Archive for the ‘Study Bar’ Category

Happy App downloading if you have an iphone!

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

Lots of new things happening in the world of Assistive Technology and the good news is that they are even happening on the iphone!   You can now Dragon Search on the Apple App Store!  That means that you can use speech recognition to search the Apple iPhone app store!  The download for the Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking app is also available.

ATMac talks about making the iPhone your own personal library with Wattpad and Papers.

Sometime ago AssistiveWare announced the iphone can become an augmented communication device  – Proloquo2Go: AAC  in Your Pocket

Alan Lawrence has made a version of Dasher, the text prediction software, for the  iPhone.  It is now available for free from the iTunes Store.

Applestoreapps.com have a useful list of the  ‘Top 50 Free Education Apps‘  and when you search for spelling apps you may come across Brain Blaze Spelling which is a useful way to test whether you still have the ability to pick the correct word from a list of spelling corrections as if you were using a spell checker!

By the way we have been working with JISC TechDis on their new toolbar which can be seen in action on the front page of LexDis and with luck you may have noticed that it automatically loaded when you loaded this blog!

It allows you to have text to speech, spell checking, font resizing, colour changes and a dictionary and to reference a web page for your notes as you surf the internet.  It works with most browsers as a download or there is the lite version which is easiest to use as a bookmark as can be seen in the image below.

Adding the toolbar to your 'favorites' in Internet Explorer

Adding the toolbar to your 'favorites' in Internet Explorer

All the best for 2010!

Posted in LexDis, Study Bar, toolbar | 2 Comments »

StudyBar: Good for website owners, as well as users

Monday, November 9th, 2009

Two weeks ago we rolled out a beta version of StudyBar to a select few Beta testers.

During this testing period we have fixed many bugs, and improved a lot of the core features of StudyBar. I would like to thank everyone that has participated in the Beta testing, and encourage them to continue submitting bugs!

Today I would like to announce a new feature that will be available in StudyBar – the ability for website owners to launch StudyBar for their webpages. Without the user having to have StudyBar installed.

How it works

If you operate a website and wish to integrate the features that StudyBar provides without having to re-invent the wheel, or requiring users to install software, you can now include a piece of HTML code in your webpage which will produce a launch button. Once the user clicks this link, StudyBar will be launched for your website. Including a piece of JavaScript on each of your pages that you want StudyBar to work with will allow it to launch for these pages.

Also of note, this functionality is useful as well to users. By dragging the link below into your bookmarks, you can launch StudyBar on whatever web page you are currently on. We’re calling this StudyBar Lite, as it does not require you to have anything installed.

There are some drawbacks – StudyBar will not launch when you open or refresh a page, only when you click on the button. In FireFox, it will be marginally slower than using the installed version, and it may not work on some installations of Internet Explorer on locked down machines. However, no installation!

Why not give it a go? Either click the link, or drag it to your favourites for use later – StudyBar.

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Synote and LexDis cross the Atlantic once again!

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

Both Mike and E.A are heading off to the States this week to talk about the Synote, LexDis, and Web2Access.

As the press release says, Mike is “going to present the latest developments in his award-winning web-based Synote at a symposium at the IBM TJ Watson Research Centre, New York on Monday 9 November.

It will be the first time Synote will be shown with its additional ability to “synchronise live notes taken using Twitter with synchronised lecture recordings and transcripts created using IBM’s speech recognition software.”

E.A. is off to the 12th Annual Accessing Higher Ground – Accessible Media, Web and Technology Conference in Colorado on Thursday 12 November to show how Seb Skuse, Russell Newman and Chris Phethean have developed a suite of accessibility tools that can help to make access to the web easier. This work has come about as a result of the findings of the JISC funded LexDis project which, as someone said “refuses to die!” Students are still coming forward with new strategies for the way they cope with their “Technology Enhanced Learning” (to include e-learning and mobile learning) environments and E.A. is keen to continue with this work so that the database can be kept up to date with the latest ideas.

The press release ends by saying: “In her presentation, E.A. will highlight the need to enhance the knowledge of a wider network of ‘informal experts’ and academic staff to enable them to introduce disabled students to the many web-based tools which are currently emerging. This would allow disabled students to further develop their skills and perhaps in time also become informal experts who would be willing to share the strategies they have developed with others as can be seen on the LexDis website.”

Posted in Accessibility Projects Portal, LexDis, Pen Drive, Study Bar, Uncategorized, Web2Access validation toolkit, synote, toolbar, web2access | No Comments »

Summer Showcase ‘09

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

Friday saw the Learning Societies Lab’s annual Summer Showcase. In the Access Group, we decided to take this opportunity to show off all our projects. Chris Phethean, Seb Skuse and Russell Newman were speaking. E.A. was in Birmingham, so couldn’t make it.

