Cat Molyneaux of Guildford College supports a severely dyslexic
learner on a botanical course. The learner requires audio resources and
after our project launch on Nov 8, she thought about getting text
converted to audio for the learner, using Dspeech, Balabolka or similar.
After further discussion, other requirements came up - the learner
needed to be able to revise plant identification and to make notes when
they were doing practical work. We needed a tool that was
mobile-friendly and collaborative, so that the teacher could provide
feedback using audio as well.
What tools do you use to record pictures and audio commentary? I can
think of quite a few, but once you throw in the additional requirement
of being able to edit or add to something you have created, you find
yourself thinking about desktop-based solutions. We needed to stay
mobile.
I've been a user of Evernote for many years now and have had limited
opportunity to explore its use in a learning situation. This is one
situation where Evernote really does shine through.
I showed Cat how easy it was to take a picture using Evernote (or to
upload one) and to add audio to the note. You can organise the notes
into notebooks so the learner can create different sets for trees or
flowers. By tagging the notes with keywords, you can easily view subsets
of the resources (although this won't help this particular dyslexic
learner).
We were able to add multiple audio files and picture files on a note.
The teacher can share a note with learners or even a notebook (a
collection of notes).
For true collaboration, you would need a premium account. I have a
premium account as I use Evernote extensively and think it's worth
paying for the extra upload allowance (£35 for the year). Just one
person needs the premium account (the teacher for instance) - this
allows you to give editing rights to the notes so learners can add their
own pictures, text and audio.
We're really excited about how this could transform the learning for
this particular student, but also open up a new way of working for
everyone in the class.
To practice what we preach, Cat and I are also going to 'stay in
touch' on the project using Evernote. You can view the notes we've made
so far here:
https://www.evernote.com/pub/lilsk/guildford
Very much a work in progress but hope you can see the potential too!
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