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Dragon Naturally Speaking™ Pilot Project: Phase II

School District #28 Quesnel, Final Report,

March 7, 2014

Background Information

In 2010, the Ministry of Education proposed changes to the adjudication options for

students with Learning Disabilities in the area of written expression. The proposed

changes would require school districts to find provincial exam solutions, other than a

scribe, for students entering grade 10 in the 2011-2012 academic year.

In response to these proposed changes, the Quesnel School District collaborated with

Special Education Technology - British Columbia (SET-BC) to explore the effectiveness of

Dragon Naturally Speaking™ (DNS) software as an alternative to the use of a scribe.

This pilot project was initiated in the 2010-2011 school year.

At the end of the first year of the project, which was piloted at the secondary school

level only, a detailed mid-project report was submitted. That report outlined the

project goals, expected student learning outcomes, the implementation process, criteria

for selecting students, feedback on successes and obstacles, and recommendations for

Phase II of the project.

Three critical recommendations outlined in the February, 2011, report (Appendix A)

included:

• training students to use Dragon Naturally Speaking™ software, learning program

features and completing voice training much earlier than high school, so that

students can be proficient and comfortable with the program by the time they

commence their graduation program.

• offering a specific block of DNS instruction within the student timetable. During

the first year of the pilot project, training was accomplished through classroom

pullout, support blocks, at lunch, and after school. This made consistent training

and practice time difficult.

• and appealing to the Ministry of Education to delay the proposed changes to the

adjudication options for students with Learning Disabilities in written expression

until further exploration of DNS was accomplished.

Phase II Implementation Summary

In order to address the first recommendation noted above, the Quesnel School District

purchased enough additional laptops and DNS licenses so that the pilot project could be

expanded to all elementary schools in the district. At least one target student from

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grade 5, 6, or 7 was selected at each elementary school. As in Phase 1, the criteria for

selecting students included:

• the student having a psychoeducational assessment that stated he/she had a

written expression disorder and was eligible for a scribe,

• the student being cognitively able to cope with running several programs at once

and having adequate working memory skills to remember DNS commands,

• the student’s reading skills being stronger than their writing skills, so that the

student would be able to read his/her own work for editing purposes.

The same data collection and student feedback forms were used as in Phase 1 of the

pilot project (Appendix B, Appendix C, and Appendix D). Initial training and the

development of a voice file was accomplished by having students read a passage which

included every phoneme in the English language (Appendix E). Following this step,

Resource Teachers and their target students worked through the 21 lessons of the Lab

Resources (2008) package for Dragon Naturally Speaking Version 10.

The second recommendation emerging from Phase 1 of the Dragon Naturally

Speaking™ project was addressed through the development of a Board Authority

Approved Course (BAA) called Applications of Life Span Technologies (ALT). In March of

2011, a team of district and school based special educators worked together to identify

a list of specific skills related to the essential and advanced features of Dragon Naturally

Speaking™. This list of skills was outlined in Unit 2 of the new Applications of Life Span

Technologies BAA (Appendix F). Commencing in the fall of 2011, students at the junior

and secondary schools were registered in this technology BAA and began to receive

daily instruction for which they also received 4 course credits. With the intent of making

their DNS training purposeful and authentic, class time was dedicated to students using

their DNS skills for the completion of assignments for their other courses.

By June of 2011, there were students at eleven of the school district’s elementary

schools, the one junior school, and the one secondary school learning to use the Dragon

Naturally Speaking™ software. As the district prepared for the annual summer re-

imaging of district laptops and the transition of students between schools, a system of

exporting and saving DNS voice files to a shared folder on the district server was

developed. This process ensured that students would not have to begin voice training

all over again at the start of the next school year.

Feedback

During the past three years of DNS implementation, many of the minor issues with the

pilot project have been resolved such as the backing up of voice files, accommodating

student transitions from one school to another, commencing DNS training early so that

students at least have basic skills in the use of the program before entering grade 8, and

overcoming the obstacle of when to fit in DNS instruction and skill building, given the

structure of the high school timetable.

