Digital+Access

=Digital Access= By: Ariana Santos toc Targeting the parents and teachers at as my audience, I will show them how methods have been made to allow access to any person, no matter their race, age, gender or mental state. This presentation will explain how these people can give opportunities to their children and students by allowing easier access to the digital world and by encouraging them to allow their children a healthy access to the internet and digital programs. I would like to include this presentation as my curricular project for Community and Service.

Please would everyone reading this information complete [|this survey] for some data which I would like to use in my project.

=Investigate=

There are some incredible new ways to allow just about anyone to use computers and access the digital world freely and easily. Previous issues that separate certain people from using online programs like having a different first language than English, which is one of the most popular languages used on the internet, a dyslexic handicap, being blind, and having injured hands that prevent you from being able to type properly.



All of these issues have been solved by modern technology. The language barrier has been broken by people now typing in their native language and online companies using translators to have their websites available in many different popular languages. Google, one of the most popular online search engines has so many different languages to choose from like German, Portuguese, Spanish, French, English (British, American and Canadian versions) Dutch, they even have Arabic! That is just one example of the multiple options available to people who do not use English. Wikipedia, an online information database has many different language options so that you can read and edit in your own language.



People who are dyslexic have issues reading and spelling because they have difficulty learning the alphabet and also memorizing things such as left, right, up, down, and so on. They often have problems seeing the differences between letters of the alphabet and generally this contributes to the inability of reading. Therefore, they cannot type properly due to the way they cannot spell or read the usual fonts. Some efforts have been made to help the people suffering from dyslexia and now there is a new font made to help minor cases of dyslexia. It has easily discerned letters that help dyslexic people read and spell much better. This font is hopefully going to be used in the future on every major website so that people who have dyslexia do not have to suffer and have difficulty reading whenever going on the computer.



Those who are blind have new text-to-speech software that helps them use the internet properly. The program is designed to work by automatically reading out the text on the page to allow the blind to be able to hear their e-mails instead reading them, which would be near impossible for them. It is a brilliant invention but there are some quirks spurting up. People have been complaining that now, when they listen to their e-mails, people in the room around them either can hear a personal e-mail from a friend or family member or they sometimes have issues with spam mail. What can be more embarrassing than having an advertisement about enhancing body parts using pills and treatments being read aloud to everyone in the room? Maybe some modifications would be wise, although there are already some options available, get a better e-mail program that does not allow junk mail or use headphones.



Injuries to you hands can be incredibly difficult to manage with. Sometimes it means you cannot eat on your own, other times it means you cannot type on a computer without help. Thankfully, there are ways to fix this. There are some programs made that do the opposite that the text-to-speech programs do. They turn whatever you say into text before your eyes. Using a mouse is hard without hands but still manageable as long as you do have a little arm left and then you are all set. Maybe next year they will create a program that will translate your speech into actions on the computer instead of text?



There have been long debates on whether people should have to be tested before being allowed to use the internet, and whether there should be computer licenses involved. This is because not everyone is completely computer savvy and those who are not can be particularly dangerous and in danger due to the fact that they will fall for the tricks of hackers and spread viruses and other unfortunate computer issues. But, the reason people are debating this instead of going all for the safety of only having people who are computer smart enough to use the internet is because the internet is so useful and all people will want to use it, and there will probably be a lot of forgery and deceit with pretend licenses and stealing identities. So, in my opinion, people should not be prevented from using the internet but options should be available to those who want to learn to use the internet and computers effectively and efficiently.



Some websites that I have found helpful and included in my Investigation proccess:

[|Digital Access] - an incredibly useful page on digital access with more links to examples of digital access

[|Wikipedia - Dyslexia] - information on dyslexia and the different symtoms

[|Blinds Get an Earful of Spam] - an article on the issues of the text-to-speech programs

[|Google Canada] - [|USA] - [|Germany] - [|Portugal] - [|Spain] - the different country google pages I mentioned in my second paragraph

[|Dyslexic Fonts] - an article on the new fonts made for dyslexics

[|Union Memorial Hospital] - information on amputations and the difficulties amputies face

[|Spanish Language Option] - an article on the different spanish online versions of company homepages

[|Are You Too Stupid To Surf?] - an article on the debate of whether there should be licenses involved for computers

= = [|Wikipedia English] - [|German] - [|French] - [|Spanish] - links to the different wikipedia pages which I mentioned in my second paragraph

[|Digital Citizenship Unit Plan] - the unit plan for the digital citizenship project (word document)

[|Digital Citizenship Rubric] - the rubric for the digital citizenship project (word document)

Qatar Academy IT Wiki - the grade 9 IT homepage at Qatar Academy

=Design=

My presentation will be with a PowerPoint and possibly a short video of an interview. There will be many sets of data on the different programs, like sales reports and such on certain online websites using these new adaptations and how their popularity has changed because of it. There will be many charts and graphs of this data to help it be more visually appealing. Since this audience is for parents and teachers, I will use lots of resources for children and how these programs can be incorporated into schools.

I would like to find a person who I can interview to ask about their input on this subject, I was thinking of asking a teacher whom I know that I could ask for their expertise. This would either be my mother, who teaches grade 2, Mrs. Lindsay, Mr. Elder, Mr. Liberto or some other teacher that has the expertise to be able to supply me with this information.

I was planning on sharing my project with the teachers at the primary school whom I know personally after school at some time. I have not yet discussed this with them but I am planning on starting to find a date in which I can present this project. I am sure that there will be time for at least six different teachers and parents to come and to witness my presentation. If not, I am planning on using the audience at my neighborhood who are all parents and most of which are teachers at the College of the North Atlantic or the Canadian School created by the Collage of the North Atlantic.

