Co:Writer 4000
Reviewer: Chauncy N. Rucker
Mansfield Center, CT
crucker@crucker.com
Co:Writer 4000, Don Johnston, Inc.,
2000
http://www.donjohnston.com
Mac/Win CD-ROM
Date reviewed: January, 2001
List price: $325 Single-User, $1,137 5-User
Rating: A
Co:Writer has been out for several years, but Co:Writer 4000 was introduced very recently. I'm assuming you've seen Co:Writer, so I'll briefly describe it and then concentrate on the new features of Co:Writer 4000. Co:Writer is a talking word prediction program. It is used in conjunction with a word-processing program of your choosing. When you enter a letter in the Co:Writer screen the program offers several (you can decide how many) predictions as to the word you're planning to use. You can select the word, or if the word isn't on the list you can enter another letter. When you select a word it is read aloud to help the students recognize and select the words they want. The predictions are based on a dictionary, and rules of grammar, linguistics and syntax. The program also "learns" the words you commonly use so that the word predictions become more accurate the more you use the program. Co:Writer automatically spaces between words and when you enter a period to end a sentence, Co:Writer transfers the sentence to the screen of whichever word processing program you've chosen to use. Co:Writer works a sentence at a time and then clears the screen for you to enter the next sentence. Co:Writer is actually a little more involved that this, but this should give you the basic idea.
Co:Writer 4000 has three new features. The first feature allows you to choose the colors of text and background in the Co:Writer file. Since you're apt to have Co:Writer and a word-processing program open at the same time, changing the color on the Co:Writer screen should avoid confusion between the two programs. In addition, you can select a background and text color that would be more readable for those with visual disabilities (ordinarily white text on a black background).
Second, Co:Writer 4000 uses what the company calls FlexSpell (flexible spelling). That means that you can enter words by cueing letters, but the program can also predict from phonetic spelling. The FlexSpell cases I experimented with were onset vowels: when you entered "U," "you" was one of the predictions, when you entered "Wn," "once" was one of the predictions, and when you entered "kstl," "constellation" was one of the predictions. My favorite was elephant which had been used in an early program as the example word for the letter E. Co:Writer 4000 will predict elephant when you enter "ele," but if you spell it more like it sounds, it will predict elephant from "lf." Here's a feature I could really use!
The third new feature has to do with dictionaries. Co:Writer has a dictionary, but Co:Writer 4000 has a main dictionary, personal dictionary, topic dictionaries, and a Topic Dictionary Toolkit. Actually you can choose from several "main dictionaries" depending on the size dictionary you want to use. Topic dictionaries are employed when an individual is working in a particular area. For example, if a student is working on a project having to do with dinosaurs, they simply select the dinosaur topic dictionary before they begin the project. You can use many dictionaries at the same time. There are twenty topic dictionaries that come with Co:Writer 4000.
The coolest thing for me was the Topic Dictionary Toolkit which allows you to produce your own topic dictionary. The toolkit allows you to scan any text document and produce a topic dictionary based on the text. In the example I saw, the toolkit scanned all the words in a text file of Treasure Island, compared the words to the main dictionary, and created a new Treasure Island topic dictionary that included all the words in Treasure Island that were not in the main dictionary. The new topic dictionary included the names of all the characters, all the nautical terms, all the locations, etc. This entire process took less than five seconds - Wow!
The price of Co:Writer 4000 seems a little high, but other than that I have no criticisms. The technology that has gone into it is astounding.
Clearly Co:Writer 4000 is a valuable tool for students who have limited grammar, spelling and vocabulary skills, or are auditory learners. Certainly students who have difficulty using the keyboard would appreciate the great reduction in letters necessary to create words and sentences. Many of the students with cerebral palsy I worked with would have loved Co:Writer 4000. Although Co:Writer was developed to help young struggling writers, many older students with learning disabilities, and even adults who have difficulty with spelling and writing are using Co:Writer with success.