AraWord

From Tico Project - Communicative interactive boards

AraWord (421 Mb, 11/09/2012). AraWord is a free tool in the framework of suite of tools to work in augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) environments. AraWord is kind of picto-word processor: the user writes the text and the tool translate it into its pictogram representation. The aim is to help in the preparation and adaption of texts for people with difficulties for functional communication. AraWord has been developed as a joint effort of the Dept. of Computer Science and Systems Engineering of the University of Zaragoza and the Public School for Special Education Alborada, belonging to the government of the region of Aragon. This collaboration has as its main aim the development of hardware and software tools to help physically or mentally disabled people.

AraWord is specially useful for those people involved in reading and writing learning: the raise of the correct picto is a very positive reinforcment helping to recognising and evaluating the correctness of the written text.

AraWord uses the set of pictograms developed by CATEDU in collaboration with professionals at CPEE Alborada (Zaragoza) and financed by the Science, Technology and University Department of the Government of Aragón and the Teruel Digital Programme. These pictograms are licensed by Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA).

In its current state, AraWord is a first advanced prototype that requires the addition of new functionalities and the fixing of some detected bugs. A new version of the tool has just started by october 2012, which will allow the release of an improved tool in the comming months.

AraWord for MacOS and Linux

There are not specific versions for MacOS and Linux. Until that specific tools could be developed, a running version can be downloaded from HERE. Just unzip the file and then

• Linux: doble click 'AraWord.sh' and answer YES to the dialogs
• MacOS: doble click 'AraWord.jar'

Context of the tool

The tool has been developed by Joaquín Pérez Marco, under the supervision of Joaquín Ezpeleta Mateo, belonging to the Dept. of Computer Sciences and Systems Engineering of the Univ. of Zaragoza in collaboration with José Manuel Marcos C.P.E.E. Alborada and David Romero Centro Aragonés de Tecnologías para la Educación (CATEDU), Gobierno de Aragón.

Tutoriales Para comprender mejor el funcionamiento de AraWord y resolver las dudas que puedan surgir os recomendamos, los siguientes enlaces:

Some tutorials (in Spanish) can be found in the following links

• A first approach to the tool
• User manual (I): Basic notions about the "File", "text" and "Pictograms" menu options
• User manual (II): Configuring "General Preferences" and "Resource Manager"
• Inserting and formating in MS-Word AraWord exported images
• Capturing and editing the workarea

• You can also get some usefull informations in the blog de ARASAAC blog
• And, of course, the User manual