CEP 812 Wicked Problem Project: Part B

For my wicked problem of needing a good program that can read and translate text for students I actually chose 2 programs, White Smoke and Natural Reader.  I chose these two programs because together they achieve my goal and offer both free and paid versions of the software.

White smoke is the translation program.  It comes in a free version (though there is a version for purchase) where students can:

·         Copy and paste text into a text box and it has the options to translate the text into English, Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish

·         Use the writer program for checking their own written work (which can be used just not for the ESL kids, but all other students for proof reading purposes).  This function also integrates itself into Microsoft Word while the student is working (though it is a bit redundant of what  Microsoft word already offers).

·         It also has a dictionary function that searches key words in a dictionary, thesaurus, and on Wikipedia.
Click here for an screen capture of White Smoke that includes explainations of each aspect of the program.

Natural Reader is the text reader program.  It comes in a free version (though there is a version for purchase) where students can:

·         Copy and paste text into the reader to have it read to them in English

·         Use the Floating Bar .  This can be brought to the front of a document and the student can highlight what they want read to them.

·         An mp3 can be made of the document be read

Here is a link to the Natural Readers website that has several different videos that demo the possible uses of the program.

Overall, both of these programs enhance any student’s learning because they offer many different options for facilitating learning of content.  These programs work with multiple types of students with multiple needs.  For students with ESL needs White Smoke provides translations for all types of text including more complicated texts that can occur in high school courses.  It also gives all students another way to proofread their work.  Natural Reader in its free edition of the program offers a basic reader that works well with many text based programs such as Microsoft Word and Adobe.

While using these programs the learner will be able to experience material on more levels because of the options that both programs provide.  It can enhance their experience by offering pronunciations of words that may be difficult and translation for ESL students they still are struggling with English.  

***Both of these programs help supplement teaching strategies that may already be in place in a lesson.   They can enhance teaching strategies that involve reading text out loud to students.  It will allow students to have materials read to them multiple times without a teacher or para-pro that would normally read text to them.  It will also help students better analyze texts for content and for research purposes.

In science we focus on a teaching strategy that we call CER (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning).  Students are asked fairly regularly to analyze text for claims (opinions and statements) that are well thought out and have evidence that directly connects to the claim (the reasoning).  Having a program that translates or reads the text can allow for better understanding and lets students to be able to process ideas more completely.  This is a skill that students will be able to apply outside of school.

It can also help teachers with giving students clear expectations (DL. IFL).  No matter how “clear” a teacher may think their expectations are, if the students do not understand because of language barriers or a lack of reading skills there is no way to reach the students.  Natural reader gives both teachers and students a way to translate the expectations to meet ESL needs.  Natural Reader allows for both ESL and struggling readers to hear the expectations multiple times without the teacher having to repeat them.

Natural Reader can help ESL students with their English skills because the more they hear the word with the written word the better they understand the language.  It can also help those students with pronunciation skills.  White Smoke can help ESL students because it can give them a context for learning English and it can serve as a way to compare English to their native language (which can help with learning a new language).

At Union High School (where I currently teach) we get a lot of refugee students from Africa that speak French and a lot of Hispanic students that know very little English, these are the students I had in mind when trying to solve this problem.  Feel that they will benefit the most intellectually because they will be able to understand the content even if their English isn’t the greatest.  The other students I had in mind while trying to solve this problem are my struggling readers.  Science curriculums are full of new vocabulary terms and words that may look and sound “weird” to an inexperienced student.  Natural Reader can help both my ESL and struggling readers (and most of the time they are one in the same) with pronunciations.