Ryan Lucas

University of Colorado-Denver

Information and Learning Technologies Portfolio

We the People...
Textbook Narration

Problem Statement (top)

In the two years that I have taught the sixth grade American government unit, I have had several students that either have visual impairments (legally blind) or have dyslexia to some degree. The problem is that often these students fall behind in the class because they struggle with the reading component.

Situation Analysis (top)

To help solve the issue of students with disabilities falling behind, I ordered the We the People... Level I textbook on tape from the Center for the Blind and Dyslexic. Unfortunately, the tape is recorded on several different tracks and cannot be understood when it is played on a regular tape player. Since I have more than one student that is diagnosed with either dyslexia or is legally blind, and since I only have one copy of the tape, which cannot be duplicated, and I only have one tape player, I cannot meet the educational needs of all of my students with visual disabilities. As a result of my problem and my situation I want to:

• transfer the audio from the tape to the computer
• create a Web site for students with visual disabilities to visit to download the audio files

Rationale for Approach (top)

In Evergreen, CO the majority of students have access to the Internet at home, and all students have access to the Internet before and after school at school. By providing students with visual disabilities with the audio version of our textbook, I can make the necessary accommodations while still making students responsible for their own learning.

Results (top)

Transferring the audio from the tape to my computer took a considerable amount of time since I had to record in real time. The original files were very large so I used Adobe Premiere to compress each lesson. For example, the original Lesson 1 .wav file was 89.8 MB but after compression in 8 Bit mono, the file is only 22.4 MB (75 percent smaller). The file still takes an excessive amount of time to download for students that are dialing up at 24 kps, which is a common dial up speed in Evergreen, but for students that have high speed Internet access the file downloads quickly.

Overall, the students that I designed the site for were excited, as were their parents. They liked that they could follow along in their textbook with hearing someone else read. For one student the files took too long to download so I did have to burn the files to a CD for her to use at home on her computer.

Since the audio on the tapes is copyrighted, I did contact the Center for the Blind and Dyslexic for permission to make the site available. I received permission to provide the site's url to students that would qualify for assistance under the Center's guidelines, but I am not allowed to provide the site's url to students that would not qualify for audio tapes from the Center.

Evidence of Value (top)

Concrete evidence of the value of providing students with visual disabilities is still out since this is the first semester that the site has been available, but the feedback from both students and parents that have access to the site indicated overwhelming success. It will be difficult to absolutely determine the effect for each student since it is not possible to both see how a student performs with the support and without. Instead, I will compare how similar students in the previous year performed without the assistance. To date, though, the two students that qualify (based on the Center's criteria) seem to find the audio files useful.

Reflections (top)

Looking forward, I plan to explore using Flash to compress the audio files so that they are smaller and more accessible to students on dial up connections. I am happy with the format, but eventually I would like to standardize all three of the We the People... Web sites that I have built (Simulated Congressional Hearing site, Pre-Assessment/Post Assessment site, and Textbook Narration site).

Responsibilities Fulfilled (top)

Responsibility 3: Uses a variety of media to deliver instruction to students and to engage students in learning

Using audio files to accommodate students with a visual disability and providing access to those files online is a great way to meet students' needs and engage student in the learning process. Since students that have visual disabilities struggle with reading the textbook, but often can still see (as is the case of my student with dyslexia), providing an audio version of the textbook helps students meet the objectives of the unit. Finally, since the majority of the students that are eligible to use the audio files have high speed access to the Internet at home, or have a computer at home to play a data CD, the format is appropriate to the learner's environment.