The April/May 2019 edition of Closing The Gap Solutions contains a fantastic article, "Using Strategy Instruction and Flexible Assistive Technology Tools: A Winning Combination for Secondary Learners with Disabilities to be Able to Meet Next Generation Learning Standards in Writing," looking at two case studies in which students in separate high schools were introduced to DocsPlus to improve their written expression.
The authors:
Carol Willard is an Assistant Professor of Special Education in the Curriculum and Instruction Department at the State University of New York at Oswego, NY.
Amanda Fenlon is an Associate Professor of Special Education in the Curriculum and Instruction Department at the State University of New York at Oswego, NY.
Kelsey Wilson is a special education teacher at Altmar-Parish-Williamstown Junior Senior High School. She is a graduate of the 7-12 Master’s Special education program at SUNY Oswego.
Bailey Woodard is a 9th grade Special Education Teacher at the Liverpool High School Annex in Liverpool, NY and a graduate of the 7-12 Master’s Special education program at SUNY Oswego.
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Culford is a co-ed independent school for students from 3 to 18 years old. My work is mainly based at the prep school, where we have a group of children who require additional support for specific learning difficulties (dyslexia and/or a cognitive attention deficit). Most of these children have an Educational Psychologist’s assessment, with many of the reports recommending that they use a laptop. However, once these were in place we found that although they benefited from some things like access to a spell checker, their overall struggles with writing weren’t really changing, and they weren’t progressing as much as we’d hoped.
I had used Crick Software’s Clicker product in a past school to support younger learners, and really liked it. When I had an email from Crick about DocsPlus, I was intrigued - and I really wanted one of the consultants to come in and show us what the program could do for our older students.
I really liked the look of it during the demonstration and decided to run a month’s trial with a small group of children. I was so impressed with the impact DocsPlus had in that short time that we bought a 5 Computers License shortly afterwards.
My favorite feature of DocsPlus is WorkSpace, the mind mapping area. It really helps students to plot out and organize their ideas for an essay: we can color-code each part so that they can very quickly see how to structure each paragraph, and it encourages them to actually develop each of those ideas too.
When I was made head of the Learning Development department, I delivered presentations on DocsPlus to the whole school, and arranged for a consultant to come into parent’s evening and present it to the parents of the children I work with. So many of them were really wowed by it and have now purchased it for their children to bring in on their own devices. We now have a growing number of students in 2nd and 3rd grade accessing DocsPlus via the iPad, and then from 4th grade onwards, moving on to the laptop version.
My favorite feature of DocsPlus is WorkSpace, the mind mapping area. It really helps students to plot out and organize their ideas for an essay: we can color-code each part so that they can very quickly see how to structure each paragraph, and it encourages them to actually develop each of those ideas too. Previously the children would just start writing without much of a plan, change their minds, and quickly go off track - now they’re spreading their ideas evenly and logically across their essays in succinct paragraphs, going into more detail, and linking different elements together much more effectively. It’s a fantastic tool for revision activities too. I have tried so many different mind mapping tools over the years and nothing is as quick, simple, and intuitive as DocsPlus. Many of our more visual learners respond well to images - they act as visual hooks. So to be able to just quickly search and drop a relevant picture into their mind map makes it a multisensory activity that our dyslexic users in particular really benefit from.
I also really love the word banks. Helping children to expand their vocabulary can be really difficult, and these make a real difference. Sometimes I create my own word banks – I’ll go to the history or science teacher to see what topic they’re covering in the next lesson, and will quickly create a word bank for the students to take into class. I really like the bank of ready-made ones too though, they cover a huge variety of curriculum areas and I will always recommend that when a teacher starts a new topic, they search there first to see what is already available.
There’s so much technical vocabulary in subjects like science and history. A lot of my students would have no chance of spelling these themselves and would become very frustrated and preoccupied with that element of the task. Being able to select those relevant words and instantly send them into their documents really helps to alleviate that frustration and maintain their focus on what they’re trying to write. There is also an added bonus that just seeing certain subject words in the bank actually reminds the children to incorporate them more frequently.
There have been so many positive outcomes from embedding DocsPlus in our learning development strategies. The children’s writing output has increased, the work they are producing is more detailed and at a higher level than previously, and incorporates more sophisticated and relevant vocabulary.
In addition to my work with our prep school students, I also teach a few of the older children in the senior school. One of my 8th graders still uses DocsPlus now that he has moved up, and absolutely loves it. His main writing issue is that he rushes, which means his typing error rate is quite high. He loves that DocsPlus reads his work back to him. A lot of these children can’t spot errors when they try and read it back themselves, but with the audio support they can spot them very quickly and are prompted to actively review and revise their writing – it really speeds up their editing process.
There have been so many positive outcomes from embedding DocsPlus in our learning development strategies. The children’s writing output has increased, the work they are producing is more detailed and at a higher level than previously, and incorporates more sophisticated and relevant vocabulary. This has been particularly evident in descriptive writing tasks where students can access a variety of adjective banks that help them take their writing to the next level.
