Free Assistive Technologies Yes Free!

This Means Inclusion for Everyone!

Assistive technologiesAssistive technologiescan make a significant difference can make a significant difference to a much wider range of people.to a much wider range of people.

Especially free technologiesEspecially free technologies that can help many people.that can help many people.

• I cant read the information on the screen

• The information on the screen is too small to see.

• I can’t adjust the font and colour backgrounds to suit my

personal preferences.

• The words keep jumping around the screen.

• I find it difficult to navigate.

• I can’t click the mouse buttons.

• I can’t see the keys on the keyboard.

• I keep miss-hitting the keyboard keys.

Issues for people accessing computers

Assistive Technology Triangle

1. Initially regarded by many as being useful only for people with disabilities.

2. Recognition of their benefit to a wider audience in personalising what people access on their computers.

3. Increases productivity for everyone.

4. Growing range of free and more recently portable resources.

5. Increasing number of web based assistive technologies also.

Portable Assistive Technologies MyStudyBar

AccessApps *

AccessApps Open Office

Planning and Organising Tools

Reading and Writing Support

Visual Support

Accessible Browsers

Keyboard and Mouse Alternatives

Multimedia Resources

Presentation Tools

Learning Games

What’s on MyStudyBar? * Planning

• XMind mind map

Reading• T-Bar screen reader• ssOverlay – change colour of screen• Orato text reader

Writing• Lingoes talking dictionary• LetMeType and word prediction • Balabolka writing support/MP3

Vision• NVDA screen reading tutorial

Windows Speech Recognition• Windows Speech Recognition

Open Office What do People with Dyslexia Think?

  With my budget computer at home, I found it difficult to do college work because I did not

have MS Word at home so I had to use word pad which I didn't like to use because it did not offer me the right

tools to complete work

Listen to Guy a Dyslexic Student at Coatbridge College, Lanarkshire Scotland talk about using

Open Office

Planning & Organisational Tools

Xmind and Freemind Mind Mapping tools

Mozilla Sunbird - Calendar

Hott Notes 4 – Sticky Notes

Visual Support

• Vu Bar – read text one line at a time• Sonar Mouse Ring• EnorMouse (works best with windows vista)

Visual SupportVirtual magnifying glass

Non Visual Desktop AccessNon Visual Desktop Access (NVDA) is a free and open source screen reader for the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Reads text on documents and web pages.

Enables blind or vision impaired people to access computers running Windows for no more cost than a sighted person.

This is an option for those who don’t need the full scope of a commercial screen reader or need a quick solution when away from home.

Listen to a users experience at:

http://tinyurl.com/narqg3

Watch the NVDA Tutorial

Other reviews of NVDA

Amis DAISY Reader

What is Daisy? Case studies

Susan uses DAISY to Access Open

University *

Visually-impaired learners benefit from audio and synchronised text on their mobile phones

Demonstration of how a DAISY player can be used to enable blind and visually impaired people access to their favourite books.

A DAISY Digital Talking Book combines eatures of the written text and audio recordings of the text together.

By combining and synchronising the text and audio in this way, you have the option of reading the text and listening to the recording independently or simultaneously. As the audio is played, the corresponding text is highlighted – providing a cognitive link between the spoken word and the text, and delivering text based materials in a totally accessible format.

Accessible Browsers• WebbIE A Text Based Browser • Use in collaboration with Thunder Screen Reader

WebbIE strips out all extra visual information and provides the person with purely the text from the webpage.

Helpful for anyone who finds webpages overly detailed or distracting

Find web pages with a few keystrokes.

Find out more.

DyslexiaScotopic sensitivity and visual difficulties experienced

by many learners with dyslexia

Issues for Dyslexic People?

Simultations of Different Disabilities

Reading and Writing SupportRapidSet TBar SS Overlay

Orato and Rapidset

Orato is a straight forward text to speech application. Simply highlight some text, press speak and Orato will read back words highlighting them as you.

RapidSet gives readers the chance to change the colour of font and background on any MS Office environment

Both helpful for people with poor vision, dyslexic people and those who need help reading text.

Dspeech text to speech and save as MP3

Listen to Janet Explaining How She Uses DSpeech

Dspeech will Dspeech will hook into the speech hook into the speech

engine on any engine on any windows PC you windows PC you

use use and will either will either read out text or read out text or convert to MP3convert to MP3

Watch the tutorial

Balabolka is also very good free Windows text-to-speech software.

It includes magnification (2X to 16X) and spell checking.  

It is also keyboard accessible.

This software will create audio files from text–MP3, WAV, OGG, WMA to be saved and listened to on an iPod or other mobile device.

Audio Book Cutter

After you have created your text as MP3 (with Balabolka, Dspeech or RoboBraille) this tool will help split them to make them easier to listen to in

smaller chunks.

Lingoes

lingoes is an easy and intuitive dictionary and text translation software.

