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Techmatrix Makes Finding and Comparing Assistive Technology Easy

Posted by Unknown Sunday, July 31, 2011 0 comments

Techmatrix.org provides a free service to help people with disabilities find appropriate technology to fit their needs. Techmatix allows you to search for assistive technology devices by many categories including disability, grade level and content area. When you select the categories that you are interested in Techmatrix produces a list of technologies that could help you. Then you can select products you are interested in to have them compared. Techmatrix can compare multiple technologies with a comprehensive check-list of features. Techmatrix is funded by the US Department of Education. If you are looking for technologies to help someone with a disability Techmatrix is an excellent resource.  

More Schools Giving Every Student iPads

Posted by Unknown Saturday, July 30, 2011 0 comments

More and more schools are giving iPads to every student. Just 15 months after its debut the iPad is becoming a popular tool in K-12 education. Lake Minneola High School in central Florida is one of the most recent schools to announce an iPad for every student program. Some schools that offer the iPad to their students load the tablet with textbooks, novels, PowerPoints and more. Students can also write papers and surf the web on their iPads.

The iPad has great accessibility features that make it great for any student. When students have the iPad in class they can use the accessibility features to have the textbooks and other material read aloud. Also, blind students can use the iPad with an external Bluetooth Braille Display. One of benefits of every student having an iPad is that all students are using the same devices and students with disabilities do not stand out. Click here to read about Minneola High School's program. Click here to read about Monroe School District. Many schools with iPad programs are trying to replace textbooks with iPads. When textbooks are in a digital format on the iPad students can use the built-in VoiceOver feature to have the textbooks read allowed. To learn more about VoiceOver click here. Because iPads have great built-in accessibly students that struggle to read or blind students can benefit from iPads as can non-disabled classmates.   

CK-12 Provides Free Electronic Textbooks

Posted by Unknown Friday, July 29, 2011 0 comments

CK-12 is a way to access text books in an accessible format. CK-12 are available to download in ePub, PDF and Kindle optimized format. CK-12 has a library of 88 downloadable textbooks. With ck-12 you can also make a Flexbook. A Flexbook is parts of many different books put together into one new book. To access CK-12 you must be a member but membership is free. CK-12 also allows you to embed Youtube videos and other multimedia content to enhance your Flexbook. CK-12 currently has a limited selection of textsbook and only has textbooks about science, technology, engineering and mathematics. To see a video and pictures of CK-12 textbooks click read more below.
http://www.ck12.org/about/vid-quickstart/




AccessText Helps Students Get Accessible Textbooks

Posted by Unknown Thursday, July 28, 2011 0 comments

AccessText is a way that higher education students with print disabilities can get accessible books. AccessText provides textbooks to higher education students free of charge to the student. But the institution must pay $500 membership fee. AccessText is similar to Bookshare but Bookshare also has novels and periodicals. Also Bookshare has a free text-to-speech software but with AccessText you must use your own text-to-speech software. Eight major publishers have teamed up to provide books through AccessText. AccessText is another great tool for getting accessible material for higher education students with a print disability. 

Imagine Cup Idea Can Help Students With Low Vision

Posted by Unknown Wednesday, July 27, 2011 0 comments


For students who  have low vision taking notes can be challenging if not impossible. A group of students from Arizona State University have come up with a solution. The solution gave them first place in the 2011 Imagine Cup sponsored by Microsoft. Their solution, called Note-Taker, can magnify the board and display a live view of the board on a tablet computer. Note-Taker is not available for sale at the time of this post. For people with low vision Note-Taker offers hope and should be on the market some time in the near future.   

Using a Digital Camera As a Scanner in Kurzweil

Posted by Unknown Tuesday, July 26, 2011 0 comments

Kurzweil 3000 is a great tool for reading text from the web or printed material. With Kurzweil you can scan a document and it will recognize the text (OCR) and read it back to you. If you do not have a scanner near by and need to read a printed document you can use a digital camera to import the picture to Kurzweil. Watch the video above for step by step instructions. When you open the JPEG file in Kurzweil it will recognize the text within the document and read it back to you. Also you can use Kurzweil's great annotation options to alter your document. When using this method the picture of the document must be clear with the document in the center of the picture. When using this method the OCR quality is below average but is still better than nothing.

How To Get News Easily If You Have Trouble Reading

Posted by Unknown Monday, July 25, 2011 0 comments

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.

The Blio App is Here!

Posted by Unknown Sunday, July 24, 2011 0 comments
After months of anticipation the Blio app is out for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. The app is free from the iTunes App Store. Blio is an eReader that can read PDF, ePub and XML books. To add a book either select a file and press open with Blio or transfer the file to Blio via iTunes. Once the books is in the Blio bookshelf there are many reading options including text-to-speech. Unfortunately the text-to-speech voice is not included and costs $10 as an app purchase. Blio can also sync audio books with the text and highlight as each word is being read.

Blio also includes an elegant note taking system that is similar to iBooks. To add a note select a section of text and then press note then a note will appear allowing you to type your note. Blio also allows you to search the text of a book.

One of Blio strongest features is visual customization options. From within the visual settings menu you can change the view, text size and more. On the iPhone and iPod Touch there is another view called “fast.” Blio claims this view can increase reading speed and eliminate eye strain. “Fast” view shows one word at a time in large print in the center of the screen and then changes the word automatically as you read. In “fast” view you hold your finger on the right edge of the screen then side your finger down to decrease word speed and up to increase word speed.

Another handy feature is Blio’s one touch look up feature which allow you to get a definition of a word or look up a word or phrase using Wikipedia or Encyclopedia Britannica. Blio is a worth a try because of its text-to-speech capabilities and visual customization options. Keep in mind that Blio is free but the text-to-speech voices cost $10 each.

List of Assistive Technology Apps for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad

Posted by Unknown Saturday, July 23, 2011 0 comments


The folks at Easter Seals Crossroads have put together a compressive list of apps to help people with various disabilities. To view the list click here. The list is divided into five sections; low vision, hearing, cognitive, mobility and communication. Each section has various app that can help people with those challenges. Many of the apps are free from the iTunes app store. So, if you have an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch check out the list of assistive technology apps. 

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