In this information-rich era, I have found that a multimedia computer-based approach to gathering data provides students with a critical new paradigm for learning in this technology-driven world. Through learning computer keyboarding and multimedia database development, students can become proficient in organising, categorising and controlling information. Creating a database provides students with a model for the collecting and processing of information. This promotes higher-order thinking skills that are critical for learning in the current media-drenched environment (especially in the effective use of the Internet). In fact, the cognitive structure that a database models mirrors the minds ability to turn collected information into organized knowledge.

This productivity approach to using the computer has brought me a self-selected population of all ages. Whereas, my early practice focused upon dyslexic students, I now find that most of the students being referred to me have difficulty in the non-verbal domain. Many of these students need both a special approach to learning to keyboard (they have terrible handwriting) and help with organization. Although they have good verbal skills and huge stores of personalized knowledge, these NLD are unable to express this knowledge in an in written form. These students do not intuitively grasp main ideas and themes required to write a research paper; nor do they register deeply enough when reading. Their vocabulary can be excellent, but their ability to define and use words well is limited and superficial.

Dysgraphic and dyspraxic students have as hard a time learning to type as with handwriting. The reasons for this difficulty may be attention, poor coordination, lack of sensory feedback from the fingers, or visual spatial confusion. Usually it is a combination of several factors. Perhaps the most devastating ingredient of their failure to learn by the edutainment or existing home row methods is the emotional fallout of years of having struggled with performance issues. There is a high degree of anxiety in these students over the "doing" of anything that involves the hands or body in space.

The first step in achieving a computer-based approach to gathering data is to teach students to type effectively. The apprenticeship experience of keyboarding leads the student to become a "power" user with the ability to manipulate the computer interface, multi-task among applications, and make use of the full functionality of software. The Keyboard Coach approach is an approach that requires a mentor/coach (human or possibly software tutorial) to teach pre keyboarding concepts, key placement, correct alignment, and to develop mind-body connection awareness. Following this a coach approach is required to ensure that this preemptive training is carried over into subsequent fluency building. The method:

• teaches a series of key patterns that facilitate typing the alphabet

• trains the fingers through consistent neuro-patterning

• addresses the visual arrangement of the keyboard

• culminates in integrating patterns into words and sentences

• emphasizes the ongoing transfer to generative writing.

This process is achieved within an hour or two to ensure that once the independent, mechanical elements of keyboarding are accurately learned, they are immediately applied to a meaningful use. The fluency achieved by this method ensures that learned parts (patterns) are related to their whole (words and sentences) and transferred into the creative domain (generative writing).

Keyboard Coach taps into individual learning styles by addressing the major learning issues that arise in the areas of:

• motor-coordination

• visual-spatial perception

• language processing

• simultaneous processing and creative writing

I adapt and extend program as students arrive at my door with differing needs, be it single handed, low vision or down syndrome.

Keyboard training requires students to acknowledge their strengths and weaknesses. This self-awareness ensures that students scaffold and capitalize upon their individual learning style. As a mentor/coach reflects to the student the underlying causes of error, the learner realizes that mistakes are opportunities to learn about how to learn. This in turn reduces frustration to a level that is possible to work through. It helps to know that there is a recognizable biological reason for the kinds of errors that new keyboarders typically make. For example, the Ring and Middle fingers share a bunch of tendons that make it impossible to move the Ring finger independently unless there has been a considerable amount of use as in piano playing. Showing a student how to move from the shoulder removes the necessity of having to use this disabled finger. Furthermore, because these two fingers also share nerves more time is required for conscious patterning to isolate the message from brain to correct finger. Students who understand this intellectually can be guided into slowing down and using a multisensory approach that suits them best. Learning to be a witness to their own learning process is cognitive therapy at its best.

Developing a compassionate attitude to their own issues helps students to monitor their learning style. They come to understand that learning to keyboard requires a great deal of multiple processing not unlike any athletic skill; which requires consistent training and measures to prevent injury and develop fluency. In sharp contrast, mechanistic typing programs (such as edutainment typing tutors) use a simplistic stimulus-response method to teach key-placement, often leading to poor habits, disengaged rote learning, and negative response. It is only the integrated approach that engages the student’s full learning capabilities. Keyboarding not only develop metacognition about learning. It is also the cornerstone of general computer use, and in particular, teaches the fundamentals of manipulating a database or any other sophisticated computer tools.

The database is the ultimate expression of the computer’s ability to store information in meaningful and systematic ways. Effective storage and organisation of material facilitates comprehension and retrieval, and is precisely the tool that students need in order to compete in an information-overloaded environment. For example, the Internet represents a vast, uncharted territory of data, but it becomes a powerful tool when productively searched and meaningfully organized. Students must learn to manipulate, organize, and store Internet-mined information in ways that enable them to harvest knowledge.

Creating and maintaining a database is a multisensory process that draws upon several cognitive activities. It externalizes the act of registering and organizing information for effective retrieval. It also develops an understanding of the importance of precisely relating pieces of information to extract main ideas. By encouraging the categorisation of personally-collected information and the collection of vocabulary in context, a database develops higher-order thinking skills, deep registration, and long-term memory. It is this process of linking, connecting, categorising, and organizing that spins individual pieces of information into complex webs of knowledge. This activity mirrors the mind’s ability to turn individual bits of data into a useable, holistic network of information.

StudentWorks, a student research database for creating bibliographies, note cards, and semantic maps, began as a system for collecting vocabulary. It encouraged gathering words in context and placing them in categories, thereby promoting a deeper registration and understanding of what words mean. StudentWorks’ strength lies in the organicity of its ongoing development as a tool both for mentor and student. Because it may be customized for any setting, curriculum or student profile but an skilled amateur, it empowers teachers to fashion the templates and permits students to be in control of their study process. This ignites the intrinsic delight that comes from creating personally exclusive programs by means of open-ended software.

I have developed the StudentWorks templates because I could not find the tools I needed on the market. The software that I have tested, for teaching writing, is focused on the end product. For NLD students, however, it is the first stages of a writing project that defines the quality of the later product. Clarifying your subject and thesis, knowing how to collect or select and organize appropriate information to support main thoughts is key to effective writing of any kind. For research writing, this gathering and refining process is critical.

I believe that the systematic model provided the StudentWorks templates for creating bibliographies while gathering data for categorisation and use in research reports makes explicit the research process. It visually externalizes the thinking process. The concrete manipulation and organization of information on the screen and in printed form may, over time, be internalised as improved cognition. Most of the research into the effectiveness of technology for learning disabled students is anecdotal. I hope that colleagues and students will test and research this approach and provide me with feedback as to whether this theory and how it is expressed in my software and teaching practice are valid.

For language disabled students (dyslexic) who learn visually, a multimedia database provides both the favored visual environment as well as one that aids in retrieval and naming. For students with non-verbal learning disorders (NLD/dysgraphic/dyspraxic) who have difficulty with mental visual organisation and with the physical act of getting ideas down on paper, the externalizing of process, modeling of cognition and the clarity of the screen, access to a keyboard, and the find and sort features of a database are essential. These students particularly benefit from the keyboarding and database training described in this paper. However, a database that is customized and has built-in, personalised scaffolds such as a spell checker, drop-down editable value lists, and speech-to-text capability is a dramatically useful tool for students with any kind of learning difficulty. In contrast to a one-size-fits-all program, this open-ended tool enhances student’s cognitive abilities as well as their independence and self-esteem.