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Project
CBCN:Computer-based
Collaborative Notetaking
Bo
Adan, Center
for Electronic Study, University
of Oregon, Eugene, OR
>>
My name is Bo Adan, and
I am on the faculty at the
University of Oregon. We
do research in -- there
are institutes within institutes.
Pockets within pockets.
And we are federally funded
to do work with various
special needs and at-risk
populations, so some of
our work includes a migrant
education grant. There is
a five-year project to work
with secondary school students,
who are in the migrant ed
population. We have recently
done research with learning
disabled and hearing impaired
and upper mobility dysfunction
in the secondary schools.
And
this current grant, which
is federally funded by the
office of special education
programs, does work with
post-secondary community
colleges, and transition
to four-year institutions
with the hearing impairment
population, and what we
are doing, I think, it is
really nice, I originally
Cheryl had scheduled me
to make this presentation,
I think it was at 9:00 this
morning, and a couple of
weeks ago she called and
said, can you do it later
in the afternoon. This is
right about the time I want
to take a nap, so that wasn't
my first choice. But, in
terms of the pedagogy in
terms of what we have been
doing today, this really
flows well from what we
have been talking about.
The assistive listening
and learning devices that
were talked about in the
full-day workshop yesterday,
and in this morning's workshop.
Not the first one, but the
one before lunch, with Terri
Goldstein, and talking about
college choice, and student
access.
So,
I think that, what I want
to do is I want to make
this presentation to you
because I worked so hard
on it, but really, I want
to open it up and have a
discussion with you all.
I want to demonstrate the
technology that we use in
the post-secondary education
setting, and, and then get
some feedback from you and
see how it is you can see
yourself using this technology,
what impediments it might
provide because as you saw
yesterday, there is this
wonderful technology out
here, but once you set it
up, sometimes there are
problems. And what kinds
of problems, as well as
successes, so you think
you might encounter using
some of the technologies
we saw yesterday, as well
as something that we --
that I will show you today.
Because, clearly, the technology
is always up and coming
and improving, but it still
has a long way to go in
some areas, if we want to
make this facile, in other
words, we want to make this
as easy to use for our students
and service providers in
the classroom. So, let me
step out of my own way here.
So,
the current research that
we are doing feeds off of
an earlier project. It was
called Project Connect.
We were working in the secondary
schools with learning disabled
and hearing impaired populations
to provide in-class network
note taking, which means
that we were going into
the schools. We were, both
training and ourselves,
conducting network note
taking, network note taking
simply means, as a term
of art, that we are doing
wireless note taking. It
is simultaneous. It is collaborative,
and it allows for both the
student and the service
provider, whether that be
an interpreter or, or a
staff person or a hired
note taker, to take notes
simultaneously with a student,
as we talk about this more
today, you will see that
for various -- for the various
populations there is greater
or lesser degrees of simultaneousness,
so with a student who is
profoundly deaf, that student
may be using the notes as
a resource, but is not collaborating
as much because that student
will be looking at the interpreter.
Students who have mild hearing
impairments, will be doing
much more collaboration
with the note taker in class.
So, the -- so, this system
is, is facile in the sense
it allows for various uses.
The
CBCN part of this project
stands for computer-based
collaborative note taking.
The computer-based is what
I will demonstrate for you
in several minutes. The
collaborative is what I
have alluded to. It allows
for both note taker and
student to work together
to develop notes and note
taking strategies in class.
And then the note taking
is exactly that. We also
do work with students outside
of class, and in talking
about study skills and study
strategies but that's a
different component than
what I am going to be talking
about today. What we are
doing, in this project,
in the earlier research,
we were working, we were
working in the classroom.
We were working with resource
room folks. We were working
with, with Voc Rehab. We
were working with regional
programs, particularly in
our program, which was localized
in Lane. We were working
in Lane and South Lane,
so we were the secondary,
then the middle and the
high schools there, but
primarily there, we were
going in, rather than training
other people to do the work,
we would go in and do the
work, show people was we
were doing, and we would
also have them help us.
What
we didn't like about that
is that once that grant
was done the work was done.
The project was done, and
there wasn't a way to continue
this effort. And so we wrote
a second grant that would
work with, so that we could
talk to high school students
who were going to be going
into college but then be
in the colleges and talk
with the disability services,
staff with voc rehab, outside
of the schools who are service
providers, and to try to
train them to do some of
this work, and teach them,
so train the trainers, in
other words, so that this
work would carry on after
the life of this grant,
because we are in -- this
is a -- there particular
grant is four years in duration,
and we are nearing the end
of the second year. And
we are spreading ourselves
very thin. At this point,
we are in a few community
colleges in Oregon, we are
going -- we are now expanding
into other community colleges
in the western United States.
That's as far as we can
go, and as the project coordinator
on the grant, that's faster
I can go without literally
splitting into lots of pieces.
So, we are working with
college disability services
staff to provide that academic
support system. We are supporting
the hearing impaired students
in class. This is in their
regular education classrooms,
so we are going in, like,
like you saw yesterday,
I am sorry, was it Patti?
>>
Pat.
>>
Pat, excuse me, as Pat was
talking about, there are
several note taking systems.
There is CART and CAN and
C-Print. There are varying
costs, and other issues
associated with providing
any of these services. Likewise,
with this service, this
service tends to be less
expensive than the other
ones, but there are always
costs and benefits to each
of them. So, my point in
presenting this information
to you, just in a brief
hour today, is to encourage
some of you who might be
interested in seeing how
this might work on any of
the college campuses that
you are either teaching
at or where you, or where
you are coordinating with,
maybe what we could do is
come out and do a presentation,
but there are a lot of different
things out there that are
very valuable, and so it
is not really that one --
one is better than the other.
Using as many of these technologies
as are available, I think,
is probably the best strategy.
And
what we are doing is we
are supporting them in class.
We are training note takers
and students, were use Mac
laptops in this case to
take notes from lecture
and discussion. What's really
nice about there is that
with the, the laptop computers
in the classroom, what you
can also do is when the
lights go down, and there
are video presentations,
you can still be taking
notes, obviously, because
with the, the back lighting
on the computer, you can
still see what you are doing.
In class, you can take notes,
it also, because of the
portability, you can also
move from desk-to-desk,
so that if you need to --
a lot of times, you will
have projects in class.
This was especially true
when we were in the secondary
schools. It is also true
in the, in the general education
classes, in, for undergraduates,
in writing classes, for
example, or labs, in biology,
that you are working in
small groups, and when you
do that, the portability
allows you to move with
the student rather than,
than bring everybody into
a corner somewhere of a
room. So, that's a nice
advantage of this technology.
This
moves slowly. Some of the
places we have worked, include
Lane Community College,
Chemeketa Community College,
we are trying to set it
up at Portland Community
College. Clark Hochstetler,
the director of disability
services there wanted to
start this up in the past
year but was on sabbatical
for the entire year, so
we are waiting until he
gets back to make some moves
there. There has been some
interest expressed, I can't
remember the name, it is
a community college in Oakland
but it is not called Oakland
Community College. Oakland,
California, not Oakland,
Oregon. And at -- I have
talked to some folks here
this week, in fact, from
southern Idaho, who are
interested in implementing
this, and from Utah State
College, as well.
