EdTech to the Rescue for Homebound Student

Outside the Box (I took this one!)
Outside the Box (I took this one!)

EdTech is the only remedy I can offer my student who is ill (I wish I could offer good health!) – thank goodness it exists! I am now in the midst of discovering what works in such a situation.

While my student has been absent a lot all year, using technology remained a theoretical discussion because she is, frankly, brilliant. Whenever she did attend school she made up for lost time with incredible speed. I don’t teach frontally, so using tech to have her join the class lessons was not an option.

However now that the school year is drawing to a close, and the due dates of important papers is at hand, it became time to begin putting theory into practice. I’m supposed to go over a series of her drafts and guide her to the final product. And we are very busy doing just that!

Since she is hard of hearing (and not deaf) we did start with Skype but that was not convenient. There was a lot of “what was that?” ” Can you repeat that?” In any case, I needed to see the written version of her drafts. She doesn’t have the energy to type up the drafts (surprisingly handwriting is most comfortable for her) and doesn’t own a fax machine. So she began taking pictures of the texts with her phone and emailing them to me. At first she had the text in the body of the email and on the computer it was difficult to read. For some reason they were clearer on my iPod. So I held the iPod in one hand while typing comments in Word with the other.

Then we progressed to having her email the pictures as an attachment. I can now open them  with Picassa (which I use for my photos) and enlarge them. Much better. I’ve picked up speed. But still, I’m sure we could be doing better.

If the text was printed, I could paste it into one of those sites I’ve heard about that let you record comments and mark the text. At the moment I can’t recall a single name but I’ve seen such things used by others. The student is hard of hearing, I believe she might understand with a combination of speech and visuals (as opposed to the Skype). The problem is she is sending me PICTURES. JPEG files. I can’t think of a way around THAT.

Any thoughts?

 

 

 

4 thoughts on “EdTech to the Rescue for Homebound Student”

  1. Let’s see. So you basically want to make comments on her photo of her text?
    There are websites or software that allows you to put text on images. Google them, but I suspect they won’t suit your purpose well.
    First, how’s the quality? If the quality isn’t too good, I suggest that she scans the text rather than take a photo. I use CamScanner. What’s the advantage? One, it adjusts quality automatically and she can crop unnecessary space away.
    Second, it can save to a pdf, which will lead me to the next step.
    If she insists on taking a photo of it (which isn’t a good idea), then you can convert the jpeg to a pdf. I use IrfanView.
    When you have the pdf, you can use Foxit Reader. If you’re still using Adobe, you can chuck that away.
    With Foxit reader, you can make comments in several ways. You can type directly onto the document, or you can pin a note, and the note can be out of your document.
    I don’t know how many people know or don’t know about Foxit. Maybe I ought to talk about it in SmackDown in the next MiniCon…

    1. Oh wow, Chiew!
      So much useful information I didn’t know about! Thank you so much! Do spread the word on Minicon – I have never heard of Foxit!
      I knew things could be improved upon!
      Thanks a million!
      Naomi

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