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Free Technologies to Support Inclusion
- 1. Resources to SupportInclusion If not me – who? If not now – when?
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- 3. RSC SW ScotlandServices Scottish RSCs Inclusion Blog Inclusion in e-Learning Forum (sharing good practice) RSCtv iTunes Podcasts Got a yearning for e-Learning? JISC Ask Events and Training
- 4. JISC Advisory ServicesAdvice on all aspects of plagiarism prevention & detection Advice with still images, moving images and sound advice Advice on all aspects of technology & inclusion Internet training workshops, online self- paced tutorials Effective strategic planning, implementation & management of ICT Strategic guidance & advice re legal issues in ICT
- 5. Techdis The JISCTechDis service advises on the use of technology to support inclusive practice in This includes advice and guidance for teaching and learning libraries & learner resources front line practitioners policy makers staff developers a wide range of support roles including administration support and marketing
- 6. n Students onmainstream courses in FE requiring additional support across Scotland SFC Infact Database - www.sfc.ac.uk/infact
- 7. Inclusion/Empowerment by EveryoneNot just the Learning Support Staff
- 8. Inclusion for Everyonebecause things are not always as they seem Providing enabling technology solutions should not belong solely to support specialists any more than accessibility or inclusion should belong exclusively to disabled people
- 9. ‘ I cantread 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 students accessing learning resources
- 10. I don’t havethe motor skills/can’t see it Physiological Accessible for whom? Disability is not the only barrier Psychological I can’t do it Learning style It would make more sense in pictures Perceptual They look the same to me Cognitive I can’t get my head round it Linguistic What does that actually mean?
- 11. How They LearnReflect on knowledge or skill What They Do How To Help Introduce new knowledge or skill Exemplify new knowledge or skill Test understanding of new knowledge or skill by completing specific assignments Reflect on knowledge or skill Enabling technologies supporting all learners Process, tasks and tools Write responses Interact with resources Record information Plan responses Reading Tools Alternative Interfaces Recording Tools Planning Tools Communication Tools Visualisation Tools Writing Tools
- 12. Free & PortableEnabling Technologies Access Tools http://tiny.cc/accesstools EduApps http://tiny.cc/eduapps274 My Study Bar http://tiny.cc/studybar
- 13. What’s on theUSB 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
- 14. Picture Holder AccessApps storage facility . Use these folders to store the work you produce with AccessApps . AccessApps applications . whenever you click on a folder item or a menu item, the AccessApps start menu will move to the background.
- 15. Short Activity Insmall groups, take a bunch of enabling technology descriptions and read the outline of what the software can do. Consider these descriptions in the context of the students you have come across in the last academic year. As a group, come up with 3 or 4 resources that you think would or could have helped people you have worked with. What are they and how would they have helped If you are a manager, are there any that might have helped any of the staff you work with?
- 16. Open Office Back You can save your OpenOffice Writer files as Word-compatible documents. OpenOffice Impress is the equivalent of PowerPoint
- 17. Open Office -What do Students think www.lexdis.org “ 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” Guy a student at Coatbridge College
- 18. Planning & OrganisationalTools xMind Mozilla Sunbird - Calendar Hott Notes 4 – Sticky Notes Back
- 19. Visual Support VuBar – read text one line at a time T-Bar - a colour bar with shading Desktop Zoom screen magnifier Virtual magnifying glass
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- 21. Dyslexia Scotopic sensitivityand visual difficulties experienced by many learners with dyslexia Issues for Dyslexic People? TechDis Sim Dis Simultations
- 22. Reading and WritingSupport RapidSet Is part of AccessApps ssOverlay or T-Bar part of My Study Bar http://www.fxc.btinternet.co.uk/
- 23. Rapid Set helpinga member of staff in the workplace
- 24. Power Talk learnmore about PowerTalk PowerTalk does a good job of making any presentation more accessible by automatically speaking the text. It can narrate animated text as it appears and will also speak PowerPoint's 'Web Alternative Text' intended for Web Browser use. Thus apart from being an accessibility tool in its right PowerTalk can be used to test how a presentation will sound with a other tools such as screen readers.
