Fron Top Tech Tidbits:

In this edition of The Tech Doctor Blog and Podcast, we hear an interview with a prolific mainstream Apple podcaster and committed advocate for Blind Apple users.

http://www.dr-carter.com/?p=93

Accessibility technology Consultant Jerry Berrier will have fun with his iPhone and let you listen in as he demonstrates a variety of fun apps on Tek Talk on GMT 14 February at 01:00.

http://conference321.com/masteradmin/room.asp?id=rsc9613dc89eb2

A second podcast on using NVDA and iTunes is available.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1625623/NVDA%20and%20iTunes%20Demonstration.mp3

 The February, 2012 issue of AccessWorld is now available, including A Review of the IBIS HD Video Magnifier (CCTV), an evaluation of The Readit Scholar, Diabetes and Visual Impairment: An Update on Accessible Blood Glucose Meters, information about AccessWorld App Version 1.8 and more:

http://www.afb.org/accessworld

GW Micro has begun to make available How Do I Do That? video mini-tutorials with fully accessible audio content on particular window-eyes features. The first two free offerings in the series concern how to add an attachment and how to use the ribbon with window-eyes.

http://www.gwmicro.com/Training/Tutorials/

The Veterans Health Administration Section 508 office created an innovative set of tutorials that explains portable document format (PDF) accessibility barriers and provides solutions that address them. The tutorial is "Creating Accessible PDFs with Adobe Acrobat Professional" and it is available at:

http://www.ehealth.va.gov/508/tutorials/pdf/index.asp

The VHA Section 508 office also has training on developing accessible Flash. The course is available at:

http://www.ehealth.va.gov/508/flash/index.asp

SpeechHub is a new set of speech synthesizers, at present, only for NVDA. Several synthesizers and languages are available.

http://www.speechhub.org/

The US Internal Revenue Service offers accessible tax preparation assistance.

http://www.irs.gov/accessibility/index.html

Here is a Youtube video describing what they offer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4PfzKqpXmg

Kathy Ann Murtha announces the release of two new $75 textbooks: Internet Explorer 9 with JAWS for Windows 13 and Internet Explorer 9 with Window-Eyes 7.5 http://www.blindtraining.com/shop/browsers.htm

This Blind Access Journal podcast is entitled Take Your Favorite Podcasts on the Road: Downcast for iOS:

http://blindaccessjournal.com/2012/02/take-your-favorite-podcasts-on-the-road-downcast-for-ios/

The NFB Access Technology Blog offers reviews of News Apps for iOS devices:

http://www.nfb.org/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=922&SnID=1727144647

And DAISY videos from the eBook Accessibility Symposium:

http://www.nfb.org/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=920&SnID=1727144647

Saturday Technology Training Session February 4th, 2012, 1pm to 4pm, Room 215, Adaptive Services, MLK Library

Saturday Technology Training Session

February 4th, 2012 1pm to 4pm, Room 215, Adaptive Services, MLK Library
Accessible App Demo and Discussion

It is time again for the quarterly adaptive technology training session on accessible apps for the iPhone and other mobile, gestural devices, hosted by Mark Reumann.  Details below:

Presenters:

Mark Reumann – Patent Office

Zuhair Mahmoud – Library of Congress

Don Barrett – Dept of Education

From 1pm to 3pm, this panel will demo and discuss accessible apps, like MoneyReader, Color Identifier and VizWiz.  We may also have a brief update on some of the projects initiated at the Product Identification Workshop November 5^th and further developed at the Accessibility Hackathon on Nov 12^th.

Global Public Inclusive Infrastructure (GPII)

http://www.gpii.net/
The purpose of the Global Public Inclusive Infrastructure (GPII) is to ensure that everyone who faces accessibility barriers due to disability, literacy, or aging, regardless of economic resources, can access and use the Internet and all its information, communities, and services for education, employment, daily living, civic participation, health, and safety.

Saturday Technology Training Session January 21, 2012

The Saturday Technology Training Session on January 21st will feature an informal discussion of the outcome of the recent Accessibility Hackathon, as well as demos and an update on the status of ongoing, related projects.

Saturday Technology Training Session

January 21st, 2011

1pm to 4pm

Room 215, Adaptive Services

Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library

901 G Street NW

Washington DC, 20001

Our Saturday, January 21st demo and discussion will include the following:

1.       A demo by App Developer Zaid Al-Timimi, of a beta version of the Mobile Accessible Book Generator.  Powered by The Mashup App, the Mobile Accessible Book Generator allows iPhone/iPad users to create e-books for kids with print disabilities. Originally proposed during the 2011 Adaptive Services Division's Accessibility Hackathon, the Mobile Accessible Book Generator is scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2012. A future version is envisioned to allow users to submit generated books to repositories such as Bentech's Bookshare. 

