Impact of Technology

We have had very good luck with the use of technology. My 4th grade daughter is now using a Dana and we are pretty pleased. She also uses cowriter, draftbuilder and Inspiration at home.

Our biggest barrier has been lack of training both for her, us (the parents) and the teachers. B/c my daughter is fairly adept at figuring things out, they use this as an excuse not to train.

We are trudging along. Auditory spellchecks are best for her b/c of both auditory and visual processing problems. Spelled “continue”, “cun tin you” the other day - I almost had a heart attack. THAT doesn’t come up on the spellcheck.

We have spent thousands on tutoring and therapies. We will be asking for dragon dictate in the upper grades.

Technology removes the barrier and allows her to express her very creative thoughts.

Funny that you would ask this question. I was just sitting here reading my sons short stories they wrote for school. I am impressed,because this is the last day of spring break. They both spent most of the day doing it. Both have equal access to AT. Both have HP laptops,and there is the PC,sitting in it’s place of honor right in the family room. The one thing I couldn’t ever seem to get accomplished in public school,was the idea that AT should be used. There was always a big issue,lots of whinning( mostly from the teacher’s) about “he doesn’t want to use it”,”we can’t figure out how to get it to print”,”no one has come to install this or that”. I believe this was detrimental to the feelings my kids had about using AT. Their current school treats it far different,but they also treated their handwriting far differently.No points taken off for spelling and puncutation, or legibility. IF the assignment was strictly creative writing. If the assignment was based on correct puncutation and spelling then it is counted. I believe that my son’s writing and his ability to use the AT improved mainly because the pressure was off. Instead of spending hours uneccessarily making the kids focus on spelling ,puncuation,and legibility in writing,time was actually devoted to allowing their creativity to flourish,and their flow of ideas improved. NOW,
one kid used the laptop to write his story,one wrote it out by hand. Both have spelling errors. Both have errors in punctutation. One is three pages long,one is two.Both are very good stories,with all parts of a story needed. I believe the issue of AT is all in the way the teacher looks at it. It has very little to do with the student. But in the end,depending on everyone else, it will make or break a kids usage,and their desire to use it.

We are working at it too. My son dictated a novel (102 pages which I typed) into a tape recorder. He has a talking spell checker. We found a wonderful little message recorder at Radio Shack - holds up to 16 minutes, 99 messages. Great for memos and reminders. We just got a new computer and installed Dragon 6 and it is working so much better than our earlier attempts. Kurzwiel, screen reader, is next in the budget. Someday, when he can use this stuff independently, he’ll have a laptop. Like, Socks, I want to free my son to use his wonderful creative mind. Slowly, but surely, we try stuff and if at first we don’t succeed…. My school has inspiration, co-writer and write-out-loud. I plan to start a student on those next week and we’ll both learn as we go.

It sounds as though you are like me and using the AT at home. Is the school following through? Do you find that the teachers are trained in using the tools?

Sorry, in my experienc, no teachers, public or private have had any training in AT, including myself. My old district would give a kid an Alpha Smart with few directions on how to use it. They did an AT evaluation for my son, but I was the teacher meant to implement any recommendations. My new district seems to have a good AT department and I called to get advice on Dragon, but for all the kids we see few (none) are actively using AT. Our private school has too many MACs which I love for ease but find unacceptable for serious AT needs.

I’ve found teachers to have a very mixed reception of technology. As I visit schools, some schools seem to embrace laptops in the classroom, Alpha Smarts and they yearn for voice to text software that truly works ( I have yet to see this stuff work)

Yet other schools and other teachers eschew such things. They see them as “crutches” etc. etc. Those teachers are likely to attribute all the evils of modern life to Spell Check. Maybe they yearn for quill pens to come back as well.

As the parent of an LD child, I used everything we possibly could - including me as a scribe - to help my dyslexic, dysgraphic son achieve success in school. I typed all his homework for him as he spoke his answers to me. What teachers didn’t know didn’t hurt them. I did not ask for their permission for him to use me as a scribe.

As the teacher of other LD children, I encouraged my parents to be their children’s scribe if that would help and to do most anything that felt right to the family.

As to the time your son spends away from the classroom, it should not be so much as to make it impossible for him to learn grade level curriculum. It can make hard getting the next day’s homework assignment and that’s something worthy of staying on top of. He should not be penalized for missing classes or assignments that occurred while he was in resource room.

Good luck.

I’m worried, b/c the teacher at middle school (yes, I know, but I’m a Planner!) said “she won’t be caught dead with AT when she gets here”. I smiled and said, “She’s been using if since 2nd grade - it’s part of her”. When I WANTED to say, “Yeah, and with an attitute like that, she’ll probably feel that way”.

I have a feeling it’s going to be a long 8 years.

Well, yeah, the school is “coming along”. Of course, I’m “one of THOSE mothers” and I write the district everytime they don’t do something.

They hate me, but my daughter will be getting training with the AT specialist for the county this Summer.

I might have smiled broadly and said just that. There is ALWAYS a time to educate the uneducated:-)

We’ll have her ALL year for 6th grade - she’ll get an education alright!

In fact, had a teacher say to me the other day, “Well, pretty soon, you’re going to have 6 teachers to deal with” and I said “No, there’s 6 teachers who will have to deal with ME”. :-)

Leah,

Robbie uses his notebook computer extensively at school, and uses a desk-top model at home. The other kids kind of admire his typing speed. Most assignmnet s have to be handed in either word processed or “neatly written in ink” at this level… you can guess which MOST of the kids choose.

He is considered a valued “partner” on team or group projects because he can handle the keyboarding faster and more accurately than anyone else.

I think you are right… if a kid doesn’t feel comfortable with technology in middle school, it’s because the whole school environment isn’t tech-friendly. In our public middle school, even “tech ed” (AKA “shop”) has as technology component. The kids learn how to design their projects in the cad lab before the work with wood, nails and tools.

Karen

My older son has serious problems with written output. There was no choice when he was in 3-5th grade but to scribe for him, or they got NOTHING out of him. The SPED teacher or an aide scribed for him at school, and I scribed for him at home. At the same time, we were working as hard and as fast as possible to get him keyboarding fluently. FINALLY, this year, in 6th grade, he is keyboarding well enough that he can actually compose as he keyboards, and he his working independently for the most part.

Interestingly, a couple of weeks ago, my younger son, who has milder LD’s and struggles less academically than his brother has, balked at the written part of a book report. He wanted me to scribe for him… “You always did it for Robbie!!!”

While he has gotten good grades on the writing he has done himself, it is certainly a painstaking process. And the results are very simplistic compared to the thoughts he expresses in conversation.

When he asked me, it was one of those times that I was too worn out to jolly him along or argue with him, so I just did it. I was ASTOUNDED by the quality of his work when the physical act of writing was taken out of the equation. Even with a scribe, the older one had trouble organizing his thoughts. The insight that the younger one showed, and the huge improvement in his work was amazing. It made it pretty clear to me that we need to get this kid keyboarding too.

Karen