1. Exempler Outreach Email content, January 2014 –
February 2015.
My duties at New College include working with external clients on designated Outreach
days, when they come to visit us. I also take it upon myself to provide advice, guidance and
opinion on a variety of topics through email. Most of the extracts below were sent to the Vi-
Forum mailing list in answer to specific requests. This collection, with personally identifiable
data redacted, serves as an example of the sort of information I provide to members of the
public on a day-to-day basis.
Document last updated on 9 February 2015 .
Sean Randall (Email | Profile)
Higher Level Teaching Assistant, Access and Information Technologies
New College Worcester.
Emails in this document:
09/02/2015: Re: Speech to Text
09/02/2015: Re: Screen Readers
05/02/2015: Re: Outlook web App
15/12/2014: Reading for Visually-Impaired Parents
20/11/2014: Re: Electronic Thesaurus
08/07/2014: Re: Advice on JAWS and NVDA
12/05/2014: Re: Text-to-speech Websites
07/04/2014: RE: NVDA
24/03/2014: Re: Accessible Game Design
28/01/2014: Re: Portable Cd Player

2. 09/02/2015: Re: Speech to Text
Hi Subi,
I’ve had good educational results with the products from Hartgen Consultancy.
They sell J-Say, which is a totally keyboardless dictation system, and J-Dictate, a
product useful for those who can navigate Windows with the keyboard but prefer
dictation to typing text passages.
Both these products use Dragon technology as a backbone, as far as I understand.
Hope that helps,
Sean.
Sean Randall
HLTA, Access and Information Technologies at New College Worcester

3. 09/02/2015: Re: Screen Readers
Hello,
Can we just clarify that, when we say NVDA can be used from a memory stick, no previous
work nor elevated user privileges are necessary on the target computer. A student logged in
with basic access can plug the stick in and, as long as USB devices haven’t been disabled,
NVDA will run fully-functionally.
Last time I investigated JAWS “portable” mode, it required an administrator to install some
software onto the system first. When JAWS said “portable” then, they meant the student
could have his or her settings saved on a stick, rather than being able to use any computer
they came into contact with.
I don’t know how this applies to Supernova or Window Eyes, I’m sure others here will add
to my knowledge.
Sean

4. 05/02/2015: Re: Outlook web App
Paul,
OWA is quite usable with JAWS if your pupil uses JAWS quick navigation keys.
For instance,
• T moves to a table, which is the start of a message list.
• H moves through headings, the subjects of each displayed message are level 1
headings.
• The > symbol moves out of the table, to get to the page numbers of messages.
• N moves to the next “non-link” text (usually the start of an open message.
• G moves to the next graphic, from an open messages text, a couple of g presses
finds the next item link.
• Other than that, my students make heavy use of the JAWS find feature, to search
for things like “reply”, “new”, etc.
We use Outlook proper here, and I’d submit that’s more efficient; and the mail app
on iOS is quite happy talking to Exchange servers if that’s what you’re running and
your pupil has an iPhone or similar and is more familiar with that.
Hope that helps some.
Sean.

5. 15/12/2014: Reading for Visually-Impaired Parents
Dear Mr Holt
Kim from Blind Mums passed your email on to me. I’m a blind parent myself and
work as an HLTA at a residential school in Worcestershire.
The best resource I can recommend for you as a school is Load2Learn. It’s not
accessible by anyone outside education, although you can sign a parent up to it as a
school. Load2learn provides accessible versions of books, reading schemes,
pictures and diagrams etc. and it will allow the mum to have access to the same
materials as her daughter. It’s online at www.load2learn.org.uk
The iPhone, iPad and iPod all have apps for reading books, and they can be
enlarged, read aloud, or connected to Braille devices. Many UK public libraries also
provide e-library services which visually impaired people can use with mobile
phones, tablets or laptops. I can provide specifics if you’d like, do feel free to pass
my contact information on if it’d help.
there are also various transcription services available from the RNIB, if there’s no
accessible version of a document available they might be able to help.
www.rnib.org.uk
I hope these suggestions prove useful. I’d recommend giving your mum the BMC
info, they have a lot of group discussions that might be of use. There’s also a VI-
Forum mailing list for professionals working with visually impaired children, where
people often share accessible resources at
http://lists.education.gov.uk/mailman/listinfo/vi-forum
If I can be of any further help, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Yours sincerely
Sean Randall
HLTA, Access and Information Technologies
Tel: 01905 763933
Email: SRandall@newcollegeworcester.co.uk