2.       A demo by Kevin Johnson and Patrick Timony of some of the other current digital archiving projects and accessible Internet participation applications related to the Accessibility Hackathon and the Adaptive Technology Program.

3.       Discussion of future events that could help to build the proposed solutions, including several proposed codeathon events, and the Maker Monday regular meetup at the library.

4.       Discussion of a proposed makerspace at the MLK library and the events and activities that could take place there, including skills training, book scanner building, 3D printing, format conversion, and disaster preparedness training and technology development.

The following organizations are currently involved (in no specific order): Adaptive Services Division, LibraryLab, University of Maryland iSchool, OpenForumFoundation, Federal Communications Commission, The Mashup App, Bookshare, VideoWashDC, iStrategyLabs, Bread for the City, Gallaudet Technology Access Program, HAC-DC.

The Accessibility Hackathon was held on Nov 12th, 2011 as a part of DC WEEK’s LibraryTech project (http://digitalcapitalweek.org/projects/library-tech/)and produced a list of product proposals to meet requirements from the user community (http://wikimediadc.org/wiki/Accessibility_hackathon)

Library Lab (http://wikimediadc.org/wiki/LibraryLab) is a demonstration project at the DC Public Library that is designed as a community center for annotation, classification, creation, curation, digitization; education and publication, reading and writing and media production.

Free training is available in the Adaptive Services Division, to teach the basics of using ATs.  Networking programs and events on the topic of ATs are coordinated at the library and in the DC area.  Here is a list of our current activities:

    AT Training Program

    Saturday Technology Training Sessions bi-monthly user group

    Adaptive Services Interest Group AT professional meet-up

    Accessibility DC Monthly meet-up

    AccessibilityCampDC Annual Unconference

    Adaptive Technology Tips and Hints online AT tutorials

    Adaptive Services Internet Classroom - learn ATs on your own

    Accessibility Hackathon Project

    Maker Mondays

    Tech Talk Tuesdays

    Audio-Video Archive

Saturday Technology Training Sessions are the 1st and 3rd Saturdays, 1pm to 4pm Adaptive Services Division, DC Public Library, Room 215 Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library 901 G Street NW Washington DC 20001.

"Latest mobile phones for visually impaired"

This is a BBC program -- an overview of accessibility for phones other than the iPhone - Symbian, Android. Title is "Latest mobile phones for visually impaired"  There is a transcript halfway down the page if you dont want to listen to the whole thing.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b018xs8r

Top Tech Tidbits

- By visiting the AppleVis blog, you can learn how they are Making it Easier to Find Relevant Content on the AppleVis Site, learn about the campaign to create the AppleVis iOS App Hall of Fame, and discover the appleVis podcast, among other discoveries.
http://www.applevis.com/blog

- Here is an interesting comparison of some of the many digital music services available, of course not taking accessibility into account.
http://t.co/ufwCMCIB

- An organization called the Association of Blind Citizens offers an Assistive Technology Fund to US residents. the Fund provides financial resources to cover 50% of the retail price of adaptive devices or software.
http://www.blindcitizens.org/assistive_tech.htm


-Blind-aid is a Yahoo group where people can discuss blindness issues and make friends. To join, send a blank message to
blind-aid-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

-Tech Access Weekly features short Daily tips podcasts and some longer, comprehensive ones regarding assistive technology.
http://techaccessweekly.com/

Flying Blind, LLC Launches Apple Accessibility Initiative (AAI)

Flying Blind, LLC will be kicking off 2012 by launching the Apple Accessibility Initiative, or AAI, which is a series of on-site, scalable, and customizable professional development training seminars designed to provide educators of students who are vision impaired with the tools necessary to provide access solutions via mobile iOS-based products within the classroom. Over the past couple of years Apple has done an amazing job of marketing its products to the educational sector of the marketplace. Their approach to providing integrated access via screen magnification, speech, and Braille have afforded vision impaired users comparable access to much of what today's sighted users of mainstream applications have to offer.


As 2011 came to a close Flying Blind, LLC was made aware of a profound need amongst educators of the vision impaired to explore how to appropriately turn Apple touch screen devices into solutions that would enable vision impaired students to independently and efficiently complete tasks within the classroom. The Apple Accessibility Initiative, or AAI, will present educators with all of the integrated access tools available within the Apple operating system, or iOS, as well as a blueprint for how to search for, install, utilize, and maintain all of the appropriate applications necessary to transform these devices into low-cost alternatives to more expensive, traditional means of portable information management.

These fee-based training seminars will be spearheaded by Flying Blind, LLC's founder, Mr. Larry L. Lewis.