This
is a community college disability
services interpreter. If
you have all got the handout,
you can follow along or
follow with the interpreter.
I have captioned what she
has to say in each of these
slides so you can read along
here. She's been working
in our project now. She
worked with us in our previous
research, so actually --
>>
Some people need the handout.
[video
shown]
>>
Oh, we have got -- they
are up here. She was actually
with us in our previous
research in project connect,
so had worked with students
who were transitioning into
LCC, from high school at
the time. What has been
really neat about having
done this work for several
years now, is that we just
got a call from her a couple
of weeks ago saying, oh,
so and so is going to be
graduating from high school,
and wants to be in this
program, what do you think
and what you want to come
out and meet with us, and
I said, oh, yeah, we worked
with him in 7th grade science,
so all of a sudden we have
students more familiar with
the technology than even
some of the disability services
staff because, except in
Cathy's case, because she's
been with us all along,
but this kid has been using
this on and off now for
five years. So, he's, he's
ready. He's ready to --
he's ready to take this
into school.
We
have another who is going
to be going to the university
-- this is at Lane Community
College. Another student
who is going to be attending
in the fall, the University
of Oregon, same situation.
And he's going to be majoring
in, in chemistry and physics,
and we are still trying
to think about wow, note
takers for chemistry and
physics, that will be the
next challenge but the technology
is up to the task. Let us
hope. All right then.
>>
The instructor specifically
said they don't know how
to work with students with
hearing impairments. They
don't have that experience.
And they don't think about
the simple, every day things
that we totally rely on
our hearing for. So, having
an instructor in the classroom
writing notes on the board
and continuing to lecture
to the blackboard while
they are making notes is
information that these hearing
impaired students generally
miss out on, especially
if they don't have any additional
accommodations.
>>
So, what -- these are some
of the issues we have been
talking about in the last
day or so, is that we have
got -- there are people
working with Vocational
Rehabilitation. There are
people who are working on
disability services. There
are people who are working
on service -- as service
providers in other ways
that are familiar with these
issues. And the instructors,
when you walk into the classroom,
as a hearing impaired student
or a learning disabled student
or students who has a need
for an accommodation, it
is not -- we did hear from,
from, from Martha this morning
that sometimes, you walk
into -- a student will walk
in, and know that they want
an accommodation, and need
an accommodation, but meet
reluctance or stubbornness
from an instructor, and
that's true, but we also
have instructors who are
incredibly well meaning,
who would bend over backwards
to do anything and everything
that they can. They simply
don't have the expertise
for working with an accommodating
student, and this is what
Cathy was speaking to.
So
you will have a teacher
who will be talking to you
like this. As they are writing
on the board, and they have
no idea that you are missing
out. And it is not because
they are insensitive. It
is not because they are
unkind. It is not because
they don't know what they
are doing as teachers. They
simply don't know how to
meet this special need.
And so our project, as well
as to work with the student
is to help educate the educators,
as we are all trying to
do.
I
have a friend who is a Ph.D.
years ago in geology, and
she and her fiancee went
to California to meet her
-- his parents. And they
were, I don't know what
had happened, there was
maybe, maybe a tremor that
had been happening in California
at the time, and the, the
parents asked Judy, do you
think the soon to be daughter-in-law,
well, do you think we should
get earthquake insurance?
And without missing a beat,
without hesitating, she
said well, yes, of course.
And even though they had
asked her, they really wanted
to hear a safe answer. They
wanted to hear no. Because
once she said yes, then
she had to convince them,
even though she felt no
need to have to convince
them, but she had to convince
them, and even still they
weren't into it. And she
says, well how can you be
so sure, and she said, well
that's what I do. See. For
her, having studied tectonic
plates all her graduate
school life, she knows,
she understands the need.
She's keen on that and sensitized
to it, in a way that we
working with deaf and hard
of hearing population are
more sensitive and sensitized
to, to the needs of this
population.
Whereas,
the regular education instructor
who, if that person is,
is not deaf or hard of hearing,
or is not married to someone
who is deaf or hard of hearing,
as we have talked about,
or has a child who is deaf
or hard of hearing, doesn't
have that exposure on a
day-to-day basis, and so
forgets or never knew how
to accommodate and meet
the needs of those students.
So, I think what Cathy is
saying here is really incredibly
important, is that there
is -- she's not saying that
there is anything wrong
with these instructors.
They simply don't know.
So,
what networked note taking
is doing with these students
in the classroom is, is
we are working with, with
students who have enrolled
in their regular education
classrooms. That sounds
almost trite, but it is
important to note because
the point is, to be with
these students where they
need the assistance. And
they need the assistance
in their regular education
classrooms. This is not
remediation. It is compensation.
It is how do we say, what
are you doing here. What
you are doing is, you are
trying to, to pass your
biology class. You are trying
to pass your English class.
You are trying to learn
something. You are trying
to hear something. Well,
where are we going to help
you? Not, with tutoring
outside of the classroom,
we want to be inside the
classroom and doing note
taking with you. Where are
you needed? Which is then
and there.
So,
they need that in-class
support for equitable access
to information, and we have
an assumption, as we are
working with them, that
they want to improve their
language acquisition, reading
and study skills, and some
students don't. And that's
important to know because
sometimes, my ego gets in
the way because boy, I think
this is so great and I want
it to help anyone and everyone
it can, but there are students
who don't want the assistance,
and you have to be open
to knowing that they may
not want this type or that
type of assistance. The
students, some of the students
we worked with at Chemeketa
Community College in Salem
for those of you, I don't
know how many of you here
are from Oregon or not,
those students are almost
exclusively coming from
OSD, Oregon School for the
Deaf. Those students' primary
and almost exclusive form
of communication is ASL.
That's how those students
want to receive services
in a classroom. And they
don't want the note taking.
And that -- some of them
were really happy to have
it, and into it, into the,
the nice technology, as
much as anything else, but
some really didn't want
that, as either a form of
access or communication.
And
so we had to, to take a
step back and say, okay.
We understand that. And
this isn't for everybody.
This is for students who
want it, not -- it is not
something that you, you
know, like a parent, say
you will have this because
it is good for you. It is,
working with those students
and various students to
see who this best serves.
So, and, and I should add,
one more thing, this may
or may not be to the student's
benefit, but again, we are
not their parents. And so
we have to decide, you know,
we have to decide what our
role is in, in advocating
with them and having them
advocate for themselves.
Because we have had students
who said that they don't
want this, and there is
one in particular that comes
to mind. He was going there
for about six months. He
didn't want it any more,
and we said sure, no problem.
Fine. And we started working
with another student because
we have limited technology
-- numbers of computers.
And three months later he
came back to us and said,
you know what? That was
the biggest mistake I ever
made. How can I get back
in, and we said, sure, fine,
you know. We had to wait
until another pair of computers
were freed up, but then
we were ready to work with
him again.
Some
students, though, like I
said, with Chemeketa, they
don't want it, and I am
not sure -- I mean, I am
sure that that is not to
their benefit because in
one particular case, a woman
was taking two English classes,
a history class, and a biology
class. And yeah, the biology,
too. All four of those classes
were text-heavy.
