Learning_Statements_3_Dec_09


 * Aleksandra Taylor: Learning Statements End of Term December 2009 **
 * Learning Statement 1: ** I have learned, through the course of my field study, the importance of scaffolding learning in order to support my students in their writing activities, and in my aids’ ability to assist these students.

Another issue I came across was the training of aids to support my student in his use of DNS. I asked the student and the aid to use DNS to talk out a chapter summary of the novel __Breadwinner.__ I wanted to see what the results would be; with the student being familiar with the program and the aid being given minimal instructions. These instructions included the purpose of the program, and simple operating instructions. After forty minutes the student and aid had finished the chapter summary. Initially, I was pleased to see that the student had a summary one typed page long. However, none of the summary made any sense. I quickly realized that I also needed to scaffold the aids learning around DNS as well.
 * Elaboration: **  Even though the student made claims of having good ideas, he at times struggled to come up with any ideas and then having the technology did not help him. I thought this students’ writing would greatly improve with Dragon Naturally Speaking (DNS). However, at times he had the technology and was unable to organize his thoughts into sentences. I attempted to scaffold with the use of mind maps with varying degrees of support; scribing, using Inspiration, etc. I have no doubt that if the student continues to train to use the program that he will continue to make gains as a writer.

 This summer I went to England. We saw lots of things there. I saw lots of relatives there. Like my great great grandma she is 89 years old. She lives in a house. I also had an uncle he has two cats their names are Amber and William. Amber and William. My sister loves them. We stayed for four nights there. My room had a computer in. We went to Legoland We met my second cousins there we went on lots of rides there. After some rides we had some lunch. After that we went to some more rides. After that we went to Mike's house and played with his cat's. And the next day we went to a park and played there for a while. And then we went back to Mike's house and had some lunch. Then we played with the cat's some more before long it was bedtime. And then the next morning we went to uncle Joe's house we stayed there for about three nights in total we also rented a car it was big in black he also went to lots of pubs in England that's what they call restaurants. One time what you want pub all our cousins were waiting for us including our great great grandma. She goes to lots of bingo games. ||   Here is a small sample of the summary written by the student with the aid: //My summary provided this day over a few days. I rather stay home for a few days. She wanted to get water gun but beyond that she went to be with her family I need a break she told her mother I don't want to see anything a liberal while mother admits we are entered by the events at the stadium or other//…..  Unfortunately, the aid did not read what he said, nor did she let him stop to make corrections when he asked. When I questioned the student after he commented, “(The aid) didn’t know anything really. She thought it would get every word right. When I tried to tell her, ‘Shouldn’t we stop and correct?’, she said ‘No, let’s keep going and we’ll correct after’.” I would not let a student and aid work on another program again unless I was able to devote the time at that moment to monitor and scaffold an aid’s learning as well. Self-Assessment in Capacities: ** The two capacities this learning statement touched on is: • Engage in critical cycle of action-reflection to understand and develop your practice. By acting on the implementation of DNS, reflecting on what worked for the student/aid and what didn’t work for them I would change the amount of time I spend in scaffolding their learning. • Draw on educational theories, research and philosophies to inform your use of technologies to support teaching and learning. The educational theory that has shaped my thinking around the actual use of this technology was Vygotsky’s Theory of Learning. Connection to Educational Theory: ** I looked at how Vygotsky’s Theory of Learning influenced my thinking around the field study. My student struggled with any written output activities, and was incapable of completing these tasks on his own. My student had some knowledge of how to write, in the conventional sense, and he had some prior knowledge about the DNS program. In my mind I wanted to scaffold his learning around both these topics. The definition of scaffolding being “where the adult continually adjusts the level of his or her help in response to the child’s level of performance”(Doolittle, 1997). Vision or Goals: ** Furthermore, I learned that the introduction of a technology needs to be closely monitored and supported. My student was not able to get a good result when his aid assisted him with DNS given minimal instructions on my part. My student still needed a lot of scaffolding to complete some assignments even with various pieces of technology were at his disposal. My goal for myself would be to allocate more time to scaffolding instruction to aids, and to my student in terms of support prior to using the technology.
 * Evidence: ** My evidence showed that the student was a much more capable writer when he used Dragon Naturally Speaking software. The first picture is an example of the student’s writing prior to working with DNS, and the next is the same piece of work done on DNS. In the DNS piece the student has included more interesting details into his writing, and the piece of writing is longer. (Sample shown is only a part of the finished product.) The student was given more time to complete the DNS piece as he was training the program at the same time.
 * __ My summer __


 * Learning Statement 2: ** I learned that Dragon Naturally Speaking had limitations and opportunities that I did not consider prior to using it with my student.