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Some on-going obstacles and challenges have been maintaining student motivation to

use the software when voice recognition errors occur. The majority of students,

especially those at the elementary level, have been quite frustrated by recognition

errors. As a result, correcting recognition errors has often become a task for the

Resource Teacher, using hot keys and the Quick Correct List or by highlighting errors and

typing in the correct recognition.

In addition, all of School District #28’s DNS licenses are installed on networked laptops.

At times, interruptions to the district server have resulted in laptop failures or the DNS

program freezing altogether. The consistent backing up of voice files has minimized the

impact of these interruptions, but it has been a frustration for students nevertheless.

Perhaps the greatest challenge for students attempting to use the DNS software for

assignments, quizzes, and tests has been the difficulty of spontaneously organizing and

dictating their thoughts. The program does not support students with pre-writing

activities which often had to be completed prior to dictating. Since, the students

involved in the pilot project all exhibited challenges with written output, this pre-writing

typically required the support of an adult to scribe or record, which seemed to defeat

the end-purpose of using DNS.

Due to the aforementioned challenges with voice recognition errors and the difficulty of

spontaneously starting to dictate one’s ideas, some students expressed a preference to

use the brainstorming, outlining, drafting, and word prediction features of Kurzweil

3000 rather than dictate their ideas using DNS.

DNS was most successful with one or two secondary students who demonstrated well

developed executive function skills such as organization, planning, and goal attainment,

as well as a high level of motivation. In fact, once all the other implementation

processes and supports were in place, this factor seemed to have the single most impact

on the level of proficiency and independence that students acquired in using the

software. After three years, even these few proficient students never reached a point

where they felt at ease interfacing with a government exam using the technology.

Final Thoughts & Recommendations

Overall, the feedback from Resource Teachers and students involved in the pilot project

is that they have appreciated the opportunity to try the software. However, it is a

technology solution that is a good match for a fairly narrow group of students with the

specific cognitive strengths outlined above.

The consensus of participants in this pilot project is that, unlike Kurzweil which is a

reliable alternative for students requiring a reader, Dragon Naturally Speaking™ is not a

dependable, efficient adjudication option for students with Learning Disabilities in the

area of written expression.

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Appendices

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APPENDIX A Page 1 of 4

Dragon Naturally Speaking Pilot School District #28 Quesnel

Mid Project Report, February, 2011 Background Information The Ministry of Education has changed adjudication options for students with Learning Disabilities in the area of written expression. Starting September 2011, Districts are required to find solutions other than a scribe for students entering Grade 10. Our District chose to investigate the effectiveness of Dragon Naturally Speaking software as an alternative to scribes. The initial pilot is being supported by SET-BC. SET-BC provided 4 laptops and 4 copies of Dragon Naturally Speaking software. The School District purchased noise cancelling USB headphones with microphone for the project. The School District also funded release time for Resource Teachers to receive training and to develop implementation resources. Project Goals;

• to promote the transition to technology solutions for students with written output difficulties;

• to develop a scope and sequence of skills for implementation of a technology goal specific to Dragon Naturally Speaking; and

• to complete a final report, with recommendations, for sharing with the Ministry of Education, SET-BC, and other School Districts in B.C.

Student Learning Outcomes:

• with support, students will use DNS software for classroom activities (assignments and tests);

• students will independently use DNS software for classroom activities (assignments and tests);

• students will independently use DNS software for provincial exams Implementation Six Secondary Resource Teachers participated in the original pilot. Each of the six Resource Teachers chose 1 student to train. Orientation to the project and software was provided in early February 2010. Both of our SET-BC consultants, Shel Harris and Scott McKay, helped with the training. During the first session, 2 hours after school, Resource Teachers were supported to set up their own voice files and to learn how to control the microphone. The following day Resource Teachers were released for the day to participate in more extensive tutorials. Shel Harris provided guided practice. He used the Lab Resources 2008 CD and Tutorial Guide. In this training session Resource Teachers finished as far as Lesson 5. We allowed 2 hours at the end of the day to discuss our implementation plan. Resource Teachers decided that they would follow the 21 day