- 25. Hands on ActivityTake your pen drive and insert into your USB port. Have a look at the software and the activity sheet. Try out on or two of the following: RapidSet Vu Bar Open Office Suite Hott Notes No notes exist as yet but you could also play with these: Xmind T-Bar
- 26. DSpeech Dspeech willhook into the speech engine on any windows PC you use and will either read out text or convert to MP3
- 27. WordTalk www.wordtalk.org.uk/Home/ WordTalk is a free plug-in developed for use with all versions of Microsoft Word (from Word 97 upwards), which can help people with reading difficulties use Microsoft Word more effectively. It will speak the text of the document and will highlight it as it goes. Talking dictionary to help decide which word spelling is most appropriate. Sits neatly in toolbar, highly configurable, adjust the highlight colours, the voice and the speed of the speech. WordTalk does not export the file as a stand-alone MP3.
- 28. Other web basedtext to speech converters Zamzar – www.zamzar.com Read the Words - www.readthewords.com/ Spoken Text - http://www.spokentext.net/ RoboBraille - www.robobraille.org/frontpage
- 29. Readonweb www.readonweb.com/ CleanPage™extracts the main content from a cluttered webpage and allows you to do the following: Browse, save, print, edit, and email the main text Let your PC read the main text out loud Speed read the main text Zoom in and zoom out
- 30. Accessible Browsers WebbIE – Text Based Browser Use in collaboration with Thunder Screen Reader* Typical Web Page Same Web Page using WebbIE
- 31. Click N Typeand Mouse Tools may assist for users with mobility issues or RSI problems
- 32. Keyboard and MouseAlternatives Dasher (Case Study) Click on the image below to see a demonstration http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0d6yIquOKQ0 Dasher is a information-efficient communication system driven by continuous pointing gestures. Instead of using a keyboard, the user writes by continuous steering, zooming into a landscape painted with letters. Dasher can be driven by a regular mouse, by touch-screen, or by gaze-direction.
- 33. Hands on ActivityHave a look at the software and the activity sheet. Try out on or two of the following: Dspeech Dasher Click N Type Mouse Tools
- 34. Multimedia and PresentationTools Audacity records and editing audio What do educators think of this: Use this all the time for audio, no other tool is as good A great free (open source) tool for creating and editing audio files A well focused tool that academics and student can pick up easily. It's very portable and this is important for digital audio where many users want to work in private spaces Free and easy to create classroom podcasts and mp3s where the students get to hear edit and publish themselves. Promotes ownership extremely motivating. ‘ back up ‘ for lecture, for listening in ‘dead time’
- 35. Multimedia and PresentationTools Cam Studio – record all screen and audio activity to create avi/flash multimedia learning resources VLC Media Player – cross platform media player AudioBook Cutter – splits mp3 sound files to make them easier to listen to in smaller chunks
- 36. Unfreez to CreateMobile Prompts Work on most mobile devices No stigma attached to mobile learning most people have a mobile device discreet current Portable Two pieces of software needed Microsoft PowerPoint (everyday resource) to create a series of gifs unFREEz (on accessapps) to create the animated gif http://www.whitsoftdev.com/unfreez/ Matt Harrison of Portland College and Alistair McNaught of TechDis
- 37. Key Ring DigitalPhoto Frames For some learners the phone was difficult to use So the system has been transferred to mini digital photo frames Small Easy to use Cheap
- 38. Applications Timetables Traveltraining Landmarks along the way Health and Safety Manual handling sequences, COSHH etc. Sequences Daily routines, specific task And, don’t forget…. Fun!
- 39. If we buyour own pen drives, where canwe get access to download the material?
- 40. What can Ido with EduApps? Automatic launch - I can launch applications to start as soon as I put my pen drive in my machine. Multiple launch - I can launch multiple applications at the same time. What if I don’t want to use a pen drive? I could run it from a word document. I could run it from a PowerPoint.
