Assistive Technology Resource
As librarians, we have a responsibility to ensure our services are available to all our patrons. All is inclusive of differently able and typically able students. Surprising to me was how many differnly able students their are. I recently read an article, School Librarians of the 21st Century: Using Resources and Assistive Technologies to support students' differences and abilities by C. Copeland (2011). The author derived stats from the U.S. Department of Education (2008) that “figures from the National Center for Education Statistics indicate that approximately one in seven students have one or more characteristics that society defines as a disability” (p.66). I had not anticipated that number to be so high. I did not realize the prevalence of disabilities. This has brought to the forefront the need for my library to be up to date on assistive technology for differently abled students to use.
There are a variety of resources available on the market to meet a variety of disabilities, a range of needs, and a span of budgets. I chose to focus on Google Doc and Voice Typing.
https://www.google.com/docs/about/
Why did I select Voice typing?
The bonus to this resource is that it is provided in Google’s G Suite. The students within my school district have access to and use Google’s G Suite on a daily basis with their Chromebooks. This is an added benefit because it is no additional cost to the school district and each student already has familiarity with Google Docs in G Suite. They just need to be taught how to use this particular tool. Google Voice typing has proven to be effective as I have used it to complete this blog. In addition using a tool in an existing program available on an existing device that belongs to all students will allow for privacy for those in need of this tool as differently able students will not be singled out.
Open Google Docs
Click on Tools
Select Voice Typing
A microphone appears
Click and begin (the speaker is red when recording and black when it is not)
Talk away!
The program actually picks up your voice very accurately. You must put in your punctuation as you would if you were using voice command on your phone. For example, you need to say period or question mark to end your sentence. However I find this to be much more effective than the program on my personal cell phone. I selected English as my language but the program offers 119 languages for the user to select from.
I think this program could definitely be used for those with learning disabilities such as dyslexia or dysgraphia as they can speak their words into your document. It will allow their thoughts and ideas to continually flow without worrying about having to type quickly or worried about grammar errors and sentence structure. Students could easily go back and refer to what they wrote and get assistance from Google Docs on grammar advice. This could potentially work for those who are visually impaired as well. Magnification can be used to help a student locate the tool. The microphone is a highly visible image. Once the user knows the location of the microphone they can click on it and then verbally respond to prompts and turn work in under their classrooms without the need to type. I think this program would also benefit students who have any physical disabilities that make it difficult for them to type or hold a device.
For a quick tutorial check out the link below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW8EwD77FI4
Examples of use
A student has cerebral palsy and has difficulty typing on the keyboard or perhaps it is a person with severe arthritis and they are unable to type effectively. By using voice typing the student would be able to complete assignments with less difficulty because it would not require the consistent use of hands. It could improve student participation working collaboratively online or on individual written
assignments by being able to speak responses for work as opposed to having to physically type.
A student who is dyslexic, dysgraphia, or has other learning disabilities. Having the option to speak and have their thoughts recorded could help students retain their flow of thought and not get bogged down with spelling and grammatical errors.
A student who is a non native English speaker. Voice Typing can assist those that are learning English as a second language. They can record their work in their native language and then go back when necessary to work on converting responses to English.
A student has fallen behind in their reading and writing skills but can verbally communicate well. This program can help by allowing students to verbally record responses to teacher prompts. On this note, you could combine learning with the use of Read & Write to assist these students as well. Read & Write is simple to install and can read text aloud while simultaneously highlighting each word to increase a child's vocabulary. It is filled with additional features such as text and picture dictionaries, and word prediction assistance. It can also be used on web pages.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/readwrite-for-google-chro/inoeonmfapjbbkmdafoankkfajkcphgd
Suggestions on using Voice Typing
Speak clearly: While this feature is very convenient it does require that the students annunciate and pronounce their words very well for the program to pick up the correct words. Also there could be some issue if the user has an accent or a speech impairment that could increase the likelihood of text confusion.
Use a headset: When using this tool, I would suggest wearing a headset to block out outside/background noise.
Check your work: I would also suggest that students go back and check their work just as if they had typed it themselves. I have been doing this for this post and have found some errors along the way. The program is not perfect but extremely helpful.
Additional tips on using Voice Typing: https://support.google.com/docs/answer/4492226?hl=en
Copeland, C. (2011). School librarians of the 21st century: Using resources and assistive technologies to support students’ differences and abilities. Knowledge Quest, (39)3, 64-69.
Testing comment feature
ReplyDeleteThis seems like a fantastic tool that our students would benefit from utilizing, especially those with disabilities that make it hard for them to type extended responses. Thank you so much for sharing! The tutorial was great as well. I appreciated getting to see Google Voice Typing in action!
ReplyDeleteKristen Taylor
Thanks for you thoughts
DeleteHi Kelly,
ReplyDeleteI chose this tool for my blog post as well! I love how much detail you put into your blog. I like the idea of using this for a lot of reasons. It seemed a little complicated to use if you wanted to use your voice to edit your work, but otherwise seems to work great. I played with it a little bit and got good results. I imagine with so many kids working from home and having to do more writing in order to communicate virtually, the ability to use talk-to-text is an attractive one.
Hi, Kelly!
ReplyDeleteWow, I had no idea that Google Docs was equipped with such a useful feature! You've presented the tool and its potential uses very well--I really appreciate all of your examples of how students of differing abilities could use this technology. And I think it's really cool that you used it yourself to write this post! (I, similarly, made extensive use of the text-to-speech tool that I examined for this week.). Your suggestion to wear a headset is also very useful, and ties into our discussions last week of using hardware to enhance student learning. I definitely need to explore this feature, because I can see it being extremely useful in both my future career as a school librarian, and in my personal life. Thanks for letting us know about Voice Typing!
Tiffany Alley