Return-Path: <nifl-womenlit@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id gA5I9TX28405; Tue, 5 Nov 2002 13:09:29 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 13:09:29 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <sdc7c235.004@langate.gsu.edu> Errors-To: alcrsb@langate.gsu.edu Reply-To: nifl-womenlit@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-womenlit@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-womenlit@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: "Daphne Greenberg" <ALCDGG@langate.gsu.edu> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-womenlit@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-WOMENLIT:2367] infusion of assistive technologies into curriculum X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise Internet Agent 6.0.2 Status: O Content-Length: 2298 Lines: 51 Daphne - please post this as a response to Jenny Horsman's response - I couldn't get it to go through to the list. THanks! Hello Jenny and all - So great to get this message - I'm currently on a fed. fellowship from NIDRR (National INstitute of Disability and Rehab. Research) to study the infusion of these types of assistive technologies into adult literacy and education curriculums. I'm conducting participatory action research with adult ed. students with learning disabilities to investigate with them how they learn with these technologies, what impact they have on their sense of self-as-learner, and how and if these technologies can provide some of the multi-sensory, intense, explicit experience that students with LD need. So cool that I got funded! As some (very) preliminary findings, I can say that 1. Working on these technologies are very motivating to students 2. They are not easy to learn or to navigate, and require some pretty sophisticated Windows based skills (which we are learning as we go) 3. A lab aide/coach is KEY to using them to the best of their ability - especially at the beginning 4. The literacy tutoring that I am doing on/with/beside them while we learn to use the technologies is really powerful - relevant, in the moment, scaffolded - all good thing! 5. I can't tell yet if students' phonological or orthographic awareness or their fluency has been positively affected by their time on the technologies this fall, I'll need to do post-testing before I can say that. I can say that there has been a lot of learning going on even if it doesn't show up on the standardized tests (which I hope it will). All of these programs are expensive, so if programs want/can afford them, they should factor IN the cost of a trained lab aide to help students really utilize the features that will make the difference. Also, all these great new programs need great, new computers. Our program is struggling on that front, so I imagine that many others are, too. Stay tuned for further findings! I'll post them here and will be doing conference presentations around once I get some hard findings. Heidi Silver-Pacuilla LD Resource Instructor Pima College Adult Education 401 N. Bonita Ave. Tucson, AZ 85709-5600 (520) 206-6500
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