RE: A symbolic WAI homepage *U

Al wrote:

Also, as a note, I suspect that from the standpoint of the learning
objectives
of the students, it may make more sense to introduce speech-to-text into
their
experience before text-to-speech.  As I recall, the classic way to teach
writing was to get the student to draw a picture and tell the story of what
is
in the picture.  Then the teacher writes down the story and mounts it with
the
picture.  If the leap to the idea that these squiggles on the page could be
related to human utterance is a high hurdle, best to attack it first with an
utterance the student really relates to -- like what they said.

This is just a wild guess.  The team at CAST would have much more and better
clues than this.

Chuck responds:

Of course this is no right or wrong way unless one considers the purpose of
the activity.  If the purpose is the generate a report, text-to-speech along
with synchronized highlighting in an environment that allows supported
searching (spell checking, key word support, etc.), organizing of found
treasures (such as iHarvest support), then easy copy and past with
attribution to a writing or presentation environment.  Having speech-to-text
support to enrich the finding with headings and personalized comments is
important too.

If, on the other hand, the purpose is to expose learners to content which is
of high personal interest so that they are willing to struggle with the text
and images to get meaning that is important to them while engaged in
improving reading abilities, then you want supports that are just-in-time
and a way to save words that were difficult into a database for analysis by
computer or teacher a bit later.  Fortunately, in digital environments,
students can draw pictures and develop concept maps (even better) on the
road to improved written communication.

Purpose is significant and so are the concepts of Vigotsky with regard to
providing a proper balance of support and challenge within the learning
environment.

Chuck


__________________________________
Chuck Hitchcock
Chief Education Technology Officer, and
Director, National Center on
Accessing the General Curriculum,
CAST, Inc.,
39 Cross Street, Peabody, MA 01960
Email chitchcock@cast.org
Voice +1 978-531-8555 x233
TTY   +1 978-531-3110
Fax   +1 978-531-0192
<http://cast.org/>
<http://cast.org/bobby/>

Received on Monday, 10 April 2000 10:44:16 UTC