2000 Conference Proceedings
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CAST'S WEB LEARNING AND PRODUCTIVITY TOOL
Sheela Sethuraman
39 Cross Street, Suite 201
Peabody, MA 01960
ssethuraman@cast.org
David Clark
39 Cross Street, Suite 201
Peabody, MA 01960
dmclark@cast.org
The World Wide Web is a rich educational environment,
providing a wealth of current and frequently updated
information and hyperlinks that enable students to research
topics in-depth by visiting relevant Web sites. But the very
richness and complexity of this vehicle for learning presents
significant challenges to the many students using it to conduct
research for homework assignments or to learn about a favorite
topic. Content with heavy emphasis on text, resources that are
poorly organized, and visual and audio distractions turn a
powerful learning environment into one that is fraught with
barriers for even the most skilled Web user.
Challenges with Web Searches
To find the information they need, students must first know how
to conduct an effective search. Even when they are successful
in using a search engine to enter appropriate key words, search
results often yield an overwhelming list of Web sites that may
or may not be relevant to the topic they are researching.
Moreover, the readability level of much of the information they
access on the Web is inappropriately high.
While these challenges present difficulties for most students,
they are especially daunting to students with learning
disabilities. For example, search engines help Web users find
the information they are looking for, but they are unforgiving
of spelling errors and vocabulary deficits. Even "help screens"
are often too text-dense to be comprehended by students with
reading difficulties.
CAST Research on Web Use and Effective Information Acquisition
Strategies
CAST is currently conducting research to identify barriers and
solutions to effective Web use in learning for students at the
middle school level with a range of disabilities, including
sensory, physical, and learning disabilities. This is an
important educational transition point where many students with
disabilities flounder due to underdeveloped skill needed in the
acquisition and presentation of information. We are also
conducting focus groups with educators and school librarians to
learn more about effective pre-search, search and
organizational strategies currently used by learners.
A Web Learning and Productivity Tool
The research findings are informing our design and development
of a web learning and productivity software tool codenamed
Webtrekker. Webtrekker is based on CAST eReader, a CAST
ResearchWare(R) product. The eReader is a popular tool that
provides supported reading capabilities through its
synchronized text-to-speech functionality. It reads plain text
documents, Rich Text Format (RTF) documents and Web pages. In
building the new product, we intend to develop our own modules
and whenever appropriate, license existing components such as
encyclopedias, dictionaries, spell checkers, markers and
graphic organizers and integrate them into the core eReader
engine.
This enhanced eReader or Webtrekker will help students with
disabilities to focus on one or more strategic approaches to
finding and using information on the Web, thereby reducing the
burden of processing and manipulating massive amounts of
information: Specifically:
Planning support - to help students identify the major tasks,
prioritize them and plan a timeline for the completion of the
assignment. Search support - to help students identify
appropriate key words, verify spelling, narrow down their
search, categorize, and rank search results. Information
organizing support - to help students organize information they
find on the Web so that it is useful to them. The WebTrekker
will help students to mark sections of text, whole documents,
images, graphics, or charts and save that information with its
reference in a graphic organizer. Further, the tool will enable
students to take notes (an especially difficult task for
students with disabilities) and attach the notes directly to
the text that they have selected. Presenting/Writing support -
to help students with the writing process, including planning
and organizing, writing and editing, and presentation of the
work.
Universal Design for Learning® Components in the
Tool
CAST's Universal Design for Learning® principles will guide
our work as we develop the Webtrekker. Some key aspects of
Universal Design for Learning® include flexible learning
supports, access supports, opportunities for customization,
opportunities for self-monitoring and self-assessment, multiple
ways to communicate, multiple levels of engagement and timely
and appropriate feedback. We are currently building many of
these Universal Design for Learning® features into the
Webtrekker tool. We also plan to develop guidelines to help
publishers, web developers and authors of electronic materials
create universally designed learning materials which can be
used with the Webtrekker tool. These efforts will ensure that
students with different learning needs can easily access and
process the information on the web.
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