- 41. What if Idon’t want to use a pen drive I could run it from a word document. I could run it from a PowerPoint
- 42. My Web PreferencesStylesheets to change how you view Internet Explorer
- 43. What Next? Wherecan I find out more about the AccessApps? http://www.scottish-rscs.org.uk/access
- 44. Otherresources from JISC to help you create inclusive environments for staff and students
- 45. e-Books =books with wings E-Books for FE JISC funded (JISC Collections). Access to e-books selected by the FE community in the UK. Free of charge to all FE colleges in the UK with access to a core collection of e-books. http://fe.jiscebooksproject.org Where can we find out more about e-books? Many e-books are in the public domain on sites like Project Gutenberg. The JISC TechDis website section “Getting information in Alternative Formats - A guide for students and tutors” has a section focused on ways learners can obtain e-books and adapt them to their own needs. See www.techdis.ac.uk/getebooks .
- 46. www.publisherlookup.org.uk/ TechDis areat an early stage of planning an extension of PublisherLookup as well as starting a new bit of work with librarians to explore accessibility of online library catalogues and working with ProcureWeb to raise the bar on best practice
- 47. Obtaining textbooks inalternative formats
- 48. Teaching inclusively usingtechnology New learning resources now available online. Each module shows how resources and methods can be adapted with technology to deliver teaching more inclusively to the widest possible audience. The modules in the JISC TechDis ‘Teaching Inclusively Using Technology’ s series have five constituent elements: Preparing Your Learning Delivering Learning (Lecture/Classroom) Delivering Learning (Practical/Fieldwork/Placement) Delivering Learning (Online) Assessing Learning http://www.techdis.ac.uk/getteachinginclusively
- 49. Web2Access Web2Access isa JISC-funded project which allows developers and users to see at a glance the usability and accessibility of interactive and collaborative e-learning tools. Web2Access is based on the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG) and explores a range of popular tools such as You Tube or Twitter and more. Each tool is given an average score based on issues such as image attributes, text editors, multimedia and appropriate use of tables and frames. http://www.web2access.org.uk/ http://icant.co.uk/easy-youtube/
- 50. Find advice onmaking accessible materials
- 51. Provide more agilemobile and remote learning opportunities http://www.techdis.ac.uk/getm-learning Upwardly Mobile Go Mobile MoleNet Mole TV
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- 54. Better use ofexisting resources: going beyond handouts Accessibility 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 possible 1.21 Follow this link to view an example of guidelines from Accessibility Essentials www.techdis.ac.uk/resources/sites/accessibilityessentials2
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Editor's Notes
- #5 JISC Legal: Legal information in order to prevent legal issues from becoming a barrier to the adoption of information and communications technologies in learning, teaching and administration. TASI Technical Advisory Service for Images (TASI) provides advice and guidance on the creation and use of digital image collections in learning, teaching and research Netskills: Netskills provides high quality training and staff development. InfoNet JISC infoNet aims to be the UK's leading advisory service for managers in the post-compulsory education sector promoting the effective strategic planning, implementation and management of information and learning technology
- #8 In many organisations accessibility is associated with a particular group of people (disabled learners) and a particular group of staff (learner support or disability officers). This perception is unhelpful for two reasons: It may fail to recognise the spectrum of accessibility needs which goes beyond learners with declared disabilities. It may fail to recognise the very significant role that well informed teaching and learning staff e.g. lecturers, trainer, tutors, librarians or technicians, can bring to the learner’s experience.
- #9 In many organisations accessibility is associated with a particular group of people (disabled learners) and a particular group of staff (learner support or disability officers). This perception is unhelpful for two reasons: It may fail to recognise the spectrum of accessibility needs which goes beyond learners with declared disabilities. It may fail to recognise the very significant role that well informed teaching and learning staff e.g. lecturers, trainer, tutors, librarians or technicians, can bring to the learner’s experience.
