Don't disable the learner: all technology

is assistive

Ellen LessnerAbingdon and Witney College

Eta De CiccoNiace

What you will have an opportunity to do in this session

Contribute to a wiki which will gather information

about the many ways people customise

their computer.

Download free, open source software for text read back, PowerPoint read back and

concept mapping

Contribute to the discussion that asserts that all technology is

assistive

A summary of the information gathered

will be available

Try out the software in an activity to help you assess the value of

using it when designing learning

We should be more responsible as teacher trainers, lecturers and

researchers for highlighting and

embedding the basics

Spell check, grammar check

Let’s start from the beginning

some assistive aspects of technology

Audio capabilitiesCreative aspectsVisual effects

Whizzy

Layout

Communicating

Customisable

The beginning of ‘disabling’ the learner

Where do we start when we design

blended learning?

Caught or taught?

Do we teach children or new-to-IT adults how to customise their settings on a computer as the first step to using IT?

Do we systematically teach keyboarding skills?

Is sound enabled on all computers in an educational setting?

How do we universally teach our teachers about assistive technology? Or train current teachers and lecturers?

The beginning of ‘disabling’ the learner

What are the repercussions

 long term/short

term?

In the last 10 years, have we disabled a group of learners by not keeping pace with the developments in technology to support them?

Are we too punitive and wedded to an old skills set? (I hope you will log into Prof Stephen Heppell’s presentation on 30 March in the ‘Innovating e-Learning Practice’ theme of this conference)

The law of unintended consequences

Before moving onto the activities, a few more points for consideration

Are we recognising and utilising current technologies as ‘assistive’ for teaching and learning or will education always be running to catch up?

Text messaging? Phone technologies?

Tools within word processing programmes like PowerPoint, comment boxes, drop down menus, drag and drop?

Voice recognition software

Wikis, blogs and podcasting?

Videos

All technology is assistive to someone

Enable the learner by being clear about expectations

Individuals can work to their age and ability level to summarise and proofread

Provide the right tools across the system

Knowing how to customise existing technology is step one

Keep up with the technology

If an individual listens and understands but cannot read well and understand, do they need to be kept down/out?

It’s the skill, not the level, that’s important

Activity 1 – Wiki – How do you customise your technology?

Add to the wiki – How I customise my technology/computer. To access the wiki, go to the S5 area and click on ‘How do you customise your computer’. Tell us what you do, please, and we’ll summarise and share what you tell us at the end of the week.

The JISC Learners’ Experience Project should be a valuable source of information about how people customise their computers and use technology. Their presentation is on 28/29 March in the Learner Experience of e-Learning theme.

How to customise

your computer

Desktop window

Microsoft Office

Internet settings

College system

Home system

Word

PowerPoint

Excel

Internet explorer

Netscape

Firefox

Opera

background colour

font spacing

background colour

font

accessibility options

narratortext size

Text read back

Summarising key points

Autosummarise

background colour

Background colour

Accessibility options

Style sheet

Ideas might include…

Activity 2 – Try out text read backDownload Sayz Me. – http://www.datafurnace.net.au/sayzme/ (make sure that you download the voices in the order it says)

You can also try several other free versions of text read back which are on the table included in the TechDis case study on free software mentioned earlier. Click here: http://www.techdis.ac.uk/index.php?p=3_7_20050311041158

Customise the voice, speed and pitch to suit you and listen to one of the papers from this conference.

Alternatively, download a student’s assignment, listen and reflect on what you might do to encourage a student to use the software.

Activity 3 – Concept mapping Download CMAP (http://cmap.ihmc.us/ ) or FreeMind, and spend

a few minutes familiarising yourself with the tool (http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page ). For other concept mapping software, go to the table on the TechDis site.

Use a map to summarise this session and to note any key points you would like to discuss.

Try to map the key points in a student’s assignment! Are they linked in a logical fashion or have you had to trawl through to see whether they understand concepts?

Map your next teaching session.

Develop a template that would save you time when lesson planning

Decide whether you like branching maps (FreeMind) or concept maps with shapes (CMAP)

Please join in the discussion

Whether you have successfully tried out all the software or added to the wiki, we hope you will join us and contribute to the discussion.