She
had a lot of reading to
do. And yet, her reading
skills were not very good,
and we talked with her about
how this note-taking service,
to the degree that she used
it or didn't use it, it
can still benefit her because
if she had the notes to
refer to, after receiving
ASL services, she could
start making connections
between the concepts that
were being signed and the
words. Because she was having
trouble simulating the reading
that she was doing at home.
And that's a problem that
a lot of the students, they
don't make that connection
or see, so that's why I
include that what we are
doing there is, we are wanting
to work with students as
much because they think,
and as much because we are
trying to prod them, move
them toward recognizing
this will help them improve
their language acquisition
skills.
There
was a student, one more
anecdote. There was a student
at a secondary school in
our previous research who
had the epiphany. It clicked
for her that one day she
was in her biology class,
and she didn't know meiosis.
It was either that or mitosis,
cell dividing, and she didn't
know that. She said well,
what's that? And she read
it in the notes. And her
interpreter signed it, oh,
she says, I know that. She
knew the concept, she didn't
know the word. And if she
didn't know that she didn't
know, she didn't know the
difference between the two,
she would be at home reading
chapter whatever, three
or four, on meiosis and
mitosis, because she knows
the concept but not the
word. And when she understood
that there was a gap, not
in her learning, but between
language acquisition, text-based
and English acquisition,
that's language based, she
started using the notes
in different ways.
So,
what do we do? So, this
is the need for these students.
What we do is computer-based
collaborative note taking
is using laptop computers,
radio wave networks and
collaborative software.
I will describe each component
of these and tell you a
little bit about them. The
laptops, I am actually going
to bring all of these up
all at once. Don't feel
like you have to simulate
any of this. It is just
a bit of history so that
I can show you where we
are at now. The laptop technology
has been around for several
years now. The earlier versions,
these Power Book, 145s the
Power Book 145s were out
around '91, '92. The only
way that you could have
interconnectivity between
computers was to use a printer
cord at the time. So, that
made you pretty static in
a row, unlike what I told
you at the beginning of
the presentation, which
is what we will get to in
a little built. Where we
started, we were in a classroom
but you were basically sitting
side-by-side, and to a degree,
that can get to the student,
you are putting them into
a corner or a part of the
room, not allowing the students
to move freely as you would
any other student. You are
setting them up.
And
what was nice about the
evolution of the technology,
as you can see not only
was the technology getting
better, but physically,
geographically it say freeing
up the students in the room,
and the interpreter, and,
and the note taker. So what
happened was that we have
-- the reason I put these
up here, is also to say
that all of these technologies
are still available, and
they still work, and they
are still inexpensive because
the, the newer, the technology
gets, the cheaper the older
technology gets, and while
I wouldn't recommend a couple
of these early models that
I am going to talk about
briefly, several of these,
which are now a few years
old, are on the market,
inexpensive. You can get
them refurbished. They run
the same software I will
be demonstrating for you
today, and they, you know,
they work just fine.
Computer
technology, unlike other
industries, the computer
industry -- the computer
industry has a computer
turnover every six months
to a year, they come out
with something bright and
shiny, new and improved.
Well, however new and improved
it is, it is not all that
much better unless you are
something who -- you are
somebody that is a graphic
designer or architect, and
somebody that needs the
brand new software to accomplish
what you do in your work.
But if you are doing this
kind of in-class writing,
when you are talking about
using these computers for
word processing, and for
accomplishing your assignments
and doing all kinds of other
things, you don't need to
have the highest machine
that's out there. And if
you wait, if you like a
high-end machine, like one
of the ones I will show
you, if you wait another
six months, even those machines
will come down several hundred
dollars in price, so as
I like to say in meditation,
just everybody take a deep
breath, you know, just wait
and the prices will come
down.
As
the technology evolved,
they came out with a power
book -- these 520s. What
was nice about the 520s
at the time, and those are
the ones still available.
They are black and white.
However, they have two battery
ports. And so that's great
in a classroom, because
you have double the battery
life of these older model
laptops, so if you want
to -- if you know you are
going to be note taking
as a note taker or as a
student, if you know you
are going to go from class
a to class b to class c,
one after the other, then
either you need a place
to plug in eventually or,
you need -- or you need
a computer that sustains
use for several hours without
interruption. And this 520
allows you to do that. Again,
the newer model, that I
will show you, even though
it only has one battery
port, they do last several
hours now because the batteries
have improved. But that
was an issue for us yesterday,
right, we were talking about
the, the, we were talking
about the assistive listening
devices, and which one were
we talking about?
>>
The FM system.
>>
Thank you, we were talking
about the FM system and
that
They
eat batteries, and I have
had that experience myself
in a class with, with, I
was working with a graduate
student in philosophy. And
we were in, because she's
a graduate student, the
nature of those classes
tends to be two and three-hour
seminars, rather than a
50-minute lecture three
days a week, so one particular
class that I did note taking
with her in was a 3-hour
-- 3-hour seminar once a
week, and by the second
hour, between the second,
going into the third hour,
she was having problems
with that. So, even though
it seems like sort of a
silly issue to talk about
when we are talking about
this high end technology,
batteries are what power
the technology and it is
really important to think
about that if you are thinking
about using these technologies
in the classroom and again
these power book 520 models
have those power points.
The G3, which is -- I left
this too high. This one.
Is a really nice machine.
But, it is more for presentational
work --
>>
audience speaker:
Would you like me to move?
>>Bo
Adan: No, no, I can't
lift it because it is plugged
into too many things. These
are wonderful machines.
They aren't necessary for
doing this work. What's
really nice about them,
though, is that they have
come down considerably in
price. I mentioned the migrant
education grant that a colleague
of mine is involved in.
She was able with the Oregon
State Board of Education
to, to get about 20 of these.
At some, you know, wonderful
discount, not only because
she was in the ed institution
but also buying several
of them at, at one time,
and also, then again, because
these G3s which were so
wonderful two years ago,
are now, which were so wonderful
two years ago, they are
not dinosaurs but falling
now that we have Ibooks
and the G4 and all these
other brand new banking
technologies, so all after
sudden, a computer, which
honestly, this is like,
I don't know what, this
is like a 1995 Toyota. You
know. It will still run
for another hundred thousand
miles and you don't need
to trade it in. If it works
just fine for those purposes
and it is wonderful in the
classroom and what she is
doing in the migrant ed
project.
But
what I really want to talk
about are these Ibooks,
which although they are
newer on the market, they,
are actually less expensive
than these G3s were. These
are running right now, maybe
about $1400, $1500, and
that's actually for the
newer models now, which
have firewire, which people
are using for digital video,
which you don't need. These
first generation Ibooks
are now at about $1,000.
So, they are coming down
very quickly. What's nice
and what I skipped with
these other models is that
we went from using these
printer cords to an infrared
technology. And the infrared
devices, we called wireless,
and they were kind of, sort
of wireless. What they allowed
you to do was take an infrared
device and hook it into
the back of one computer
and take another infrared
device and hook it into
the back of another computer.
I could be here, you could
be in the back of the room,
and we could get these computers
to communicate together.
The problem was --
>>
audience speaker:
At what point in this progression
of text does that fit in?