Check out our presentation for all the details. Here is a PDF, 3MB:
Access Group 2009 Summer Showcase

Questions after each section highlighted some interesting possibilities for future development. Specifically:

  • Web2Access Validation Toolkit: Can part of the work of checking a site be performed by our server automatically, thus removing the need for a human to do it?
  • StudyBar Text-to-Speech: Could the server cache common sentences and/or websites? e.g. the BBC News site is likely to be a common request, so can we render it once then cache it?
  • Access Menu: Development of a package download service would allow users to add new programs to their pen drives and keep existing ones up to date.

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Posted in Accessibility Cloud, LexDis, Pen Drive, Study Bar, Web2Access validation toolkit, toolbar, web2access | No Comments »

StudyBar update

Monday, September 7th, 2009

The core of StudyBar has been successfully implemented into all of the major browsers in use today – Firefox, Internet Explorer (6+), Google Chrome, Safari (Snow Leopard requires Safari to be run in 32-bit mode to use StudyBar), and Opera across the Mac and Windows platforms where applicable.

Studybar-FFX-IE-Opera

StudyBar allows users to perform tasks on content displayed in the current webpage, such as inline editing of page styles, spellchecking of text input, dictionary search, text to speech, and much more without need for popups.

chrome-colourdialog

Graphic1

At this stage of development the base loading functionality is working in all browsers, as well as a few of the more basic functions. The Spellchecker framework now works in all browsers, so simply needs tuning so that it works more effectively. Efforts are now concentrated on getting Text to Speech linked up and working in FireFox as well as some of the other browsers, referencing and dictionary working and tuning the text and colour manipulation controls.

(more…)

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Critical Friends provide helpful comments.

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

Over the last week Deb Viney, Ginny Stacey and Mary Eld have been kind enough to give up time to visit us and work with us on our projects as critical friends. We really are very grateful for this help.

The pen drive /memory stick / USB flash drive, (debate as to the best name!) with its accessible menu – is this for staff or students?  If both. what does each group  need in terms of applications and guides and how do we divide up the folders?  Should we be able to access the applications immediately without having to go through a series of folders or categories or does there need to be a tree structure?

When it comes to overall design – do we need logos for the applications and icons for some menu items as well as text which can be enlarged?   A decision was made to use a colour contrast calculator to stop bad colour combinations when users change text and background colours to suit their preferences.

The Study Bar update on the previous blog has covered many of the aspects discussed in our meetings.  It was felt that it was important to improve aspects of the text to speech, as decisions about the items to be added to the tool bar had largely been dealt with by comparing the bar to the JISC TechDis User Preferences toolbar.

Web2Access walk-through to check the criteria has been completed, but it was clear that when discussing aspects of the evaluation for Web 2.0 services, there needs to be a considerable amount of support for some people.  The issue of who was going to use the site arose and what were the criteria for our choice of Web 2.0 applications – this needs to be added to the site!  Perhaps we could say services chosen should:

  • allow for interactions.
  • have no download requirements
  • offer free access not just a free trial.

A visit to Jane Hart’s Social Media toolkit provide more ideas for which Web 2.0 applications are used in elearning situations as well as other tools for learning.

The search facility has been added to each page on the Web2Access website and the anomalies that have arisen with the scoring are under discussion with the realisation that listing all those that have identical results is not very helpful.

A question was raised as to how the percentages were worked out.  It was noted that the criteria for the tests provide the results not how accessible the site is for a particular disability against another disability or application.  A phrase to explain this issue and the ongoing debate about the scoring and how it is illustrated is on the list of tasks to be completed!

Our explanation of Web 2.0 needs to be expanded and for whom the site has been designed as this came up whilst going through the test criteria.  It was felt the site is helpful for developers in its present mode but if we could add more supporting materials it would be useful for a wider audience.    We may also need to change some of the technical language used!

The Accessibility Cloud project was mentioned in passing and meetings with experts in the field of linking data are being set up in the coming weeks.

Posted in Accessibility Cloud, Pen Drive, Study Bar, Web2Access validation toolkit, toolbar, web2access | No Comments »

StudyBar – the cross-browser toolbar

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

The aim of the StudyBar project has been to create a toolbar which can be used in all modern browsers (FireFox, Internet Explorer 8, Chrome, Safari, Opera), which provides users with customisation options and tools to aid studying. StudyBar is an improvement upon the current Techdis Toolbar, which currently only works in Internet Explorer.

There are currently toolbars out there that offer some of the desired functionality, but as of yet there is nothing to provide everything in a concise package, let alone to any browser. To allow us to develop for multiple browsers we have opted to use the JavaScript language (which is interpreted by the browser itself, and supported by every browser – one installation package will work across the board, and even the possibility to be ported to mobile platforms at a later date) which gives us much finer control over the page than traditional toolbars.

During the prototyping phase it was discovered that most browsers have disabled JavaScript from performing page-manipulation on remote pages for security reasons (see Same Origin Policy). Because of this reason, we have opted to use GreaseMonkey, a technology that allows JavaScript to be stored on a user’s computer and used on any web page, therefore not having to deal with the Same Origin Policy.

