Official Google Blog: Google Drive and the Docs editors: designed with everyone in mind. Imagine trying to keep track of another person’s real-time edits in a document—using only your ears. Or trying to create a table from spreadsheet data—without being able to clearly see the cells. Whether you’re backing up a file in Drive or crunching some numbers in Sheets, it should be easy to bring your ideas to life using Google’s tools. But if you’re blind or have low vision, you may need to rely on assistive technologies such as screen readers and Braille displays—and that can make working in the cloud challenging. While screen readers can parse static webpages (like this blog) relatively easily, it’s much harder for them to know what to say in interactive applications like Google Docs because the actions they need to describe are much more complex.
With these reasons in mind, today we’re announcing some improvements to Drive and all our editors—Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, and Forms—specifically designed with blind and low-vision users in mind. Have You Heard of People First Language?The Educator's Room | Empowering Teachers as the Experts. What is People First Language? People First Language refers to the language our society uses to refer to people with disabilities.
People First Language places emphasis where it should be, on the person and not the disability. People with disabilities, moreover our students with disabilities, are- first and foremost-... What is People First Language? People First Language refers to the language our society uses to refer to people with disabilities. Look at this example. People First Language says: Instead of: People with disabilities are great. It’s a small difference that makes a world of difference. Why is People First Language Important? “Our words and the meanings we attach to them create attitudes, drive social policies and laws, influence our feelings and decisions, and affect people’s daily lives and more. As an individual who happens to be Dyslexic and a special education teacher, if my students don’t learn anything else I want them to know that the label doesn’t define them.
OUCH! ClZoom | technologies. Welcome to AACknowledge, the AAC Evidence Base | AACknowledge | technologies. How Technology Is Changing Education For Disabled Students. Some people see computers as little more than gaming consoles and shopping tools. Recently developed electronics, however, have revolutionized education for children with disabilities. If you know a child with disabilities who is struggling, you might want to explore some of these devices. Technology for Kids With Autism Children with autism often don’t develop typical communication skills. It takes years and years of therapy for some of these children to start using simple language.
Just because a child cannot speak does not mean that he or she doesn’t have something to say. That’s where revolutionary electronics come in. It not only helps the kids express themselves to get their needs met, but gives parents and counselors insight into psychological problems that they can address. Educational Technology for Deaf Children Deaf children often have a hard time fitting into school because they have to use sign language to communicate with teachers and other students.
The LEVO Bookstand. WordTalk - A free text-to-speech plugin for Microsoft Word | technologies. The Internet for Left-Handers© | technologies. Font Changer with Google Web Fonts™ | technologies. BBC News - OpenDyslexic font gains ground with help of Instapaper. The Best Text to Speech (TTS) Software Programs and Online Tools - How-To Geek | technologies.
OpenDyslexic font gains ground | technologies. Greater accessibility for Google Apps | Official Google Blog. 50 Useful Apps For Students With Reading Disabilities | technologies. Teaching Learners with Multiple Special Needs: Candy Corn Switch. Free software enhancing library access worldwide | JISC TechDis Blog. eLearning Tools-Resources-etc. eLearning Tools-Resources-etc. eLearning Tools-Resources-etc. Switch Access to iPods/iPads Expands | technologies. eLearning Tools-Resources-etc. Text-to-Speech on iOS | technologies. eLearning Tools-Resources-etc. eLearning Tools-Resources-etc. eLearning Tools-Resources-etc. So – What is Text to Speech? « Inclusive Learning. Obscure physics words get sign language equivalents | technologies. VoiceThread Universal. Visuals Engine. Vischeck: Home | technologies.
Virtual Magnifying Glass 3.5 | technologies. Symbol Resources | technologies. SpeakIt! - Chrome Web Store. Transmiti - Google Translate Client. Tongue piercing steers wheelchair. This device is a wheelchair steering "wheel" in the form of a dental retainer instrumented with sensors that are activated by a tongue piercing. Georgia Institute of Technology engineers devised the Tongue Drive System prototype for people with high-level spinal cord injuries. From Wired UK: The output signals from the sensors are wirelessly transmitted to an iPod Touch or iPhone. Software installed on the Apple device works out the relative position of the magnet with respect to the array of sensors in real time and interprets the user's commands. This information is then used to control the movements of a cursor on the computer screen or to substitute for the joystick function in a powered wheelchair… The system can be trained with multiple commands -- unlike the common sip-n-puff device that acts as a switch controlled by sucking or blowing through a straw.
"Tongue Drive uses dental retainer and tongue piercing to control wheelchair" (Thanks, Ariel Waldman!) Text-to-Speech for PDF on iPad or iPhone with Voice Reader. [Follow link immediately below for more recent post about text-to-speech app for pdfs that retains original formatting of PDF file.] vBookz PDF Voice Reader: Simple Text-to-Speech Solution for PDF’s on iPad, iPhone and iTouch Despite all the positive potential, Apple’s iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch are limited by serious shortcomings. Some of these deficiencies are unfortunate, frustrating, and surprising in such expensive devices! It is extremely disappointing that Speak Selection, the text-to-speech Apple has built into iOS 5, does not work with PDF files. It doesn’t matter whether the file is open in iBooks, GoodReader, or any other app I’ve tested, Speak Selection will not read a PDF file.