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APPENDIX A Page 2 of 4 series of lab lesson plans created by Lab Resources 2008. It was felt that this way implementation would be consistent between schools and students. We discussed and agreed to the criteria for selecting a student and what our data collection and feedback forms would look like (Appendix A, Appendix B and Appendix C). We also agreed that by early March Resource Teachers would have done the first 4 days of lessons with their target student. Resource Teachers were released for another half day training session on March 4th. They were provided guided practice in exploring the remaining lessons in the tutorial package. In addition to the release time provided, Resource Teachers spent their own time becoming proficient with the features of the program. We then used time during our regular Secondary Resource Teacher meetings on April 22, 2010, May 28, 2010, September 22, 2010 and November 8, 2010 to provide updates and discuss implementation progress. Criteria for picking students The psyched assessment must state that the student is eligible for a scribe (on a Dogwood Program path). The students need to be cognitively able to cope with running several programs at once and require a satisfactory working memory to remember the basic DNS commands. It would be preferable that students are able to read their own work for editing purposes. For the purposes of the pilot project we decided not to choose students with physical disabilities or speech/language disabilities. Pilot Feedback The Following is a summary of feedback from Secondary pilot teachers in terms of what has worked, concerns or obstacles, and recommendations:

a. What worked - Tracking Sheets were useful for assessing student progress in each lesson - Establishing criteria for our pilot students - Providing training to students in support blocks, after school, or at lunch,

as opposed to pulling them from classes

b. Concerns or Obstacles - Laptop crashes – voice files were lost - Every time our technicians do something (i.e. - reimage) voice files are

lost (this happens yearly during the summer) - When a student transfers from one high school to another, we need to find

a way of transferring the voice files to the new laptop and school location - It has been challenging pulling students from classes at the high school

level

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APPENDIX A Page 3 of 4 - One Grade 8 Resource Teacher observed that her male student’s voice

began to change part way through the training process and this impacted the voice recognition files

- Some students have lost interest in the program, particularly if their voice files have been repeatedly lost and they have had to start again with voice training.

- Student Feedback Form – Resource Teachers tried having students dictate into the form. This was not a problem, but when they went to save they could not. Thus, in some cases student feedback about the different lessons has been scribed instead of dictated into DNS

- Thinking ahead, one concern may be the logistics of where to place our students during exam time, as well as ensuring we have enough laptops with DNS for all the students who need the program at a particular time

- In an exam, it could be cognitively overloading to have to worry about content of curriculum as well as operating the software program

- By September 2010 we only had 4 continuing students in the project. This was due to movement of students out of District or students becoming disinterested in the project

c. Recommendations

- Head phones with a USB port, rather than the mic-in jack model; there is an audio card in the USB version and voice recognition seems to be enhanced. Our District purchased Logitech USB Headset H360. We were able to get these headphones from Staples, on sale, for $29.95 (regular $49.95).

- Make training purposeful for students as soon as possible – don’t wait until they’ve learned all the DNS commands. One RT shared that with her student, once he wrote an exam using the program, his interest was re-peaked.

- Look at a way to allow students access to DNS at home so they can be practicing and reinforcing their skills

- The lesson where students write a passage about themselves is difficult; students have difficulty dictating something spontaneously. It may work better to just have them read and dictate a piece of text instead

- Use of the Rainbow Passage, a text which includes every phoneme in the English language, has been useful to more quickly develop an accurate voice file (Appendix D)

- Parent support is essential - Look at creating a Technology BAA so that a specific block of time is

allotted each day at high school to teaching programs like DNS and Kurzweil

- Begin training in elementary so that the students are already proficient with the use of the program when they get to the high school level

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APPENDIX A Page 4 of 4 - Questions for Kathleen Edge (Adjudication Branch of Ministry of

Education): - During exams will students be permitted to have a copy of the

command sheet for DNS? - Are students eligible for grammar and spell check? - Given the amount of time it takes for training and for student

proficiency are we ready with a technology solution for next year’s cohort of students who will need to write Provincial Exams without a scribe?

Final Recommendation: The process, to reach a point where students feel comfortable using the program, is lengthy. Our pilot team would like to recommend to the Ministry that the new policy pertaining to the use of scribes be delayed until Districts have the time to successfully implement alternatives, including Dragon Naturally Speaking.

