Digital Toolkits for Struggling Readers in Content-Area

Classrooms Cindy Okolo

Michigan State University

March, 2009Okolo@msu.edu

http://assistive-technology-lab.wiki.educ.msu.edu/

Our mission is to develop complex literacies across the lifespan through multi-

disciplinary research.

Who are these kids?

Challenges for Kids with Literacy Disabilities/DifficultiesDecoding

Vocabulary

Comprehension

Background knowledge*

Strategy knowledge & use*

Confidence*

Motivation*

Challenges for Kids with Literacy Disabilities/Difficulties• Writing mechanics

– Handwriting, spelling, writing conventions

• Idea generation

• Organizing

• Revising

• Editing

How Can Technology Help?

• Support– Reading tools– Organizing– Support for background information– Studying– Scaffolding

• Compensate– Bypass reading & writing

• Motivate

What’s in your Operating System

Mac

• Voice Over

• Text to speech

• Speech recognition

• Screen magnification

http://www.apple.com/accessibility/macosx/vision.html

Windows

• Magnifier

• Narrator (text to speech)

• Speech Recognition (VISTA)

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/accessibility/default.mspx#EBB

What’s on your Browser?

• Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/)

• ADD-ONS– Dictionaries & Language Packs: (

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:3)– Bookmarks:

(https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:1/cat:22)

– Dictionary: (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7869)

What’s on your Browser?

– Hyperwords (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search?q=hyperword&cat=all)

– Accessibar (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search?q=accessibar&cat=all

)– Marking (highlighting or dogears) (

http://yellow5.us/firefox/dogears/)

• CLiCk Speak (http://clickspeak.clcworld.net/downloads.html)

What’s in your Bookmarks: Digital Books?

• Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page)

• University of Virginia E-Text Library (http://etext.virginia.edu/ebooks/)

• Many Books (manybooks.net)

• Amazon, iTunes• Bookshare (http://www.bookshare.org/)

What’s in Your Bookmarks: Turn text to speech

• Record your own– Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/)

– Spoken Powerpoint books

• Have someone else do it:– Spoken Text (http://www.spokentext.net/)– http://www.watchingthenet.com/firefox-tip-convert-web-page-text-

to-speech-and-save-as-mp3-file.html

– YAKiToMe (http://www.yakitome.com/cgi-bin/input.py)

What’s in your Bookmarks: Reference Tools

• Visuwords: online graphical dictionary (http://www.visuwords.com/?word=constitution)

• Ghotit (http://www.ghotit.com/home.shtml)• Wiktionary (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/)• Shmoop (http://www.shmoop.com/literature/)

What’s on your Computer: Supporting Thinking and Organizing

• Inspiration (www.inspiration.com)

• Timeliner (http://www.tomsnyder.com/timelinerxe/)

What’s On Your Computer: Literacy Tools: The Big Six

• WYNN (http://www.freedomscientific.com/LSG/products/WYNN.asp)

• Kurzweil 3000 (http://www.kurzweiledu.com/)

• Solo Literacy Suite (http://www.donjohnston.com/products/solo/)

• Read & Write Gold (http://www.readwritegold.com/readwritegoldv9.html)

• WordQ and SpeakQ (http://www.wordq.com/)

• WriteOnline (http://www.cricksoft.com/uk/writeonline/)

What’s On Your Computer: Literacy Software

• Text to speech• Word prediction• Writing Tools

– Concept mapping– Templates– Specialized dictionaries– Speech recognition– Revision tools

• Study tools– Highlighting– Annotating

What’s Attached to your Computer?

• Scanner

• Camera

What’s in your Hand?

What’s In Your Hand?

What’s on your Mind?