'06-'07 Almost in the Bag!

Almost the end of the traditional academic year, here, with only dead week and finals week to go! It’s a good time to think about what we’ve accomplished this year - or at least what stands out to me at the moment….

Technology - hardware you can kick and software you want to throw

• Began limited production of DAISY format alternate texts
• Produced an astounding 193 alternate format texts, up 169% over last year.
• Hired an awesome AT Lab Guy and two incredible Alt-Text Production Genies! Kevin, Abby, and Mike, thanks for a fantastic year - y’all are the only reason I still have any sanity left. They have made it possible for me to be in two (and sometimes three!) places at the same time, and they’ve been a hoot to work with to boot!
• Stablized platform of AT offered on campus; everything is working the way it’s supposed to. This is a huge improvement.
• Trial run of software loan using Scientific Notebook
• Installed TI-84 emulator software in accommodated testing rooms; worked well for students with low vision
• Researched new innovation after new innovation… you’ll have to wait for the next blog to see what we’re up to next year.
• Installed TTYs and public-access videophone. Huge thanks to Sprint for their donation of said videophone.
• Began actual production of Braille on campus and made Braille embosser available in AT lab for student use

Web Options for Everyone

I must admit, I’m a bit of a web-addict. I love the fact that I have instant access to just about whatever information I might want, at whatever time I want to get to it. 2 in the morning and can’t sleep? Browse eMusic for new tunes - perhaps a little Mozart will help. Looking for a one-handed keyboard? Abledata has plenty. Want to re-read Pride and Prejudice for the 47th time, or finally get through all of War and Peace? A quick download from Project Gutenberg.

There are some exciting new ways to get in and around the Web if you have a disability. There are many fine, full-featured products that work beautifully for Web browsing, such as JAWS or Kurzweil. This article will focus on free resources, however. Let’s face it - students have no money!

Firefox Browser

One of the things I really love about Firefox is the ability to customize exactly what you want it to do; a fantastic lesson in the value of open-source programming. To make it even more fun, FireFox Add-Ins work on both Windows and Mac platforms; everyone is invited to play!Themes such as the HiVisGnome Big give you high contrast, large icons and fonts to make browsing easier.

The real excitement comes with Extensions. Think of these as new tools to add to the menus or toolbar - stuff the original developer didn’t think to add. Here’s a few that work around accessibility issues:

• Accessibility Toolbar from the Illinois Center for Information Technology Accessibility. Use it for quick access to a high-contrast stylesheet or to pull out lists of frames, headers or links for fast navigation. Web developers take note - there are tools here to make designing accessible pages much, much easier. Has both toolbar icons and menu options, making keyboard accessibility to the features quick and easy.
• Accessibar has very simple, visible toolbar options to control page view. Want a different background color? Two clicks. Increase font size with one click, and one more to increase space between the lines (a huge help for visual processing learning disabilities). There’s even a free text-to-speech reader built in, so you can have it read the content of the page to you.
• FireVox is a screenreader extension for FireFox. Because it works with the live page, it reads dynamic content reasonably well. The highlighting feature is helpful for users with low vision or dyslexia.

Internet Explorer

• Explorer has some customization options that make it more workable for users with disabilities. These include custom style sheets and toolbar customizations. Customizations are available in both the Windows and Mac versions, although they vary a little between platforms.

New Function in an Already Fabulous Suite

Summary Tool

Ever wanted to skim an electronic document, without having to page through it? Now you can. Using the Premier Assistive Technology tools available on campus (Etext Reader, Universal Reader, Talking Word Processor), you can create a summary of the document with just two clicks. You can choose a percentage (default is 10%) of the document, or a specified number of sentences, and the program will extract a summary for you.

Benefits

• Finally, a way for people with visual impairments to skim a document!
• Get an idea of the content and style of the document before reading - a great preview or review method for studying.
• Use with the Talking Word Processor to summarize your own work; a good check to see if your structure is making logical sense.

Downsides

• Quality of summary varies greatly by author’s style and structure. This is, after all, and automatically generated summary, not one directed by human intelligence.
• Encourages the temptation to skim required reading only - not really read it. Use this as a study tool, not a substitute for real reading!!!

If you have questions about this or other assistive technology tools, use the comment field!

Great New Text to Speech for Mac!

Mac users, rejoice! If you’ve ever had the hankering to create your own audiobooks, you can now do it quickly and inexpensively, with some of the best synthetic voices around.

Enter TextParrot, the new text to speech application from AssistiveWare. Not only will it read most electronic documents aloud, with one click it exports your document as an audio track in iTunes. Quickly, too - I processed a 30 page chapter of a textbook in less than 4 minutes. The available voices (3 to choose from in the basic version) from Acapela Group are quite clear and understandable. Even better, it’s affordable! At only $39.95 for a single-language, single-user license, it’s a deal you almost can’t afford to miss. To be truly amazed, check out the prices on the household pack or the multiple languages.

If you read slowly, learn auditorily, prefer to use more than one sense while you read, or have visual or visual processing disabilities, this is definitely a piece of software to check out.

Unexpected Things

As I sit here in the airport, I’m thinking about all those times when things don’t go as we expect. For example, I awoke at 3:45 this morning, expecting to leave from the Medford airport at 5:50 and arrive in Denver for the Accessing Higher Ground conference at 2:37 this afternoon. Instead, here I am in Eugene at 2:45, hoping that this flight will go as planned and I will indeed end up in Denver at 9 ish this evening.

When things don’t go as expected, do you have a way to handle it? What about when your technology doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to, or if it fails? Do you know what to do if you get a virus? Having a backup plan is always a good idea. Here’s my top 3 recommendations to prepare for those times when things don’t go as expected…

1. Backup, backup, backup! If you are storing all your documents on your network F: drive, then this is happening for you automatically. But what about at home? Do you have old files backed up somewhere? Or are they all just sitting on your hard drive, waiting for a virus? There are a number of good backup programs out there. Get yourself some rewritable CDs and make backup copies of your documents. Assistive technology users should also make backups of their program preferences - face it, do you really want to have to train Dragon again or go through all those settings on JAWS again? Save preference files and keep a copy with your application CDs.
2. Know where you put your application CDs, and keep any licence key numbers with them. Keeping all these things in one spot will make locating them easier should something go wrong and you need to re-install the application. If you downloaded a program from the internet rather than receiving a CD for it, it’s an excellent idea to make a backup copy of the installation software on a CD.
3. Keep technical support contact information somewhere that you can find it. It’s really irritating to know that the support contact info you need is on the internet somewhere, but you can’t get to it because your computer won’t get to the internet.