ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY BLOG | INVENTIONS FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

Bookshare's new web reader allows members to read through a browser and eliminates the need to download books. The web reader also allows members to read any of Bookshare's 177,000 books on a library or school computer without having special software installed.

Bookshare is a free accessible ebook library for people with print disabilities. To learn if you qualify and how to join click here. Once you're signed in with your Bookshare account you can access the web reader via your bookshelf or the search page. When you search for a book you can click on the "read now" link to open the book in the web reader or you can add it to your bookshelf. From the bookshelf you can click the "read now" link as well. The web reader offers features such as text-to-speech with highlighting, nighttime reading mode, adjustable text-to-speech speed, table of contents, and go-to-page options. Bookshare recommends sighted members use the Google Chrome browser for improved text-to-speech and visually impaired members use Internet Explorer, Safari, or Firefox for improved screen reader usability.

Click read more below to view screenshots of the web reader in action.

Making text accessible for students with "Print Disabilities" has become one of the cornerstones of the work that I do day in and day out. By being able to provide students with accessible text, they can know with confidence that they will be able to keep up with the work load in their respective classes. Utilizing services like Bookshare has really made a significant difference in the lives of students that I have worked with, but it is still incredible when I realize just how many parents, students and educators are unaware of the service. As I continue to go out into the educational community and share this information one of the things I have learned in my years in the field of assistive technology is that: the technology has to be dead simple to use and access. If there are any kinks in the process there is a real likelihood that the technology just will not be utilized. In this respect with the release of the Bookshare Web Reader, Bookshare has taken the necessary step to make the process of accessing and reading books a simpler process for both students and teachers. Now students can log into Bookshare with their Individual account credentials-open the Google Chrome Browser and simply install the Bookshare Web Reader Extension and have immediate access to their books complete with text to speech support. Students will no longer have to download a separate application to access their books and by using the Google Chrome browser they can access their books on any computer through the browser.

I had a chance to try the Bookshare Web Reader, just today, and I am very pleased with how it worked. The installation of the Chrome extension was simple to do and by simply logging into a Demo Individual account, I could click on the Read Now link which automatically opened the Bookshare Web Reader. Bookshare Web Reader, has an easy to use tool bar at the top of the Browser which lets you navigate the book and start and stop the Text to Speech engine. By clicking on the Gear icon- it will pop up a dialog box that will allow you to change some of the reading and visual settings. Students can change the look and feel of the book and can determine just how fast they would like the text to be read. Working with the Bookshare Web Reader, I did not see a way to change the speech engine and I am guessing that the Bookshare Web Reader, uses a text to speech engine that is installed with the Web Reader Extension. If I had to make a recommendation, I would like to see a range of speech engines that students can select from in future releases of this product. Overall, Bookshare Web Reader makes accessing Bookshare books easy and straight forward and eliminates the need to have a full blown reading application installed on the computer. As we remove more and more friction from the reading experience, more students will find it second nature to utilize their Bookshare accounts with the Bookshare Web Reader to access their books- and in the end, that is what's really important.

The above video is a short example of how to use online downloading in Kurzweil 3000 version 12. Online downloading allows users to download content from many sources directly into Kurzweil. Kurzweil allows users to download books Project Gutenberg, Bookshare and many more. To use online book downloading go to the online menu and then select search for books. Once you search for and download the book go to file and then open to start reading the book. This method of downloading books directly into Kurzweil allows you to quickly access books from many sources. To watch this video with YourTube click here. To learn more about YourTube click here.

Getting the news can be a challenge if you have a print disability. But luckily there are many was to get accessible news if you know where to look. In the video above I detail many ways to access the news. One way to access the newspaper is to download a spoken summary of the paper such as the New York Times' Front Page Podcast. Another way to access the news is with Bookshare. Bookshare offers many newspapers and periodicals for free for members. If you are unfamiliar with Bookshare or the Read2Go app click on their respective links. Another way to access the news is with text-to-speech. Text-to-speech software can read the news to you if you have a print disability. Watch the video to learn more about accessing the news if you have a print disability.

I have waited for some time now for the release of Read2Go App for the Ipad to be released by Benetech, Inc- and today it finally arrived in the Apple App Store. I quickly downloaded the app which is $19.99  in Apple's App Store and gave it a quick test drive. Once I downloaded the Read2Go App, I logged into my Demo Account and downloaded a couple of books directly to my iPad- which were quickly saved. I was able to configure the Font size as well as a host of various Visual Settings which was very straight forward.

Read2Go uses the popular Acapela Speech Engine and I had a choice of the text being read using Heather or Ryan.. It was easy using the slider to change the speed that the text was being read and highlighted. By default the sentence is highlighted in yellow and each word is then highlighted in green. Users can change the various colors of the highlighting by going into the Visual Settings menu. Read2Go makes it very easy to navigate to a Section, Page, or Bookmark. On first pass the Read2Go is very easy to use and the only problem that I had was I received a Low Memory dialog when reading a book that asked me to quit the other applications. Once I did that everything seemed to work fine. If you are not sure how to Quit apps - just Press your Home button twice and then hold down your finger on any app in the bottom of the window until the icons jiggle- now quit out of each app by Pressing on the Minus sign.

