Convert a paper workbook into a digital one.

[AmyontheFarm]

Hi. My ds11 has some physical delays, using a pencil is extremely time consuming and some days painful. What would take a typical 11 two minutes to write it can take hours. He has however become quicker at typing. I'm wondering about taking his workbooks for english/language arts and scanning them in and creating PDF versions that he could just type his answers into the blanks and then I could print them out to put into a binder afterwards.

 

Has anyone ever did this? What are the pro's and con's with doing this. If the point of the lesson is to learn how to construct a sentence then not actually hand writing it, shouldn't be a problem right??

 

Hoping for guidance.

 

Also, any suggestions on what programs I should use to do this, without buying a full copy of Acrobat Reader?

 

Amy

[boscopup]

We bought an HP OfficeJet 8600 Plus recently. If you take a workbook apart (cut off spine), you can feed all the pages in the top, and it will scan both sides of each page, saving them all to a pdf file on a USB stick. Very easy.

 

Might be worth the investment. It's cheaper than acrobat and saves a lot of TIME trying to scan manually.

[Amira]

I scanned many, many workbooks and books using a scanner similar to boscopup's (ours was a Scansnap). It came with adobe acrobat which was nice too. We found a refurbished scanner on amazon which saved us a lot of money.

 

However, I've never tried typing directly onto any of the PDF files I've created- that never even occurred to me. We use an iPad and my kids write in notebooks. I think it's a great idea though and I'm going to try it.

[cloudswinger]

I wouldn't even bother printing the completed work out again, unless you wanted to show it to someone. Usually if you want a portfolio a few pages would be sufficient anyway.

[MomatHWTK]

Here are some resources a friend told me about:

Adaptive Technologies (information from Shelly):

1. For written language assignments, Co:Writer Solo Edition. It includes "flexible spelling and the capability to load topic dictionaries from the site or from, say, Wikipedia. So, if you're writing a paper on Italy, you can load from an online source a "dictionary" of terms/cities, etc., you might need. NB: This software is expensive. But I can already say that it has been worth every penny. Also, it will be appropriate for any postsecondary school my son should choose.

 

http://www.donjohnston.com

 

2. For math, we use the Efofex MathPack and SciencePack. This is free with a documented disability. This is to completely lift off any stress of handwriting for advanced math problems.

 

http://www.efofex.com

 

3. For printing/copying/completion of worksheets on the computer, PaperPort 12 is a direct answer to prayer. Worksheets ("homemade" or his Teaching Textbooks, e.g.) and tests can be scanned onto my son’s laptop, he types in the answers rather than write them by hand, and voila: beautiful product that shows what he really knows rather than (again) draining his batteries working on the mechanics of handwriting.

 

So far, he's used this with Teaching Textbooks and monkeying around with a grammar workbook. He wants to do Progeny Press' Lord of the Rings studies. This will be fantastic for that purpose.

 

http://www.nuance.com

 

4. The Inspiration graphic organizing software for any type of written work needing organization. I was so impressed with it when we had the free trial going that I ordered the 3-pack. I wish this thing had been around when I was in school! This is not solely geared for people with "needs". Laura Esquivel used it while writing Like Water for Chocolate.

 

http://www.inspiration.com

 

5. For adapted keyboarding (traditional touch-typing can be difficult to impossible for kids with dysgraphia, depending on its severity), Ultra-Key 5.0 Although Ultra-Key is made to teach touch-typing, we just ignore this and use an adapted keyboarding method.

 

http://www.bytesoflearning.com