District Follow-up • Resource Teachers are now extracting voice files to USB portable storage devices, or a separate file in school shared system. • We purchased 12 laptops, 12 additional DNS licenses, and USB head phones for use with elementary students to begin implementing Phase II of our pilot project (this reinforces the recommendation to begin training students with the software before they transition to high school). We held our first orientation for Elementary Resource Teachers on November 24th, 2010. Scott McKay provided SET-BC support at this training.

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APPENDIX B Page 1 of 2 Student Name: Dragon NaturallySpeaking Tracking Sheet Date (yy/mm/dd) Skills

Lesson 1 1. Create his/her own voice file in Dragon NaturallySpeaking (DNS)

2. Dictate 2 sentences into word processing program, with 90% or better accuracy

Lesson 2 3. Control his/her microphone with the mouse 4. Control his/her microphone with his/her voice 5. Identify the meaning of the colours shown in the volume meter

6. Properly close DNS 7. Identify 7 - 9 components of the DragonBar Rating Scale: 1 – needs re-teaching; not yet meeting 2 – able to do with prompts; minimally meeting 3 – approaching independence; monitoring 4 – independently; fully meeting Comments/Observations: (include date, learning time, successes, difficulties)

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APPENDIX B Page 2 of 2 Student Name: Dragon NaturallySpeaking Tracking Sheet Date (yy/mm/dd) Skills

Lesson 3 & 4 8. Dictate 5-10 sentences into Microsoft Word, one at a time, to produce one paragraph about his/her interests

9. Dictate punctuation (or use automatic punctuation built into DNS)

10. Correct errors the computer makes recognizing his/her speech, by dragging the mouse over the incorrect word(s) and typing in the correct word(s)

11. Dictate 2 paragraphs giving personal information and telling about their family.

Rating Scale: 1 – needs re-teaching; not yet meeting 2 – able to do with prompts; minimally meeting 3 – approaching independence; monitoring 4 – independently; fully meeting Comments/Observations: (include date, learning time, successes, difficulties)

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Student Name: APPENDIX C Dragon NaturallySpeaking Tracking Sheet Date (yy/mm/dd) Skills

Lesson 5 12. dictate a “to do” list 13. dictate punctuation when appropriate, or use automatic punctuation (as in lesson 3)

14. correct errors the computer makes recognizing his or her speech by verbally selecting the incorrect word(s) and then saying the correct word(s), or by choosing the correct word(s) from the Quick Correct List

Lesson 6 15. dictate a letter or email to a friend 16. correct errors the computer makes recognizing his or her speech by saying the correct word(s) again, or by using the “Spell That” command

Lesson 7 17. correct errors DNS makes using a combination of mouse and hot keys to bring up the Quick Correct List

18. dictate a school assignment 19. Choose the method of correction that he or she prefers to use from those practiced in lessons 3-7

Rating Scale: 1 – needs re-teaching; not yet meeting 2 – able to do with prompts; minimally meeting 3 – approaching independence; monitoring 4 – independently; fully meeting Comments/Observations: (include date, learning time, successes, difficulties)

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APPENDIX D

Dragon NaturallySpeaking (DNS)

Student Feedback Form

Name: Date: How do you feel about DNS? What was the best part of today’s lesson? Was there anything hard about this lesson? Other comments:

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APPENDIX E

Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the atmosphere, they act like a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into various beautiful colours. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path towering above, and its two extremities apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no human ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Throughout the centuries people have explained the rainbow in various ways. Nations have accepted it as a miracle without physical explanation. For certain groups it was taken that there would be no more general floods. The Norsemen considered the rainbow as a bridge over which the Gods passed from earth to their dwelling in the sky. Aristotle thought that the rainbow was caused by reflection of the sun’s rays by the rain. The difference in the rainbow depends considerably upon the size of the water drops, and the width of the coloured band increases as the size of drops increases.

