Herbi Writer Version 2.5
Herbi Writer is a Tablet PC program for people learning how to handwrite. It shows sample letters being written, and lets the student know whether their own attempts to write the same letter are correct. For a letter to be considered "correct" the student must write the letter in the same way as the sample letter was written.
Herbi Writer Version 2.5 demonstrates the potential that software has in the area of handwriting teaching by providing a small set of limited, but useful features. Future versions will expand the set of available features to make the program more useful.
The Herbi Writer program has incorporated ideas, feedback, and sample letters from Susan Thompson, an Occupational Therapist based in Florida. Susan provides workshops and consultations on developing fine motor skills and has worked with schools districts to implement her strategies in the classroom. Susan's practical experiences with students and adults who are learning to handwrite has helped the Herbi Writer program to incorporate a valuable set of basic training features. To learn more about Susan's work, visit http://HandyLearning.com.
Thanks also to Philip, Bogdan and Rick for adding some very useful features to the software.
Your experiences with Herbi Writer:
Herbi Writer will be changed over time to incorporate your feedback. For example, if you find some letters aren't being evaluated as you expect them to be, the evaluation process can be adjusted. So send your feedback to Barker@Herbi.org to help make the program as useful as it can be.
Learn more:
The Herbi Writer program screen
Evaluating whether a letter is correct
The Herbi Writer program screen
When you run Herbi Writer, the program fills the screen. There are two main areas shown. The first area that fills the top half of the screen shows a sample letter, and the second area that fills the lower half of the screen is where the student writes their own letter. These areas also show a currently selected background which helps the student write their letter to the appropriate scale.
The lower area also shows a cartoon character whose expression changes when the student correctly writes a letter. This positive aspect of the feedback can be enhanced in the future so show a greater range of characters and expressions.
Depending on the current program settings, the program area can also show the student's name and the number of letters that they have correctly written so far.
The sample letter to be written is the letter currently selected in the dropdown list of letters near the top left corner of the program. Herbi Writer Version 2.5 only shows the letters a-z in this list, but future versions will contain other letters or words.
The sample letter is written at a distance from where the student writes their own letter. Herbi Writer is aimed at helping the student write their own letters, rather than having the student trace over sample letters.
The current set of lower case letters has been supplied by Susan Thomson, (see Acknowledgement,) and more sets will be available in the future. A set of upper case letters is included to demonstrate the use of different sets of letters, but the upper case letters are not sufficient quality for teaching purposes.
The sample letter will always be shown in the middle of the program window horizontally. The speed with which the sample letter is written can be changed in the program settings.
When the Herbi Writer program first starts, the "Repeat show" check box is checked, which means that the sample is repeatedly written. If that check box is not checked, then you must click the "Show Me" button whenever you want the sample to be written.
Evaluating whether a letter is correct
When the student has written their own letter, it will be compared with the sample letter. The student's letter will not be evaluated until the student has written the correct number of strokes. (For example, an 'a' has one stroke, but a 't' has two strokes.)
It makes no difference where the student writes horizontally in the program window. For example, the letter might be written directly beneath the sample letter or to the left or right of that. However, the student must write at the correct position vertically in order to be sure they're writing on the appropriate lines in the background image.
Herbi Writer then performs handwriting recognition on the student's letter. If the letter is not recognized as the correct letter by the Tablet PC handwriting recognizer, then Herbi Writer considers the student's letter to be incorrect. (Use of the handwriting recognizer can be turned off if necessary, as described in the program settings section below.)
If the letter is considered correct after the above checks, then Herbi Writer compares each stroke in the student's letter with those in the sample, to check that the strokes were written in a similar way. If all the stroke positions are similar, and were written in the correct way, then the student's letter is consider correct.
By changing the program settings, you can control the amount that the sample letter and the student's letter can differ, while still having the student's letter considered correct. This allows both students with basic writing skills and students with advanced writing skills to use the program.
What happens after evaluating the letter
It is very important for the student to get some exciting feedback to indicate whether the letter is correct or not. Herbi Writer Version 2.5 does this by animating the letter on the screen. If the student's letter is considered incorrect, then the letter moves off the left side of the screen. If the letter is consider correct, then the letter moves to the right and up, such that it ends up near the smiling cartoon character.
In future versions, the feedback can be changed to provide other ways of indicating success. The only other type of feedback in Herbi Writer Version 2.5 is to have the student's letter shrink to nothing when it is considered incorrect.
If the letter is considered correct, and the "Random pick" check box is checked, then Herbi Writer randomly picks the next sample letter from the dropdown list of letters.
The following picture shows the student's letter moving off the left side of the window after being evaluated as incorrect.
The following picture shows the student's letter moving near to the cartoon character after being evaluated as correct.
The following Herbi Writer settings can be set to help customize the program for the student using it.
You can specify whether you want a faded sample letter to be shown as the solid sample letter is written over it.
You can specify the time it takes to write the sample letter. When you first use Herbi Writer the program takes two seconds to write the sample, but you can speed this up or slow it down.
If you have the sample letter continually written out by having the "Repeat show" check box set, then you can also specific the time delay between finishing the sample letter and starting it again.
