LD Resources

© 2000 Barbara S. Heinisch
heinisch@scsu.ctstateu.edu

Barbara Heinisch is an Associate Professor in the Department of Special Education at Southern Connecticut State University.

During the Spring 2000 semester the Connecticut AlphaSmarts in the Schools Project took place at Southern Connecticut State University and several school in the state. The purpose of this activity was to increase the exposure of AlphaSmarts in Connecticut’s schools. My work in the Adaptive Technology Lab at Southern includes performing adaptive technology evaluations for children referred from school districts from around the state. Frequently when the use of an AlphaSmart was suggested during an evaluation, the child balked at using something that would make him yet more different from his peers. It was only occasionally that a child thought it would be ‘cool’ to be the only student to have one. Often, neither the child nor the school professionals participating in the evaluation had ever seen an AlphaSmart. My own son. a high school student who types well but has chicken-scratch handwriting liked the AlphaSmart, but was reluctant to use one in school, stating, “Only the special ed kids use those,” My goal in doing this project was to make the AlphaSmarts more visible in schools so that children would see them as welcome tools to help with their learning.

The people at AlphaSmart Inc. were very supportive, and paved the way for 30 of my students to have AlphaSmart 2000 loaner units for the course of a semester. The criteria to be granted a loaner were that a student be taking a college level class requiring notetaking and that he/she work in some capacity in a school. Students also knew that they would be required to give me feedback several times during the semester. My hope was that those who had the AlphaSmarts for the semester would expose their fellow students to them as they took class notes with them, and that they would introduce them into their schools, resulting in children becoming familiar with seeing others use this type of technology tool on a regular basis.

There was a third criterion I hadn’t counted on: my students had to guarantee their loaners with a credit card – this was certainly fair, but it made some of the students who had been interested decide not to participate. In the end, only 11 students took advantage of being loaned an AlphaSmart for the semester. The reluctance to participate was due partly to the guarantee issue, and partly to a fear of technology. When I approached many of the students with the idea, I was surprised at how often people told me they weren’t really good with technology. They were afraid they wouldnt be able to use it well. There are apparently more barriers to students’ using technology than I had thought.

The participating students were required to be affiliated with a school in some way. Three are teachers; four are paraprofessionals; two are tutors, working regular, specific hours in a school; one was a student teacher, and one a sub who worked regularly.

The students most enthusiastic about being part of the project were those working in schools that already had some AlphaSmarts for the students; these students had witnessed the popularity of the AlphaSmarts, observed the benefits to the students who were using them, and could scarcely believe their good fortune in possessing one for an entire semester. Five of the eleven were in this category. Of the others, three told me that they themselves had learning disabilities, and they looked forward to using the AlphaSmarts to take notes that they could read with ease; the others just thought it would be cool to have such a tool at their disposal.

While I often conversed with the students about how the AlphaSmarts were working out, I formally surveyed them three times during the semester – once in the very beginning, once around midterms, and at the end. I asked how they were using the AlphaSmarts, both personally and professionally, and asked them to identify successes and problems.

The participants had a variety of reasons for wanting to have an AlphaSmart for the semester. One student, who works as a tutor, said his school has them, but they are not utilized enough, and he felt his using it would be good modeling for the students. Another felt that if he used it at a PPT meeting for notetaking it would both make his notes more readable, and send a good message about using technology as a tool. One participant felt that as a college student with a learning disability, it would help her personally. She also noted that she wanted to see the AlphaSmart be used in the regular education classroom at the school where she tutored. It was already in use in special education classes and she felt that it would help facilitate inclusion for the special education students. A participant who is a paraprofessional in a private school hoped the AlphaSmart would help some of her students who had handwriting problems. Another participant, a first-year teacher who had seen the AlphaSmarts in use when she did student teaching in a different school system, hoped to demonstrate its effectiveness and convince her supervisors to purchase some for the school.

Initially, students were thrilled to have the units and took them everywhere. I asked if there were any problems. One student reported that when she used the AlphaSmart for notetaking in a college class, another student complained that the noise of her typing was distracting. A change of seat solved the problem. One other student raised the issue of typing noise, reporting that it made her uncomfortable when others turned to look at her when she typed. The only other problems identified were technical problems around printing or using the infrared device to transmit. Most of these problems were quickly resolved once the students called for technical support.

Halfway through the semester I surveyed the participants to see how they were doing. All reported positive experiences. One of the participants reported that no one was using the AlphaSmarts that were available at her school (middle school) until the students saw her using one. Then they began using them for notetaking and writing assignments. Interestingly, the people who worked in elementary schools reported that The AlphaSmart was not used or received enthusiastically. Those same people, however, said that their own kids, middle or high school students, loved them, as did other teachers who were interested in them for their children who were in secondary schools. After the first week, one student told me she had ’sold two’ to people who had seen her using it. All of the participants who worked in middle or high school immediately identified students who could benefit from using AlphaSmarts. Several of them demonstrated them to their colleagues informally or at staff meetings. One participant noted that the best thing about introducing the AlphaSmarts to his students was that they needed so little instruction and could use them immediately.

At the end of the semester, students were asked again for feedback. Here are some of the more interesting ways my students used them in their schools:

* The AlphaSmart was elevated to an object of status, and used as a reward for students who are reluctant to do their work, when they had been working appropriately.

* One teacher gave it to students to vent frustrations. They could write anything, as long as appropriate language was used. The student could decide if the teacher would be allowed to read it; often, students who were not good verbal communicators would use it as a less threatening way to communicate. These writings were not printed out or saved.

* Students used AlphaSmarts for journal writing. One AlphaSmart was shared among several students. They added to their entries during each class, and at the end of the week they printed the files. There was a problem, however, in monitoring the students to make sure they were respectful of the privacy of others and were not reading the others’ files.

* A student with Attention Deficit Disorder was happy to use the AlphaSmart to copy over handwritten notes as a way of focusing on the material to study.

All of the participants were glad they had participated in the project. They all found that the AlphaSmarts had helped them personally with their notetaking in college classes and writing papers without having to be at their computers. Several of them felt more comfortable with technology in general, noting that they would not hesitate to knowledgeably recommend this type of technology for students at PPT meetings.

I believe this project was successful. While fewer people participated than I anticipated, there were some tangible results reported in their schools. The AlphaSmarts were introduced to a wide variety of people who had not seen before. Three students bought their loaners, stating they could not bear to part with them. One student was planning to purchase the AlphaSmart 3000. Two school districts are planning to purchase AlphaSmarts for their students, having been given the opportunity to observe the students’ successes with them over the course of the semester. Anecdotal reporting from my students suggests that many professionals in the schools who were curious about the AlphaSmarts subsequently purchased units for themselves or their own children.

While even eleven participants created more administrative work than I had anticipated, I am grateful to have had the opportunity to have done this project. My personal experiences with AlphaSmarts in the past had been overwhelmingly positive, and I was eager to see AlphaSmarts more widely accepted as a learning tool, especially for those who have difficulty with handwriting. Removing the strangeness associated with an unfamiliar tool will help get the AlphaSmarts into the schools and into the hands of the children who can most benefit from using them.

In retrospect, there is one thing I would have done differently. While I communicated with some of the students by e-mail, I wish I had thought to do all communication on-line; had I set up a discussion list students may have been able to brainstorm about the problems and share ideas that others might have tried.

I am grateful to the people at AlphaSmart Inc., especially Linda Vaillette, who coordinates the loaner program. I hope that the loaner policy remains as generous and flexible in the future.