Another AT tool to help students with writing, reading or physical disabilities create a written work is Clicker 6 (latest version). Like CoWriter it has banks of words and uses word prediction software to ease and quicken the writing process. It also has grids of words and/or pictures (more than one grid can be opened at a time), that allow students to get a choice of words that would relate to what they are writing. No longer must they know the initial sound of a word, instead for students who struggle even with word choice, there is now a tool to give them options. Here's a link to a video to see how it works; it seems pretty intuitive.
http://www.cricksoft.com/us/products/tools/clicker/video.aspx
It costs $350 for an individual computer and the more that are used by a school, the lower the price goes. This tool seems more useful for elementary and middle school students, though I could see it helping ESL students in the high school or students with very limited writing skills. I like that pictures are included too; students can download an image and attach it to their writing. This seems like it could increase some students' motivation to write.
Finally, their writing is read aloud. They can check whether what they wrote makes sense on their own. This really facilitates student independence.
No comments:
Post a Comment