You can also limit which letters are shown as the sample letters, by supplying only a few specific letters from the alphabet. For example, if you only want the student to practice the letters making up the words "cat" and "dog", then type the letters "catdog" in the Letters settings window. After doing that, the only letters that appear in the letter dropdown near the top left of the screen will be "catdog".
To control how similar the student's letter must be to the sample letter before it will be considered correct, select one of "Beginner", "Intermediate" or "Advanced" from the level dropdown. That setting controls how far the student's stroke can diverge from the sample stroke before the student's stroke is considered incorrect.
You can specify how fast the animation feedback should be. The actual speed will be affected by the size of the screen, so try out the different speeds and pick the one that's best for your students. You can also say that you want incorrect letters to shrink down to nothing rather than be animated off the left side of the screen.
If you want the student's name to be shown in the Herbi Writer program, type the student's name in this settings window and check the "Show the student's name" check box. Having done that, the student's name will appear near the top left of the screen.
When the Herbi Writer program starts, it uses a sample set of lower case letters. A set of letters is stored on the computer as a folder with all the different sample letters in it. To choose another set of letters, click the "Select the set of letters" Browse button. This opens a window for you to pick another folder containing sample letters to be shown. For example, you could pick the folder "Upper case letters". Once you've closed the settings window, the Herbi Writer title bar is updated to show the set of letters currently being used. (For details of the demonstration "Animals" and "Not English Characters" sets of letters, see Making your own letters below.)
You can also select a different background to be shown in the sample area and the student's writing area. The background shown in the student's writing area will always be the same as that shown in the sample area. To select a different background, click the "Select the background image" Browse button.
Select the background you want to use from the list of backgrounds shown in the window. Herbi Writer includes the following two backgrounds.
Three line:
Two line:
To create your own background for use with Herbi Writer, copy your background image file into the folder "C:\Program Files\Herbi.org\HerbiWriter\Backgrounds". The background image must match the following criteria.
The size of the image must be at least as large as the Herbi Writer area in which it will be displayed.
The base line for the letters in the image must match the base line of the letters that will be shown on top of the image.
The file must be saved as a bitmap, (with file extension .bmp).
One approach to creating your own backgrounds is to copy an existing background in "C:\Program Files\Herbi.org\HerbiWriter\Backgrounds" and edit that copy to have the lines you need in it.
The settings Customize window also allows you to show buttons which you can use to make your own letters, see Making your own letters below.)
You can specify where the sample letter area is positioned relative to the area in which the student writes. The sample letter area can be positioned above, below, to the left of, or to the right of the area in which the student writes by selecting the required position from the dropdown list in the Layout tab of the settings window. For example, the following image shows the sample area appearing to the left of where the student writes.
Note: The layout window now also allows you to specify whether you'd like the student's name, the current score, and the Herbi cartoon character to appear in the area where the sample letter is written, or the area where the student writes.
You can also specify that you want the number of correct letters that the student has written to be shown on the screen. The Evaluate settings window also shows the total number of letters the student has written. Both the total number of letters and the number of correct letters can be reset from this settings window.
When a game is complete, you can have some text shown to the left of the Herbi cartoon character. Use the Game settings window to add the text that you want to appear. There may not be much space for text to be shown in the main Herbi Writer window, so try out different text to see what works best for you.
If you want the final score to appear in that text, put the '@' symbol where you'd like the score to go. The following picture shows some example final score text.
If you've set up a student name to be used, then whenever you close the settings window the current settings are remembered for that student. Whatever settings are current when you close the Herbi Writer program will be set up again automatically when you start the program again.
Given that you may have settings for a number of students, then you can load the settings for a specific student by clicking the Load button. You will then be able to select a file which has the same name as the student whose settings you want to load.
Editing a letter
To edit an existing sample letter, first click on the Settings button and select the "Customize" tab. Then check the "Show buttons for saving sample letters you've changed" check box, and click OK. Once you've done that, you'll see two new buttons appear near the bottom right of the screen.
While these buttons are displayed, Herbi Writer does not compare what you write to the sample letter. Instead you are able to write a new sample letter to replace the one currently shown.
To create a new sample letter, write the new sample letter in the area where the student writes. If you feel the new sample is not what you intended, press the Clear button and try again. Once you are satisfied with the new sample, press the Save button. Your new letter will replace the sample letter, and you will then see the following window appear.
To change other sample letters in the same set of letters, select a different letter from the letter dropdown near the top left of the screen. Then change the newly selected sample letter as described above. Continue to change the sample letters until you've completed the changes you need to make, and then turn off the Save and Clear buttons by going back to the settings Customize window and clearing the "Show buttons for saving sample letters you've changed" check box.
Making a new set of letters
A set of letters is stored on the computer by a folder beneath the "C:\Program Files\Herbi.org\HerbiWriter\Letters" folder. To create a new set of letters, copy one of the existing folders, (eg "C:\Program Files\Herbi.org\HerbiWriter\Letters\Lower case letters",) and create a new folder from it. Rename the new folder to have the name that you want to be shown in the Herbi Writer program.