At this stage of development we have spec’d out the technologies that will be used, and are currently working on:

  • Dynamic toolbar items.
  • Text To Speech Server based on the Festival engine.
  • A SpellChecker with intelligent suggestion.
  • Preset CSS style loading into webpages.
  • Increase/Decrease text size on page.
  • Alter colour of toolbar.

These functions will be available to any page that the user is viewing, using any of the aforementioned web browsers.

At the current stage of development, very rudimentary versions of almost all of these features are present, although slightly buggy. More features will be added as the development time passes to bring it in line, and hopefully surpass current toolbar featuresets.

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Accessiblog

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

Accessiblog has been started as we have several accessible technology projects on the go including LexDis, Web2Access and Synote and we wanted to have a space to track other projects as they progressed.  These all have working titles and  include:

StudyBar

StudyBar will build on existing tools such as those provided by Google, Firefox Accessibar and the JISC TechDis Preferences Toolbar, to develop an independent toolbar that works alongside the most widely used web browsers.  The aim is to help all staff and students (irrespective of their skills and abilities) save time when interacting with on-line environments.  Currently staff and students are switching between complex toolsets, especially when undertaking e-learning activities in Web 2.0 environments, such as using blogs, wikis and discussion forums, where time is of the essence.  They also have difficulties summarising and referencing works and require user-friendly tools to support and complete these tasks.

StudyBar will provide easy access to study support services to augment technology enhanced learning strategies.  Time spent working with a series of different or complex tools can be avoided by having a ‘one stop shop’ of easy to use services, appropriate for studying.  Time constraints are an issue for all students but in particular for those with disabilities especially when learning to use new technologies.

Current development is for use with Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari and Opera.

The work is being undertaken with close collaboration with JISC OSS Watch, JISC TechDis and JISC RSC Scotland N&E

This project has been funded by JISC TechDis and will run from July 09 to November 09

The Pen Drive

This pen drive is designed for both staff and students working in a teaching and learning environment. The accessible menu system will allow users to launch a range of assistive technologies from text to speech to magnification.   There will also be a portable browser with additional toolbars to provide staff with a means to evaluate online technologies before using them in a teaching and learning situation.

The entire menu system can be customised and all developments will be available via Google Code with the ability to download the source code and make changes.

Current development is for the Window platform but much discussion has taken place around the use of HTML and the Mac operating system.

The work is being undertaken with close collaboration with JISC OSS Watch, JISC TechDis and JISC RSC Scotland N&E

This project has been funded by the Learning and Teaching  Enhancement Unit of the University of Southampton and will be trialed in the Autumn 2009 – February 2010  with a full set of guides on making choices about the accessibility of Web 2.0 applications such as podcasts, blogs, wikis, social networking RSS feeds, bookmarking and microblogs.

Web2 Access Validation toolkit.

This online toolkit will be developed so that all users of the Web2Access.org.uk website can evaluate the accessibitity of any chosen Web 2.0 application at the outset and eventually software applications.  The fourteen tried and tested checks based on WCAG 2.0 guidelines will be developed into an online wizard with accompanying narrated screencasts to aid both developers and those new to accessibility issues.

The 14 tests with levels of accessibility in different contexts provide a framework that is capable of validating accessibility in a way that is useful to potential users  for example supports those with visual impairments or has poor text size and contrast levels.  The service provides a ranking that is potentially valuable to providers as an indicator of accessibility although it is always advisable to check sites with disabled users.

Current development is for use with Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari and Opera.

The work is being undertaken with close collaboration with JISC TechDis

This project has been funded by JISC TechDis and will run from July 2009 – Jan 2010

Accessibility Cloud

The Accessibility Cloud project will be harvesting the existing accessibility content from previous JISC funded projects, making the data commonly available and searchable and making sure that the engine and data are secure, portable and able to be mirrored.  The initial projects providing the linked data are LexDis, Web2Access, Phoebe, Gateway to Excellence and JISC RSC Yorkshire and Humberside ‘Excellence in Inclusivity’.  Each site offers a different approach to the subject of teaching and learning with the use of technology.  This will mean that users of the accessibility cloud will have the chance to see for example the use of portable devices in colleges, their impact on various disabilities, the strategies developed by students and the way they can be used by staff in their day to day teaching.

It is hoped that it will be possible to browse by a series of categories and search the active data from all the websites but in a way that allows for different perspectives such as a pedagogical approach, disability viewpoint and technology choices.

Current development is for use with Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari and Opera.

The work is being undertaken with close collaboration with JISC TechDis

This project has been funded by JISC TechDis and will run from Oct 09 to Sept 2010.

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Posted in Accessibility Cloud, Pen Drive, Study Bar, Web2Access validation toolkit, toolbar | 1 Comment »