6. 20/11/2014: Re: Electronic Thesaurus
Hi Jane,
For the Braillenote, have you looked at
http://support.humanware.com/en-
usa/support/braillenote_apex/software/optional_applications/oxford_concise_dictiona
ry_and_thesaurus_uk
Finding something for the Stream will be quite a challenge, the only sort of thing I
can think of would be a DAISY book or a web-page version, but it would be huge. It
may be a useful technique for subject-specific terminology but I would consider it
impractical for general English use.
Hope that’s in some way helpful,
Sean.

7. 08/07/2014: Re: Advice on JAWS and NVDA
Andria,
Re the matter of French, JAWS at least has “voice profiles” which allow you to change the
way in which it speaks on a per-application basis. This works better than the automatic
language switching system because JAWS may switch into French but it doesn’t slow down,
and it’s rare that a student can understand them at the same speed.
For students who need more support in languages I have found that getting them to use an
alternative word processor (like Word Pad) means you can apply the language and different
typing echo which don’t impact any other subject.
If students have to work with audio in an MFL I find a foot pedal and cassette player, or USB
foot pedal with digital audio files, also works very well but this is less widespread.
Hope that’s helpful!
Sean.

8. 12/05/2014: Re: Text-to-speech Websites
Hello James,
Though the majority of sites do not retain data, it is still processed outside the UK or
European Economic Area in many cases and will therefore be frowned upon. My advice
would be to get some software to produce the MP3 locally on your system so that the text is
not handled outside your secure environment.
This does necessitate buying a voice, although if you are in academia I believe the TechDis
voices are available for free. You’ll also need software to do the conversion, either or both of
these may require your IT department to install the software unless you have a machine
with administrative access.
I’d recommend Balabolka as the software to do the work. It’s free, can be installed or run
portably without admin help, can use any installed voices on your system and can open a
large variety of file types though none with protection or passwords).
I hope that’s useful.
Sean.

9. 07/04/2014: RE: NVDA
Just to add something about getting into memory sticks:
A clever technique I learned is to give the stick a name starting with a number.

10. This way, regardless of whether or not the host computer pops anything up on the screen
when the stick is inserted, you can always press the Windows key plus e for explorer, which
pops up the above view – then press the number of your stick, 1 in my case, and hit enter to

11. get into it. It’s rare to find drives named with numbers, and this way you don’t need the drive
letter, which varies from computer to computer.

12. Because this is my stick and I know Launch is the only item on it beginning with an l, the
sequence:
1. Insert stick, and wait a little while if the machine is unused to it.
2. Press Windows+e.
3. Press 1.
4. Press enter.
5. Press L.
6. Press enter.
7. If no noise is heard, possibly confirm the security warning with r for run.
8. Have NVDA up and talking.
This technique works on every machine I have used – local libraries, friend’s desktops, work
laptops etc. I haven’t tried it on Windows 8 yet I must admit, but then we only switched to 7
here a few months ago.
Does that make sense/hold any value to anybody?
Sean.

13. 24/03/2014: Re: Accessible Game Design
Lorraine,
I Haven't got any experience of GM8 specifically, but if he's learning to code rather
than just drag and drop and wants to produce games for someone without any
vision, I'd recommend BGT, a toolkit from www.blastbay.com
I've directed students through IT modules making audio, rather than visual games,
with a and a+ grades for the unit. Sound design can be as rewarding and
challenging a task as graphics if handled properly.
Hope that's useful,
Sean.

14. 28/01/2014: Re: Portable Cd Player
Ali,
The Sony DEJ011S is currently selling for under £30. It does have the resume playback
feature, can be powered from the mains or batteries and has generally positive
reviews. Downsides: Controls haven’t got much contrast and the battery compartment is a
little tricky.
Hope that’s of use
Sean.