From: MKow1234_at_aol.com
Date: Tue Aug 10 2004 - 06:50:45 PDT
Hello Everybody:
I just wanted to report on the progress my learning-disabled niece is making.
Six months ago, I tried to set up my sixteen year old deaf and ADHD niece
with an upgraded MP 2000. I put all the bells and whistles on this system for
her, but she found the format a bit intimidating (That, and the fact that my
brother and his second wife do not spend the time to nurture and encourage her
use of computers). I only recently discovered that Tina was not using the MP
2000, so I fixed up an eMate for her.
After spending two three-hour sessions with Tina and the eMate, I am happy to
report that she absolutely loves the device! She still needs lots of help to
write a basic letter or to synthesize her thoughts and express them in a
journal, but the device is helping her in so many ways. She has recorded her
friends names and phone numbers in the "Names" app, and she practices addition and
subtraction problems, and spelling. She also plays a number of the more
"educational" games: "Wheel of Fortune", "Yatzee" (I use this to help reinforce
her knowledge of basic multiplication and addition), and of course, the memory
game, "CopyCat". She also knows how to use the "Speak Text" feature to read
aloud her notes.
Tina does not quite understand that the eMate is not connected to the
Internet. She found a welcoming note written to her by my girlfriend, and she
assumed that it "magically" appeared there over the airwaves. I am trying to teach
her about phone lines and modems, and I hope to eventually teach her to send
e-mail with the device. Ideally, I would like to get her father and mother's
home computers set up to receive transferred text files from her eMate.
Long-term goals, I guess. The important thing is the eMate has made her to feel
very comfortable about basic computers, which in itself is a big step.
I would like to acquire a few more eMates, once I start working again. I
think it would helpful for my niece to interact with other Newton users (other
than my girlfriend and I), and it would help her if I could put an eMate into
the hands of her Special Ed teacher and one or two of her close friends. For
the time being, she is making progress, and this is due to the wonderful form
and intuitive functionality of the Newton eMate! More to follow... :O)
Matt K.
-- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/ WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue Aug 10 2004 - 08:00:00 PDT