C-PEN DIGITAL HIGHLIGHTER

C-Pen Digital Highlighter

Say goodbye to taking textbook notes the traditional way with your yellow highlighters. Introducing the C-Pen Digital Highlighter that is changing the way we read articles for essays, study and read textbooks for tests and exams. If you are like me you spent countless hours highlighting the key points in your text books or journal articles for essays and then spent more time re-writing/typing your notes. You probably also use different colors for different things you need to study, maybe yellow for definitions, green for important people and so on. While some may argue that having to re-write/type notes is a form of studying, I found this time consuming and exhausting.

With the C-Pen, and individual can highlight the material they need and have it copied directly into their word processor. I feel this is especially beneficial when writing any types of research paper as it will save a person time in having to find that ‘great’ article you have with that ‘awesome’ quote but cannot find in through your stack of thirty articles. Now with the C-pen and your key points written in your word processor you can easily navigate you way to finding that all important quote.

Take a look at this great video on the C-Pen for an example of how it works. 

The Benefits of Trial Software

In an effort to gain a basic understanding of the various assistive software available on the market today and to assist me in writing my reviews I have relied on trial software. Many of these 30 day trials, in my opinion, offer the user just enough time to adequately gain a better understanding of the software and assist the user in determining if a specific software is worth purchasing once the trial is expired.

For educators who may have a student with a disability in their classroom I think trial software can be a very effective way of determining what software is going to be most beneficial. I understand that this may mean putting the software on ones own personal device but I feel this minor inconvenience can go a long way. Parents can also trial software on their home computers allowing their child to use the software to do their homework. With trial software the educator and parents can keep track of the students progress, for example taking not of how the student performed the work before the assistive software was introduces, how they are performing in the middle of the trial and then at the end of the trial. These results can be shared then with parents and with member of you special education team as evidence of if the software was beneficial. I feel in many cases having already has a student trial software gives educators a parents a base for having the software purchased for the students continued use. 

Just in the couple of software trials that I have tried I have gained a better understanding of how each software works.  Now when people ask me about different assistive software I can give them my review.

PERSONAL REVIEW OF ZOOMTEXT

Recently I have been playing around with Zoomtext to familiarize myself with this software that is used by many people with visual impairments. Before starting to try the software out my sense was that I would not find the software very user friendly, this coming from others I had spoken to about the software. I  was pleased when I started to use the software to discover that many options it has for users and began thinking that this software could be beneficial for not just people with visual impairments but for others as well which I will explain as I continue describing the software and it many uses.

For magnification, zoomtext  can begin at 1X and can go as high a 36X allowing each user to modify the text to their comfort level. The user can also change the view to allow them to see the full normal view which most of us are used to to different views according to the level of vision. For example overlay view opens a separate window that is magnified wherever the cursor is  as in the line view the document is used line by line. I felt this feature would be beneficial for people who may have difficulty with visual tracking that is not part of a visual impairment. I have Cerebral Palsy and sometimes have visual tracking difficulties where I may be reading a document and may skip a line or two as my eyes did not find the right spot, having a feature that would allow me to go line by line would have kept me on track and not constantly loosing my space.

When looking at color schemes on the computer,  the traditional black on white is not ideal for people with visual impairments. Zoomtext allows the user to change the color scheme to be something that is easier on their eyes, one popular color scheme is a black background with yellow print but Zoomtext offers many options

When it comes to cursors, I don't know about you but I can never find my cursor. I end up having to start typing to see where it is and then go back and delete once I've found it. With Zoomtext there is a feature that places a circle or a square around your cursor, never to loose it again. 

As I said before even though zoomtext is a software program for people with visual impairments I see many features that can be used by others. 

Check out tzoomtext and download a free trial and try out all that this program offers.