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APPENDIX F (8 pages)

School District #28, Quesnel Board Authority Authorized Courses Course Name: Applications of Lifespan Technologies (ALT) District Name: Quesnel District Number: 28 Developed by: Gail Adams, Tania Blak, Diane Haynes, Sue MacDonald, and Crystal Stewart Date Developed: March 9, 2011 School Name: Correlieu Secondary School Quesnel Junior School Principal’s Name: Mr. Michael Adams Mr. Cyril Tobin Board/Authority Approval Date: Board/Authority Signature: Course Name: Applications of Lifespan Technologies Grade Level of Course: 8 - 12 Number of Course Credits: 4 Number of Hours of Instruction: 120 Prerequisite(s): 1701 students and School Based Team Referral. Special Training, Facilities or Equipment Required: Hardware:

• Networked Computers or Laptops • Scanners • Wireless preferred • Flash drives • SMART Boards and Notebook software • Camera and memory device

School District 28, Quesnel Board Authority Authorized Courses

Applications of Lifespan Technologies SD28 (Quesnel) 15

(Special Training, Facilities or Equipment continued)

• Video camera • Headphones • Cell phones • MP3 and I devices

Software:

• Speech to Text software (e.g., DNS) • Screen reader software (e.g., WordTalk, Kurzweil) • Organizational software (e.g., Inspiration, cell phone applications) • Multimedia software (e.g., Movie Maker, VLC Media Player, Audacity, Pazera) • Microsoft Office

Web 2.0

• On line repositories (e.g., ARC BC, Project Guttenberg, on line libraries) • Multimedia sites (e.g., Animoto, Keep Vid) • Social Media (e.g., Facebook, You Tube, MSN, Twitter, Email, Blogs, Wikis, Bookmarking sites) • Search Engines (e.g., Beyond Google, Twurdy) • Organizational websites (e.g., Google Calendar)

Course Synopsis: Designed for students who have Learning Disabilities and/or other Developmental Disabilities, this course is intended to develop student proficiency and independence in the use of assistive and mainstream technologies so that they can be successful in secondary school and in their adult life. Rationale: The purpose of this course is to provide direct, specific instruction in assistive technology and mainstream technologies. The targeted students often require additional time and instruction to learn mainstream technologies. In addition, they often require specialized software to accommodate their specific learning needs. Training in these specialized software programs is typically not addressed in other high school technology curricula. Organizational Structure: Unit/Topic Title Time

Unit 1

Hardware Use and Care

15 hours

Unit 2

Operating Systems and Software

65 hours

Unit 3

Interfacing with Web 2.0

40 hours

Total Hours

120



Unit/Topic/Module Descriptions: Unit 1: Hardware Use and Care Laptop Computers The student will:

� properly start up, log on to (as a stand alone or to a network) and shut down a laptop � charge and check the battery level of a laptop � adjust or mute/unmute the volume on his/her laptop � check wireless access and ensure that access is in place � ensure that automatic software updates, including antivirus, are routinely completed � protect and carefully close the LCD display monitor � care for the power cord, including safely inserting and removing the laptop’s power socket � use and store laptops in designated areas (e.g. flat surface, ventilated area, storage trolley, locked

cabinet) Peripheral Devices The student will:

� plug his/her laptop into a scanner or printer � connect a USB mouse to his/her laptop � place a USB memory stick into the appropriate USB port � insert and test a headphone system � use SAN disk or memory cards � save to an external storage device � transfer information from an external storage device to another computer or drive � safely remove accessory devices

Unit 2: Operating Systems and Software Operating Systems Essentials The student will:

� use keyboard short cut keys to launch programs � understand the role of the ‘Function’ keys � select a printer from the available print options � save to a storage device and transfer the information to another computer or another drive � initiate a Windows search when he/she cannot locate a file � operate Explore function from Start Menu to peruse files and drives

Advanced Skills & Self-Advocacy The student will:

� develop troubleshooting strategies to identify, investigate and solve problems (e.g., identify and select correct printer from print options)

� be able to transfer information from one application to another (e.g., Microsoft Word to PowerPoint)

� manage files, desktop shortcuts and save/transfer to personal drives or shared drives



Kurzweil Software Essentials The student will:

