I'm not disagreeing with anything here, but this issue is too complicated to Blaine on technology or speech output. We should take advantage of emerging technologies, and if that means that spelling suffers then we should look at alternatives to teach good spelling. I'm primarily a speech user myself, but I take pride in my grammar and my spelling, so it can be done. It's the responsibility of the educational system, parents, blindness organizations, blind individuals themselves and so on to ensure blind children and children in general get the education they need to be productive members in our society.
We shouldn't ban iPhones because speech output makes for poor spellers. We should assume the iPhone is out there and take advantage of it and fill in the educational gaps elsewhere. I also wonder what educational advantages are deemed from speech output and technologies like the iphone. The ability to understand where things are on the iPhone spatially and interact with them directly, the ability to handle, process and organize all of the data we have available to us now, the access to news and current events and so on may all more then compensate with the fact that people may need to work a bit harder to be good spellers. Note that I'm not a sociologist, but I hear all of this anecdotal data about how technology is making us dumber without hearing much on the areas where it may be making us smarter but just in a different way. My wife is a teacher at a local community college. She teaches writing, and she frequently talks about how texting, social media, the internet is making her job tougher. She has to convince her students that the spelling and grammar they'd use in a text message isn't appropriate in formal writing. It also makes plagiarism that much easier, although it also makes it easier to catch plagiarist as well. This has nothing to do with blind students, although I will admit that primarily using speech may add some challenges to things like teaching good spelling and punctuation. Note that she never argues against technology, but rather that it's part of our lives now with all of it's strengths and weaknesses. The second day of her class she talks about how to use spell checkers and grammar checkers. Like everything else, it's a tool, and it's up to us whether we let it be a crutch or not. Also, like any other tool, it's only as good as the person weidling it. On 03/05/12 12:04, Raul A. Gallegos wrote: > Hello Kimber, without trying to start a non-Apple product debate on > list, I have to respectfully disagree with the following statement you > made. > >> the assertion that screen readers and audiobooks are responsible for >> blind kids/adults not being able to >> spell is ludicrous. It's our lousy educational system that produces >> rotten spellers, not adaptive technology. > > I am willing to discuss this further off list since I know it's not list > related. I agree that the educational system has its problems and can > stand to use betterment. My seven year old first grader is bored out of > his mind because of the math curriculum the public schools use here. And > so he gets into trouble because he doesn't have something to challenge > him. So, to make up for that, I have him do extra things at home and > he's very advanced in math. > > However, it has been proven that the same part of the brain is > stimulated when a sighted person reads print with their eyes or a blind > person reads Braille with their fingers. That same part is not > stimulated when a person, blind or sighted is only listening to material > such as synthetic speech or audio books. This contributes to why many > people zone out when only listening to audio. It's also proven, at least > with blind people that in many cases, those who depend on speech and > haven't had much, if any Braille training, don't capitalize things. This > is because they don't think that words need to be capitalized. It's sad, > but on various blindness oriented lists I'm on, I see many people's > display names or signatures without proper capitalization. In fact, many > on this list fall into this category. Does that mean they aren't Braille > readers, or are only speech users and don't know to capitalize things? > Who is to say, but I would venture a guess that a great many are > probably only speech users. Either that, or just lazy. > > Of course, with anything, there are always exceptions. One of my good > friends is a school teacher and a brilliant one, however you would never > know it by reading her emails. > > Regarding spelling, I can't really comment on that because I think poor > spelling skills can be attributed to many factors. I am a horrid speller > and so try to not impose my standards on others. I however, try to do my > best by capitalizing things, spell things right, and if I'm stuck, I'll > spell-check. English is my second language, and yet I am saddened to see > many people who have full command of English, and yet they can't spell > things like since, sense, scent, or cents. And worse yet, they can't use > them in the proper context. Does it mean they are blind and only speech > users? No, it really proves nothing in the end. I guess what I'm trying > to say is that I feel there is some truth with the assertion that speech > only users may have a harder time. I've seen it happen with people I > know and in those situations, it hasn't been the educational system's > fault. > > OK, I'm off my soapbox now. > > -- > Raul A. Gallegos > My Doctor told me that I'm paranoid, I wonder if he's told anyone else... > Home Page: http://raulgallegos.com > Twitter: https://twitter.com/rau47 > Facebook: http://facebook.com/rgallegos74 > > On 5/3/2012 12:31 PM, Kimber Gardner wrote: >>> >>> I also don't buy into the statements that devices which make things >>> easier for us are also making us dumber. >> >> I said something similar to my husband after reading the article which >> was, on the whole, pretty good. But the assertion that screen readers >> and audiobooks are responsible for blind kids/adults not being able to >> spell is ludicrous. It's our lousy educational system that produces >> rotten spellers, not adaptive technology. >> >> K >> > -- Christopher (CJ) chalt...@gmail.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VIPhone" Google Group. To search the VIPhone public archive, visit http://www.mail-archive.com/viphone@googlegroups.com/. To post to this group, send email to viphone@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to viphone+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/viphone?hl=en.