Also, training of students to use DNS requires students with an LD to speak with pauses, to be able to read what has been written for them, and to be able to correct what has come up on the screen. Many students with LD are not able to perform these tasks effectively (Higgins & Raskind; 2004). When the student corrects a word that continuously comes up incorrectly, the student is asked to discern between many similarly spelled and sounding words. Or the student can make corrections by commanding DNS to ‘Spell that’ word. This requires the student to know the spelling of a certain word, and to be able to speak the letters clearly enough for DNS. DNS offers the use of the NATO phonetic alphabet as a feature for spelling out the word. Considering that most adults do not know the proper usage of the NATO phonetic alphabet,(Alfa for A, Bravo for B), I would not even begin to attempt to teach students with LD and spelling difficulties this special feature of DNS. Speech recognition is not as accurate with children’s voices, and some children cannot be recognized at all (Higgins & Raskind, 2000). My student had a difficult time having DNS recognize certain words that he pronounced. For example, his spoken word ‘you’, slowed down by the student, frequently became ‘EU’ in text format. The use of speech recognition in the classroom as an assistive technology has proved difficult to implement (Raskind, et al., 1999). My student, when asked, chose to stay within my small classroom rather than take the technology into his own classroom. Therefore, separating himself from his peers was a better option for him, in his mind, than trying to use the technology amidst his peer group. Also, even if my student had chosen to enter into his classroom with Dragon Naturally Speaking, he would have likely not been able to use it due to the classroom’s background noise. Dragon had a tendency to pick up on my voice when I was training him in how to use the commands effectively. Also, in a quieter classroom environment, the dictation by one student aloud would likely disrupt other students. For example, the use of DNS in a silent reading situation or during silent independent work would likely interrupt other students. Self-Assessment in Capacities: ** The three capacities this learning statement touched on is: • Use, evaluate and integrate existing and emerging technologies into your practice I used and evaluated Dragon Naturally Speaking into my teaching of writing skills. • Sound background knowledge about technology; its applications and limitations I challenged my thinking around how Dragon Naturally Speaking could be applicable to students and evaluated it’s limitations as a program. • Draw on educational theories, research and philosophies to inform your use of technologies to support teaching and learning I relied on research done by other professionals to help shape my thinking around DNS, as per bibliography at the end of Field Study Summary. Also, I found a number of articles written by Higgins and Raskind that helped me consider the limitations ( as mentioned in the evidence section) of Dragon Naturally Speaking. Vision or Goals: ** The skills needed to use DNS are very sophisticated, and they would be skills useful for all students to acquire. Therefore, I now see that all s tudents, regardless of a learning disability, should have access to technology which is normally considered for use with children with LD, as an adaptation. Children, who do not have the same struggles as children with LD, can also make gains in literacy skills using ‘adaptive technology’ (Wetzel, K. 1996).
 * Elaboration/ Evidence: ** However, despite the positive results reported in many studies, speech recognition technology is not without difficulties (Follansbee, 2000; Higgins & Raskind, 2000; MacArthur & Cavalier, 2002; Raskind, et al 1999). Training student’s to proficiency is time consuming. I discovered that I needed 4-5 48 minute blocks in which to set up Dragon Naturally Speaking with my student.
 * Connection to Educational Theory: ** Once I started to investigate the research done over the past twenty years on speech to text technologies, I realized the technology’s limitations and sophistication for the use of children with LD. I found the article, “Speech-Recognizing Computers: A Written-Communication Tool for Students with Learning Disabilities?”(Wetzel, K. ;1996) useful in helping me think about how sophisticated a student’s skills need to be in order to use speech to text; in terms of skills around : pronunciation, spelling, dictation, computer, oral composition, reading, learning of a new DNS language of commands etc.
 * Learning Statement 3: **I learned the importance of my students to reflect on what they have learned through the use of technology and how they are more motivated to learn.

