Information and Communication Technology

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Information and Communication Technology

• Catherine S. Fichten, Ph.D.
• Dawson College, McGill University,
  Adaptech Research Network
• Maria Barile, M.S.W.
• Adaptech Research Network
• Alice Havel, Ph.D.
• Dawson College
• Joan Wolforth, Ed.D.
• McGill University 
• Presentation at the LDAQ Conference
• March 2006, Montréal, Québec

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Learning Objectives

• By the end of the session participants will be
  able to
• List IT related needs of students with LD
• Know about IT solutions to common problems
• Topics
• IT in elementary and secondary schools (Havel)
• Video of students with LD using IT
• How does IT help students with LD? (Wolforth)
• Demonstration of word prediction software - WordQ
  (Barile)
• Research practice in IT for students with LD
  (Fichten)

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IT in Elementary and Secondary Schools

• What is information technology?
• Any item or piece of equipment that helps work
  around or compensate for a specific LD
• NOT instructional software that develops specific
  academic skills
• Can be hardware (computers, tape recorders, etc)
  or software
• Can range from low-tech, low cost to high-tech,
  high cost items

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IT in Elementary and Secondary Schools

• IT situation in Quebec
• Students entering post-secondary education appear
  to have limited experience with IT
• Majority of schools do not include IT as part of
  the Individualized Educational Plan for students
  with LD
• Parents are asking for more information about IT

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IT in Elementary and Secondary Schools

• Reasons for limited use of IT
• Lack of information about products available
• Lack of technical support
• Limited school board budgets
• No government funding for home purchase
• Misconceptions regarding impact on skill
  development and independence
• Government guidelines for writing exams

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IT in Elementary and Secondary Schools

• Benefits of IT
• Development of lifelong strategies
• Compensation as well as remediation
• Offers the potential for independence

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IT in Elementary and Secondary Schools

• Selection of appropriate IT
• Important to choose the right technology
• Depends on
• Childs individual needs
• Tasks to be accomplished
• Setting in which it is used
• Test out technology before purchasing
• Free and inexpensive versions

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IT in Elementary and Secondary Schools

• Key questions to ask
• What are the childs specific needs?
• What are the childs strengths?
• How interested skilled is the child in using
  technology?
• Where will it be used home, school, other
  setting?
• Will it need to be used in more than one place?
• How easy is it to learn and operate?
• How reliable is it?
• Does it need to work with other technologies?
• What technical support is available?
• Does a personal support network exist?

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How Does IT Help Students With LD?

• Students with reading disabilities (dyslexia)
• Misread individual words visually
• Often recognize the word if they hear it
• Computer software
• Screen readers can let students listen and read
• More accurate reading improves comprehension
• Improves word recognition
• Improves vocabulary

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How Does IT Help Students With LD?

• How does IT work?
• Reading material is scanned to become digital
  text
• Optical character recognition (OCR) software
  allows digital text to be read aloud
• Voice software (text-to-speech) reads digital
  text aloud
• Can download voice file MP3 or CD
• More efficient and portable than books on tape

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How Does IT Help Students with LD?

• Students with writing problems
• Related to phonological processing spelling
• Spell check screen reader correct misspelled
  words
• Voice software
• Hear grammatical errors missing tenses,
  conjunctions
• Picks up misuse of words
• Students with organizational writing issues
• Can hear how structure doesnt fit in an essay

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How Does IT Help Students With LD?

• Dictation (voice recognition) programs can help
• Students with writing problems
• Students who can voice ideas but get stuck
  writing
• Students with eye-hand coordination problems
• Students with difficulty using a keyboard

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How Does IT Help Students with LD?

• Students with specific types of reading or
  visual-spatial processing problems
• Font changes
• Screen colour changes
• High end LD software is designed with easy
  icons to do this. Examples
• WYNN
• Kurzweil 3000
• TextHelp Gold
• Accessibility features built into
• Microsoft products

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How Does IT Help Students with LD?

• IT that helps with organization
• Inspiration software for essays, agenda, time
  management
• Personal digital assistants (PDAs) help with
• Organization and remembering important
  information
• Students can have it with them at all times

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Word Prediction Software WordQ

• What is word prediction software?
• Demo

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Word Prediction Software WordQ

• Advantages easier to
• Identify correct words
• Identify correct spelling
• Increase writing speed
• Memorize new words with correct spelling

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Word Prediction Software WordQ

• Disadvantages
• Cost full version costs approx. 200
• Incompatibility with some programs
• Incompatibility with Internet based software
• Not available for all computers
• Lack of knowledge by students, parents,
  professors

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IT For Students With LD Research Practice

• Adaptech Research Network
• Interdisciplinary grant funded research team
• Based at Dawson College in Montreal
• College and university students with disabilities
• Empirical research on e-learning access needs
• Research conducted bilingually
• Students, faculty, campus-based disability
  service providers, IT specialists,
  administration
• Inform community and decision makers

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IT For Students With LD Research Practice

• Free and inexpensive IT for students with LD
• Grammar and spell check
• Available in Microsoft and other office
  products
• Word Prediction
• Menu box pops up suggesting ways to complete a
  word the user has begun to type
• Laptops and smart keyboards
• Allow for note taking by typing

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IT For Students With LD Research Practice

• Free and inexpensive IT for students with LD
• Voice Recognition Dictation
  Microsoft Word
• Dictate words instead of typing
• Make an MP3 file
• www.nextup.com/TextAloud
• Screen Reader
• Text-to-speech software reads text
• Highlighting
• Text is highlighted on screen to ensure that
  every word is read

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IT For Students With LD Tools For Success!

• Free and inexpensive software
• www.adaptech.org/downloads