� launch and sign in to the Kurzweil program with his/her user name � be familiar with the four standard Kurzweil toolbars and their features � customize, show and hide toolbars � find and open a Kurzweil file in the ‘arc’ folder, located in the secure ‘shared’ drive at his/her

school � open and save a document so that he/she can work with the newly saved document � start and pause reading of an open Kurzweil file � change reading settings (e.g., voice, speed, mode, colour contrasts) � use reference tools to look up definitions and synonyms � create and work with a variety of notes features available in Kurzweil (e.g., sticky notes, text

notes, footnotes, fill in the blanks) � complete assignment pages saved in Kurzweil using a variety of features (e.g. fill in the blanks,

drag & drop, highlighters, notes) � save and print his/her completed assignment pages � create a brainstorm diagram or graphic organizer using the writing path features of Kurzweil � find the correct spelling of a word using the ‘word prediction’ feature � set the font, font size, text alignment, and line spacing on the Kurzweil writing toolbar � read the internet using the ‘Read the Web’ feature of Kurzweil � access the Help Menu

Advanced Skills & Self Advocacy

� save and submit completed work to his/her teacher’s ‘handin’ folder in ‘shared’, or via email attachment or storage device

� organize and categorize information while reading, using the highlighting features � extract and save highlighted notes into an organized table for studying or using as an outline � append new notes to an existing table or set of column notes � create an outline from a set of column notes � create an outline and draft from a Kurzweil brainstorm diagram � prepare class handouts for his/her own use with the Kurzweil program (e.g., scanning, zone

editing, editing of underlying text) � explore on-line encyclopedias using the Kurzweil program � advocate for and explain his/her need for Kurzweil technology to others � evaluate whether Kurzweil is the most appropriate software or technology to use for a specific

situation � access and use Kurzweil technology in various environments � use Kurzweil technology to enhance the quantity and quality of his/her work � apply Kurzweil technology to complete assignments in other courses � demonstrate his/her understanding of core curricular concepts through the use of technology

Dragon NaturallySpeaking Software Essentials The student will:

� set up a user or voice file in Dragon NaturallySpeaking � complete a volume check on the microphone � control the Dragon NaturallySpeaking microphone using the keyboard, mouse, or by using his/her

voice � identify and use components of the DragonBar, including the pull-down menus � dictate into Microsoft Word (or other applications such as PowerPoint, Excel, Kurzweil) using

Dragon NaturallySpeaking � dictate punctuation or use the automatic punctuation feature



(Dragon NaturallySpeaking Software continued)

� correct errors the computer makes recognizing his/her speech � access the Help Menu

Advanced Skills & Self Advocacy

� format text dictated using Dragon NaturallySpeaking (e.g., italicize, bold face, underline, justify) � give commands for starting new paragraphs, printing documents, and saving files � dictate numbers, time, and money � use the auditory feedback features of Dragon NaturallySpeaking � save his/her user files and/or export the file to a destination drive � manage vocabularies for different curricular areas � improve dictation accuracy using tools in the “Accuracy Center” � create custom commands for Dragon NaturallySpeaking � navigate the web using Dragon NaturallySpeaking � advocate for and explain his/her need for Dragon NaturallySpeaking to others � evaluate whether Dragon NaturallySpeaking is the most appropriate software or technology to use

for a specific situation � access and use Dragon NaturallySpeaking in various environments � use Dragon NaturallySpeaking to enhance the quantity and quality of his/her work � apply Dragon NaturallySpeaking to complete assignments for other courses � demonstrate his/her understanding of core curricular concepts through the use of Dragon

NaturallySpeaking Notebook Software Essentials The student will:

� launch Notebook software from the Start Menu and through short cut keys � successfully save a Notebook file � adjust the settings in the Welcome Centre, including the Floating Toolbar � customise Notebook Software Toolbars � access and utilise the Help Center � create a Notebook file that includes the use of Flash and video files from the Gallery � customise Notebook file to meet requirements of a given project � successfully use icons in main Notebook toolbar � adjust properties of text, pictures and objects in the Notebook file � attach a separate file to an object in Notebook � link an object to an online website, different page in the file or a different file on a drive


� navigate Notebook software using a keyboard, mouse and the SMART Board � demonstrate knowledge of key concepts in Notebook software through presentation of software on

the SMART Board � utilise the Screen Capture Toolbar, SMART Recorder and SMART Video Player from the

Welcome Centre



Multimedia Software The student will:

