Skip to content

Tag: digital accessible books

Some of the Most Anticipated Digital Books for Back to School

Note: This blog first appeared on The Inside Track – a blog for the Understood community. Benetech, Bookshare’s parent nonprofit, is one of fifteen founding nonprofit organizations in partnership with Understood, a resource for parents of children with learning and attention issues. More than 275,000 free text-to-speech digital books. That’s how many are downloaded the first two months of school every fall from our online Bookshare library. This year, we expect an even higher number of downloads. What are some of the hottest digital books for back to school going to be? Our librarians at Bookshare decided to investigate. We looked at data from…

Leave a Comment

Bookshare Parents and Teachers Team Up for Back to School

Teamwork is the name of the game when it comes to supporting students with print disabilities Back to school is a challenging transition for all students, but it is especially difficult for students with visual, physical, or learning disabilities. Getting the books they need in a format that is accessible requires a collaborative effort between parents and educators. Sometimes parents are the first to discover valuable resources for their son or daughter, and sometimes teachers are the catalysts who enlist the parents’ help. It doesn’t matter who leads the charge as long as students get the tools they need to…

Leave a Comment

Students with Print Disabilities Accelerate Reading with Bookshare

Assistive technology helps students with disabilities love books Bookshare has been a game changer for Brennan Draves, a fourth grader with a visual impairment, and Reagan Reeves, a ninth grader with dyslexia. Both students need schoolbooks in alternative formats to help them read and study. Brennan, a fourth grader at Mackensen Elementary School in Michigan, has retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease that makes it impossible to read traditional books. He used to read and study with printed braille books which were heavy and took time to produce. Since using Bookshare, reading books and doing homework is easier and more cost…

Leave a Comment

Get in the Back-to-School Groove with Bookshare

Summer is winding down, and a new school year is around the corner. How can we make sure students with visual, physical, and learning disabilities are set up to have their best academic year yet? Get their books in accessible formats and the best tools around from Bookshare for free! Since last back-to-school, the Bookshare team has been busy adding more and more books to our library. Our collection is bigger than ever with over 350,000 titles in formats like audio, braille, and large print that are accessible to people who cannot read traditional print. These titles include textbooks, Common…

Leave a Comment

Meet the Fab Four: Benetech Summer Interns

Benetech’s Summer Internship Program has been going strong for three years. Each summer, several college students work on Bookshare-related projects and learn about Benetech’s programs in the areas of global literacy, human rights, and Benetech Labs. Read on to learn about our four fabulous interns — Alyssa Aliotti, Paige Brown, Michelle McLaren, and Mitchell Mankin — as they describe the valuable work they accomplished. My name is Alyssa Aliotti and I am entering my second year at UCLA. I plan on double majoring in Economics and International Development Studies. When I was looking for summer internships I was very excited about Benetech’s…

Leave a Comment

It’s a Wrap! Thank You for Turning It Up & Telling the World

Summer is winding down and so is the Bookshare Summer Reading Challenge. For the past six weeks Bookshare members have found adventure in Travel & the Great Outdoors; tasted new cuisines in Food & Cooking; worked up a sweat in Sports & Fitness; played and tinkered in Games & Gizmos; saved the earth in Sustainability & the Environment; and explored their creative side in Crafts & the Arts. Many of you finally read that book you’ve been meaning to read for a long time. Thanks to all of the members who joined us on this journey and recommended their favorite…

Leave a Comment

On the Americans with Disabilities Act at 25: Betsy Beaumon’s Op-Ed

Twenty-five years ago, on July 26, 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law to ensure that individuals with disabilities have equal opportunity to participate in the mainstream of American life. As we celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the ADA, writes Benetech President, Betsy Beaumon, it is imperative to consider not only how far we have come in eliminating discrimination against people with disabilities, but also how to extend the ADA promise to a new generation of Americans, particularly in the education field. In her op-ed, Beaumon argues that the digital revolution could usher in a golden…

Leave a Comment

Check Out Our Latest Video Tutorials and Book-Finding Tips

Get the Edge: Monthly Training and Support Solutions Need help using Bookshare? Check out our latest Learn it Now tutorials and How-To Guides in the Bookshare Academy. Learn it Now tutorials are two-to-three-minute videos that will help members get the most out of Bookshare. We are pleased to present our newest titles: Help Students Read Independently with Bookshare Web Reader (YouTube) (TeacherTube) (Transcript) How to Use Bookshare’s Reading Lists (YouTube) (TeacherTube) (Transcript) How to Find and Request Books (YouTube) (TeacherTube) (Transcript) Another useful resource in the Bookshare Academy is our How-To Guides. These guides provide step-by-step instructions along with screenshots to help…

Leave a Comment

75 Reasons to Love Bookshare

Celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the National Federation of the Blind Earlier this month, members of the Bookshare team traveled to Orlando, Florida, to attend the 2015 Annual Convention of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB). Founded in 1940, the Federation is the largest organization of blind and low-vision people in the United States with over fifty-thousand members. Thousands of members and supporters celebrated the NFB’s 75th anniversary and are a living testament to the NFB’s motto: You can live the life you want; blindness is not what holds you back. The Bookshare team was excited to have the…

Leave a Comment

“Go Set a Watchman” Makes Literary History

Literary history is being made today with the publication of Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee. This much anticipated novel, written in 1957 before To Kill a Mockingbird, was believed to be lost for over 50 years. Lucky for Harper Lee fans all over the world, Go Set a Watchman is available in bookstores today. And even luckier for people who cannot read traditional books due to blindness, low vision, physical and learning disabilities, Go Set a Watchman is available on Bookshare, the world’s largest accessible online library, at the same time.  With Bookshare, readers can listen to Go…

2 Comments