Re: EOWG: Agenda, Friday December 15, 2000

In case i have problems on friday

I particularly like this*

its brief, well expressed and lays out problems and partial solutions,
without being palliative.


I gather the LD section is being reworked.
I'd like to know more, this could be a 'set text' for introduction to work &
use of computer skills.
Bagging and shelf stacking have very limited appeal.
In the uk, due to our social security payments system, it is difficult to
justify employment. Most clients would be financially more secure
unemployed, though they are allowed to earn about $20 a week without
affecting their payments.


Employment is a goal, however, for those that can expect to spend a many
years in lifelong learning, entertainment and education are more
representative, and that is why searching for music, with its immediate
rewards is a core activity, as is the end of term disco .
Good games of an appropriate skill level and with suitable rewards are very
motivating and build confidence. Games design, which might involve, java,
flash, or indeed applications are an area that also need defining with
regard to accessibility, particularly so far as the relations of timing,
graphics, sounds and text.

When searching the web manages to feel like a good game, we will have
achieved much.

jonathan

*Classroom student with dyslexia
Ms. Olsen attends middle school, and particularly likes her literature
class. She has attention deficit disorder with dyslexia, and the combination
leads to substantial difficulty reading. However with recent accommodations
to the curriculum she has become enthusiastic about this class.

Her school has started to use more online curricula to supplement class
textbooks. She was initially worried about reading load, since she reads
slowly. But recently she tried text to speech software, and found that she
was able to read along visually with the text much more easily when she
could hear certain sections of it read to her with the speech synthesis,
instead of struggling over every word.

Her class' recent area of focus is Hans Christian Andersen's writings, and
she has to do some research about the author. When she goes onto the Web,
she finds that some sites are much easier for her to use than others. Some
of the pages have a lot of graphics, and those help her focus in quickly on
sections she wants to read. In some cases, though, where the graphics are
animated, it is very hard for her to focus, and so it helps to be able to
freeze the animated graphics -- [and then explain that without the alt text
it's harder to know the content]

One of the most important things for her has been the level of accessibility
of the Web-based online library catalogues and the general search functions
on the Web. Sometimes the search options are confusing for her. Her teacher
has taught a number of different search strategies, and she finds that some
sites provide options for a variety of searching strategies and she can more
easily select searching options that work well for her.

Received on Thursday, 14 December 2000 05:37:55 UTC