After exploring Kurzweil, watching
the video demonstrations, and doing some research, I really think it’s an
amazing device! I love the text-to-speech option! It’s really great for
students with reading difficulties, and students with blindness and visual
impairments, which is so important! It really helps hold true that all students
should have equal access to the material! Similarly Bookshare has a braille
feature which is amazing and an enlarging tool to make text easier to read!
Kurzweil is incredible for English
language learners, students with learning disabilities, and visually and/or physically
impaired students. I loved that the two applications we are exploring,
Bookshare and Kurweil, can be used together! Books can be downloaded into Kurzweil
from Bookshare! Students can have access to those books, as well as text files,
worksheets, quizzes, and so much more! The material can be read in different
languages, different sizes, and fonts. There are dictionaries and thesauruses
available for students, including a bilingual dictionary for those English
language learners who may be reading a book in their native language. The Internet
is available through Kurzweil, so as you type in your search and find
information, Kurzweil reads it back to you!
These technological tools are great
for students who not only have trouble reading by also writing. Students many
times have great ideas and they can express themselves orally, but when it
comes to writing it down it may not be legible. I think its amazing that students
can type of their work or even scan it in, and they can hear what they are
writing as they are writing it, so they can identify their mistakes.
These applications really promote
instruction differentiation! It really helps the statement “Learning has no
boundaries,” hold true! Kurzweil can help students take a test. It’s easy for
teachers to use; they can upload a document students can access it, complete
it, and they can submit it back. It’s very user friendly and makes the material
accessible to all! It’s also a great study tool because you can highlight key
concepts in different colors and create tabs for them. I really like the word prediction
because I think it is useful for students who have trouble spelling, they can
check for words they may be unsure of and have it spelled correctly. However, I
know sometimes I get frustrated with word predictions, because it gives me
options that are no where near what I want to spell! This could be confusing if
the student doesn’t know which word they wan to use. I do love that the spell
check doesn’t just change the word for you but sounds out how you spelled it
incorrectly and then after it corrects it reads it the proper way!
In Bookshare my favorite feature
besides the braille option is the multi-modal
reading option because students read the words and hear what is being read
simultaneously! This helps students who are lower readers, readers with visual
impairments, and those with dyslexia! Decoding can be very hard and both of
these programs make it easier and great practice! What a way to learn!
These programs really promote instruction differentiation.
Unfortunately, the PC version
offers more, which is upsetting because most computers given by the DOE are MACs,
and I personally own a MAC. But it says coming soon, hopefully very soon!
I think Kurzweil would really help someone like Luke. Kurzweil has
access to digital books, worksheets, study guides, assignments and quizzes.
Having everything in one place enables students to have easy access to them and
stay organized; a file can't get lost! For a student like Luke, who has
executive functioning difficulties, all of these organization features would be
great for him. He can mark off where his class is in their reading so he never
feels left behind, and he can work on assignments and save it and go back to it,
all in one place so he won’t loose them. His teacher can highlight key points
that he should focus on when reading directions to help him with his decoding
issues. There is a dictionary feature so he can look up things he is unclear
about since he feels uncomfortable asking for help. Kurzweil will also help
with his dyslexia because it highlights words as they are read out loud, so he can
see the word and hear it simultaneously, helping him with reading and decoding
words. It is also great because it can do the same for his writing. All of
these features will help ensure that his disability will not prevent him from
accessing the material!
Kurzweil would also be amazing for a
student like Sam. He has trouble with long-term memory and will often loose
skills that he has learned. I think having Kurzweil by his side, he will be
more successful! He can take notes, highlight key terms, make a tab of
information on a skill, and the best part is that he can save it! Having all
your notes in one place and being able to go back and look it at, will be
greatly beneficial for Sam to review, and recall the information, so he will
not forget it so readily. Sam can outline information using Kurzweil’s option of using pre-made graphic organizers
to help jog his memory. Since Sam’s
written expressive language is both below grade level and far below his own
oral expressive language in sentence structure, composition structure, word
choice, and explanation, Kurzweil is incredible for him. It has a brainstorm tool where he can
write down ideas and outline his written work. Because Kurzweil has a
text-to-speech function, he can hear what he is writing as he writes it, which
can help him since he has a higher oral expressive language, he can compare it
to how he would express his work. Sam could also use the teacher-guided checklist
to review his work and have it as a guideline to know what he needs to
complete.
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