Free enabling technologies supporting staff and students

Margaret McKayAdvisor: InclusionJISC RSC Scotland

Free Enabling Technologies = Inclusion for Everyone

HiddenDisabilities

HiddenDisabilities

Literacy supportLiteracy support

EmployeesEmployees

Elderly PeopleElderly People

English Languagesupport

English Languagesupport

School &College

Students

School &College

Students

DisclosedDisabilitiesDisclosedDisabilities

Assistive technology solutionsAssistive technology solutionscan make a significant difference to a can make a significant difference to a

much wider range of people.much wider range of people.

Especially free technologiesEspecially free technologies that can help a widethat can help a wide

range of technology users.range of technology users.

These slides will provide you with information on a range of free and open source enabling technologies which have the capacity to support a wide range of users (not just those with disabilities).

More information

As well as providing links to sources of where to find these resources, links will

take you to short video/audio clips of students and staff talking about how they

have used these technologies.

Feel free to copy this presentation onto a pen drive if you want to take it away and

investigate further.

Free enabling technology for allcase study

South Lanarkshire College

Lecturers views on using free enabling technologies to support all learners (not just those with disclosed additional support needs)

Listen Teaching Staff at South Lanarkshire College

http://bit.ly/SLC_STAFF

Students views on using free enabling technologies

(not just students with disabilities)

Listen Students at South Lanarkshire College

http://bit.ly/slc_students

Implementing a Cross Institutional Approach to Embedding Free Inclusive Technologies on all

Computers

Read the full case study at: http://bit.ly/slc-staff-students

Strategic approach to integrating free enabling technologies across an institution

(for the benefit of all staff and for all learners)

Listen to Managers at South Lanarkshire Collegehttp://bit.ly/m42dgO

Text to Speech

Using free text to MP3/Audio to learn lines in acting performance course:

A student perspective Hear what Janet has to say at:

http://bit.ly/lnAdk1

Listen to Melanie talking about how she uses free text to speech to listen to her coursework at:

http://bit.ly/l4Ohxl

Watch the tutorialhttp://youtu.be/OzJGXMAKXPk

Balabolka is a very good free Windows text-to-speech tool.

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

It is also keyboard accessible.

This software will create audio files on an iPod or other mobile device.

Portable

Other Free Text to Speech SoftwareFollow these links for more information and to watch

video demonstrations

WordTalk (a free text to speech plug in for MS Word)

http://youtu.be/SicL4gkIR5g http://www.wordtalk.org.uk/Home/

Reading and Writing Support

Using free spellchecker and typing tutor software

Listen to Rachel at: http://bit.ly/j3gNi5

The Sage Spellchecker - www.sequencepublishing.com/thesage.html

TypeFaster Typing Tutor:

http://www.typefastertypingtutor.com/

Free Spellchecking SoftwareFollow these links for more information

and to watch video demonstrations

Ginger Grammar and Spellcheckerhttp://youtu.be/XJqc5JIiDCI

Reading and Writing SupportRapidSet SS Overlay

Portable

Staff using free technologies to personalise how they access information

Listen to a member of staff who is dyslexic talking about how she uses free tools to meet

her learning/working preferences http://youtu.be/ktKUQAgpHyE

Listen to a lecturer describe how he uses free technologies in his lectures (magnifier, mind mapping, recording and highlighting software)

http://tinyurl.com/7765haa

AT Barhttp://www.atbar.org/

•Surf the Web Your Way•Effortlessly change the appearance of webpages, or have pages read aloud to you. Built-in referencing, dictionary and spelling tools make online reading and writing a snap.

Mind Mapping

XMind Mind Mapping free and portable

Mind mapping can help individuals who think, plan and learn visually. Can be helpful for people with cognitive barriers or difficulties

with memory/organisation.

http://youtu.be/6YyJNCZLZ4A

Go to View > Header & Footer to edit Image courtesy of Julia Taylor JISC RSC

Mind Meister Mind MappingWeb based with collaboration facility

Find out more at: http://vimeo.com/33957715

Visual Impairment

Free Screen Reading Software to assist blind students

Non Visual Desktop Access (NVDA)

http://www.nvda-project.org/

Listen to a student talk about how she uses Non Visual Desktop Access

NVDA

http://tinyurl.com/Jade-NVDA

How NVDA rescues the most expensive on the

marketFollow this link to find out more about how NVDA can be of use to blind/visually impaired people.

Inclusive societyhttp://inclusivesociety.wordpress.com

RoboBrailleWeb based text to speech

http://www.robobraille.org/onlineWatch a video about RoboBraille

http://bit.ly/abkbz6 *Learn now to convert pictures to words and

text to sound using RoboBraillehttp://bit.ly/p9nqZc

With RoboBraille you can save to MP3 or Digtial Talking Book/DAISY Format

WebAnywhere

WebAnywhere is a web-based screen reader for the web. It requires no special software to be installed on the client machine and, therefore, enables blind people to access the web from any computer they happen to have access to

that has a sound card. http://webanywhere.cs.washington.edu/

Thunder

Thunder is award-winning free screen reader talking software for people with little or no sight. It works well with Windows 7, Vista or XP. Thunder is available all over the world in 8 languages and it really is absolutely free

Learn more about Thunder Screen Reader http://bit.ly/g3UiSH

Listen to the creators of Thunder Screen Readerhttp://tinyurl.com/3yat47o

Portable and download

Enable Ireland

Low cost screen readers

http://youtu.be/a8Gsan0ArZQ

Free Enabling Technologiessupporting staff and students

Margaret McKayAdvisor: Inclusion JISC RSC Scotland