I would like have my slideshow as the main feature as well as a vocal commentary by me with that. This would show both visual and oral stimulation for the audience. I have planned that if I present this at the school, I will use the projector in my mother’s classroom to present my slideshow. This would be convenient for both me and my audience since all of their classrooms are in that area of the Primary School at Qatar Academy. Since all of these teachers and parents in the audience are basically ex-patriots, only working and living in Qatar temporarily, I would like the language to be in English, which everyone I will be inviting, will know fluently. =Plan=

Date/Time: - Basic Task: - Materials Needed: Nov. 6th, 2007 - Finish Design Cycle + updating wikipage - Nothing Nov. 7th, 2007 - Starting PowerPoint - Nothing Nov. 12th, 2007 - Either book or have interview - Tape recorder or camera Nov. 13th, 2007 - Work on PowerPoint + plan survey - Nothing Nov. 19th, 2007 - Work on PowerPoint + give survey - Nothing Nov. 20th, 2007 - Deadline on having interview must have survey - Tape recorder or camera Nov. 26th, 2007 - work on PowerPoint + work on handouts - Nothing Nov. 27th, 2007 - Work on PowerPoint + handouts - Nothing Dec. 3rd, 2007 - Work on PowerPoint + deadline for handouts - Nothing Dec. 4th, 2007 - Work on PowerPoint - Nothing Dec. 10th, 2007 - Finishing Touches - Nothing Dec. 11th, 2007 - Complete PowerPoint - Nothing Dec. 17th, 2007 - Either finished touches or perform presentation - Audience and projector Dec. 18th, 2007 - Either holiday or perform practice presentation - Audience and projector Jan. 7th, 2008 - Notify audience of presentation - Nothing Jan. 8th, 2008 - Make sure all audience (at least 10 people) can make the day and assign day for presentation

=Create=

Hopefully I will be able to include my final powerpoint in this section.

Thankfully I have imported my PowerPoint onto my wikispace, here it is, I would like to take a video of my presentation and also send it here, but that could be difficult to accomplish.

Watch the PowerPoint here and please leave comments:

[|Slideshare.com]

I also handed out a booklet with information and the statistics that I compilied from my presentation which will be included here:

As I was unable to video tape my presentation, there will me no more information in the creation stage of this project. :'-(

Lesson evaluation from Mrs Lindsay

=Evaluate=

These are my process journal entries per week:

1. [|//http://eduspaces.net/arianasantos/weblog/194422.html//]

2. [|//http://eduspaces.net/arianasantos/weblog/197423.html//]

3. [|//http://eduspaces.net/arianasantos/weblog/200949.html//]

4. [|//http://eduspaces.net/arianasantos/weblog/206856.html//]

5. [|//http://eduspaces.net/arianasantos/weblog/211294.html//]

6. [|//http://eduspaces.net/arianasantos/weblog/254169.html//]

Over all the time that I spent on this project, I learned many things about the internet and digital access. This was a growing experiencec for me and I am very glad that i competed it. Throughout the proccess I think i did well in the following areas: the investigation cycle, the create cycle and my personal engagement. Things that I thought that I was not fully commited to and needed to improve was probably the design cycle and the evaluation cycle.

When I gave my final presentation, I think I knew the material very well and my PowerPoint could have improved if I had dspent more time on it and also, I could have put less information on the actual slides and presented the extra data on my own, which would have made my presentation less boring instead of making me seem like I just read off of the slides. Also, I could have spent more time going through my book andd made sure that everything was more professional, rather than just cutting and pasting all of the articles. My statistics seemed a little like they were droning on when I read them out loud and it could have helped my presentation if I just summarised my results rather than just state them.

=Bibliography=

Ribble, Mike, and Gerald Bailey. "Digital Access." __Digital Citizenship__. 26 May 2006 <[|http://coe.k-state.edu/digitalcitizenship/Access.htm>.]

"Dyslexia." __Wikipedia__. 29 Oct. 2007 <[|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyslexia>.] Asaravala, Amit.

"Blind Get an Earful of Spam." __Wired__. 22 June 2004 <[|http://www.wired.com/science/]discoveries/news/2004/06/63934>.

"Google Canada." __Google__. 29 Oct. 2007 <[|http://www.google.ca>.]

"Google USA." __Google__. 29 Oct. 2007 <[|http://www.google.com>.]

"Google Germany." __Google__. 29 Oct. 2007 <[|http://www.google.de>.]

"Google Portugal." __Google__. 29 Oct. 2007 <[|http://www.google.pt>.]

"Google Spain." __Google__. 29 Oct. 2007 <[|http://www.google.es>.]

"New Typeface to Help Dyslexics." __Wired__. 21 Oct. 2003 <[|http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/]news/2003/10/60834>.

"The Injured Hand." __Union Memorial Hospital__. 29 Oct. 2007 <[|http://www.unionmemorial.org/]npt.cfm?id=969>. Gilden, James.

"Spanish-language option may give sites jump on competition." __The Times__. 18 Jan. 2004 <[|http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-tr-internet18jan18,0,1326926.story?coll>.]

__Wikipedia__. 29 Oct. 2007 <[|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page>.]

__Wikipedia__. 29 Oct. 2007 <[|http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauptseite>.]

__Wikipedia__. 29 Oct. 2007 <[|http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accueil>.]

__Wikipedia__. 29 Oct. 2007 <[|http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portada>.]

Lindsay, Julie. __QA Grade 9 IT__.

Wikispaces. 28 Oct. 2007 .

This page is being editted by Ariana Santos

Final assessment - Ariana -