EXPLORING TECHNOLOGY FOR THE STRUGGLING WRITER

MY STUDENT D. 6 th grade student who has both motor difficulties and a learning disability Struggles with several aspects of the writing process including but not limited to basic writing skills as described in the article “Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers” Struggles with spelling and the organization of ideas Struggles with composing, revising and editing her work

WHAT WERE WE USING BEFORE THIS CLASS? Handwriting keyboarding Regular spell check Dictation

Co-writer Word prediction to reduce the number of key strokes necessary Topic specific spell check to enhance her use of the spell check function Text to speech to check her spelling through sound and to promote comprehension SOFTWARE WE TRIED FROM SCHOOL

What were a few new things we tried? Storybird Glogster Googledocs Voice memo Popplet

WHAT WAS NOT SUCCESSFUL AND WHY? Glogster was not successful because she became too overwhelmed with all of the choices and ways to get side tracked It was also a difficult website in that it would freeze while you tried to create a project. Storybird- Difficult and fickle website to navigate but seemed so promising! We tried several other technology sources that either weren’t appropriate for the task or too difficult for D to understand.

WHAT DID WE LIKE? Solo suite products used together such as Co-writer and content specific spell check along with read aloud. (Basic writing skills and spelling) Popplet- It was initially simple and we created several text only popplets for practice. (organization of her ideas in the pre-writing process) Able to create more elaborate popplet to organize herself for a story. This “just right challenge” seemed to motivate D and enabled her to be open to trying more strategies. (composing) Googledocs which allowed me to provide comments and feedback. (Revising and editing)

SO WHAT DID SHE PRODUCE? Popplet See also the google doc

A FEW FEELINGS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY BY VOICE MEMO

WHAT IS MY PERSONAL TAKE AWAY? Identify where the student may require the most help in the writing process. Only After identifying the need- identify the technology that may meet that need Don’t just try a technology that may be “cool” but may derail the process- However feel free to play around with all types of technology on your own Don’t be afraid to try something new and step out of your comfort zone Be sure to have a solid grasp of the technology you plan to introduce to the student before you expect them to produce work using it.