Week 4 - Kurzweil

After tonight's class I am really excited but at the same time very overwhelmed by the amoont of information we went thru tonight. That being said, each week continues to be a wealth of knowledge and a program such as Kurzweil has unlimited resources to aid a wide range of students. Take for example the reading component, where there is a selection of voices to choose from, speed rate and how you would like it read (sentence, word, continuous, etc.) as well as the ability to pause the reading at anytime. Then there are the components that allow the student to take notes or study such as highlighting, bubble notes, sticky notes, hyperlinks. For those who struggle in the writing component, Kurweil offers a voice component, word lists, definitions along with the standard features of spell check. Lastly, the ability to scan documents into such a program was very impressive. As we were going thru the presentation I decided to scan a page from a book and just like magic it appeared in the program and offered all the features as though it had always been there.
I really think that this is a program that all schools should have access to because it really makes life so much easier for those who may face any literacy challenge. The program may seem like a lot in the beginning but I am quite sure with a little practice it would become a little easier to understand and ultimately would reap many benefits for its users in our classrooms. More and more I am beginning to believe that all teachers would benefit so much in learning as much as 10% of wealth of knowledge that continues to come our way week after week.