>>Bo
Adan: Yeah, those
were -- you could use the
infrared device with the
160s and the 180s, the 520s,
the 190s, and yep, you can.
And if you wanted to you
could use it with the G3s.
And the infrared devices
were hit and miss. They
were effective, but you
had to be in a room that
didn't have halogen lighting,
and you had to be, when
we were in the secondary
schools, the problem was
that a lot of those schools,
and you never knew, depending
on the school you were going
into, some of them, horribly
for me, had no windows at
all. And I thought, what
a horrible way to educate
a child. Like this room.
What a horrible way for
us to meet. And but the
downside was some of them
had banks of windows. And
even in Oregon, where we
don't get all that much
sunlight for many months
of the year, if you were
setting up those computers
anywhere on that half of
the room, where you have
got this indirect light,
it would interfere with
the infrared signal. And
so that was problematic.
The
technology worked in theory.
In practice, it was problematic,
and we saw that yesterday
even with the FM system
and the infrared device.
It
is wonderful technology.
They just haven't quite
figured it out yet. And
with the infrareds, those
are still available, but
the particular company that
we had been going through
to get the devices changed
its name, moved to Israel,
changed the product line
and then went out of business.
That's over about a 4 1/2
to 5-year period, so we
decided okay, maybe this
technology, it worked for
us sometimes and didn't
work for us others, let's
try something else. So around
that time, these Ibooks
came out, and these Ibooks
used something called an
airport which is radio wave
technology, which is seamless
and wireless, and although
it takes a while on some
technical parts how to set
it up, once it does, it
is golden. It works. It
doesn't fail you. It hasn't
ever failed me at this point.
Knock on wood. Let's talk
about that.
>>
audience speaker:
I know on our campus with
C-Print technology, when
we try to use the wireless
stuff, and there's been
like a computer lab next
door or something, and it
gets all messed up, have
you had experiences or problems
like that?
>>Bo
Adan: We haven't so
far with this technology.
One thing, you know, I wish
the person you loved having
yesterday was in this room
today. His name was Mitch,
he seemed to know a lot
about the FCC regulations.
He was suggesting that there
is a band width 72 to 76
mega-hertz at which the,
that's the hearing aid bands.
And I was trying to find
-- I didn't bring the, the
documentation for the airport
with me. It does come with,
you know, when you buy these
computers. And so I don't
know what, what the, the
hertz is for these, but
so far, we have not had
interference with that.
Again, knock on wood, that
doesn't mean we won't, but
so far, it has worked really
well.
>>
audience speaker:
Can you speak to a little
bit about, I don't think
it is peer-to-peer, right?
Don't you need the airport
server for that?
>>
No, isn't that lovely? I
will speak to that, thank
you.
>>
audience speaker:
And the fact that you can
just put a radio -- even
though I love my brother,
Macs, and I wouldn't put
them down --
>>
Bo Adan: Yes, you
will. [ laughter ]
>>
audience speaker:
No, but you can put a PC
radio card in any PC, I
mean, you don't need an
Ibook, you can just have
the PC radio card in the
PCMCIA slot in any computer.
It is not as fast as a Mac
but, it can be on the PC
side and Mac side --
>>Bo
Adan: It can be. You
are correct in terms of
this technology, the software
that's out there for collaboration
and synchronous note taking
is Mac-based right now,
and again, is out of our
hands. The reason we went
with Macs is that's what
the software that was out
there, which is called,
Aspects, and which I will
demonstrate for you and
talk a little bit more about,
today is, is Mac platform
only.
>>
audience speaker:
Wonderful. So my next question
would then be, any Mac laptop
that has a PCMCIA slot type
thing, you could work, right?
>>Bo
Adan: I would think
so, yep. I don't know if
it will interconnect with
an Ibook but between those,
yeah, between two PCs, that
has the slot card, yes,
yes. So, there is a software
product called "Aspects."
and it is synchronous collaborative
working software, the wonderful
thing about this, that's
exactly what it is and all
that it is. It is not an
esoteric software program
that takes a lot to use,
a lot to learn, a lot to
read and think about. It
is exactly like a word processing
program and functions as
such, except that it allows
for interconnectivity, simultaneousness
and collaboration.
Just
in case everybody isn't
familiar, by synchronous
what I mean is you can work
literally at the same time.
E-mail would be an example
of something that's asynchronous.
You don't know what I am
talking about, until I type
my e-mail and send it to
you. With this program,
what I type shows up on
your computer, or –
>>
audience speaker:
Like ICQ.
>>Bo
Adan: Yes, and you
can be typing simultaneously,
as well, and working together,
so that's what synchronous
and simultaneous and collaborative,
that's what I mean when
I use those words. The other
program that we found helpful,
is something called QuicKeys.
That's not so easy to learn,
but students don't know
anything about it. That's
at the training, trainer
training the trainer level.
Does everyone know what
macros are? Anybody not?
Should I explain? Okay,
good, happy to.
It
is basically automation
software. Makes something
that you do all the time
routine. So, in other words,
if I had to, in the physical
world, if I was going to
wear this jacket and this
shirt and these pants and
these shoes every single
day, same pair, right, and
I knew that's what I was
going to do and every day
I was going to put the pants
on first, then jacket and
then the shoes, I could
either take the time to
do that every single day,
step one, two, three, four,
or if I could magically
program the universe so
I could just press a button
and it would do all these
things for me, step-by-step,
I would like that a lot
better. I wouldn't like
the smell of my clothes
after a few days, however.
What
we use the QuicKeys for
is to set up, and when I
demonstrate this for you,
it is good I am talking
about it now, it will take
a 15 to 20-step process
and reduce it to one key
stroke. And that's perfect
for a lot of reasons. One,
it means that in terms of
training the trainers, they
don't have to remember how
to do a lot. They simply
have to know how the macros
work. Two, when you are
in class, whether the trainer
is acting as a note taker
or you are hiring other
note takers to do the work,
they don't have to think
about. They can also use
the shortcut, command to
set up aspects. And then,
of course, three, the student
has nothing to fear, either,
nothing to think about or
worry about. It is one key
stroke for the student,
one stroke for the note
taker computer and they
work seamlessly, so that
kind of technology is wonderful,
again, if it is easy to
use. If it is not easy to
use, it gets in the way,
and so what we wanted to
do and why we invested time
and energy learning about
this is because aspects
is great and does everything
we want it to do but in
order to set it up every
day to do the same thing
every day, there is about
a 15 to 20-step process
of opening documents and
sizing windows and margin
and is setting things up
and it is simple things
to do, but you don't want
to spend five minutes at
the beginning of every class
when the teacher, especially,
at the post-secondary level
is already beginning a lecture
in a timely way. Yes.
>>
audience speaker:
Before you go on, can I
just ask about your application
choice especially the G4s
are coming out and the things
are getting faster, I am
wondering why you didn't
take, like a dragon speak
-- a voice recognition,
voice to text track, especially
when you have professors
that teach every day so
that, you know, the software
gets better and better with
one person talking, so I
am just wondering why you
did the --
>>
Bo Adan: Yeah.
>>
audience speaker:
A note taker, you know,
that just so much more,
especially when we type
out the cost prohibitive
and things like that.