- #11 There are different facets to accessibility. A learner’s understanding may be influenced by any one of many accessibility issues. For many learners there may be a whole suite of related accessibility issues. For example a visually impaired learner may have poor eyesight but this in turn may influence their sense of confidence, their ability to perceive subtle differences and their consequent ability to understand a problem. Conversely it is arguable that a blind student with a great deal of confidence and a high linguistic capability is less disadvantaged than an ESOL student with low self esteem but 20:20 Physiological - Student who has motor difficulties (cerebral palsy, stroke), sensory difficulty (visual, hearing) Psychological - Anxiety, mental health difficulty Learning style – Auditory learner, Perceptual – If some one has had a head injury or stroke Cognitive – If someone has a learning disability Linguistic - ESOL
- #12 16/02/10 There are a number of ways of categorising assistive technologies but the one that has most direct relevance for teaching and learning is that developed by TechDis which maps the process of learning to the tasks needed to engage in the process to the tools needed to complete the tasks. When a student engages in learning a new subject they generally go through a learning process in which they first reflect on their current knowledge or skill, they then introduce and exemplify their new knowledge and skills. Students then test their new understanding by completing specific assignments. In order to go through this process of learning a student would have to interact with resources, record information and plan and write responses. Using this approach to learning we are able to identify seven genres of ‘Assistive Technology’ which may be used by the learner at any stage of the process. These genres include assistive technology ranging from traditional ‘Assistive Technologies’ such as alternative interfaces (tracker balls, adapted keyboards, screen readers) to less widely recognised (but much more widespread) assistive technologies such as visualisation tools – videos and animations. The full list includes reading tools, alternative interfaces, visualisation tools, recording tools, planning tools, communication tools and writing tools. The benefits of this approach are threefold: The focus is on learning not technology, disability or medical condition. A single category (for example read assist tools) may contain a wide range of alternative solutions ranging from high tech to low tech and even pedagogical solutions. A single technology may provide a solution for more than one accessibility need – for example the use of styles and outline in Microsoft Word can provide both a reading tool and a planning tool. Note the distinction between the traditional screen reader which we regard as an alternative interface, and text to speech which we regard as a reading aid. The former makes information on the monitor (including navigation, structural layout and text etc) accessible to a blind user. The latter makes the meaning of text more accessible to a print disabled user who can see the text but not make sense of the meaning. Note also that the same tool (for example alternative interfaces) may be used at more than one stage of the learning cycle.
- #13 Free Portable Enabling Technologies Access Tools http://tiny.cc/accesstools EduApps http://tiny.cc/eduapps274 My Study Bar http://tiny.cc/studybar
- #17 Open Office OpenOffice is a comprehensive suite of programs which includes OpenOffice Writer for word processing (similar to MS Word), OpenOffice Impress for creating and showing presentations (similar to PowerPoint) and OpenOffice Calc for creating spreadsheets (similar to Excel). In addition, OpenOffice Base is a database program similar to Microsoft Access. A useful feature of OpenOffice, particularly OpenOffice Writer and OpenOffice Impress, is that it is nearly almost compatible with Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. One thing to keep in mind when using OpenOffice Writer is that when you save a file you can save your OpenOffice Writer files as Word-compatible documents. This means that you can open and close your files with OpenOffice Writer and Microsoft Word
- #18 Open office accessibility http://ui.openoffice.org/accessibility/
- #22 Impossible to cover every potential learning difficulty – highlight some of the more common issues Dyslexia – one of the more common barriers to learning.10 % of population (or more) show some signs of dyslexia More common in males than females As common as being left handed
- #25 PowerTalk does a good job of making any presentation more accessible by automatically speaking the text. It can narrate animated text as it appears and will also speak PowerPoint's 'Web Alternative Text' intended for Web Browser use. Thus apart from being an accessibility tool in its right PowerTalk can be used to test how a presentation will sound with a other tools such as screen readers.
- #32 Click n Type – Guide to Its potential use with learners at: http://www.bltt/org/software/clickntype/index.htm MouseTool clicks the mouse for you. Carpal tunnel syndrome. Tendonitis. Who'd have thought that those tiny little mouse buttons could ruin your life? MouseTool: Clicks and drags the mouse Sends Left-, Double-, or Right clicks Knows which of these to send into which window Can be controlled by hotkeys you define Versions are available for Windows, and Linux. And, soon, for Mac OS X!
