However, these tools are not ideal in making me an inclusive, independent college student as they are not always compatible with a traditional educational setting. And professional scribes come at a cost.
As with so many things, it should be a case of ‘technology to the rescue!’
However, the software I have used assumes that its users are capable of at least some basic level of symbolic visual processing that can be used to rearrange and structure the raw output from the software.
Similarly, most screen-reader software is designed to eliminate the need for various kinds of visual processing in computing.
Any technology not designed according to the principles of Universal Design is typically not capable of being adapted by the user in ways that may have been unforeseen by the designers.
Therefore, I was constantly fighting an uphill battle.
I call on all educators to consider the specific needs of your students.
Be wary of putting them in a ‘special need’ category and giving them the statutory support you feel that ‘group of people’ should need. Everyone doesn’t fit into the same category and as such, everyone has their own specific needs.
For auditory learners like me who struggle severely with reading and writing, Audio Notetaker is my savior! This tool is designed to address the learning needs of the millions of learners worldwide with print-related disabilities such as dyslexia and dysgraphia. It allows me to engage with material and express myself purely in terms of sound and color, thus eliminating the need for any symbolic processing in my workflow.
For students who, for whatever reason, are obstructed writers, this software fullfils a wide variety of common needs. It enables me to capture everything, from my own speech, to recordings of a teacher’s presentation, to audiobook excerpts, directly onto my laptop as an audio file. I can then highlight various parts of that audio using the software’s color highlighting tools.
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