Yesterday was, of course, #WorldBookDay. As a writer and a ferocious reader, that excited me. But not so much for my severely dyslexic daughter, @PanKwake. Her reaction was…
You mean those things I’ll never be able to read?
As I said yesterday, this led to another of our open debates about what is reading, books, or learning.
Through her self-directed learning, @PanKwake has adapted to the challenges of her dyslexia. For years, she has been teaching herself science, history, mythology, and her latest, British Sign Language, through YouTube videos. She has learned maths primarily though her gaming. Knowing how many Robux you need for a new hat is crucial, at least to @PanKwake.
But it is only in the past few months, with the isolation of this pandemic, that she began to explore ‘books’ and ‘reading.’ Of course, to @PanKwake that means WattPad and screen readers, or Audible.
It has been bothering me for months that this blog, which is about her and our experiences of #neurodivergence and self-directed learning, is not accessible to @PanKwake.
I considered switching to, or at least augmenting with, her fav platform – YouTube. But I ain’t very pretty. And she says that no one can understand my red-neck accent. I’m just too camera shy.
Podcasting was another option. But as a technophobe, it was just too daunting.
Then yesterday, when I hit the publish button, an option appeared to do just that –
Convert to a podcast.
I can’t tell you how excited I was that in less than ten minutes I had set up a podcasting account and published my first broadcast. It was a dream come true. So much so that I almost cried. @PanKwake high-fived me.
I want to thank @Anchor and WordPress for this partnership that allows me to make the information in my blogs more accessible to the neurodivergent. That is so important to me.
So, I am pleased to announce that from now on this blog will be available not only to read but also to listen to. Over the coming weeks and months, I hope to convert old material to this format as well.
Multi-nodal learning and accessibility is major issue to the neurodivergent community. I am proud that thanks to WordPress and @Anchor I can bring those to a broader audience. It seems almost prophetic that it happened on #WorldBookDay.
Self-Directed Learning & Neurodiversity 