It offers lookup dictionaries, full text translation, capture word on screen, translate selected text and pronunciation of words in over 80 languages.

Power Talk• PowerTalk is a free

program that automatically speaks any presentation or slide show running in Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows.

• The advantage over other generic 'Text To Speech' programs is that PowerTalk is able to speak text as it appears and can also speak hidden text attached to images.Find out more about Power Talk

Power Talk website

Click N Type and Mouse Tools may help people with mobility issues or RSI problems

Keyboard and Mouse AlternativesDasher *

Dasher is a communication system controlled by moving your mouse to the right of the screen.

Instead of using a keyboard, the user writes by continuous steering, zooming into a letters which then create words by predictive text.

Dasher can be driven by a regular mouse, by touch-screen, or by eye control.

Case Study: Paul• A student with Cerebral palsy, aged 23.

• Studying for a degree in Business Studies and IT.

• Uses a Head mouse which connected to his on-screen keyboard.

What does Paul think about Dasher?

His on-screen keyboard used to require a lot of tiring head movement...

But with Dasher he simply moves his head pointer across the Dasher screen to find the letters that make up the correct words.

This is then produced at the top of the Dasher screen

Paul also felt that there was no need to click or dwell…just ‘drive’ through to the next word.

This was far less exhausting for him and made it so much easier to create text independently.

What else does Paul think about Dasher…?

Paul estimates that Dasher is about 4 times quicker…

…even new users can achieve 25wpm very quickly.

What other features are there in Dasher?

• Word prediction which helps guess your words..

• Dasher can learn new text as you type and remembers typical words you use for next time.

• Text can be sent to other applications.

• Even via Bluetooth cell phones to text others.

Dasher adds text by moving the mouse to the right

. . . and talking of sending text to Word. . .

Paul completed his final thesis - all done with Dasher which helped him achieve an excellent degree in Business Studies and IT last summer !

All of these tools can be downloaded and run from a USB pen drive from:

www.eduapps.org

Web Based Assistive Technologies

JISC TechDis Toolbar

This free application can be installed on a website or downloaded onto an individual PC,

working seamlessly across all operating systems to provide significant benefits for everyone

using the internet, especially those with a disability.

This is an excellent resource for businesses, schools, colleges and any organisation wanting to ensure

that viewers can access the content of their website in an accessible way

Watch a webinar tutorial about the JISC TechDis Toolbar

http://tinyurl.com/jisctoolbar

Other web based text to speech converters

RoboBraillewww.robobraille.org/frontpage *Watch a video about RoboBraille

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cAVp0dnzoc

Other web based Assistive TechnologiesCleanPage

• Removes advertisements and other junk from a webpage, and extracts the main text based content:

• This main body text is then fit on the screen, spoken aloud, emailed, printed, imported for speed reading or editing, zoomed in and zoomed out

• All the features can be easily accessed by one click on the toolbar or through a keyboard shortcut

http://www.readonweb.com/

WebAnywhere Screen Reader• WebAnywhere is intended to enable a blind person to access the web from

any browser on any computer that has a sound card.

• At present it is freely available to anyone who wishes to use it.

• Listen to a podcast about WebAnywhere www-cdn.educause.edu/sites/default/files/2009/01/cni_bigham.MP3

• Watch a video on You Tube www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfjD06aOxts

Making Everyday Resources More AccessibleAccessibility Essentials Series

• Making your computer more accessible for you

• Producing MS Word documents that are more accessible

• Producing inclusive MS PowerPoint

• Making PDFs as accessible as possibleFollow this link to view an example

of guidelines from Accessibility Essentials

www.techdis.ac.uk/resources/sites/accessibilityessentials2

Thank You! Any Questions?Download this PowerPoint at:

http://tinyurl.com/26cy4v8

Alternative Formats

Recording Tools

Planning Tools

Communication Tools

Visualisation Tools

Writing Tools

TexthelpClaro readKursweil 3000PenfriendCoWriterAudio NotetakersDragon Naturally SpeakingZoomTextInspirationMindmanagerJAWSWindowEyes

Commercial Assistive Technologies

Reading Tools

Alternative Formats

... But for some people free technologies can offer similar support

Where can I get more information?

• www.techdis.ac.uk/getfreesoftware

• www.eduapps.org

• www.fxc.btinternet.co.uk/assistive.htm

• http://tinyurl.com/abilitynet

• www.ace-centre.org.uk/

• www.oatsoft.orgAlternative Formats

Recording Tools

Planning Tools

Visualisation Tools

Writing Tools

Communication Tools

Reading Tools

Save as Daisy Add in for MS Word 2007Creates Accessible eBooks for Free!

How?

• Microsoft ‘Save as DAISY’ add in for Word.

• This lets you turn Word 2007 documents straight into DAISY/Digital Talking Books which can be read by Amis

• Simply choose "Save As" from the Word 2007 file menu.

http://tinyurl.com/3x25acx

Learn More at: