This is not cheating!
WordQ
I'm writing this with WordQ. Oddly enough, the word "WordQ" is not in the WordQ dictionary. But lots of other words are. I really like the intelligent word prediction features. They don't rely only on initial letter, but actually take into account the syntax of the English language. For example, when I just typed "syntax" there, WordQ immediately suggested "of." Tres cool.
On the other hand, as an experienced touch typist, this is taking me much longer than usual. I briefly considered whether or not my students would find using this program tedious, when I remembered that they type much slower than I'm typing now. I'm typing more slowly because I now have to look at the screen. Usually when I type I look neither at the screen nor at the keyboard. My students look at both. Since my low writers have pretty good recognition of the usual words in their writing vocabulary, they would find this application very assistive even without the speech function. With their headphones, they would be flying. Ooh, I like how it fixes punctuation for me.
But that's enough of that. Back to the touch typing. Other features to WordQ that I like are the escape feature, the endings features, the ability to import and export vocabulary files, the provision of synonyms and the ability to learn vocabulary from existing documents. And despite how annoying I found it at first, I like how closely this little sticky note is following my cursor. Because despite my vow in the first sentence of this paragraph, I'm still actually using the darned thing.
So WordQ would be very helpful for my students . . . and . . .
This is not cheating!
Today (well, actually last month, but, in any case ON NOVEMBER 19th) we watched some of the Misunderstood Minds videos. As usual, I was googling constantly, and I was saddened to discover that Dr. Levine was in fact not a very nice guy, who died by his own hand just before abuse suits were to be brought against him. Oh dear. At least his theories and research are still helping people today.
I was intrigued by the physical exercises that he was doing with the children. As a music teacher, I have long known that children with learning disabilities have problems with motor coordination. The ones who have trouble with clapping games are the very same ones who have trouble with reading and writing. Since I figured that out I've always paid special attention to those kids, and provided them with support to learn skills like clapping hands (their own and a partner's), beating drums and stamping feet.
And I've continued to be told that music has nothing to do with literacy! I've never been involved in writing an IPP, and I was rarely even informed that child was even on an IPP unless I sought out the answers myself. Now that I'm on the other side, as a Gr. 5 teacher with six IPP students--and more to come--I hope that I will keep my vows to keep specialists in the loop. So far, with only a class behaviour plan in place, I've been bending over backwards to support them, so hopefully I'll keep it up! And I plan to incorporate physical activities into my students' IPPS.
And . . .
This is not cheating!
Writing Task
This was very difficult, but eye-opening, for me. In the summer of 2010, I injured my shoulder. Since then, I had four medications, four diagnoses and four health care professionals poking at me. One of my constant complaints is that my handwriting is bad. My handwriting was never good, but even my current hand-writing is better than the regular hand-writing of many people. So I have little success getting those four health care professionals--family doctor, chiropractor, physiotherapist and orthopedic surgeon--to take any interest in that particular problem. (Fortunately, all but the last are interested in the fact that I can't raise my right arm; unfortunately, he's the only one who can fix it.)
Now I know why it bothers me so much. The problem is not that my handwriting is BAD--it's that it's not MINE. When I handwrite, I don't recognize the script as my own. While my handwriting is also now slow, less intelligible and uncomfortable (and eventually painful), it's the lack of recognition that is not just inconvenient, but distressing. I feel like there is a interruption in my feedback loop. As I monitor my writing, it doesn't look like I'M writing, and this disconnect disconcerts me, and affects the word I'm currently working on. And so it goes down hill.
So I was thinking of what it must be like for my students with grapho-motor difficulties. They THINK that they have written "This weekend I went to the mall." But it doesn't LOOK LIKE "This weekend I went to the mall." Not only is it obvious to them, but they know it's obvious to me. They are not fooled when I say "Can you read that to me? I'd like to hear you read." They know that I have no idea what it says. Well, actually, after four months with them, I can now decipher some of their writing, and can even read bits of it to other teachers. In fact, if too much time has elapsed since they wrote something, my students have forgotten what they wrote, and I can read it better than they. So sometimes we actually disagree on what they wrote in their journals last week.
Given the mildness of my disability, I can't imagine how difficult this is for them. They know that something is wrong. They know that adults expect their writing to be legible. They know that adults expect them to know what they themselves wrote. They know that their writing is unattractive. And who wants to live with all that? So they have developing coping/hiding skills. They fake it, avoid it, rush it and shorten it. WORST OF ALL: they think--they think they KNOW--that they are less smart then they are. And now that I've figured out how smart they are, and keep telling them, they don't believe me. :-(
As for me, I much prefer to type. Accept for some fatigue and muscle ache, my typing has been unaffected by my injury.
And . . . this is . . . . you guessed it . . . . NOT CHEATING!!!
And if I'm not cheating by typing, then my students are certainly not cheating by using assistive tech.