Giving a fifth grader the tools to suceed

A few years ago a friend of mine was teaching a Grade 5 class. One of her students had recently been diagnosed with a writing disability and was struggling to get a lot of his work completed. Even though he had the use of a computer, he would often sit in front of the computer, just staring at the screen not knowing where to begin. He often used a scribe to do his work but this often depended on the availability of the classroom teacher or the SERT.

She asked the Special Education Resource Teacher if the school had Dragon Naturally Speaking and they did. When asked if the student would  be trained on this program the SERT explained that it would be great but he did not know how to work the program. It was his lucky day as my friend knew that I had been using Dragon Naturally Speaking for years and I would be willing to train students on assistive software like Dragon http://www.nuance.com/dragon/index.htm. She called me that night to set-up a time for me to come meet the student and start training.

A few days later I went to the school and met with the student and the SERT to begin training. This student was ideal candidate for using Dragon Training. We went through the training quite quickly and by the next session he was ready to test it out using some work he had to do for class. After just two sessions he was ready  begin using Dragon on his own.

The student continued to progress using Dragon and his marks were reflecting this progress. Now when he was given a writing assignment to do he was given the option of having a scribe or using Dragon. The more the year went on he chose Dragon more as he became more comfortable with the program.

I feel that this great example of a students' use of Dragon Naturally Speaking, speaks to how a student with a disability benefit from assistive technology like Dragon Naturally Speaking. For teachers, I would recommend asking around to see if there are people available to train students on the software if your SERT and/or school board do not offer training. If my friend did not have this student in her class and did not know that I was willing to train, this student could have been still waiting for training, thus continuing to struggle academically with writing assignments.

Technology when I was in High School

During the planning stages for transitioning from elementary to high school a number of things had to be taken into consideration. One of the bigger decisions was what writing tools would I be using. I had use a typewriter since I was in third grade but this was no longer going to be beneficial. With moving to a larger school and having rotation it was decided that I should have a laptop computer. It was a Toshiba 1000 and I remember how thrilled I was to be going to high school with my own laptop. In preparation for Grade 9, I took “Introduction to Keyboarding”, not that I needed to learn how to type but more so I could have time to familiarize myself with my new computer. I still did all the assignments required, just instead of using the typewriter I use my laptop. Taking this course allowed me to get out any of the bugs that I may encounter while using the computer. One example of this is due to my lack of fine motor coordination I always hit this one particular button by mistake ALL THE TIME. I do not recall what button it was, but I do remember that in order to fix the problem I had to turn the computer on and off again to get it to work. Because it was the summer there were no technicians around to consult with so the teacher and I had to problem solve for our self. One of the computer teachers did come by once or twice to see how things were going and it was then that we learned the power of the “ESC” button. I no longer needed to turn the computer on and off when I accidently hit wrong buttons.

As I started Grade 9 I now had one of the tools I needed to succeed. The computer had at disk drive and for my class work I would just save my work and then go to the resource room to print off my work. This wasted a great deal of time having to go back and forth from classes to resource to have work printed but that was the way it was. Some teachers allowed me to bring the work the next day which was great as then I could use my resource time to print off the day’s work as others wanted it right after class ended. Today it would be a lot different as a students can just email their work directly to the teacher,

My parents purchased a Toshiba 1000 for use at home which made it easier in that I did not have to carry the laptop back and forth. For most students carrying an extra 5 pounds would not be an issue, but for me the extra weight threw me off balance causing me to fall. Having a laptop both a school and at home meant that I only needed to bring my disks back and forth.

I used the laptop for the five years in high school and only a hand full of times did it break down. Unlike today where a student would hopefully be given a replacement while their computer was being fixed, I was left with nothing. This meant any class work I had to do had to either be handwritten by me (which meant it never got done on time), I would have to go to my resource teacher to have her scribe for me (which meant time away from the classroom) or I was able to take it home to finish, which was always my preference.

Again with another transition (to post-secondary) questions were asked, was the laptop doing what I needed it to or was it time again to look into a new piece of technology. In my next blog I’ll talk about my transition to post-secondary and my first encounter with Dragon.