Voice Reader is a low cost ($1.99) app for iPad or iPhone that provides text-to-speech that reads PDF’ files aloud–in 21 languages, with 32 available voices. Settings within Voice Reader offer some helpful adjustments, including reading rate, voice pitch, text font, and font-size. Technology-workshops-for-blind-young-people-in-Carlisle. The Case Against Assistive Technology. Sensory World & Rooms. RoboBraille. Office 2010 – Quick Tips | JISC TechDis Blog. I’ve recently had Microsoft® Office 2010 installed on my computer and have discovered a few different accessibility features. Some are new in this version, others have been in previous versions but I hadn’t noticed!
I thought it would be useful to gather them together in a series of short blog posts – please feel free to suggest more we could cover. Those of you who are familiar with Adobe Acrobat for PDFs will probably know about the accessibility checker which Screenshot of the Accessibility Check results checks for things like document structure, alt text for images and other features that make documents more accessible. There is now a similar checker built into some of the Office 2010 programs (Word, Excel and PowerPoint). The checker categories any issues it picks up according to how difficult it would make the document to understand.
Issues marked Error mean that a file is very difficult or impossible for a disabled person to understand. Office 2010 Quick Tips – Text to Speech | JISC TechDis Blog. Text to Speech is simply the conversion of text on the screen to synthetic speech which is read aloud to the user. It can be very useful for a range of users – for people with visual impairment, for those with dyslexia who find it easier to listen to a document than to read it, or simply people who want to make use of time in which they can’t look at a screen (while driving, for example, or commuting on crowded public transport. Some text to speech tools lend themselves better to these different purposes but, much like cameras, sometimes the best tool is the one that’s immediately available. In Office 2010 Microsoft has included a built-in text to speech facility for Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote and Excel.
It is relatively straightforward to enable, if slightly hidden, and the procedure is the same for each of the applications – it just needs to be added to the Quick Access Toolbar. To get to it: The Speak icon will then appear in your Quick Access Toolbar. Knocking at open doors – influencing accessibility in the publishing world.. | JISC TechDis Blog. It was work with library professionals the first brought accessible publishing onto our radar back in 2005. A library colleague – Jo Richler – had asked a specialist academic publisher for a book in digital format for a disabled student. For the publisher, this was completely new territory. They were not sure what format the student would want nor were they clear what would be appropriate to charge or what licensing conditions to apply. Jo recognised that this wasn’t a one-off issue but something that needed wider representation.
Within a few months we had made contact with Graham Taylor at the Publishers Association where it was clear there was an appetite to be responsive to customer need but an uncertainty as to what this would involve. Since those early meetings, we have worked extensively with publishers and partners in the Right to Read Alliance to build a pragmatic consensus on the best way to meet the needs of disabled readers. Alistair McNaught. News. Jisc TechDis is part of the In-Folio implementation team which was awarded the Learning Technology Team of the Year Award at the 2011 Association of Learning Technology Annual Conference (ALT-C) dinner. In-Folio is an e-portfolio system that enables learners, particularly those with disabilities or learning difficulties, to record and present their achievements and abilities. The open source, accessible, simple interface allows learners to store, arrange and organise multimedia content in simple online pages.
The team commissioned development of In-Folio on behalf of the Independent Specialist Colleges (ISCs) after lengthy sector consultations and trials of existing e-portfolios revealed that none were suitable for their learners. In-Folio has now been successfully implemented across the sector having been installed onto the servers of all 44 ISCs. Sal Cooke, Director of Jisc TechDis, says “winning this award is a wonderful accolade for Jisc TechDis and the In-Folio team as a whole. Knocking at open doors – influencing accessibility in the publishing world.. | JISC TechDis Blog.
News. JISC Techdis welcomes the publication of the Ofsted report Progression post-16 for learners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities. Sal Cooke, Director of JISC Techdis, says “I am both pleased and relieved that this report addresses the positive benefits of post-16 provision, as this was noticeably absent from the SEN and Disability Green paper issued in March this year”. Sal Cooke concurs with most of the report findings and recommendations. It is good to see that Independent Specialist Colleges (ISCs) are well represented in this report, comprising two of the 14 Further Education (FE) colleges visited and a further four of the nine colleges contacted.
This is a very good proportion bearing in mind that ISCs make provision for some 4000 Young People’s Learning Agency (YPLA) funded learners compared to 560,860 with a learning difficulty or disability in FE colleges. Keyboard accessibility quick tip. A quick accessibility tip to help you make sure your web pages aren’t reliant on someone using just a mouse and can be operated by someone using a keyboard instead.
