April 2012 - Bookshare Blog

Published April 25, 2012

Furthering Accessibility of Graphs at the International Space Apps Challenge

Over the weekend of April 21 and 22, two engineers from the Bookshare team, Gerardo Capiel and Rom Srinivasan, participated in the International Space Apps Challenge, a two-day event designed to bring citizens from around the world together to solve challenges relevant to spatial exploration and social need. It’s a “code-a-thon” weekend – a technology development marathon – with engineers on all seven continents and in space volunteering their time, collaborating on solutions to interesting problems. The Bookshare team contributed one of the challenges for the weekend: to continue development of MathTrax, an open source graphing application developed by NASA…

Words of Wisdom on Transition from a College Freshman

How does a very talented, bright, highly motivated young woman with severe dyslexia succeed in college? How is she getting almost a 4.0 GPA, top grades in all her classes, without her mom sitting beside her, patiently reading every word in every book as she did for twelve years? All incoming freshman experience some college jitters, but this driven young woman, Elizabeth, was justifiably concerned about succeeding in classes with hundreds of others students who didn’t have dyslexia. Her story about her transition should inspire many high school seniors in similar situations: “When I applied to college, I asked for…

Can We Give Too Much?

A guest post from Lucy Greco, a blind advocate for accessible technology. An Assistive Technology Specialist at UC Berkeley, San Francisco Bay Area, Greco is the user of various assistive technologies since the early 1980s. She is passionate about the ways technology makes the world more accessible to everyone but especially to individuals with disabilities. “For students with disabilities in college and universities, where do we draw the line between providing them support services and teaching them to be independent,” asks Lucy Greco. I graduated from California State University Hayward in 1997. The ADA was only six years old and…

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Published April 9, 2012

Assistive Technology Spotlight – Texthelp Apps

We are happy to feature innovative new assistive technologies in this blog. Today, we want to tell you about a Web App from Texthelp, eBook Reader, that reads Bookshare books in the Cloud. eBook Reader is one of a new suite of Web Apps that work within browsers on iPad, iPod Touch, iPhone, and other mobile devices as well as PCs and Macs. A short video shows how the eBook Reader works. Current Apps include: Read&Write Web, eBook Reader for Bookshare® eBooks, Speech, and Dictionary. Students in schools and colleges who use Read&Write GOLD can use these Apps at school…

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Published April 2, 2012

U.S. Senator Congratulates Bookshare on 10th Anniversary! Digital eBook Access Breaks Down Reading Barriers for U.S. Students with Qualified Print Disabilities

On March 8, 2012, ninety guests gathered at the U.S. Capitol to hear Senator Tom Harkin (IA- D), Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pension Appropriations Committee, recognize the good work of the staff and volunteers of Bookshare on its 10th anniversary. The Iowa Senator and Julie Freed, an assistive technology teacher and constituent of the Senator’s home state, thanked Bookshare for breaking down barriers to reading access for individuals with print disabilities. In his speech, Senator Harkin first acknowledged the leadership of Jim Fruchterman, Benetech’s CEO and the founder of Bookshare along with Betsy Beaumon, V.P. and General…

Month: April 2012

Furthering Accessibility of Graphs at the International Space Apps Challenge

Words of Wisdom on Transition from a College Freshman

Can We Give Too Much?

Assistive Technology Spotlight – Texthelp Apps

U.S. Senator Congratulates Bookshare on 10th Anniversary! Digital eBook Access Breaks Down Reading Barriers for U.S. Students with Qualified Print Disabilities