For example, you might create a folder called "C:\Program Files\Herbi.org\HerbiWriter\Letters\Old English", which initially will contain exactly the same letters as the "Lower case letters" folder.
Having done that, you can then select the new set of letters from inside the Herbi Writer program. This can be done by browsing to the new set of letters from the settings Customize window.
At this point you can turn on the Save and Clear buttons for changing sample letters, and change all the letters in the new set of letters to be what you need for the new letters.
Making other types of letters
Herbi Writer Version 2.5 focuses on the 26 letters of the English alphabet. Future versions will be more general, to show letters from other character sets, or to show words and phrases.
For example, using the steps described above, a copy of the "Lower case letters" set of letters was made and from that copy a new set called "Animals" was created. The first five sample letters in the new set was changed from the letters a-e, to the words "ant", "Bear", "cat", "dog", and "elephant". By selecting one of the letters a-e in the letter dropdown, the sample for that letter is actually shown as a word, and the student must write that word correctly.
Similarly letters from non-English character sets could be created. As before, a copy of the "Lower case letters" set of letters was made, and then a new set of letters called "Not English Characters" was created. In this case the sample letters a-e were changed to be two accented letters, and three Chinese characters.
While Herbi Writer Version 2.5 does not fully support using words or using letters from international characters sets, (for example the dropdown list can only contain the letters a-z), the current ability to change a sample letter into a word or international character shows the potential for this support to be added in a future version.
While Herbi Writer can be used to practice writing different letters, it can now also be used to help the student work towards a specific target. By clicking on the "Start game" button, Herbi Writer will present all the letters in the current set of letters, but repeat any letters that were not written correctly on the first attempt. A score is presented which consists of the number of attempts the student has made, the number of letters that were evaluated as being correct, and the numbers of letters still remaining in the game.
Say the current set of letters is the full alphabet. (Remember that the current set of letters can be reduced to include only those letters the student needs to practice, or those making up specific words, eg "cat".) Initially the number of letters remaining is 26. All 26 letters will be presented in a random order to the student. Any letter that the student does not write correctly during this pass will be repeated in this pass until the letter in considered to be correct. Say that the student writes all letters correctly on this first pass through the alphabet except for the letters "dbmy". Once all letters have been written correctly, Herbi Writer will then make another pass which only presents the letters "dbmy". Again, if any letter is considered to be written incorrectly, it will be repeated until the student writes it correctly, and also presented again in the next pass. So if the student were to write 'b' and 'm' incorrectly on their first attempt through this pass, those letters alone will be repeated on a later pass. This continues until a final pass in made when the student writes all outstanding letters correctly on the first attempt on that pass.
Because a letter is to be repeated on the next pass, this means that when the student first writes that letter incorrectly, the count of letters remaining actually increases by 1. This is because not only must the student write the letter correctly on the current pass, but also on the next pass.
After the final pass has been completed, the score is surrounded by "***". The student then has a final score as a target to beat for future games. The best possible score for a game using all 26 letters of the alphabet would be "26/26". That would mean that ever letter was written correctly on the first pass. The picture below shows a final score where some letters were considered to be incorrect during the game.
Once a game is complete, the student can no longer write in the Herbi Writer program. By clicking the "Stop game" button, the program can then be used for more practice of letter writing, or to start the next game.
Current game requirements
In order for the game to work as expected today, please have the "Random pick" box checked when you start the game, and also have the "Show total number of attempts" box checked in the Evaluation settings window.
The colors used to show the parts of the Herbi Writer program change if high contrast settings are being used on the computer. For example, the letters and cartoon character are shown using the current foreground color, and the faded feedback used for the sample letter does not appear.
In order to use Herbi Writer in high contrast, you will need to create a high contrast background image which meets the specific needs of the student using the program. (The background image display cannot be suppressed when using high contrast settings on the computer, as the student needs lines to be shown in order to know how large to write their letters.) The Herbi Writer program comes with one light-on-dark high contrast background, but you may want to create your own depending on the specific needs of the student.
Making high contrast more useful: Please send your feedback on how Herbi Writer should change in order to make the program more useful for students who use high contrast settings. At some point audio feedback will be added to the program, but you may feel that the animation, cartoon feedback, and timings should also change.
To download Herbi Writer, click Install Herbi Writer. After clicking on this link, press the "Run" buttons on the first window that appears, and then click the "Next" buttons to continue the installation. Once you've clicked "Close" on the last window to appear, the installation is finished.
You can then run Herbi Writer program from the desktop shortcut that looks like this:
Note: When installing Herbi Writer, your computer may show you a message saying that an update to the Windows feature called the ".Net Framework" needs to be installed first. If this message appears, you can follow the link shown with the message to the ".Net Framework Version 3.0". This link takes you to a Microsoft web site from which you can install the required feature. (This will probably be the "x86" version in the list of available versions.) If you have questions about which version to install, you can ask Guy Barker at Barker@Herbi.org.
Once you've finished with Herbi Writer program you can remove it from your computer by going to the Control Panel's Add or Remove Programs, and removing "Herbi.org Herbi Writer".