Accessible Media Player by Nomensa The timeline slider below uses WAI ARIA. Please use the documentation for your screen reader to find out more. Transcript Hi, I’m Emily from Nomensa and today I’m going to be talking about keyboard accessibility. When building a website it is important to remember that not everyone uses a mouse to interact with web pages. On this web page we have a list of event categories. Now let’s try the same thing using a keyboard. Let’s have a look at the code to see what’s going on. As we can see from the code the ‘show fundraising events’ button is marked up as a heading level three and styled to look like an interactive element using CSS.
In the events example, we want people to be able to select the ‘show events’ buttons regardless of whether they are using a mouse or a keyboard. Share this post. JISC Techdis - Invest in Yourself - Free Resources. JISC RSC Scotland N&E: EduApps. iPad Assistive Technology. Home. Introducing ChromeVox (with audio description) In-Folio Guides « Inclusive Learning. August 26, 2011 by Lisa Featherstone Two posts in one day! I couldn’t get a YouTube video to upload to our team blog so I’ve moved back over here.
We’ve eventually got a selection of excellent ‘how to’ videos from Matt Harrison at Portland College and some not so good ones from me. The basic introduction is here. There are 5 in all with more to come in the new term. However, they are all linked together in a Xerte package so progression is easier to see. In-Folio was developed as a collaboration between JISC Techdis, the Rix Centre and Independent Specialist Colleges. Like this: Like Loading... In-Folio Guides | JISC Techdis Blog. Inclusion in the 21st-century classroom: Differentiating with technology - Reaching every learner: Differentiating instruction in theory and practice.
In this video, students in a gifted classroom use the multi-user learning environment Quest Atlantis to explore issues related to the creation of a game reserve in Tanzania. Interviews with the teacher and students offer perspectives on the value of using virtual worlds in the classroom . About the videoDownload video (Right-click or option-click) The diversity of the 21st-century classroom creates numerous challenges for teachers who may not have known the same diversity themselves as students. Among these, teachers must balance the requirements of high-stakes accountability while meeting the needs of diverse students within their classroom. The 26th Annual Report to Congress on IDEA reported that approximately ninety-six percent of general education teachers have students in their classroom with learning disabilities. This is not a surprising statistic, considering there are over six million students with disability classifications in the United States. Setting the scope Microsoft Word.
Give Your Computer A Voice With eSpeak [Windows & Linux] Let your computer do the talking. Install eSpeak and you can make your computer say anything, in a wide variety of languages. Looking for a lightweight text to speech program? Whether you want to listen to your favorite blog while doing the dishes, or just make your computer say naughty words to your friends so you can giggle like schoolchildren, eSpeak is a great tool for the job.
It’s “a compact open source software speech synthesizer for English and other languages” according to its website. You can use official versions of eSpeak on Linux and Windows. Using eSpeak In Linux, eSpeak features a delightfully minimalist user interface: Enter some text, pick a language and hit play; the text is spoken and the words being read are highlighted in real time. Need to listen to text not in English? Most major European languages are supported; check out the official list of languages supported by eSpeak, if you’re curious. Those creepy lips move while eSpeak talks, which I could do without. Free Online Switch Activities - Updated. Updated 11/09/2015 This is an update of the post listing online switch activities for learners with multiple or significant special needs.
The activities listed are chosen because they can be used with switches, they are simple and they are enjoyable. The activities listed are free. Some activities may require set up by an assistant before switch use. Although care has been taken not to include switch activities with any violence or graphic images teachers and others still need to check activities for age and general appropriateness before use. Cause and Effect (and Press to Play): Single Switch Scanning/Timed Single Switch Response (sites may include some cause and effect games as well): Two Switches (unless otherwise noted you must click in the area of the game and then use tab and enter to play): Chrome Apps and Extensions iPad Apps Note: using the Puffin Browser app makes many switch accessible websites work on the iPad!
Subscription Sites with Free Trials. Free Printable Books (for Older Students) E-Access Bulletin Live » Blog Archive » RNIB To Launch Largest Ever Web Testing Exercise. Flash_safe. Dynamic Keyboard. Directions to Use a Switch to Scan Playlists on YouTube. Developing Reading skills. Create webpages mirrors - TextMirror. Create text-to-speech (TTS) podcast from RSS feed for iPod, iPhone, MP3 player and mobile phone. Colorblind Web Page Filter. Careers Wales : My Future. CKUK :: home | technologies. BSI British Standards. Basic Overview of the FreeSpeech iPad App - Part 1 of 4. Assistive Technology. Achronism Studios | Colorblind Assistant | technologies. FreeSpeech for iPad | technologies. Accessibility. Accessibility in Microsoft Office 2010 | technologies. What are the accessibility duty implications when using a cloud computing provider.
Widgit SymbolWorld | technologies. Web Able TV.