"Diagnosis and Intervention Strategies for Disorders of Written Language"

"Diagnosis and Intervention Strategies for Disorders of Written Language"

Margaret J. Kay, Ed.D.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008
The following web was created using "Inspiration 8". It is a computer program that helps students summarize the main ideas from text or instruction through the use of webs. For instance, to create this web, we chose some ready-made shapes from the program, then typed the information into the shapes. The webs further emphasized the key points of the text we had highlighted by hand, and written in the margins. After typing this information into the webs, we connected the main ideas and sub headings by linking the appropriate webs together.

I've used this program with my students. It's a great program for students who benefit from visual supports to help organize their thoughts, and to understand complex ideas. After just three or four thoughts are typed into the shapes, students start to see links, and begin to make connections about how this shape is better linked with this thought... A much more efficient process for hand, and mind!

Blog # 4: November 4th: Kurzweil On My Mind

October 29th: WOW!! It was such a rewarding learning experience listening to the presenters.
I now have some great ideas that I plan to bring into my own Kurzweil planning and teaching.

Denise and Kathy scanned some actual worksheets, and planned some activities around that. Teachers are ALWAYS pressed for time. And, we have access to some great activity sheets that tie in with our outcomes, and students' learning styles and ability levels... so that's a great tip. Why reinvent the activity sheet?!

I had mused about the additional time needed to plan separate activities for my students with learning difficulties. But, with increased familiarity of the technological supports, and more reliable operating systems (;-D), designing these activities should not take any more time than the way I've done it before, for example: using word documents to create cloze paragraphs, or recording stories to tapes. Once the activity is created, then it can be saved and modified for future lessons. Also, many teachers are willing to share their Kurzweil files: for instance, Jamie Renouf of Hebbville Academy.
Stacey & Carmen, and Ian & Paula both shared how their high school students use Kurzweil.
Stacey's E.L.A. students are trying Kurzweil for the first time (and one has expressed a willingness to try it again). Ian & Paula's students are now scanning their own documents.
I think that is an awesome application of technological content and skill.

When I hear about high school students' comfort levels, developing and established, it's encouraging for me at the elementary level. Direct from Grade One, I try to find good technological matches for my students, as I believe there's a greater chance they will then continue to use technology as an assistive support throughout their life, both in and out of school.

At my own school of NQ, Judy Frail, our high school Program Support teacher, is a Kurzweil user (and, an Assistive Technology supporter), so I know my students will continue to be in good technological hands as they continue through school!

Before I post... as promised in my previous blog... I can not close without a further comment re. Kurzweil's relational issues. Without exception, each presenter/s mentioned issues they had had in operating Kurzweil, for example: loading the program, and running some of Kurzweil's features. Barbara W. mentioned that a reliable operating system with lots of memory is needed to run Kurzweil without hiccups! (Did I get the wording right?!)

Getting To Know Kurzweil

Since October 15th, I've been carrying my now 'bursting to the seams' journal with all my musings about the whole 'getting to know Kurzweil' experience. Time to put pen to screen!

The general theme in all my musings?! That Kurzweil, the program itself, is fantastic, but, it has... shall we say... some ... relational issues. More on that in my next blog.

Oct. 15: Beth and I install a "Read Only" Kurzweil program on her computer. It is a gradual process. There are no programs running on her computer, yet it still takes a few tries. We begin adding some features to the text we've scanned.

Oct.17: Kurzweil will not open on Beth's laptop. As a back up, we saved our work from Weds. on my jump drive. Beth retrieves a school laptop, and we're running again.
*Zone Editing* takes us on the sharpest learning curve. Now we know, BEFORE WE SCAN, to photocopy the document and trim/cover any unwanted text. If you skip this step, the Kurzweil program stumbles over the reading of any text that is not directly left to right (i.e. images with the heading "Figure __ ", charts or page numbers). That's what happened when the Kurzweil program read our document. We applied "Zone Editing" after scanning , which is doable, but more time consuming than had we edited the text before scanning.
Beth and I also discovered a neat remedy when you accidentally delete a part of the text you do want Kurzweil to read. Here are the steps. (1) File (2) Properties (3) Sticky Note (4) In Place
For instance, in our document, we covered Figure 3.9 with a sticky note, as that was accidentally deleted during the Zone Editing process.