My+own+Case+Study

I am an English and Sports teacher. I teach those two subjects in a secondary school in Germany.
====Marcus is a 15 year old student that I teach in both subjects. He is a 10th grader. Marcus has an accident outside of school where he has a complex fracture of his right arm. His right arm is also the arm he writes with. In my English-Class I gave all the students the assignment to write a learning diary in order to be able to keep track of their progress.==== ====The challenge that I face as a teacher is how to help Marcus write his diary, but also to complete all other writen assignments that he gets in my class and in other classes. How can I assist him, so that he can still produce written pieces?==== ====One option that I have is, find somebody that writes for him. That would mean, that somebody would have to stay with him all the time. The problem here is, that the student is very passive and I am not enabling him to accomplish what he is capable of.==== ====A solution to enable Marcus to actively take part in every written assignment is to get him a computer program, that can turn speech into text. Depending on what kind of computer Marcus is going to work on, I have found a solution for Apple computers and computers that run Windows. For Windows there is a software called Dragon Naturally Speaking created by Nuance. Here you can find some stories of people on why they use this software:==== [|Dragon Software Stories] ====If Marcus is using a Mac computer, there is a program called Mac SpeechDictate that can be purchased. There is already a Command & Control software build into Mac OS X. This can help Marcus navigate through his computer and use it only through spoken commands. Mac SpeechDictate is similar to the Nuance software. Here is a video on how it works:==== media type="youtube" key="MX1sS6lsQrc" width="425" height="350" ====If Marcus is able to use this software he will be able to complete every assignment he get´s in my English lesson. He can actively participate in class and won´t feel like he´s not capable of contributing. This technology helps not only students like Marcus, who are only temporally not able to write, but also students, who have a permanent disability, that disallows them to write. A factor that plays a role in Germany is the acquisition cost. The school is not obliged to pay the costs of this technology. Students with disabilities go to special schools. In Germany we do not practise the Inclusion Model that is applied in the United States. This would mean, that in Marcus´ Case his parents would have to buy the software.====