>>Bo
Adan: It is a good
question. My answer may
not be the, may not be a
good one. It is just, just
my response. What we were
doing at the time was looking
at the best available technology
that would serve our needs.
We were looking at Dragon
Dictate, an earlier version
at the time, and even now,
Natural Speaking, 6.0 is
out. But even that, it takes
a lot to train your voice
to the computer, and then
-- it takes a lot to train
your voice to the computer,
and even then it is only
85% accurate. The head of
assistive technology for
disability services, and
at the University of Oregon,
his name is James Bailey,
about a year ago, did --
no, not even that long ago,
did a demonstration, Dragon
Dictate and here's a guy
that spent hours and hours
and hours just him, his
voice, a single computer,
and I thought it was going
to be wonderful and seamless,
and it wasn't by any means.
And so my response was that,
and may just be my prejudice,
I am not sure yet, but I
am not ready to see that
technology works well enough
for our purposes yet. I
think it will. But it hasn't
yet.
>>
audience speaker:
Has the power but not the
application strengths.
>>Bo
Adan: I think so.
I think that's where we
are at. That could just
be my prejudice because
I haven't been working with
6.0 yet, maybe it is far
better, I am only what people
are telling me and they
are saying that it is, it
is not up to speed yet.
>>
audience speaker:
There is a fundamental difference
in what you are proposing
and what he's proposing,
and that is you are getting
a speech to text transcript,
similar to what our real-time
captionist is providing
and the volume is overwhelming
for most students. So most
of them prefer note taking
that encapsulates and promotes
the hierarchy of information
and so on, categorizes the
information, and puts it
in a more digestible form.
>>Bo
Adan: And I will show
you a couple of examples
of that in this presentation
of actual notes of note
takers and students because
that has been an issue and
Project CBCN:Computer-based Collaborative Notetaking
>> My name is Bo Adan, and I am on the faculty at the University of Oregon. We do research in -- there are institutes within institutes. Pockets within pockets. And we are federally funded to do work with various special needs and at-risk populations, so some of our work includes a migrant education grant. There is a five-year project to work with secondary school students, who are in the migrant ed population. We have recently done research with learning disabled and hearing impaired and upper mobility dysfunction in the secondary schools.
And this current grant, which is federally funded by the office of special education programs, does work with post-secondary community colleges, and transition to four-year institutions with the hearing impairment population, and what we are doing, I think, it is really nice, I originally Cheryl had scheduled me to make this presentation, I think it was at 9:00 this morning, and a couple of weeks ago she called and said, can you do it later in the afternoon. This is right about the time I want to take a nap, so that wasn't my first choice. But, in terms of the pedagogy in terms of what we have been doing today, this really flows well from what we have been talking about. The assistive listening and learning devices that were talked about in the full-day workshop yesterday, and in this morning's workshop. Not the first one, but the one before lunch, with Terri Goldstein, and talking about college choice, and student access.
So, I think that, what I want to do is I want to make this presentation to you because I worked so hard on it, but really, I want to open it up and have a discussion with you all. I want to demonstrate the technology that we use in the post-secondary education setting, and, and then get some feedback from you and see how it is you can see yourself using this technology, what impediments it might provide because as you saw yesterday, there is this wonderful technology out here, but once you set it up, sometimes there are problems. And what kinds of problems, as well as successes, so you think you might encounter using some of the technologies we saw yesterday, as well as something that we -- that I will show you today. Because, clearly, the technology is always up and coming and improving, but it still has a long way to go in some areas, if we want to make this facile, in other words, we want to make this as easy to use for our students and service providers in the classroom. So, let me step out of my own way here.
So, the current research that we are doing feeds off of an earlier project. It was called Project Connect. We were working in the secondary schools with learning disabled and hearing impaired populations to provide in-class network note taking, which means that we were going into the schools. We were, both training and ourselves, conducting network note taking, network note taking simply means, as a term of art, that we are doing wireless note taking. It is simultaneous. It is collaborative, and it allows for both the student and the service provider, whether that be an interpreter or, or a staff person or a hired note taker, to take notes simultaneously with a student, as we talk about this more today, you will see that for various -- for the various populations there is greater or lesser degrees of simultaneousness, so with a student who is profoundly deaf, that student may be using the notes as a resource, but is not collaborating as much because that student will be looking at the interpreter. Students who have mild hearing impairments, will be doing much more collaboration with the note taker in class. So, the -- so, this system is, is facile in the sense it allows for various uses.
The CBCN part of this project stands for computer-based collaborative note taking. The computer-based is what I will demonstrate for you in several minutes. The collaborative is what I have alluded to. It allows for both note taker and student to work together to develop notes and note taking strategies in class. And then the note taking is exactly that. We also do work with students outside of class, and in talking about study skills and study strategies but that's a different component than what I am going to be talking about today. What we are doing, in this project, in the earlier research, we were working, we were working in the classroom. We were working with resource room folks. We were working with, with Voc Rehab. We were working with regional programs, particularly in our program, which was localized in Lane. We were working in Lane and South Lane, so we were the secondary, then the middle and the high schools there, but primarily there, we were going in, rather than training other people to do the work, we would go in and do the work, show people was we were doing, and we would also have them help us.
What we didn't like about that is that once that grant was done the work was done. The project was done, and there wasn't a way to continue this effort. And so we wrote a second grant that would work with, so that we could talk to high school students who were going to be going into college but then be in the colleges and talk with the disability services, staff with voc rehab, outside of the schools who are service providers, and to try to train them to do some of this work, and teach them, so train the trainers, in other words, so that this work would carry on after the life of this grant, because we are in -- this is a -- there particular grant is four years in duration, and we are nearing the end of the second year. And we are spreading ourselves very thin. At this point, we are in a few community colleges in Oregon, we are going -- we are now expanding into other community colleges in the western United States. That's as far as we can go, and as the project coordinator on the grant, that's faster I can go without literally splitting into lots of pieces. So, we are working with college disability services staff to provide that academic support system. We are supporting the hearing impaired students in class. This is in their regular education classrooms, so we are going in, like, like you saw yesterday, I am sorry, was it Patti?
>> Pat.
>> Pat, excuse me, as Pat was talking about, there are several note taking systems. There is CART and CAN and C-Print. There are varying costs, and other issues associated with providing any of these services. Likewise, with this service, this service tends to be less expensive than the other ones, but there are always costs and benefits to each of them. So, my point in presenting this information to you, just in a brief hour today, is to encourage some of you who might be interested in seeing how this might work on any of the college campuses that you are either teaching at or where you, or where you are coordinating with, maybe what we could do is come out and do a presentation, but there are a lot of different things out there that are very valuable, and so it is not really that one -- one is better than the other. Using as many of these technologies as are available, I think, is probably the best strategy.
And what we are doing is we are supporting them in class. We are training note takers and students, were use Mac laptops in this case to take notes from lecture and discussion. What's really nice about there is that with the, the laptop computers in the classroom, what you can also do is when the lights go down, and there are video presentations, you can still be taking notes, obviously, because with the, the back lighting on the computer, you can still see what you are doing. In class, you can take notes, it also, because of the portability, you can also move from desk-to-desk, so that if you need to -- a lot of times, you will have projects in class. This was especially true when we were in the secondary schools. It is also true in the, in the general education classes, in, for undergraduates, in writing classes, for example, or labs, in biology, that you are working in small groups, and when you do that, the portability allows you to move with the student rather than, than bring everybody into a corner somewhere of a room. So, that's a nice advantage of this technology.
