May 2012 - Bookshare Blog

Published May 31, 2012

26 University Presses Now Partner with Bookshare

A lot has happened over the year with university press partnerships. With three new partnerships in the last few weeks, I realized it was time to post an update. These three new university presses signing agreements to contribute digital files with world rights to Bookshare bring the total number of university press partners to twenty-six. The new partners are: Edinburgh University Press. As the imprimatur of one of Britain’s oldest and most distinguished centers of learning, they publish books of the highest academic standards. Their main subject areas are American Studies, Classics & Ancient History, Film & Media Studies, History,…

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Published May 25, 2012

PAR: a Process for Selecting Accommodations for Reading

A guest post from Ben Johnston, Director of Marketing for Don Johnston, Incorporated. This resource sounds great! Thanks for sharing it with us. With over 140,000 accessible books, Bookshare is a blessing for students with disabilities. This resource would have been unimaginable just ten years ago when days were spent scanning books. But with more accessible books than ever, how do you choose a reading accommodation best suited to a student’s needs? Two assistive technology leaders, Denise DeCoste, Ed.D., and Linda Bastiani Wilson, MA, Ed., from Montgomery County Schools in Maryland found the whole process of choosing reading accommodations to…

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Published May 22, 2012

Congratulations to Sallie Spencer, Top Bookshare Mentor Teacher!

The 2012 Mentor Teacher selected to win the top prize, an iPad, is Sallie Spencer! Sallie is a middle school Special Education Teacher at Olivet Middle School, in Olivet, Michigan. As a Mentor Teacher, she met with district special education staff both in groups and individually, and walked them step-by-step through the process of finding and downloading Bookshare books for their students. She also worked one-to-one with general education staff with Bookshare-qualified students in their classes. Sally believes that Bookshare “is not used enough so I truly want to put the word out!” Sallie adds that she regularly promotes Read2Go…

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Published May 18, 2012

Individual Memberships for Change and Transition

Mary Carney, a 7th grade English teacher at Lowville Academy Central Middle School, NY, wanted to change the way some of her students thought about reading, and the way they read. She knew that if she could find a way to help her students feel more confident and independent as readers, they would be more successful in her English class. Carney signed her qualified students up for Bookshare organizational memberships. “I believed the federally funded library (free to U.S. students who qualify) could support my efforts to turn around students who were falling behind their grade level reading.” One of…

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Published May 15, 2012

New Jersey Task Force Researches Services to Students with Reading Disabilities

We recently learned about the work of the New Jersey Reading Disabilities Task Force from Kathy Stratton, the mother of a Bookshare member. Appointed by the governor, this 11-member task force is researching the services available to students who struggle with reading to find out if the state is meeting the needs of its students with reading disabilities. On April 30, the Task Force held a public hearing to gather testimony; over 130 attended and 60 spoke. In Kathy’s words, “The theme was clear and consistent – schools are not meeting the needs of students who struggle with reading. Parent after…

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Published May 8, 2012

Bookshare Helped Student Transition to College

Zach Bryant pulled straight A’s in his Maryland high school. He liked to read all kinds of books then, but that wasn’t always the case for Zach. He has Cerebral Palsy (CP) which prohibits him from speaking and walking. To communicate and write his thoughts down, he uses an augmentative communication device (AAC). Simple tasks, like turning a printed page or finding the last chapter he read was frustrating for him. According to his mom, this experience happens to many children with CP. “They get frustrated and don’t want to read, but access to digital books and reading technologies changed…

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Published May 2, 2012

Bookshare Celebrates Its Tenth Anniversary

A guest post from Jim Fruchterman, CEO of Benetech, the parent company for Bookshare Bookshare, Benetech’s pioneering digital library for people with print disabilities, celebrated its 10th birthday last night with a terrific party that was attended by many of our long-time friends and supporters. The event was hosted by Google on its campus in Mountain View, California, which is home to some of the most cutting edge technologists in the world. During the event, our Bookshare staff offered demos of our Bookshare library and our Go Read accessible ebook reader for Android. They also demoed Read2Go, the accessible ebook…

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Published May 1, 2012

Google Selected Benetech for Google Summer of Code

Students to Contribute to Development of Go Read Every summer, Google sponsors “Google Summer of Code” (GSoC) which offers stipends to postsecondary student developers and pairs them with open source mentoring organizations. Given Google’s high engineering standards, selection as a mentoring organization is a great honor! This year, Benetech was awarded three, top-notch students and is asking them to work on Go Read development projects. Go Read is a free, open source, accessible e-book reader for Android phones and tablets. Currently optimized for visually-impaired readers (and usable by anyone), Go Read allows readers to enjoy Bookshare books whenever and wherever…

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Month: May 2012