Dear Amazon.com,
The community of people with print disabilities were all a-twitter about the Kindle 2. Readers who use their ears to read - those who are visually impaired, have learning disabilities, are learning English, or are functionally illiterate - were excited to finally have a mass-marketed, accessible device that allows them to read. No "special" devices. Books, newspapers, and magazines would be available to them at the same way, at the same time, and AT THE SAME PRICE as they are to everyone else. What a great idea!
But then you allowed authors and publishers to block that great idea.
I work at a regional university. One of my responsibilities is to ensure that students with print disabilities have accessible textbooks. Frankly, I was really hoping that the Kindle could help. I'd love it if our students could just buy a textbook that is accessible to them. Just this morning, I had a student ask me about the Kindle 2 - whether it might work for her, and how she might be able to fund it. It hurt to have to tell her about the decision you have made to allow authors and publishers to block access to text-to-speech, but it wouldn't be responsible of me to let her assume, based on early press, that she's have that accessibility to all the great texts that you have.
Please, Amazon, reconsider.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Desktop Distractions? Block 'Em Out!
So, you're working on a paper. Chugging away, everything's going great... and then, since you have Facebook running in the background, one of those little popups comes up at the bottom of your screen. You stop writing to read it...
(30 minutes later)
Oh, yeah, you were writing a paper. Hmmm... train of thought has not only left the station, but it took all your baggage with it.
There are some ways to deal with desktop distractions. Today, we'll look at some options. If you have other techniques or technology that you find helpful, post it in the comments!
Clear the Visual Clutter with Ghoster or Isolator
Concentrate only on one window at a time and dim the rest of your screen. Both programs work quite similarly, making only the active application clearly visible.
Ghoster
(Windows)
Ghoster does a nice job of clearing the background, though it doesn't (as you can see) block all visibility. However, with everything in the dark, I'm much less likely to wander off to it. My favorite part is that it also dims out the Task Bar, which likes to distract me with its flashing lights and popups.
Isolate (Mac)
Isolate can be configured in a few different ways - my favorite is the complete blackout. Because my Mac doesn't pop stuff up at me nearly as often as my Windows machine does, I'm less worried about the fact that the Dock doesn't dim.
LeechBlock - Firefox extension (Windows/Mac)
LeechBlock allows you to specify specific sites, like MySpace or Facebook, that tend to be less than productive for you. You choose the sites, you choose the times to block them. You can, of course, choose to unblock them, but generally the extra steps you need to do that will help you remember why you blocked them in the first place.
(30 minutes later)
Oh, yeah, you were writing a paper. Hmmm... train of thought has not only left the station, but it took all your baggage with it.
There are some ways to deal with desktop distractions. Today, we'll look at some options. If you have other techniques or technology that you find helpful, post it in the comments!
Clear the Visual Clutter with Ghoster or Isolator
Concentrate only on one window at a time and dim the rest of your screen. Both programs work quite similarly, making only the active application clearly visible.Ghoster
(Windows)
Ghoster does a nice job of clearing the background, though it doesn't (as you can see) block all visibility. However, with everything in the dark, I'm much less likely to wander off to it. My favorite part is that it also dims out the Task Bar, which likes to distract me with its flashing lights and popups.Isolate (Mac)
Isolate can be configured in a few different ways - my favorite is the complete blackout. Because my Mac doesn't pop stuff up at me nearly as often as my Windows machine does, I'm less worried about the fact that the Dock doesn't dim.Really Distracted? Lock Yourself Out With LeechBlock!
If you know that the siren song of the web will be calling your name (shhh, Facebook, I'll be with you later!), but you still need to use the, well, useful sites to complete your homework, you might want to try LeechBlock.LeechBlock - Firefox extension (Windows/Mac)
Monday, November 24, 2008
Better than Spell Check on Steroids
Have you heard about Ginger?
I was absolutely blown away by the demo at the AHEAD conference this summer. Ginger has the potential to completely change the way that students with dyslexia and other visual processing learning disabilities feel about writing.
"Why for how come so?" I hear you asking. Ginger takes the spelling and mechanics errors dyslexics can often make and corrects them by looking at the syntax of the sentence, rather than just the word in isolation. An example they have posted on their site:
Original: H ws nt fileing wale whan he retrnd
MS Word's corrections: H was not filing wale when he returned
Ginger's corrections: He was not feeling well when he returned
One thing you'll notice immediately about Ginger is the contextual help for choosing the correct word.
One other thing I also notice is that it's slow. Ginger does all of its work over the Internet, so even with my high-speed connection here in my office at SOU, there's still some wait time. Pretty much, that's the only downside I'm finding.
Currently, Ginger is in beta - which means it's free! Download it and give it a try; you may just find Ginger revolutionizing your writing.
