infinitec

UDL: Using No Cost and Low Cost AT Tools for Writing

Karen Janowski

Assistive Technology Consultant

Karen.janowski@gmail.com

Thoughts?

Cause for concern?70% of students in grades 4-12 are low achieving writers (according to NAEP)

More than 7,000 students drop out of school daily and they are typically in the lowest 25% of their class

College instructor’s estimate that 50% of HS graduates are not prepared for college level writing

Cause for concern?

National Commission on Writing reports that employers (both public and private) say writing is critical in the workplace and “directly affects hiring and promotion decisions”

What skills are required to become a proficient writer?

Inspiration document

Group Bulletin Board

bit.ly/infinitec

What skills are necessary for writing competence?

Sustained Mental Effort

Selective Attention

Graphomotor FunctionVisual recall

Motor Automaticity

Regulation

Ideation – IDEAS!!Brainstorming/Topic Selection

Research

Elaboration

MemoryMotor Memory

Active Working Memory

Expressive LanguageVocabulary

Word Retrieval

OrganizationNarrative GenerationPlanfulness/PreviewingSequential approachRevision

Mel Levine’s Work

Where is the Breakdown?

http://flickr.com/photos/aussiegall/276131991/

And what can be done to fix it?

http://flickr.com/photos/aussiegall/276131991/

UDL

http://udl4all.pbworks.com/f/1214179044/UDLWordle.jpg

Multiple Methods of …

Engagement

Presentation

Expression

Proactive

Embedded

Reaches all Learners

Ira Socol’s blog post

Toolbelt Theory

What Word processing tricks do you show your

students?

Titan Pad

Research Considerations

Elementary school children spend 31% to 60% of their school day on fine motor tasks including handwriting.

McHale & Cermak, 1992

Studies show teachers grade papers with better handwriting higher.

Only difference was quality of writing.

Students are less hesitant to reevaluate and edit their written work produced on a computer.

(Graham and MacArthur, 1988, Jones, 1996

Productivity increases (Mayer-Nichols, 1996)

Quality increases (Jones, 1996)

Keyboarding

Discussion

Benefits

Improvement in :

language arts — reading, spelling, and writing ability.

efficiency in using the computer as a writing, editing, and computing tool, thereby maximizing classroom time.

attitude toward writing—less frustration in looking for keys rather than entering information.

Benefits

Improvement in:

motivation

creativity

Rogers, H. (2003). Elementary keyboarding issues.

When?Introduce formal keyboarding BEFORE

frequent computer use

Top 10 Goals of Teaching KB

Technique Technique Technique Technique Technique Technique Technique TechniqueAccuracy Speed

Teaching Keyboarding – When? Why? How?

Studies indicate a dramatic increase in language arts skills as a result of children inputting words and sentences frequently using a computer.

THE STATUS OF ELEMENTARY KEYBOARDING: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY

By Harriet Rogers

The maximum expectation for a one-minute timing:

5-10 wpm for 2nd grade students

10-15 wpm for 3rd grade students

15-25 for 4th & 5th grade students

WPM

Custom Solutions

Custom Solutions for Special Needs

Custom Solutions Assessment

Assistive Technology Assessment:Developing a Written Productivity Profile by Decoste (Don Johnston)

Readwritethink.org

Explore the Interactive Student Materials

Importance of Text-to-speech

Why?

Student Example

Case Study

Research Considerations

Writing Next

11 Key Elements to Improve

Writing Achievement in Grades 4 - 12

Writing Strategies - explicit instruction in writing process

Summarization - explicit instruction

Collaborative Writing

Specific Product Goals - identifies purpose & characteristics of final product

Word Processing

11 Key Elements to Improve

Writing Achievement in Grades 4 - 12

Sentence Combining – promoting more complex, sophisticated writing. Combining two or more basic sentences into one

Prewriting – to generate & organize ideas

Inquiry Activities – experiential, provide engaging activities to develop ideas; compare/contrast, collecting and evaluating evidence

11 Key Elements to Improve

Writing Achievement in Grades 4 - 12

Process Writing Approach - writing for real audiences, promoting planning, reviewing, reflecting, self-evaluation, offering personalized individual assistance, customized instruction, stresses ownership of writing

Study of Models - provides models for each type of writing that is the focus of instruction

Writing to Learn – using writing to learn content

Findings of Meta-Analysis

Three Core Recommendations

Writing Practices that Enhance Reading

Have students write about the texts they read

React, reflect, analyze, interpret

Summarize

Answer questions in writing

Writing Practices that Enhance Reading

Explicit instruction

Writing process

Paragraph Construction

Spelling Skills

Writing Practices that Enhance Reading

Increase Quantity of Writing

Writing improves Comprehension

Writing improves fluency

Writing improves decoding

so, what are we doing to increase writing opportunities for our struggling writers?

Five Paragraph Essay

?

Writing Process

Brain Pop Video

Writing Process

Pre-Writing

Writing

Revising

Editing

Publishing

Udltechtoolkit.wikispaces.com

Explore

Writing Tools

Free Text-to-speech

Graphic Organizers

Multimedia and Digital Story Telling

Questions to Consider

What am I currently doing? Is it working?

What can I add to my bag of tricks?

Is this UDL? Toolbelt Theory? RTI?

What will I try with my students tomorrow?

Target at least two new tools to use next week.

Making Connections to the Research

Task Analysis

What skills are needed for this task?

What is the point of this academic task?

Resources

National Writing Project – Teaching Writing