Software for Creating Self-Made Content With Multimedia-Enabled Dot Codes and Gifted School Activities for Students With Disabilities

Abstract

Gifted school activities for students with various disabilities were presented with self-made original content created with newly-developed software—Sound Linker, File Linker, GM Authoring Tool, and Gridmark Content Viewer software—that can handle multimedia-enabled dot codes, originally developed by Gridmark, Inc. Each dot codes can link up to four multimedia mediums—such as a movie—in addition to up to four voices/sounds. Touching dot codes with a speaking-pen enables audio files to be replayed, and touching dot codes with a dot-code reader enables multimedia to be replayed on iOS and Windows OS devices. Software and Post-it® sticker icon overlaid with dot codes and a speaking-pen and dot-code reader are distributed for free to school teachers. All the teachers can now create their own self-made original content and can conduct related school activities without buying any costly software and tools. Basic information on (1) creating original teaching materials using the developed software and (2) its use in schools for students with various difficulties is presented in this chapter.