My district has no assisted or adaptive technology at all; neither any of the programs for writing or scanning and reading. Nada
Another teacher and I want to write a grant to get something to just get us started. We have been told the voice recognition programs are probably not suitable for elementary students. What have you used and liked, how did you use it? Thanks
Re: assisted technology for writing
First, what are the needs of your students? If they are the “typical” high-incidence disabilities, there are reading and writing issues. There are a number of excellent programs and tools.
Do you have access to the AT Quick Wheel which is a progression of low - tech to high- tech tools?
At the minimum, I would ask for demo disks or demo downloads of Write:Outloud by Don Johnston (www.donjohnston.com), Cast eReader (www.cast.org), ReadPlease (free text-to-speech from www.readplease.com), Inspiration and Kidspiration (powerful graphic organizing software, www.inspiration.com) some of the Intellitools products (www.intellitools.com). Do you have talking spell checkers, AlphaSmart 3000s or Danas? Word prediction software such as Word Q or Co:Writer? In addition, there are some very powerful features built into Microsoft Word and Powerpoint for educators that most people don’t know exist.
You may want to attent the “Technology, Reading and Learning Disabilities” seminar in San Francisco in January if you are anywhere near there.
Re: assisted technology for writing
Whew… Take a deep breath and be ready to go through a careful process to figure out what your students need. You will be much, much more satisfied in the long run. And… let me try & put this gently — it’s assistive technology. The students are being assisted by it.
First off, speech-to-text software is technically tough — it would NOT be the first assistive technology I got. It’s tempting because it’s fairly inexpensive and — for *some* students* — has great potential… but it really does not (for the overwhelming majority of students) enable an LD student to simply keep up with regular writing demands. It also has an intensive training period.
So, in a system that doesn’t already have a good system in place for figuring out who should use what assistive technology, and why and how, I would not make that investment.
http://www.joyzabala.com/ is a wonderful site for assistive technology information, including the “SETT” framework which is a form to fill out to figure out what kinds of technology will be most helpful.
Re: assisted technology for writing
I’ll drink to that. The speech recog. software requires that the software “learn” your voice. It does this by having you read several passages to it.
This is a daunting task for typical learners. I wouldn’t say I’m ‘xactly a typical learner, but I am an adult with a high frustration tolerance and I did find it frustrating at times. The other thing is that thinking while writing a paper outloud could be difficult. I used speech recog primarily for informal stuff.
It can be excellent but it would NOT be my first choice.
Some of my first choices would be word prediction, text to speech software and word processors, spell checkers, and either Kid Spiration or Inspiration. Also Don Johnston has a Draft Builder which helps the writing process. (www.donjohnston.com)
—des
I am trying out Dragon Naturally Speaking 6, and I don’t think it would be good for youger children. Have you tried any word prediction word processor programs? There are also some free programs that ‘read’ what a child writes…..