This moves slowly. Some of the places we have worked, include Lane Community College, Chemeketa Community College, we are trying to set it up at Portland Community College. Clark Hochstetler, the director of disability services there wanted to start this up in the past year but was on sabbatical for the entire year, so we are waiting until he gets back to make some moves there. There has been some interest expressed, I can't remember the name, it is a community college in Oakland but it is not called Oakland Community College. Oakland, California, not Oakland, Oregon. And at -- I have talked to some folks here this week, in fact, from southern Idaho, who are interested in implementing this, and from Utah State College, as well.
This is a community college disability services interpreter. If you have all got the handout, you can follow along or follow with the interpreter. I have captioned what she has to say in each of these slides so you can read along here. She's been working in our project now. She worked with us in our previous research, so actually --
>> Some people need the handout.
[video shown]
>> Oh, we have got -- they are up here. She was actually with us in our previous research in project connect, so had worked with students who were transitioning into LCC, from high school at the time. What has been really neat about having done this work for several years now, is that we just got a call from her a couple of weeks ago saying, oh, so and so is going to be graduating from high school, and wants to be in this program, what do you think and what you want to come out and meet with us, and I said, oh, yeah, we worked with him in 7th grade science, so all of a sudden we have students more familiar with the technology than even some of the disability services staff because, except in Cathy's case, because she's been with us all along, but this kid has been using this on and off now for five years. So, he's, he's ready. He's ready to -- he's ready to take this into school.
We have another who is going to be going to the university -- this is at Lane Community College. Another student who is going to be attending in the fall, the University of Oregon, same situation. And he's going to be majoring in, in chemistry and physics, and we are still trying to think about wow, note takers for chemistry and physics, that will be the next challenge but the technology is up to the task. Let us hope. All right then.
>> The instructor specifically said they don't know how to work with students with hearing impairments. They don't have that experience. And they don't think about the simple, every day things that we totally rely on our hearing for. So, having an instructor in the classroom writing notes on the board and continuing to lecture to the blackboard while they are making notes is information that these hearing impaired students generally miss out on, especially if they don't have any additional accommodations.
>> So, what -- these are some of the issues we have been talking about in the last day or so, is that we have got -- there are people working with Vocational Rehabilitation. There are people who are working on disability services. There are people who are working on service -- as service providers in other ways that are familiar with these issues. And the instructors, when you walk into the classroom, as a hearing impaired student or a learning disabled student or students who has a need for an accommodation, it is not -- we did hear from, from, from Martha this morning that sometimes, you walk into -- a student will walk in, and know that they want an accommodation, and need an accommodation, but meet reluctance or stubbornness from an instructor, and that's true, but we also have instructors who are incredibly well meaning, who would bend over backwards to do anything and everything that they can. They simply don't have the expertise for working with an accommodating student, and this is what Cathy was speaking to.
So you will have a teacher who will be talking to you like this. As they are writing on the board, and they have no idea that you are missing out. And it is not because they are insensitive. It is not because they are unkind. It is not because they don't know what they are doing as teachers. They simply don't know how to meet this special need. And so our project, as well as to work with the student is to help educate the educators, as we are all trying to do.
I have a friend who is a Ph.D. years ago in geology, and she and her fiancee went to California to meet her -- his parents. And they were, I don't know what had happened, there was maybe, maybe a tremor that had been happening in California at the time, and the, the parents asked Judy, do you think the soon to be daughter-in-law, well, do you think we should get earthquake insurance? And without missing a beat, without hesitating, she said well, yes, of course. And even though they had asked her, they really wanted to hear a safe answer. They wanted to hear no. Because once she said yes, then she had to convince them, even though she felt no need to have to convince them, but she had to convince them, and even still they weren't into it. And she says, well how can you be so sure, and she said, well that's what I do. See. For her, having studied tectonic plates all her graduate school life, she knows, she understands the need. She's keen on that and sensitized to it, in a way that we working with deaf and hard of hearing population are more sensitive and sensitized to, to the needs of this population.
Whereas, the regular education instructor who, if that person is, is not deaf or hard of hearing, or is not married to someone who is deaf or hard of hearing, as we have talked about, or has a child who is deaf or hard of hearing, doesn't have that exposure on a day-to-day basis, and so forgets or never knew how to accommodate and meet the needs of those students. So, I think what Cathy is saying here is really incredibly important, is that there is -- she's not saying that there is anything wrong with these instructors. They simply don't know.
So, what networked note taking is doing with these students in the classroom is, is we are working with, with students who have enrolled in their regular education classrooms. That sounds almost trite, but it is important to note because the point is, to be with these students where they need the assistance. And they need the assistance in their regular education classrooms. This is not remediation. It is compensation. It is how do we say, what are you doing here. What you are doing is, you are trying to, to pass your biology class. You are trying to pass your English class. You are trying to learn something. You are trying to hear something. Well, where are we going to help you? Not, with tutoring outside of the classroom, we want to be inside the classroom and doing note taking with you. Where are you needed? Which is then and there.
So, they need that in-class support for equitable access to information, and we have an assumption, as we are working with them, that they want to improve their language acquisition, reading and study skills, and some students don't. And that's important to know because sometimes, my ego gets in the way because boy, I think this is so great and I want it to help anyone and everyone it can, but there are students who don't want the assistance, and you have to be open to knowing that they may not want this type or that type of assistance. The students, some of the students we worked with at Chemeketa Community College in Salem for those of you, I don't know how many of you here are from Oregon or not, those students are almost exclusively coming from OSD, Oregon School for the Deaf. Those students' primary and almost exclusive form of communication is ASL. That's how those students want to receive services in a classroom. And they don't want the note taking. And that -- some of them were really happy to have it, and into it, into the, the nice technology, as much as anything else, but some really didn't want that, as either a form of access or communication.
And so we had to, to take a step back and say, okay. We understand that. And this isn't for everybody. This is for students who want it, not -- it is not something that you, you know, like a parent, say you will have this because it is good for you. It is, working with those students and various students to see who this best serves. So, and, and I should add, one more thing, this may or may not be to the student's benefit, but again, we are not their parents. And so we have to decide, you know, we have to decide what our role is in, in advocating with them and having them advocate for themselves. Because we have had students who said that they don't want this, and there is one in particular that comes to mind. He was going there for about six months. He didn't want it any more, and we said sure, no problem. Fine. And we started working with another student because we have limited technology -- numbers of computers. And three months later he came back to us and said, you know what? That was the biggest mistake I ever made. How can I get back in, and we said, sure, fine, you know. We had to wait until another pair of computers were freed up, but then we were ready to work with him again.
Some students, though, like I said, with Chemeketa, they don't want it, and I am not sure -- I mean, I am sure that that is not to their benefit because in one particular case, a woman was taking two English classes, a history class, and a biology class. And yeah, the biology, too. All four of those classes were text-heavy.
