[senit] Switch accessible electronic books

Agreed - starting specifying what we need to do to

to add to the list, well what does a young typically
developing child do with a book? Point to pictures -a
form of this is the animation in Oxford reading tree
books on the computer,point at each word as they
read/retell the story-modelled by follow with their
eyes the text which is highlighted word by word, or an
option for each switch press to move the highlighter
one word forward in the current sentence. ie what I am
saying is that the model of a competent reader for
generating a list of what is needed in a switch
accessible book is not necessarily the best model for
students with SLD who are learning to read (mostly
symbols) rather than reading to learn. A model based
on a mixture of what a typically developing young
child does with books alone and in conjunction with
adults- sharing books -is probably better , along with
a consideration of the specific strengths , needs and
motivations of students with SLD. Also your list seems
to focus on information books rather than
fiction/picture books. Another point is that what the
learner should be able to do is only one facet of the
design; what the adult is going to need to able to do
eg in terms of setting symbol translation, sound
effects, animation, scan parameters, is surely equally
worthy of consideration in choosing or designing the
software?
david 
--- Paul Nisbet <Paul.Nisbet at ed.ac.uk> wrote:

> Agreed - starting specifying what we need to do to
> provide efficient and
> effective access is the first thing - what else
> needs added to this list,
> and how shall we fill in the details?
> 
> A single switch user (or two switch, or someone
> using IntelliKeys,
> communication aid, eye-gaze or head-controlled mouse
> etc) should be able to:
> 
>    1. Open the book from the library
>    2. start reading where they left off
>    3. Navigate through the contents and structure
>    4. Go to a particular chapter or page
>    5. Turn the pages
>    6. Swap between the current page and the contents
> page
>    7. Change views (e.g. single or two page view,
> zoom in/out)
>    8. Use Find/Search and index tools
>    9. Add bookmarks, text notes and comments 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Paul D. Nisbet
> Senior Research Fellow
> Communication Aids for Language and Learning (CALL)
> Centre
> Moray House School of Education
> University of Edinburgh
> Paterson's Land, Holyrood Road
> Edinburgh EH8 8AQ
> Tel. 0131 651 6236     Fax 0131 651 6234
> email Paul.Nisbet at ed.ac.uk
> http://callcentrescotland.org.uk 
> http://www.AdaptedDigitalExams.org.uk 
> http://www.booksforall.org.uk  
>  
> _________________________________________________
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: senit-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
> [mailto:senit-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf
> Of Richard Walter
> Sent: 17 January 2008 20:38
> To: senit at lists.becta.org.uk
> Subject: Re: [senit] Switch accessible electronic
> books
> 
> Paul Nisbet wrote:
> > I'd like to start a debate about how switch users,
> and other users of
> > assistive technologies (e.g. communication aids,
> IntelliKeys, eye-gaze
> > systems, speech recognition, head-operated mice)
> can access electronic
> > books.
> >
> >  
> Yes an interesting one.
> I think we could do with a general reader that was
> easy to use and alter
> -so I would have thought that an open format would
> be better than one 
> that is owned commercially and thus liable to change
> every few years and 
> could possibly have restrictions on the
> distribution.
> PDF is more or less an open format but it is not
> switch accessible.
> You could cobble together text reader with a pdf- I
> don't know if you 
> could make it all switch accessible using a switch
> interface, certainly 
> I think you could do page turning.
> 
> You can obviously make accessible books in
> Powerpoint, Clicker 5, 
> Hyperstudio, SwitchItmaker, Opus etc etc
> Powerpoint limited to a single access point if using
> switches, and all 
> of them need quite alot of work to create a complete
> book.
> 
> Perhaps we should start from the other end and say
> what it is we need in 
> a generic talking book reader.
> 
> Richard Walter
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 


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