AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 Accommodating Blind / VI / LD Students Gaeir Dietrich Alternate Media Training Specialist High Tech Center Training Unit (HTCTU)

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 Who are these students?  About 3.5% of the 2.5 million California Community College (CCC) students have some declared disability  About 1% of CCC students qualify as having a print disability  Most of these students have a learning disability   Data from California Community College Chancellor’s Office Web site (Data Mart):

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 CCC System  Students with print disabilities  Blind, VI, LD, mobility impaired, a few ADD/ABI

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 Print Disabled  Sensory deficit or processing deficit?  Very different populations with significantly similar needs  Need alternate formats to access print  Strategies  Improve ability to recognize text  Braille, large print, font changes  Use audio access to supplement visual access  Spoken text—human or machine

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 audio formats TTS Learning Disabled Low VisionBlind Braille refreshable Braille display expanded spacing, sans serif fonts manipulatives color cues large print tracing highlighting tactile graphics screen reader simultaneous text & audio scan and read systems light text on dark large cursor DAISY screen magnifier

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 Accommodations  Two-pronged approach  Assistive technology  Alternate media  Additional needs  Learning the technology  Access to the technology  Study skills  Strategies

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 Alternate Media

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 Definitions  Alternate media  An alternative medium of presentation from that in which the work was originally done  E-text (electronic text)  Words (text) a computer can read

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 Issues  timeliness of delivery  accuracy of the translation  provision in a manner and medium appropriate to the significance of the message and the abilities of the individual with the disability

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 Where is the book fairy?  RFB&D (  Subscription based  Human-narration DAISY format  Bookshare (  Text-to-speech (TTS) DAISY format  Currently free to all students!  Project Gutenberg (  Free, out of copyright, Word / PDF / HTML

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 Other Options  AMX database (  Institutions join and exchange resources  ATPC (  Has Braille textbooks for sale

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 What about the publishers?  E-text from publishers   Getting better but…  Files are source files, not end-user files  Will still need processing  For best results, request PDF files and convert to other formats.  Can help you meet legal requirements but will not do it all for you!

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 Producing E-text In-house  Scan  Take a picture  Optical Character Recognition  The “other” OCR  Recognizing the text in the picture  Edit  The better the original picture, the less the editing time  Convert clean files to final user format

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 Creation Pathway E-Text Large Print Audio or Audio & Text Braille

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 Assistive Technology

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 AT for Blind Students  Screen readers  Hal/Supernova, JAWS, WindowEyes  Refreshable Braille displays  ALVA, Focus, Brailliant  Scan and read software  Kurzweil 1000, OpenBook

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 AT for Low Vision Students  Hard copy enlargement: CCTV  Ergo, Optelec, SmartView, Clarity, Traveler  Screen enlargement  Luna/SuperNova, ZoomText, MAGic  Cursor enlargement  Built into OS

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 AT for LD Students  Scan and read software  Kurzweil 3000, WYNN, Read&Write Gold, Easy Scan  Reading software  Text-to-speech (TTS)  TextAloud, Premier, Adobe Reader, Natural Reader

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 Demo

Simple E-text TextAloud

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 Braille Word to Duxbury Braille Translation Software

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 Kurzweil TIFF or PDF to text

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 DAISY Dolphin Easy Reader

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 Additional Needs

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 Reality Check  Great, we have the alternate book… but can we read this one either???

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 Feedback Loop

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 Resources

Relevant OCR Cases  Loyola Marymount University (1992)  Brooklyn College (1996)  California State College, Los Angeles (1997)  California Community College (1998)  City College of San Francisco (1998)  California State College, Long Beach (1999)  California State College, Fullerton (2004)  California State University, Los Angeles (2006)  California State University, San Bernardino (2006)

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 Helpful Web Sites   High Tech Center Training Unit   SUNY Disability Services Council Alternate Format Materials Handbook   CSU Accessible Technology Initiative  and  Higher Education Publishing, American Association of Publishers

AHEAD 2008, Reno, Nevada, USA July 14 – 19, 2008 Contact Me!  Gaeir (rhymes with “fire”) Dietrich   