Contacts
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Cindy Agnew (Washington)
Cindi Blansfield (Washington)
Karl Barksdale (Utah)
Washington State Teacher Leaders
Cindy Agnew
Current Program Developer for Technical Education
Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (Washington)
cjagnew@earthlink.netThe Origins of DigiTools...
Between January 2000-July 2001, Cindy Agnew (former Business & Marketing Pathway Supervisor for Washington State) faced a perplexing dilemma. How do you transition schools from a century of keyboarding to the emerging input technologies in an organized and thoughtful way. The answer was Digital Communication Tools or DigiTools for short.
DigiTools started when Course Technology flew Cindy down to attend a speech recognition training workshop conducted by Karl Barksdale and Carl Fielder for Mesa Public Schools in January 2000. She spent time with many creative Arizona educators and thought long and hard about what mix of input technologies would be best for "all" students to learn -- even if many of the students could only speak Spanish.
"It was apparent back in 2000, that speech recognition was more than just talking to a computer. It was a translator. It was also way for special education students to communicate in "real-time." The keyboard was a barrier no longer."
Bringing her enthusiasm back to Washington, Cindy created a dynamic new program called Digital Communication Tools (DigiTools) as a replacement for the current keyboarding curriculum at the high school level. She wanted to develop a course that would communicate to her seven-year old son's generation (Nintendo and Digimon), revitalizing somewhat repetitive keyboarding courses with more relevant and robust classes that include all substantive input technologies and a wider variety of business application tools. This mix was designed to better prepare students for the future of computing, not simply in the tools of the past.
"Keyboarding was once a 'tool' that we all learned. Times have changed -- yet it can take education up to 10 years to make the same changes. Rather than wait 10 years, it was decided to push the envelope and suggest to the state of Washington that keyboarding was just one of several ways to input information into a computer. Each day, we need to communicate. Yet, the tools may be different. It will not always be the keyboard. It will not always be speech. It will not always be the Tablet PC or handwriting recognition. It will likely be the keyboard, mouse, digital pen, and speech working together to make technical communication work effectively."
Cindi Blansfield
Current Pathway Supervisor for Business & Marketing
Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (Washington)
cblansfield@ospi.wednet.eduImplementing DigiTools...
Since August 1, 2001, Cindi Blansfield has been the Pathway Supervisor for Business & Marketing in Washington. Cindi Blansfield worked with Cindy Agnew to begin the implementation of Digital Communication Tools (DigiTools) as the communication mix of tools to replace the traditional Keyboarding curriculum. Currently, she is working with a group of Washington State's finest teachers to create a framework between keyboarding and new generation of "input" devices. Cindi is available for information about program devleopment and implementaiton in Washington State.
NEWS: Mr. Rob Fieldman announced to the Washington State Career & Technical Directors that DigiTools would replace Keyboarding in 2004! (See web site for the March 2002 Powerpoint Presentation).
Karl Barksdale
Teacher/Author
Farrer Middle School (Utah)
karlb@provo.k12.ut.usEnding the Keyboarding Injury Epidemic...
Karl Barksdale began teaching speech recognition in 1997, at first to students with handicaps, and later, as a means to prevent repetitive stress injuries among teens and adults. In 1999 he began a crusade to reevaluate keyboarding's role as a contributor to injuries on the job. Convinced that speech recognition could prevent hundreds of thousands of keyboarding related injuries each year, he began to teach speech recognition workshops to anyone that would attend and began writing extensively on the subject (see www.SpeakingSolutions.com/injury).
Karl first encountered speech recognition in the early 1990s when it was primitive science, deep in the research facilities of WordPerfect Corporation. The very first time he saw speech in action he realized that would be the next major revolution in input technologies. After the collapse of WordPerfect, he left the company, returned to the classroom and began teaching speech and handwriting recognition as input tools to counter the negative influence of keyboarding and mouse clicking.
Karl has authored 35 separate textbooks on a variety of computer related subjects. The last 23 of these books were written with speech recognition software. Nine of his most recent works are speech and handwriting recognition texts, furthering his effort to reduce injuries among millions of keyboard users.
He has trained thousands of students and teachers across the country in speech handwriting recognition techniques. He is a co-originator of the Summer of Speech training programs and teaches Middle School business classes and author's textbooks from his home in Springville, Utah. He has contributed numerous hours and articles to this site in an effort to reduce injuries by changing the current keyboarding only paradigm.
Our Washington State Teacher Leaders...
We will compile a list of Washington State teachers who are leading education reform by implementing DigiTools in their high schools. Stay tuned! Also, stay tuned for more information about what's happening around the nation!