Read2Go looks great and I for one am going to highly recommend it to the students that I work with who have a "Print Disability." Please remember that you must have a Bookshare Account to download books to your iPad. Let me your thoughts about this new app that breaks new ground for students with reading disabilities.

Caliber is a free eBook conversion software that can convert Bookshare books into ePub format. ePub is the format used by most eReader. There are other methods of converting Bookshare books such as Don Johnston's Daisy to ePub software. (Click Here for article about Daisy to ePub)  Caliber is a free program for Mac and PC. Caliber can input and output many different book formats which makes it more versatile than Daisy to ePub. Converting a book using Daisy to ePub is easier then using Caliber.  The benefit of Caliber is that it is free and Daisy to ePub costs $99. When using Caliber you must first convert your Bookshare book into a PDF by copying the text and images of the book into word document and saving the document as a PDF. This step is necessary because PDF is one of the supported Caliber formats. The next step is to add the PDF into your Caliber library and convert it to ePub format. Once the book is in ePub you can put it on your iPad or other eReader. If you put your book onto the iPad you can use VoiceOver to listen to the book. Caliber is not perfect, sometimes the spacing and original formatting is not left intact. Even with its flaws Caliber is still a great tool for converting Bookshare books into ePubs. Watch the video above for step by step instructions.

The accessible book download site Bookshare reached 100,000 downloadable books last week. In a blog post on Bookshare.org the organization announced reaching the 100,000 book milestone. If you are unfamiliar with Bookshare check out my blog post to learn about what Bookshare is an how to join. New books are being add all the time and that number is sure to rise.

Bookshare.org is a site that provides free books to people with bona fide reading disabilities. Bookshare has thousands of books and more being added all the time. The Chafee amendment give Bookshare the right to distribute books to people with print disabilities. There is a wide variety of books, text books, magazines and newspapers to choose from. Bookshare also includes free text-to-speech software that is made for reading only Bookshare books. The software is both Mac and PC. If Bookshare does not have a book that you are looking for you can request it and they will add it to their library.

In a previous post I shared my experiences using the Kindle 3 which to date is probably the best selling eReader in the marketplace. I'm sure that the Kindle 3 will be on top of the list for gifts this holiday season with nearly every big box store carrying it. One of the reasons why I had decided to buy the Kindle 3 was that it was the only dedicated eReader that has built in text to speech. Working with a lot of students with reading disabilities I wanted to see how the Kindle could be used by them, to access their books with text to speech support. While a lot of the publishers at their discretion can turn off the text to speech component it is still exciting to think of all the ways students can access text using this device. Now imagine the ramifications of your students who have access to Bookshare being able to read their NIMAS books on their favorite eReader the Kindle. Well it is now possible and let me share with you how you can do this.

Just this week Don Johnston released a new application for the Mac and Windows called  DAISYtoEPUB that can convert DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System), NIMAS and Bookshare files to the popular ePub format.The ePub format is the most popular format for ebooks and is supported natively on the iPad, iPod Touch, iPhone, NOOK, and Sony Readers. If you are using the iPad, once the file is converted you can turn on VoiceOver and have the the book read aloud with the text to speech.

DAISYtoEPUB is extremely easy to use and within seconds the file is quickly converted. Once you have used DAISYtoEPUB to convert the file getting the books onto the various aforementioned devices is quite straightforward. This is not the case if you are using the Kindle. While the Kindle supports a number of different eBook formats, unfortunately it does not support ePub. However, not all is lost in the conversion. You see, using the free application Calibre, you can bring the ePub book into the Calibre library and convert it to the Mobi format which is in fact supported by the Kindle. Using Calibre you simply drag the ePub formatted book into the Calibre Library and using the Conversion tool save it as Mobi formatted file. From here I simply plugged my Kindle 3 into the computer and sent the file from the Calibre application to my Kindle 3. It really was that easy. Now when I opened my Kindle I had the NIMAS file in the Kindle and using the text to speech feature the Kindle could access and read the pages, complete with the graphics.

While it did take me a couple of steps to accomplish this - just imagine how useful a tool this can be for someone to be able to access their DAISY, Bookshare, or NIMAS files on a small and lightweight eReader like the Kindle 3. If you have any questions- please let  know . I would be interested in your comments. So if you have the chance take a look at the Don Johnston's latest application- DAISYtoEPUB.

Here is some important news from Bookshare for students with a print disability. Effective October 1, 2007 Bookshare will be offering their service free of charge now making it possible for students to have access to their books in an accessible format. Here is the news from Bookshare. Bookshare expects to add over 100,000 new educational titles in high quality DAISY and Braille formats over the next five years, getting students the terrific quality textbooks they need for academic success!

Major Great News about Bookshare.org

We're happy to share incredible news, which will transform Bookshare.org. On Friday, the Office of Special Education Programs of the U.S. federal Department of Education made a major five-year award of $32 million to Bookshare.org. This will further the objectives of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), by supplying high quality textbooks and educational materials to students with special needs.

This funding is to fully support all schools and students 26 years old and under with qualifying print disabilities in the United States, K-12 and post-secondary. We will provide these students with access to the entire Bookshare.org collection of accessible electronic books and to software for reading those books. As of October 1, 2007, we will cease charging these schools and students anything to join Bookshare.org. We also expect to add over 100,000 new educational titles in high quality DAISY and Braille formats over the next five years, getting students the terrific quality textbooks they need for academic success!