ODEO and the Writer

Like many students of all grade levels, my 8 year old son does not like to write. Reading for him is rewarding beyond compare. He doesn't simply get lost in a book - he moves in and settles down. Math, spelling, art, sciences - not a problem. But writing, well, that's another story. His frustration comes from knowing what he wants to say, but by the time it works its way out of his brain, down his arm, through the pencil and onto the paper it just doesn't seem to come out the same.

We have found that it helps if he talks himself through the writing process. The trouble then becomes that he can spin a good yarn or nail a synopsis only to forget what it was he just said when the mechanics of writing interfere. Recently we considered asking if he wanted to try recording himself speaking into a tape recorder but realized that we simply do not own one anymore. Then I remembered ODEO.

I have an ODEO account for some of my RSS podcast feeds and recalled that they have a free on-line recording service. It's limited to three-minutes of record time - but the kid's in third grade - how much does he need to write? I plugged in my favorite set of headphones with mic and set him up to record. Like a typical digital native he took to it on the first try. Three minutes later he had laid down a pretty good synopsis of the story he was writing a report on and we saved the mp3 file to play in Windows Media Player.

He was able to listen to his own voice quite literally telling him what to write. He effortlessly mastered the WMP controls and started typing. His keyboard skills need some work but he is already well ahead of where I was in high school, let alone third grade. We gotta getthis kid a typing tutor - he'll hate us now and thank us later.

So, the next day I am telling the Director of our LD program about my experiences with ODEO and the writer and she asked me to demo the program. Later in the day one of our LD tutoring staff asks me about this on-line program because he is working with a student who has issue with writing that may benefit from being able to record drafts and play them back. He is going to try this out wth the student and let me know how it goes. One of the nice features of ODEO is the ability to save and eMail the recordings or download them as mp3 files.

By the way - if you are interested - here is the three minute synopsis of The Box Car Children #3: The Yellow House Mystery as recorded by my favorite 3rd grader.