I was absolutely blown away by the demo at the AHEAD conference this summer. Ginger has the potential to completely change the way that students with dyslexia and other visual processing learning disabilities feel about writing.
"Why for how come so?" I hear you asking. Ginger takes the spelling and mechanics errors dyslexics can often make and corrects them by looking at the syntax of the sentence, rather than just the word in isolation. An example they have posted on their site:
Original: H ws nt fileing wale whan he retrnd
MS Word's corrections: H was not filing wale when he returned
Ginger's corrections: He was not feeling well when he returned
One thing you'll notice immediately about Ginger is the contextual help for choosing the correct word.
One other thing I also notice is that it's slow. Ginger does all of its work over the Internet, so even with my high-speed connection here in my office at SOU, there's still some wait time. Pretty much, that's the only downside I'm finding.
Currently, Ginger is in beta - which means it's free! Download it and give it a try; you may just find Ginger revolutionizing your writing.
Monday, November 10, 2008
So, Does 138+ Free or Cheap Tools for Learning Appeal to You?
I'm going to state up front that this is a shameless infomercial.
Having said that, fellow learners of the world, here's the scoop. Once again this winter, I'm teaching Technology for Learning. It's designed to give every student, regardless of major, abilities, or learning style, technology tools they can use to be more effective and efficient. Besides, it's fun! My basic philosophy: if properly chosen, technology tools can make a student's life much easier and improve their grades at the same time. This class is all about finding out which tools will do that for you, specifically. At the end of the class, you'll come out with a personal technology plan that lays out what your goals are, what tools you've chosen, and how you'll implement those tools.
An exciting new addition this time around is the Tech4LearnCourse Wiki. Through the wiki, students will collaborate o
n reviews of tools, their personal technology plans, a glossary and more. The coolest feature, however, is that your access to the wiki doesn't go away when the class ends! Every student who has taken the class still has access, so you can find out about new tools and contribute to the discussion for as long as you want!
Having said that, fellow learners of the world, here's the scoop. Once again this winter, I'm teaching Technology for Learning. It's designed to give every student, regardless of major, abilities, or learning style, technology tools they can use to be more effective and efficient. Besides, it's fun! My basic philosophy: if properly chosen, technology tools can make a student's life much easier and improve their grades at the same time. This class is all about finding out which tools will do that for you, specifically. At the end of the class, you'll come out with a personal technology plan that lays out what your goals are, what tools you've chosen, and how you'll implement those tools.
An exciting new addition this time around is the Tech4LearnCourse Wiki. Through the wiki, students will collaborate o
n reviews of tools, their personal technology plans, a glossary and more. The coolest feature, however, is that your access to the wiki doesn't go away when the class ends! Every student who has taken the class still has access, so you can find out about new tools and contribute to the discussion for as long as you want!Who should take this class?
- Students returning to college. If you haven't been around academic tools for awhile, there's some new stuff that can really help you!
- Students whose first language is not English. English breaks way too many of its own rules to be easy to learn! Use technology to help you.
- Students who need help in any of the following: reading, writing, math, studying, researching, organizing (yes, I know that's most of us!), or navigating the electronic campus
- Students with disabilities who would like to find more ways to interact with information independently and efficiently
- Teachers of any level who would like to find new tools for their students (and themselves)
- Anyone with an interest in learning new technology tools to make their work more efficient and fun!
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Premier AT Home Ending Soon
I've blogged before about some of the great tools available at SOU in the Premier AT Suite. Last academic year, we had a little more room in the AT budget and were able to purchase a subscription to the Premier AT Home service, which allowed students to download as many of the tools in the suite as they liked, for free.
Faithful readers of this blog will know how I like the word "free." It's right up there with "chocolate."
Our subscription will be ending on November 22nd, and, budgets being what they are, we aren't going to be able to subscribe this year. I'm hoping to do it again next year, but it will depend on what the budgetary demands are. In the broader scheme of things, accommodations get funded first - and that's what's happened this year.
Bottom line, folks - if you've thought of downloading the Premier Suite but haven't done it yet, do so before November 22nd. The url, username and password you need are in the Disability Services channel of the MySOU portal.
Faithful readers of this blog will know how I like the word "free." It's right up there with "chocolate."
Our subscription will be ending on November 22nd, and, budgets being what they are, we aren't going to be able to subscribe this year. I'm hoping to do it again next year, but it will depend on what the budgetary demands are. In the broader scheme of things, accommodations get funded first - and that's what's happened this year.
Bottom line, folks - if you've thought of downloading the Premier Suite but haven't done it yet, do so before November 22nd. The url, username and password you need are in the Disability Services channel of the MySOU portal.
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