Assisting Learning with Technology

Of all the interesting and cool things you can do with digital technology, for me the most powerful effect it has is when it enables students to access learning and share their thinking when traditional reading and writing it quite a barrier for them. I am very keen on equity and justice in education and these technologies have gone a long way to helping provide that for my students.

My Y10 science class and I have been trying out a few readily available assistive technologies with the idea that next year, when they are in Level 1 NCEA, they will have a few options that might better support the communication of instructions to them from their teachers, and their thinking and learning to their teachers.  For all my Y10 students, their learning struggles are not severe enough to be financially supported by the Assistive Technology Funding provided by the MOE, but most will qualify for special assessment conditions for NCEA should they sit external exams in Level 1 and beyond.

I love OneNote because it enables so many of my students but particularly the assistive technology it offers to my Y10 students who persist in their learning with challenges.  I use the combination of “To-Do” tags and Learning Tools add-in which contains Immersive Reading and Dictate.  To-Do tags allow my students with sequencing challenges to keep track of their learning projects by ticking off what they have achieved so far and gives them a sense of control over their learning because they don’t have to rely on me as much to guide them to the next step.  The Learning Tools Immersive Reader will read instructions to them if they are not confident readers, again giving my students freedom to learn at their own pace.  Students can then use the Learning Tools Dictate to record their thinking and progress. 

As a spin off of this, my more fluent writing students of all levels and I are enjoying using the Immersive Reader for proofing our own writing.  I am always proofing my own writing and just reading what I think should be there, not actually reading it for what is there.  Listening to the immersive reader lets my students and I pick up our mistakes instantly.

Recently, I have begun using Dictate, a new voice-to-text add-in for PowerPoint, Word, and Outlook.  My Y10 students can then use this to “write” their thoughts down.  They really struggle to get their thoughts into writing and for many of the dyslexic students, this is really helping.  With a little practice, they can get the voice-to-text recognition quite accurate, then they can use the immersive reader in Word Online or OneNote to read it back to them for proofing.   This could be a really useful assistive technology for them if they have teachers who are less digitally confident because the end format is written text, which can be printed off.  

So far, the students are enjoying exploring the different technologies and evaluating their value for their personal learning goals and I hope they will become confident enough to continue to use the collection of technologies that best suit their learning needs, enabling them to reach to the heights of their thinking and learning, not just the limits of their confidence to read instructions.

Resources:

Learning Tools add-in for OneNote https://www.onenote.com/learningtools 

Dictate add-in for Word, Outlook, PowerPoint http://dictate.ms/

Universal Design for Learning - Inclusive Education http://inclusive.tki.org.nz/guides/universal-design-for-learning/