Evidence: **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';">I have included a few before and after questions I asked the student that deal with motivational issues. As mentioned before, a sense of accomplishment and self respect were internal motivators for my student, and recognition and attention were external motivators for him. My student’s sense of self respect improved from September to November using DNS. When asked how he viewed himself as a writer, his perception of himself went up from a ‘so-so writer’ to an ‘average-good writer’. Before he viewed himself as a messy and slow writer; he now perceived himself as fast with DNS, and someone who was capable of producing a product with DNS that he was proud of. When asked about his biggest challenges as a writer, his perception in this area also had an interesting shift. Prior to DNS he was worried what others thought of his writing, i.e. teachers couldn’t read it, and after DNS he became more concerned about getting the written product to sound right, i.e. fluency, omissions, punctuation. This was a huge shift, from a focus on the appearance of the writing to the actual product.
 * Elaboration: **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';"> As part of my large field study question, I asked whether or not Dragon Naturally Speaking (DNS) had an influence on a student’s motivation to improve their writing skills. I found that there were both internal and external influences/motivators that I wanted to be aware of. My student, according to Maslow, needed to have his esteem needs fulfilled on an internal and external motivating level as it pertained to written output. A sense of accomplishment and self respect were internal motivators for my student, and recognition and attention were external motivators for him. It was important for me to ask interview questions prior to the use of DNS, and post DNS, as through this process the student was able to vocalize upon his reflections around his own motivating factors.
 * <span style="background-color: #00b050; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10pt;">**<span style="color: white; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';">Writing Inventory/Interview: ** || <span style="background-color: #00b050; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10pt;">**<span style="color: white; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';">SEPTEMBER ** || <span style="background-color: #00b050; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10pt;">**<span style="color: white; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';">NOVEMBER ** ||
 * <span style="background-color: #00b050; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10pt;">**<span style="color: white; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';">8. What is your favorite kind of writing? ** || <span style="background-color: #00b050; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10pt;">**<span style="color: white; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';">Journal writing done in class ** || <span style="background-color: #00b050; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10pt;">**<span style="color: white; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';">Language Arts done on Dragon because DNS is easier when I don’t have to write or type. ** ||
 * <span style="background-color: #00b050; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10pt;">**<span style="color: white; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; msobidifontfamily: 'Comic Sans MS'; msofareastfontfamily: 'Comic Sans MS'; msolist: Ignore;">9. ****<span style="color: white; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';">Describe yourself as a writer. ** || <span style="background-color: #00b050; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10pt;">**<span style="color: white; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';">So-so writer, slow, messy but getting better, write for homework, good ideas. ** || <span style="background-color: #00b050; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10pt;">**<span style="color: white; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';">Average-Good, good at spelling, slow writer but fast with DNS, I like it ( in reference to the final writing product done with DNS), good ideas ** ||
 * <span style="background-color: #00b050; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10pt;">**<span style="color: white; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; msobidifontfamily: 'Comic Sans MS'; msofareastfontfamily: 'Comic Sans MS'; msolist: Ignore;">10. ****<span style="color: white; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';">What are your biggest challenges as a writer? ** || <span style="background-color: #00b050; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10pt;">**<span style="color: white; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';">Neatness, teachers can’t read my writing ** || <span style="background-color: #00b050; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10pt;">**<span style="color: white; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';">I forget some pieces, miss out words, or I put them on the wrong line. ** ||
 * <span style="background-color: #00b050; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10pt;">**<span style="color: white; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; msobidifontfamily: 'Comic Sans MS'; msofareastfontfamily: 'Comic Sans MS'; msolist: Ignore;">11. ****<span style="color: white; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';">Perfect situation to write, describe it. ** || <span style="background-color: #00b050; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10pt;">**<span style="color: white; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';">Computer at home, most comfortable ** || <span style="background-color: #00b050; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10pt;">**<span style="color: white; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';">Dragon in resource room because it is quiet. “Classroom is noisy…so might not work. I think Dragon would disrupt (the other students) in the classroom…it would be annoying for them, me saying every word aloud in front of them”. ** ||
 * <span style="background-color: #00b050; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10pt;">**<span style="color: white; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; msobidifontfamily: 'Comic Sans MS'; msofareastfontfamily: 'Comic Sans MS'; msolist: Ignore;">13. ****<span style="color: white; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';"> When people ask you to write, how do you feel? ** || <span style="background-color: #00b050; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10pt;">**<span style="color: white; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';">Nervous, scared that it will end up being for homework, scared about the length of assignments ** || **<span style="background-color: #00b050; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 10pt;">Pretty good ** ||

• Engage in critical cycle of action-reflection to understand and develop your practice. I had my student reflect on his own learning around the use of DNS, and hence it improved his perception of himself. As a result, of this reflection he was able to vocalize and see how he caused a huge shift in his writing progress. • Ability to select and use appropriate technologies for a safe and rich learning environment. Through the use of Dragon Naturally Speaking my student progressed from one who was nervous of the writing process to one who felt good about his writing, was eager to hand it in, and felt safe to use the technology among his peer group within my resource room. Connection to Educational Theory: **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';">When I looked at motivating factors for my student to improve upon his writing I turned to Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory. My student had his lower, basic need levels fulfilled within his classroom; physiological, safety, and social needs. My student, according to Maslow, needed to have his esteem needs fulfilled on an internal and external motivating level as it pertained to written output. A sense of accomplishment and self respect were internal motivators for my student, and recognition and attention were external motivators for him. Some might argue that his need to do well as a writer would also influence his social needs of acceptance within the classroom environment.
 * Self-Assessment in Capacities: **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';"> The two capacities this learning statement touched on is:


 * Vision or Goals: **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';">In the future I plan to use more self-evaluation for my students so that they can internalize their learning through reflections. What is/or is not working for them, what is/or is not motivating for them, have they grown as a learner/or are they still where they were, and why that is.