She had a lot of reading to do. And yet, her reading skills were not very good, and we talked with her about how this note-taking service, to the degree that she used it or didn't use it, it can still benefit her because if she had the notes to refer to, after receiving ASL services, she could start making connections between the concepts that were being signed and the words. Because she was having trouble simulating the reading that she was doing at home. And that's a problem that a lot of the students, they don't make that connection or see, so that's why I include that what we are doing there is, we are wanting to work with students as much because they think, and as much because we are trying to prod them, move them toward recognizing this will help them improve their language acquisition skills.
There was a student, one more anecdote. There was a student at a secondary school in our previous research who had the epiphany. It clicked for her that one day she was in her biology class, and she didn't know meiosis. It was either that or mitosis, cell dividing, and she didn't know that. She said well, what's that? And she read it in the notes. And her interpreter signed it, oh, she says, I know that. She knew the concept, she didn't know the word. And if she didn't know that she didn't know, she didn't know the difference between the two, she would be at home reading chapter whatever, three or four, on meiosis and mitosis, because she knows the concept but not the word. And when she understood that there was a gap, not in her learning, but between language acquisition, text-based and English acquisition, that's language based, she started using the notes in different ways.
So, what do we do? So, this is the need for these students. What we do is computer-based collaborative note taking is using laptop computers, radio wave networks and collaborative software. I will describe each component of these and tell you a little bit about them. The laptops, I am actually going to bring all of these up all at once. Don't feel like you have to simulate any of this. It is just a bit of history so that I can show you where we are at now. The laptop technology has been around for several years now. The earlier versions, these Power Book, 145s the Power Book 145s were out around '91, '92. The only way that you could have interconnectivity between computers was to use a printer cord at the time. So, that made you pretty static in a row, unlike what I told you at the beginning of the presentation, which is what we will get to in a little built. Where we started, we were in a classroom but you were basically sitting side-by-side, and to a degree, that can get to the student, you are putting them into a corner or a part of the room, not allowing the students to move freely as you would any other student. You are setting them up.
And what was nice about the evolution of the technology, as you can see not only was the technology getting better, but physically, geographically it say freeing up the students in the room, and the interpreter, and, and the note taker. So what happened was that we have -- the reason I put these up here, is also to say that all of these technologies are still available, and they still work, and they are still inexpensive because the, the newer, the technology gets, the cheaper the older technology gets, and while I wouldn't recommend a couple of these early models that I am going to talk about briefly, several of these, which are now a few years old, are on the market, inexpensive. You can get them refurbished. They run the same software I will be demonstrating for you today, and they, you know, they work just fine.
Computer technology, unlike other industries, the computer industry -- the computer industry has a computer turnover every six months to a year, they come out with something bright and shiny, new and improved. Well, however new and improved it is, it is not all that much better unless you are something who -- you are somebody that is a graphic designer or architect, and somebody that needs the brand new software to accomplish what you do in your work. But if you are doing this kind of in-class writing, when you are talking about using these computers for word processing, and for accomplishing your assignments and doing all kinds of other things, you don't need to have the highest machine that's out there. And if you wait, if you like a high-end machine, like one of the ones I will show you, if you wait another six months, even those machines will come down several hundred dollars in price, so as I like to say in meditation, just everybody take a deep breath, you know, just wait and the prices will come down.
As the technology evolved, they came out with a power book -- these 520s. What was nice about the 520s at the time, and those are the ones still available. They are black and white. However, they have two battery ports. And so that's great in a classroom, because you have double the battery life of these older model laptops, so if you want to -- if you know you are going to be note taking as a note taker or as a student, if you know you are going to go from class a to class b to class c, one after the other, then either you need a place to plug in eventually or, you need -- or you need a computer that sustains use for several hours without interruption. And this 520 allows you to do that. Again, the newer model, that I will show you, even though it only has one battery port, they do last several hours now because the batteries have improved. But that was an issue for us yesterday, right, we were talking about the, the, we were talking about the assistive listening devices, and which one were we talking about?
>> The FM system.
>>
Thank you, we were talking
about the FM system and
that
They
eat batteries, and I have
had that experience myself
in a class with, with, I
was working with a graduate
student in philosophy. And
we were in, because she's
a graduate student, the
nature of those classes
tends to be two and three-hour
seminars, rather than a
50-minute lecture three
days a week, so one particular
class that I did note taking
with her in was a 3-hour
-- 3-hour seminar once a
week, and by the second
hour, between the second,
going into the third hour,
she was having problems
with that. So, even though
it seems like sort of a
silly issue to talk about
when we are talking about
this high end technology,
batteries are what power
the technology and it is
really important to think
about that if you are thinking
about using these technologies
in the classroom and again
these power book 520 models
have those power points.
The G3, which is -- I left
this too high. This one.
Is a really nice machine.
But, it is more for presentational
work --
>> audience speaker: Would you like me to move?
>>Bo Adan: No, no, I can't lift it because it is plugged into too many things. These are wonderful machines. They aren't necessary for doing this work. What's really nice about them, though, is that they have come down considerably in price. I mentioned the migrant education grant that a colleague of mine is involved in. She was able with the Oregon State Board of Education to, to get about 20 of these. At some, you know, wonderful discount, not only because she was in the ed institution but also buying several of them at, at one time, and also, then again, because these G3s which were so wonderful two years ago, are now, which were so wonderful two years ago, they are not dinosaurs but falling now that we have Ibooks and the G4 and all these other brand new banking technologies, so all after sudden, a computer, which honestly, this is like, I don't know what, this is like a 1995 Toyota. You know. It will still run for another hundred thousand miles and you don't need to trade it in. If it works just fine for those purposes and it is wonderful in the classroom and what she is doing in the migrant ed project.
But what I really want to talk about are these Ibooks, which although they are newer on the market, they, are actually less expensive than these G3s were. These are running right now, maybe about $1400, $1500, and that's actually for the newer models now, which have firewire, which people are using for digital video, which you don't need. These first generation Ibooks are now at about $1,000. So, they are coming down very quickly. What's nice and what I skipped with these other models is that we went from using these printer cords to an infrared technology. And the infrared devices, we called wireless, and they were kind of, sort of wireless. What they allowed you to do was take an infrared device and hook it into the back of one computer and take another infrared device and hook it into the back of another computer. I could be here, you could be in the back of the room, and we could get these computers to communicate together. The problem was --
>> audience speaker: At what point in this progression of text does that fit in?
>>Bo Adan: Yeah, those were -- you could use the infrared device with the 160s and the 180s, the 520s, the 190s, and yep, you can. And if you wanted to you could use it with the G3s. And the infrared devices were hit and miss. They were effective, but you had to be in a room that didn't have halogen lighting, and you had to be, when we were in the secondary schools, the problem was that a lot of those schools, and you never knew, depending on the school you were going into, some of them, horribly for me, had no windows at all. And I thought, what a horrible way to educate a child. Like this room. What a horrible way for us to meet. And but the downside was some of them had banks of windows. And even in Oregon, where we don't get all that much sunlight for many months of the year, if you were setting up those computers anywhere on that half of the room, where you have got this indirect light, it would interfere with the infrared signal. And so that was problematic.
The
technology worked in theory.
In practice, it was problematic,
and we saw that yesterday
even with the FM system
and the infrared device.
It
is wonderful technology.