DocsPlus has also had a significant impact on these students’ confidence and self-belief. Here’s some of the feedback I’ve had from them so far:
“I like it because my hand really hurts if I have to write a lot and it presents my work beautifully (my handwriting is really messy). Also, I write much more as the predictive text works really well and that speeds me up.”
- 3rd grade student
“I like DocsPlus because it makes writing less stressful in class and during homework sessions. I use the read back mode to help me spot where I need to add a word or punctuation and the spell checker to improve my spellings. By using DocsPlus I find I get more detail into my written work. It helps me complete tasks in class faster and more successfully.”
- 6th grade student
“I love it and use it all the time. For me the word banks are really helpful. I make my own sometimes to get me started with my sentences. Also, the WorkSpace helps me plan my ideas quickly and it is a great tool for revision as I use color and pictures from the internet.”
- 6th grade student
“I’m really bad at spelling and the predictive text is amazing and it speeds up my writing. Before I would have tons of spelling mistakes in my work but now I feel confident to hand in my work.”
- 7th grade student
DocsPlus also includes an Exam Mode for students who require readers, scribes, or word processing support. We have been using it for informal exams at the prep school for the last two years, and it’s been working really well. As more and more of my DocsPlus users move up to the senior school, (I have several moving up next year), I’m hopeful that in the future the senior school can investigate using it in their formal exams too.
DocsPlus gives our struggling writers all the tools they need to confidently tackle writing tasks and create work that they feel proud to hand in. I’m so pleased with the progress it’s helping our learners to make across the curriculum.
Looking ahead, I anticipate that the number of students using DocsPlus across the school will just grow and grow. From September 2019, we will be starting BYOD for every 6th and 7th grade student, where previously it was just available for those who had specific learning needs. Now that it will be every child using a laptop, not just those with special needs, I’m planning to roll DocsPlus out even further, as I strongly believe that they could all benefit from the valuable support it offers in the areas of planning, scaffolding, and proofing writing tasks.
I’ll also be running a clinic for any children who would like to come and try it out, during which we can troubleshoot any difficulties they might have with writing and find out how DocsPlus could help. For example, there was one child who was struggling to finish any piece of work. We did some tests and found that his typing speed was twice as fast as his handwriting. We realized we could fix this issue almost instantly by providing a laptop with DocsPlus and making this his usual way of writing – he’s now doing really well!
DocsPlus gives our struggling writers all the tools they need to confidently tackle writing tasks and create work that they feel proud to hand in. I’m so pleased with the progress it’s helping our learners to make across the curriculum.
I have long been a fan of Crick's Clicker software, in all its iterations (yes, I am that old), as a tool in a learning and working environment to support inclusive literacy. Many of my students continued to use Clicker throughout middle and high school…and one even took it to college with him. Despite it being an elementary school product, the underlying functionality was so useful to them, that they continued to benefit from the support it offers.
Now, I have the option of transitioning students to DocsPlus. For those who are familiar with Clicker, it possesses many of the same features. For example, if someone prefers to mind map their ideas before formulating a final text version, not only is there a mind mapping feature (with audio note taker support), but with one single click on the finished map, a series of grids are instantly produced to support the writing of the final written version.
In middle and high school, the volume of reading expected each day increases steadily as students progress towards college exams. For a student with barriers to literacy, or whatever type of print impairment, anxiety, and/or energy issues, this is a common cause for difficulties to arise. Word documents and PDFs can be read aloud to the student using the built-in DocReader – and this can also read test papers! For many, the ability to re-read, or proof read, their own work is problematic. Once again this is a facility offered by DocsPlus, so students can hear what they have written and hopefully spot mistakes, or points that need re-phrasing or clarification.
"Students are able to take control of their own learning and require less intervention from other adults or peers."
The ability to have word prediction, curriculum vocabulary grids, writing frames and structures, in addition to the accessibility features (including eye gaze and SuperKeys), offers a rich toolbox of support, all of which is there to use, or not use, in a single writing environment. These features help with structuring their work and avoiding time-wasting moments of checking for key topic vocabulary.
What does this offer? It offers independence as a reader and writer. It offers scaffolded support which can be tailored to individual need AND it can cater for a flexible learning approach, whereby more support features are needed for some projects and fewer supports are needed for others. Most importantly, it offers control and success. Students are able to take control of their own learning and require less intervention from other adults or peers. Success is seen when the student who always "plays it safe", rather than attempt writing at a level that they feel unsure about, now has a platform that will enable them to demonstrate their understanding of the topic and task.
Most excitingly, we are finally moving towards acceptance of assistive technology in test settings, as long as it is the student's usual working method (more information on this can be found here). This is a real step forward as we are acknowledging that for some students, assistive technology is their usual way of working and way of demonstrating their learning and achievements.
It can be difficult to understand the impact of literacy barriers that many students face daily. Exhaustion from having to put so much more effort into work completion than others; anxiety caused by the demands of an educational system that doesn't always allow for complex learning differences, and the emotional disturbance caused by a daily struggle to demonstrate your understanding and learning, when your peers seem to do so with relatively little effort. In an educational age where we are looking with clarity at well-being, is it not sensible to offer a "usual way of working" that will help so many?
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