Recently I met with Don Johnston (and I don't mean the American actor from Miami Vice) the educational company that supports struggling learners in literacy and provides resources and tools to help students release their potential and a parental support group called KITES (Kids Inclusive Technologies Educational Support) from West Dunbartonshire. The aim of the meeting was to look at the resources that have been given to children with learning disabilites and how to get the best out of them. Many schools have provided laptops and software to assist with pupils learning but the lack of training and understanding in how to use these is holding them back. The KITES group have an onerous task of supporting parents whose children have this equipment and software to complete homework tasks and projects.
We looked at the software SOLO which had many features that would build confidence and independence in students. One such feature in the package Read Our Loud that I found useful (and not just for struggling learners) was the ability to organise and clarify content simply by using the highlight tool. The software extracted the highlighted information and this was then able to form a new document where you could add your own notes.
The emphasis of this meeting was on literacy and the parents were asking if there was anywhere to access reading material online. One such webiste that provides free eBook is the Gutenberg Project which was founded in 1971 by Michael Hart. There are over 2 million eBooks availale for download, all of which have their copyright expired in the USA. The books can be downloaded in different formats such as RTF, TXT, HTML and in a format readable on PDA's.
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