Using Audacity to Help LD Kids Write

Thomas is a grade 6 boy and has a learning diability. Actually he has more than one. He might have something called Central Auditory Processing Disorder. He has difficulties at times coming up with the right word when speaking. He has incredible difficulties writing sentences.

A sentence for Thomas saying "I am going to the store to buy a hammer and some nails" might come out like "sotre hammre buy nail".

But, Thomas has ideas just like every other kid. It has been so long since has gotten his ideas out, though, so that he no longer thinks of himself as a writer, or that he has great stories to tell.

Thomas can talk. I put him in front of a computer, and opened up the program Audacity. It is an open-source program that can record your voice, and save it as a sound clip. I plugged in a mic and some headphones for better sound quality. Then I did some brainstorming out loud with Thomas on a topic he enjoys - dirtbikes and quads. I taught him how to record a sentence, rewind, and play it back, pausing after each couple words. He would then write the words out by hand. However, I noticed that he had some difficulties with spelling too. Thomas would spell the word "wheels" as "whelles". He knew there was a double letter in the word, but not which one. I thought that MS Word could help with this, so he began typing out two words at a time while he listened to his own sentences. This is an excerpt - sentences 5 and 6:

Three are deferent cines of quads there are some quads meet for racing and some are off road. Dirt bikes can do different tricks . you can do a superman grab on a dirt bike.

This is more output in 5 minutes than he does in his classroom in 20 minutes. He needs someone to brainstorm and rehearse his ideas with out loud. He needs practice using Audacity, and he needs practice using MS Word to spell check. After seeing his results, his teacher predicts that this is the way he will pass 6th grade. I am excited, and cautiosly optimistic. I work with him again on Friday, so stay tuned!

Excitement Over Something We Already Have

Yesterday I had plans to do a power point presentation on using SharePoint websites for virtual classrooms. During the first workshop on Learning Disabled Students one of our staff members talked about how some students have written output problems. I mentioned that MS Word 2003 has built in voice recognition software. That means you talk, and MS Word types, (after you train the computer first). They were astounded, as no one had heard this feature existed in MS Word. It is not as good as some of the third party software titles out there that do speech to text better, but it is something we already have on our computers. No added cost; no waiting for installation or implementation. Some of the student services people thought that this was something they will implement immediately.

How can we get the word out about these features on commonly used pieces of software that will help our students? I will do my part, and blog it!

I think my next pro-d will be about professional reading. If all the teachers in my staff subscribed to one blog each on the topic of their field of education, we would be the most up-to-date middle school in the Province. Plus, by subscribing to blogs, we would be learning in small, easy to digest bites. Middle school practice is designed for people to share out information, and so one good idea can get spread through a team and then a whole staff very quickly.

We shouldn't stop reading books. We should just start reading blogs.

Can you say that again? And again?

    One of my students in my "Computers and Students with Learning Disabilities" (let's call him Mike) just had a bit of a breakthrough in tonight's course. It was the last night of the course, and it was the best night yet. Mike has CAPD (Central Auditory Processing Disorder). This means that when he hears things, somehow the signal gets turned around in his brain so that he doesn't hear the sounds that enter his ear. He also has trouble with his vision, and sometimes what he see also gets turned around.   

    

     When I asked Mike if he preferred to read or listen to a story, he said listen - with his right ear.  When I asked him if he would rather speak an answer, write an answer, or type an answer, he said....type!  Mike displayed a good sense of how to navigate menus (file -> save, or edit -> copy), and type at a decent speed for a student about 13 years old.  So I thought of ways for him to do his work using a computer to help.

     

    Mike was showing some good skills with photo editing using a simple graphics program.  I wanted him to use a digital camera to tell a story, as he could use photographs to tell stories with less typing, than just writing out a story alone.  I also showed him how he could use royalty free pictures and VoiceThread.com or PowerPoint to create simple presentations with either voice narration or typed explanations.  Mike was pleased.

      Mike's mom reported that Mike had difficulties remembering step-by-step instructions, such as "resizing a photo" (about 4 steps).  As our lab has Audacity on each station, and many of our computer stations have headphones, I decided to use Mike's preference for audio instructions and skills with a computer to give him a way to remember step-by-step instructions.  I used Audacity to record the steps as an mp3 (sound) file.  Mike put on his headphones, but only on the right ear.  He played the steps using Windows Media Player, and pressed pause when he finished listening to a step.  Mike was able to resize a photo listening only to the recorded instructions; he listened, paused the instructions, did that one step, and went back to listen to the next step!  

     Mike's mom said she was pleased to see that he could do instructions step-by-step by listening to an MP3 file of instructions, but wondered how Mike could do this in class?  I suggested an iPod!  Some models of ipod have microphones to make a recording.  He could ask the teacher to make a recording of Mike's instructions, pausing after each step.  Then Mike could play it back, listening to just the right headphone in class, and pause the track at each step.  By using headphones on his iPod, he would not be disturbing others.  He could then save the file on his computer and his iPod to listen to it again in the future.  My hope is that someday Mike records his own instructions, and becomes able to teach himself.

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