They just haven't quite
figured it out yet. And
with the infrareds, those
are still available, but
the particular company that
we had been going through
to get the devices changed
its name, moved to Israel,
changed the product line
and then went out of business.
That's over about a 4 1/2
to 5-year period, so we
decided okay, maybe this
technology, it worked for
us sometimes and didn't
work for us others, let's
try something else. So around
that time, these Ibooks
came out, and these Ibooks
used something called an
airport which is radio wave
technology, which is seamless
and wireless, and although
it takes a while on some
technical parts how to set
it up, once it does, it
is golden. It works. It
doesn't fail you. It hasn't
ever failed me at this point.
Knock on wood. Let's talk
about that.
>> audience speaker: I know on our campus with C-Print technology, when we try to use the wireless stuff, and there's been like a computer lab next door or something, and it gets all messed up, have you had experiences or problems like that?
>>Bo Adan: We haven't so far with this technology. One thing, you know, I wish the person you loved having yesterday was in this room today. His name was Mitch, he seemed to know a lot about the FCC regulations. He was suggesting that there is a band width 72 to 76 mega-hertz at which the, that's the hearing aid bands. And I was trying to find -- I didn't bring the, the documentation for the airport with me. It does come with, you know, when you buy these computers. And so I don't know what, what the, the hertz is for these, but so far, we have not had interference with that. Again, knock on wood, that doesn't mean we won't, but so far, it has worked really well.
>> audience speaker: Can you speak to a little bit about, I don't think it is peer-to-peer, right? Don't you need the airport server for that?
>> No, isn't that lovely? I will speak to that, thank you.
>> audience speaker: And the fact that you can just put a radio -- even though I love my brother, Macs, and I wouldn't put them down --
>> Bo Adan: Yes, you will. [ laughter ]
>> audience speaker: No, but you can put a PC radio card in any PC, I mean, you don't need an Ibook, you can just have the PC radio card in the PCMCIA slot in any computer. It is not as fast as a Mac but, it can be on the PC side and Mac side --
>>Bo Adan: It can be. You are correct in terms of this technology, the software that's out there for collaboration and synchronous note taking is Mac-based right now, and again, is out of our hands. The reason we went with Macs is that's what the software that was out there, which is called, Aspects, and which I will demonstrate for you and talk a little bit more about, today is, is Mac platform only.
>> audience speaker: Wonderful. So my next question would then be, any Mac laptop that has a PCMCIA slot type thing, you could work, right?
>>Bo Adan: I would think so, yep. I don't know if it will interconnect with an Ibook but between those, yeah, between two PCs, that has the slot card, yes, yes. So, there is a software product called "Aspects." and it is synchronous collaborative working software, the wonderful thing about this, that's exactly what it is and all that it is. It is not an esoteric software program that takes a lot to use, a lot to learn, a lot to read and think about. It is exactly like a word processing program and functions as such, except that it allows for interconnectivity, simultaneousness and collaboration.
Just in case everybody isn't familiar, by synchronous what I mean is you can work literally at the same time. E-mail would be an example of something that's asynchronous. You don't know what I am talking about, until I type my e-mail and send it to you. With this program, what I type shows up on your computer, or –
>> audience speaker: Like ICQ.
>>Bo Adan: Yes, and you can be typing simultaneously, as well, and working together, so that's what synchronous and simultaneous and collaborative, that's what I mean when I use those words. The other program that we found helpful, is something called QuicKeys. That's not so easy to learn, but students don't know anything about it. That's at the training, trainer training the trainer level. Does everyone know what macros are? Anybody not? Should I explain? Okay, good, happy to.
It is basically automation software. Makes something that you do all the time routine. So, in other words, if I had to, in the physical world, if I was going to wear this jacket and this shirt and these pants and these shoes every single day, same pair, right, and I knew that's what I was going to do and every day I was going to put the pants on first, then jacket and then the shoes, I could either take the time to do that every single day, step one, two, three, four, or if I could magically program the universe so I could just press a button and it would do all these things for me, step-by-step, I would like that a lot better. I wouldn't like the smell of my clothes after a few days, however.
What we use the QuicKeys for is to set up, and when I demonstrate this for you, it is good I am talking about it now, it will take a 15 to 20-step process and reduce it to one key stroke. And that's perfect for a lot of reasons. One, it means that in terms of training the trainers, they don't have to remember how to do a lot. They simply have to know how the macros work. Two, when you are in class, whether the trainer is acting as a note taker or you are hiring other note takers to do the work, they don't have to think about. They can also use the shortcut, command to set up aspects. And then, of course, three, the student has nothing to fear, either, nothing to think about or worry about. It is one key stroke for the student, one stroke for the note taker computer and they work seamlessly, so that kind of technology is wonderful, again, if it is easy to use. If it is not easy to use, it gets in the way, and so what we wanted to do and why we invested time and energy learning about this is because aspects is great and does everything we want it to do but in order to set it up every day to do the same thing every day, there is about a 15 to 20-step process of opening documents and sizing windows and margin and is setting things up and it is simple things to do, but you don't want to spend five minutes at the beginning of every class when the teacher, especially, at the post-secondary level is already beginning a lecture in a timely way. Yes.
>>
audience speaker:
Before you go on, can I
just ask about your application
choice especially the G4s
are coming out and the things
are getting faster, I am
wondering why you didn't
take, like a dragon speak
-- a voice recognition,
voice to text track, especially
when you have professors
that teach every day so
that, you know, the software
gets better and better with
one person talking, so I
am just wondering why you
did the --
>> Bo Adan: Yeah.
>> audience speaker: A note taker, you know, that just so much more, especially when we type out the cost prohibitive and things like that.
>>Bo Adan: It is a good question. My answer may not be the, may not be a good one. It is just, just my response. What we were doing at the time was looking at the best available technology that would serve our needs. We were looking at Dragon Dictate, an earlier version at the time, and even now, Natural Speaking, 6.0 is out. But even that, it takes a lot to train your voice to the computer, and then -- it takes a lot to train your voice to the computer, and even then it is only 85% accurate. The head of assistive technology for disability services, and at the University of Oregon, his name is James Bailey, about a year ago, did -- no, not even that long ago, did a demonstration, Dragon Dictate and here's a guy that spent hours and hours and hours just him, his voice, a single computer, and I thought it was going to be wonderful and seamless, and it wasn't by any means. And so my response was that, and may just be my prejudice, I am not sure yet, but I am not ready to see that technology works well enough for our purposes yet. I think it will. But it hasn't yet.
>> audience speaker: Has the power but not the application strengths.
>>Bo Adan: I think so. I think that's where we are at. That could just be my prejudice because I haven't been working with 6.0 yet, maybe it is far better, I am only what people are telling me and they are saying that it is, it is not up to speed yet.
>> audience speaker: There is a fundamental difference in what you are proposing and what he's proposing, and that is you are getting a speech to text transcript, similar to what our real-time captionist is providing and the volume is overwhelming for most students. So most of them prefer note taking that encapsulates and promotes the hierarchy of information and so on, categorizes the information, and puts it in a more digestible form.
>>Bo Adan: And I will show you a couple of examples of that in this presentation of actual notes of note takers and students because that has been an issue and