishers is at SEN London again. “We sort of grew into producing software for Special Educational Needs,” says Topologika’s managing director Brian Kerslake. “Unlike many publishers who jumped on the eLC bandwagon to produce software that’s targeted at one key stage or age range – with the same pack tweaked for others – we’ve always aimed to produce value-for-money titles that cover a wide age and ability range.” Examples of this are their popular Scally’s World series – titles now cover verbs, nouns, problems, numbers and sums – that can be set up via to easy to use options to work across the whole primary range. “And some titles,” said Brian, “even work across phases. Examples are textThing Plus which takes text that teachers load and converts it into 10 different English exercises at difficulty levels controlled by the teacher.” Just released is a follow up to that called textThing MFL which turns text in any ‘western’ language into the same 10 exercises. “This one pack,” says Brian, “works in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch and Danish plus, of course, Welsh, Gaelic and Cornish. It talks in those for which speech engines exist.” With foreign languages supposedly being taught in most primaries, this switch or mouse operated pack can work a treat with older SEN children who are interested in exploring a written foreign language. Also new at the show is Words & Music, described by Brian as Topologika’s answer to software like Sibelius and Compose World and a great follow-up to their best-selling Music Box 2. “It’s much easier than most and it isn’t just a simple sequencer. Children can compose real music with notation, or use our unique ‘paper strip’ interface. And, uniquely, they can add lyrics. We call it the world’s first kids ‘song processor’. They can type in a poem they’ve written, for example a rap, and turn it into a song with up to three tracks. Or do it the other way round.” So there you are – some of the most innovative software is still being published by people who’ve been innovating for nearly two decades and who you can be sure will still be around when eLCs disappear. Contact: Brian Kerslake, ICT 41
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