In my previous post about Virtual Magnifying Glass, I neglected to mention that it is part of Acess Apps, an extensive suite of free applications that can be downloaded and run from a USB stick.  Access Apps offers the user a convenient way of moving required assistive technology, along with other programs and files, from one computer to another.  Today, I’m reviewing another program that is part of the Access Apps family.

Today’s post was prompted by a request earlier this week from one of the learners I support, a gifted  11th grader who is incapable of producing written output with pencil and paper. He asked me if I knew of software that he might use for drawing diagrams.  There are countless learners in classrooms everywhere who can be far more effective on drawing tasks with digital tools, so I’m sharing the application from Access Apps that can be used for drawing diagrams.

Dia is free open source software for Linux and Windows that is intended for drawing diagrams.  The developers say it is “roughly inspired” by Microsoft’s Visio.  I have downloaded and installed the program, but I have neither the time nor the talent to test it extensively.

Dia appears to be a powerful but stratightforward program with an intuitive user interface.  It comes with considerable built in help, including a Quickstart Guide.  The user interface is shown below.  Additional shapes can be downloaded from the Dia website and incorporated into diagrams as required.