"Voice recognition software can help students bypass their problems with lower-order writing skills by dictating their written work"
- Assistive Technology: Empowering Students with Learning Disabilities by Karen E. Forgrave
People with bad handwriting get worse grades. That lesson was instilled in us in elementary school and I have no doubt that it carried true through college, unless you had a professor with equally bad handwriting.
I think with each generation their will be some new tool that is introduced to shortcut a longer process that was once deemed as an all important process. For me it is math and typing. I believe that people need to know how to type and students should be able to do calculations in their head without calculator. The generation before me believed that spelling was important and that handwriting was an indication of careful thought.
As speech-to-text software is introduced first to students with learning disabilities then spreading to the general population, there will be more voices against the need for typing or even word processing - given the frantic progress of text messaging.
Who knows what important mental practice will be lost in all these fast changing processes of communication, and also what might be gained.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
The Advantages of Bulk Purchases on Assistive Tech.
"After evaluating various text-reader tools, the Kentucky Department of Education selected a software program called Read & Write Gold. Kentucky negotiated an agreement with Text HELP makers of Read & Write Gold to provide a discount for Kentucky schools. 95 percent of Kentucky's public schools ow have a site license for this product" (Hasselbring & Bausch, p. 74)
Critics of school consolidation, big school districts, and the cumbersomeness of state education bureaucracies should at least consider the potential savings that can be made and therefore access provided, under such large administrations. The bargaining power of an entire state ed department is tremendous and becomes a potent political force - which can actually bring about good things too. The Kentucky case serves as an example of this.
Critics of school consolidation, big school districts, and the cumbersomeness of state education bureaucracies should at least consider the potential savings that can be made and therefore access provided, under such large administrations. The bargaining power of an entire state ed department is tremendous and becomes a potent political force - which can actually bring about good things too. The Kentucky case serves as an example of this.
Assistive Technology for Literacy or “crutch”
“Supportive assistive technology approaches should work symbiotically with learning interventions. In an ideal situation, students can use an assistive technology intervention to continually improve their reading skills while at the same time taking advantage of reading support to provide the scaffolding necessary to read text at their grade level” (Hasselbring & Bausch, p. 73).
With any assistive tech. you have to distill the individuals gains from the weight carried by a piece of assistive tech. Let’s just break it down to a medical metaphor. Sometimes when an individual is sick and can’t support themselves independently, a doctor will induce a coma so that machines can run the person’s vital organs for a while. The plus is that the person stays alive and whatever part is overworked gets to rest and recover on machines. The drawback is that for every one day that a person is in an induced coma, the recovery time is 5 days times that. So if someone is in a coma for a week, it will then take them roughly a month to recover once brought back out of that coma.
As long as the technology can be orchestrated in a “symbiotic” fashion, where the individual is carrying its weight in growing in areas to compensate for the assistance in one, then overall positives will emerge. If the trend becomes that the assistive tech. piece is just keeping someone from sinking or becoming an academic crutch, that may actually impede the progress of that person intellectually and even physically.
To reference the case from my previous journal entry Assistive Tech. Specialists, Case In Point, the physical therapist was quite hesitant in rolling out any voice rec. software for this student because she figured the student's condition might get worse if he did not use his muscles as much as possible. In this case the physical therapist and tech. specialist, and of course the student using assistive tech. must have a serious conversation about the long-term pros and cons of such assistance.
With any assistive tech. you have to distill the individuals gains from the weight carried by a piece of assistive tech. Let’s just break it down to a medical metaphor. Sometimes when an individual is sick and can’t support themselves independently, a doctor will induce a coma so that machines can run the person’s vital organs for a while. The plus is that the person stays alive and whatever part is overworked gets to rest and recover on machines. The drawback is that for every one day that a person is in an induced coma, the recovery time is 5 days times that. So if someone is in a coma for a week, it will then take them roughly a month to recover once brought back out of that coma.
As long as the technology can be orchestrated in a “symbiotic” fashion, where the individual is carrying its weight in growing in areas to compensate for the assistance in one, then overall positives will emerge. If the trend becomes that the assistive tech. piece is just keeping someone from sinking or becoming an academic crutch, that may actually impede the progress of that person intellectually and even physically.
To reference the case from my previous journal entry Assistive Tech. Specialists, Case In Point, the physical therapist was quite hesitant in rolling out any voice rec. software for this student because she figured the student's condition might get worse if he did not use his muscles as much as possible. In this case the physical therapist and tech. specialist, and of course the student using assistive tech. must have a serious conversation about the long-term pros and cons of such assistance.
Assistive Tech. Specialists and case in point
Assistive Technologies for Reading by Ted S. Hasselbring and Margaret E. Bausch
In this journal entry I will provide a quote from the reading, and then share my reflections.
“Regular education teachers appear to rely on specialists for information about assistive technology, reporting that they know little about available assistive technologies or how such tools can be used” (p. 73)
My experience supports this. I have one student in my class that caught some spinal illness a year ago. He uses a wheel chair and his use of his hands has become slower, impairing his ability to take notes. There was a meeting in which his physical therapist met with all the students teachers to coordinate assistive efforts. Turns out that this student has been asking for some voice recognition software from the school district but that there is a back log of orders and the assistive tech. specialists are to few to respond.
So what I did was let my student borrow my mother’s rather expensive voice rec. gadget until he was delivered his. Which reminds me I have to get that back from him. I didn’t have time to figure out how to use it, so handed him the box to figure out. He has a para that also helps him.
The district was able to provide for him the equipment within a month or two after his request, but a specialist delivered this and teachers at our school, including myself, don’t do much research in this area. Maybe a workshop is in order to provide information on assistive tech. to our school, school district.
In this journal entry I will provide a quote from the reading, and then share my reflections.
“Regular education teachers appear to rely on specialists for information about assistive technology, reporting that they know little about available assistive technologies or how such tools can be used” (p. 73)
My experience supports this. I have one student in my class that caught some spinal illness a year ago. He uses a wheel chair and his use of his hands has become slower, impairing his ability to take notes. There was a meeting in which his physical therapist met with all the students teachers to coordinate assistive efforts. Turns out that this student has been asking for some voice recognition software from the school district but that there is a back log of orders and the assistive tech. specialists are to few to respond.
So what I did was let my student borrow my mother’s rather expensive voice rec. gadget until he was delivered his. Which reminds me I have to get that back from him. I didn’t have time to figure out how to use it, so handed him the box to figure out. He has a para that also helps him.
The district was able to provide for him the equipment within a month or two after his request, but a specialist delivered this and teachers at our school, including myself, don’t do much research in this area. Maybe a workshop is in order to provide information on assistive tech. to our school, school district.
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