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Category: accessible k12 and postsecondary textbooks

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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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…

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Volunteer for Exciting New Image Description Project!

A cutting-edge image description project is underway at Bookshare. Funded by the Leveraging Impact through Technology (LIT) award from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs, this pilot project uses Poet, an open-source, crowd-sourcing image description tool developed by the DIAGRAM Center, another OSEP-funded project operated by Benetech and its partners. This innovative pilot project needs volunteers. Poet makes it easy to create accessible image descriptions and add them to DAISY books. Volunteer describers log into a website, select the book they are working on, see its images, and enter descriptions for the images in the appropriate…

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Bookshare Mentor Teachers and Local Experts Bring Reading Alive

Did you know that Bookshare has a very active program of over 360 Mentor Teachers and 30 Local Experts? This dedicated group of volunteers gives their time to bring reading alive for students with print disabilities in their schools and districts. Mentor Teachers provide resources and training for other teachers, parents and students. For example, some Mentors facilitate group and one-on-one trainings with teachers, parents and students on anything related to Bookshare.  Others have developed online training tools and video tutorials, conducted in-service professional development, and worked with school and district leadership to get Bookshare implemented. Many participate in a listserv…

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A Teen with Dyslexia Describes Benefits of Reading with Technology

A guest post by Brian Meersma, a student member of the Bookshare Advisory Board I am a high school sophomore with dyslexia. I was diagnosed at a young age, but was always eager to learn new things.  Because I had trouble reading, my parents and grandparents would read to me for hours. I loved listening to all the great books they read to me and I knew there was no way I was able to read those books on my own.  What I realized was that I had great listening skills.  I got so much more out of books when…

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The Early Days of Bookshare

Eagerness, excitement, dedication, and pride characterized the early days of Bookshare. Many of the early Bookshare Members with disabilities were also volunteers who dedicated long hours to scanning and proofreading books, prior to submitting the books to Bookshare. These volunteers literally opened a book and pressed the pages one-by-one, onto a flatbed scanner, hoping the scanner would accurately recognize the text on the page. We’ve gathered some stories from early Members and volunteers to remind ourselves what Bookshare was like and how good it was! Members are welcome to contribute more to this retrospective through Comments in this blog. “It…

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What You Can Do During Inclusive Schools Week

This week, December 5 to 9, I recently learned is Inclusive Schools Week sponsored by Stetson & Associates, Inc., and this year marks the 11th anniversary of the event. The purpose of the week, to quote from their website, is “to highlight the progress schools have made in providing a supportive and quality education to students of diverse backgrounds and abilities and to provide an opportunity for educators, students, and families to ensure that schools continue to improve their ability to successfully educate all children.” Apparently, thousands of districts are planning to celebrate this week and participate in “Moving From…

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6th Grade Volunteers at Bookshare Surprised!

Three sixth graders from Jordan Middle School in Palo Alto, CA, never thought community service would be so much fun. They volunteered to spend several hours helping organize the collection at Bookshare. However, the students didn’t know very much about Bookshare and what they’d be doing, nor did they realize that they’d also learn how students who can’t read print, (those who are blind or have low vision, a physical disability, or a severe learning disability like dyslexia) can read a digital accessible book. When they arrived, they were introduced to the process Bookshare uses to convert many print textbooks…

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New Update for Read2Go … Now Available

Apple has now approved this release and it is available in the app store. A new version of Read2Go is now available in the iTunes store. This version has support for iOS 5.0 and further enhancements for handling large books. Large books will be broken into smaller segments, but the segments will be invisible to the user. It’s version 1.0.2.0. Thanks for your patience!

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District of Columbia Public Schools Project Changes Students’ Lives

Picture a room with senior administrators from some of our nation’s largest districts. And then add tears in many eyes. You’re picturing the room at the Council of Great City Schools recent conference in Boston, MA, during the presentation given by Norma Villanueva, Director of Low Incidence Disabilities for the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS). In describing her work with her students with visual impairments and physical disabilities, she told the story of several students whose lives were turned around by assistive technologies and Bookshare. Instead of dropping out, these students have graduated and have a future. Two videos…

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