- #35 Who would benefit? Audacity can help everyone. Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. This could be useful to learners who record lectures and need to edit them at a later stage. For example, if you record lectures with a digital recorder you can download the recording into Audacity, and select and edit the important parts you want to keep. Audacity is a great tool for saving audio to multiple formats, including MP3 for creating Podcasts Comments from those who selected Audacity as one of their Top 10 Tools in 2008 * "Does everything you need to record and edit audio. Easy to use, another winner!" Karl Goddard * "who needs anything more complex or pricey?" Mary Cooch * "a wonderful user-friendly resource bringing podcasting to the people" Bill Miller * "open source Audio editing in an easy way. Gorgeous tool for all "sound experiments" Andreas Busing * "Audacity is still the best application I have found for simple recording and editing of audio. It just works." Jennifer Maddrell * "Audio is a versatile option for an elearning. With the free Audacity tool it is easy to produce, edit and publish audio as an MP3 or other file formats." Steve Rayson * "Audacity gave the PC community similar capabilities to Mac's GarageBand at no cost. I like having the ability to review and edit audio before I package it for podcasting" Britt Wattwood * "Audacity is easy to use for recording and editing sound files. It is a handy program for creating podcasts, especially for beginners in this area. " Patricia Donaghy * "Free and easy to create classroom podcasts and mp3s where the students get to hear, edit and publish themselves. Promotes ownership – extremely motivating." Kora Stoll * "In the past I used Sonic Foundry’s Sound Forge, but Audacity does everything I need. The large library of plugins add all the functionality I think I might ever need. It’s free and open source too" Charles Jennings * "I found it is very useful for sound editing. It supports variety of features for audio editing at no cost." N B Venkateswarlu Phil Bradley * "Why spend limited funds on a commercial tool that won't do all this free one does?" Ed Lamaster *." Pattie Mascaro * "Although I don’t use it very often, any time it comes to manipulating sound it quickly does the job." Kevin Jones * "Extremely useful and easy-to-use tool for editing audio. I have found it invaluable in the various multimedia projects I've worked on in college this year. I use the noise removal filter for reducing static on voiceovers that were recorded directly using the built in mic on my laptop - handy if you dont have a fancy audio recording booth. Of course using this method, you won't have superb audio quality, but for less formal requirements such as creating audio for college projects, it's ideal." Karen OBrien * "Amazingly powerful for such a small program. I use it almost everyday, even though I have access to much more powerful audio editing software packages." Jason Edwards * "a well focussed tool that academics and student can pick up easily. It's very portable and this is important for digital audio where many users want to work in private spaces" Andrew Middleton * "This easy to use FREE audio editing software is easy to use for podcasting and editing audio files. You will need the LAME Mp3 encoder if you want to export your audio files at MP3 instead of WAV - but it’s easy to download and install" Colette Cassinelli * "I use this tool whenever there is a requirement for audio recording or editing. It is such a useful tool and it's free!" Sathish Narayanan * "I recommend this open source tools to subject matter experts who wish to create podcasts and / or software demos when using a Rapid E-Learning approach. It's easy to install and use and enables SMEs and training professionals to create high quality audio quickly and efficiently." Michael Hanley * "I’m starting to do much more with audio, and Audacity really is a pretty incredible piece of free software." Jeff Cobb * " Free and powerful audio recorder and editor. Works with MP3's though you will need to download a copy the LAME MP3 encoder which will allow Audacity to import and export MP3 files." Rupert Russell
- #36 Open cam studio, define recordable area, move cursor add commentary Volunteer required, save avi file, ope file in windows movie maker, add subtitles et voila!
- #37 Mobile Prompts Inspired by Alistair McNaught Animated gif Work on most mobile devices No stigma attached to mobile learning most people have a mobile device discreet current portable 16/02/10
- #38 Key Ring Digital Photo Frames Small Easy to use Cheap 16/02/10
- #39 Applications Timetables Travel training Landmarks along the way Health and Safety Manual handling sequences, COSHH etc. Sequences Daily routines, specific tasks And, don’t forget…. Fun! 16/02/10
- #52 MoLeTV which will be targeted primarily to colleges in England, under the auspices of the Learning and Skills Council. Use of this new digital media site will enable registered users to upload media in most of the common formats - AVI, MP4, MP3, Windows Media and Quicktime. The uploaded media will convert to Adobe Flash Video, Windows Media, MP4 and 3GP and will be available as a link or embed code which can be inserted into a VLE or web page. 'Uploaders' will be able to edit and delete their content at any time.http://www.moletv.org.uk/watch.aspx?v=MGBJZ
- #55 Accessibility Essentials series provides a wide range of guidance in creating accessible learning materials