� determine which software program is compatible with the requirements of the task or assignment � become familiar with the main features of various multimedia software programs � use multimedia software with other applications (e.g., Notebook and Powerpoint) � be able import images, sounds effects and text to create a multimedia presentation � convert from one video file format to another (e.g., MOV to AVI) � access the Help Menu

Unit 3: Interfacing with Web 2.0 Email The student will:

� use on line organizational programs in multiple environments � access email through the district email program (e.g., Squirrel mail) � set up an online email account (e.g., Gmail) � send, receive and manage online email account (e.g., Gmail) � attach a document to an email and send it to another recipient � save an attachment from an email to a personal or shared drive � identify and delete spam email � change settings in email account to meet individual needs (e.g., background colour of page, size

and colour of text, signature Organizational software The student will:

� use locally installed organizational software � access organizational software in a variety of environments � access organizational software from a variety of sources (e.g., laptop, cell phones, home computer) � record special events, tasks, to do lists, homework assignments in an organizational software

program. Internet Essentials The student will:

� find a web page by entering a web address � complete basic web searches • use the internet to access text and images • use the internet to copy text and images into other applications


� apply advanced search strategies (e.g., use of ‘and’ ‘with’) � understand that what is written in social media becomes his/her digital footprint � safely post to a Blog, Wiki, Twitter or Facebook � protect his/her safety settings in various social media applications � safely respond to internet advertising and pop-ups � turn pop-ups on and off in the internet browser � use web based organizational programs (e.g., Google calendar)



Alternate Format Repositories (ARC-BC) The student will:

� understand the guidelines and copyright regulations for the use of alternate format materials � set up an ARC-BC user account � complete a simple search for a resource on the ARC-BC website � identify the different types of files available on the ARC-BC website and choose the appropriate

version of the file (e.g., MP3 files, Kesi files) � choose a file from the ARC-BC website that has been prepared for student use (level 3 quality) � download files from the ARC-BC website to a secure location or drive � access a saved ARC-BC file from a secure location or drive

Instructional Components Direct instruction (whole class, group and individual) Interactive instruction and demonstration DVDs (e.g., Lab Resources Tutorials) Breeze Presentations (SET-BC Learning Centre) Scaffolding Assessment Component: Rubrics Checklists Tracking Sheets Rating scales Self assessment (e.g., Dragon NaturallySpeaking Student Feedback Form) Electronic Portfolio Applications of technology to complete assignment for other courses Learning Resources

Print resources Kurzweil Education Systems, Inc. (2008) Kurzweil 3000™ for Windows® Quick Reference Version 11.

Kurzweil Education Systems, Cambium Learning: Bedford, MA. Kurzweil Education Systems, Inc. (2008) Kurzweil 3000™ for Windows® Tutorial Version 11. Kurzweil

Education Systems, Cambium Learning: Bedford, MA. LAB Resources. (2008). Dragon Naturally Speaking Ver. 10: LAB Lessons Hands-On Tutorial. LAB

Resources: Pewaukee, WI. LAB Resources. (2008). LAB Lesson Plans for Dragon Naturally Speaking Ver. 10. LAB Resources:

Pewaukee, WI.

Web Resources http://www.arc-bc.org/ http://animoto.com/ http://www.blogger.com/home?pli=1



(Web resources continued) http://ca.msn.com/ http://www.delicious.com/ http://www.diigo.com/ http://edublogs.org/ http://www.facebook.com/ https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount?service=mail&continue=http://mail.google.com/mail/e-11-35385c078ad8ba412d6b9cdb85dad9-28f4c599834e2fbbade1b50e529b2787339992ec&type=2 http://keepvid.com/ https://www.google.com/calendar http://www.nuance.com/dragon/index.htm https://www.sd28.bc.ca/webmail/src/login.php http://www.setbc.org/ http://www.setbc.org/setbc/access/dragon_naturally_speaking_advanced_speech_recognition.html http://www.setbc.org/setbc/access/kurzweil_group1.html http://www.smarttech.com/ http://www.twurdy.com/ http://www.wiki.com/ http://www.wordtalk.org.uk/Home/ http://www.youtube.com/

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