More Great Things to Try Out

Wasn't able to get to class last week as our sub-system went through the utilization study workshop. Missed the session on co-writer but I have used it before and Barb also sent us a document to read so feel ok about that part. This week Barb showed several more selections from a series of PBS videos called Misunderstood Minds. Thankfully she has them posted at Misunderstood Minds. At least I can go back and see what I missed. I found the first episode of the evening very distressful because it reminded me so much of the frustration my own son went through as he/we struggled with his learning disability. I will be sharing these with my staff during the next few staff meetings as it is great information for them all to have and tires with with the great workshop Barb put on for us on the November inservice day on apps for ipads and iphones.

We also experienced the frustration of trying to write a paragraph with our non-dominant hand. It was a good exercise for us to go through as we discussed the things we thought about as we were writing: using smaller words and sentences, the difficulty of actually forming letters, how quickly we grew tired with the extra effort needed and the difficulty for others to read what we had produced. We also discussed the limitations of having someone scribe for us:we had to wait for the scriber to catch us, forcing us to slow down, we lost our train of thought, our own words weren't necessarily what was put on the paper. The limitations of scriber were certainly apparent and demonstrated that we need to find methodologies to deal with expressive language disorders. The most important part of this exercise was the demonstrated need for students to pre-plan their writing in order to be successful.

Voice to text technology clearly will assist students in dealing with expressive language disorders. We looked at adding voice to powerpoint presentations (which became the tool of choice for my son, Simon) and the recording capabilities of ipads and iphones. The ability for a student to record hs/her voice and then send it as an email or pasted into a text document provides incredible opportunities for students to express their own ideas, rather than forcing students to depend on others.