Participants in the Apple Accessibility Initiative (AAI) will achieve the following:
 

·  Be introduced to all of the low-vision, speech, and Braille accessibility features available within portable iOS devices.
 

·  Learn how to select and install accessible applications specifically pertinent to their school's curriculum.
 

·  Understand how to search for information, read books, and create/edit/share text and documents with sighted classmates and educators.
 

·  Be exposed to accessible games that might be played between both vision impaired and sighted users of these devices.

please email AAI@flying-blind.com for more info

Planet a11y

Just as http://blind-planet.org/aggregator aggregates blindness-related blogs, podcasts and RSS feeds into one spot so you can read them all on a single page, Planet a11y is an RSS aggregator which aggregates accessibility-related feeds so you can view them in one place. Be sure to check it out at http://planeta11y.org

CPR/AED for the Professional Rescuer

CPR/AED for the Professional Rescuer

Saturday, December 16.  9am – 5pm 

CPR/AED for the Professional Rescuer is designed to teach professionals with a duty to act the skills needed to respond appropriately to breathing and cardiac emergencies, including the use of an automated external defibrillator (AED) to care for a victim of cardiac arrest. Frank McDonnelly of the American Red Cross is the trainer.

To register:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dExaeURqNWV0bG1DMmJ5TUNGdGgtcGc6MQ

Contacting Organizations about Inaccessible Web Sites

 From:  VICUG-L, the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.

I thought some of you might find the documents I reference below of interest as you shop online during the holidays.

I don't know about you, but when I go online during the holidays, I just want to find what I'm looking for and check out without needing any help. But sometimes, by the time I'm done, my holiday cheer is beginning to fade. Trying to use an inaccessible site to buy a gift or make a donation on behalf of a loved one can take time I simply don't have during the busy holiday season.

But if I spend a little extra time to report my experiences to the organizations that run the sites I visit, I believe my efforts will make the Web a better place next year.

As I make my shopping list and gather links to the sites I plan to visit, I'm adding a couple of other links to my collection, so they'll be handy. I'm also setting up an email template or two in advance to help me quickly report my shopping experiences -- both the good ones and the ones that are harder than I might wish.

Why not join me and start off your New Year positively by helping to make the Web a more accessible place?

Find tips about giving accessibility feedback to Web sites by visiting these two Web pages, brought to you by the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative:

http://bit.ly/inaccessible1

http://bit.ly/inaccessible2

 VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.

Archived on the World Wide Web at

    http://listserv.icors.org/archives/vicug-l.html

CDESK for NLS BARD

WOULD YOU LIKE AN EASIER WAY TO USE YOUR COMPUTER EVERYDAY?

CDESK by AdaptiveVoice Makes Using Your Computer SIMPLE, with FOURTEEN Easy-To-Use Applications!

- WORD PROCESSING
- EMAIL
- INTERNET BROWSING with SCREEN READER
- DOCUMENT SCANNING with OCR PAGE READING
- ADDRESS BOOK/CONTACT MANAGEMENT
- CALENDAR/APPOINTMENTS
- NLS/BARD/MP3 PLAYER/GAMES
- INTERNET RADIO
- SKYPE AUDIO/VIDEO CALLS
- SPREADSHEETS/CALCULATOR
- NEWS READER

http://www.adaptivevoice.com

TCS Associates

TCS Associates demoing at STTS this weekend, Braille Pen and Orabis CCTV: www.tcsassociates.com

A list of products: http://www.tcsmarketplace.com/store/pc/home.asp

Maker Mondays

Building off of the November 12^th Accessibility Hackathon, “Maker Mondays” will be held on the first and third Monday evenings of December, December 5^th and 9^th, from 6pm to 8pm in room 215, Adaptive Services at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library.  These events will be an opportunity for developers and users of adaptive technologies and web accessibility to get together to discuss and build solutions to accessibility issues.  The events will be open to remote participation via conference call and web audio-video.  Topics for discussion will include reports back on some of the ideas that were generated at the Accessibility Hackaton, including the Mobile Accessible Book Generator, a 508 Repository, a Mobility/Security working group, a Metro Access vehicle locator app, and various other accessibility fixes.  We also plan to experiment with generating an accessible book by scanning and then converting into a number of different accessible formats.  During the discussion we will also be experimenting with the AV and remote participation capability of the Learning Lab in room 215 - using Ustream, Talking Communities and Google Hangouts.

Maker Mondays

Monday, Dec 5th

Monday, Dec 19th

6pm to 8pm

Room 215 Adaptive Services

Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library

901 G Street NW

Washington DC, 20001

December Events for the Adaptive Services Division

December 3^rd , Saturday Technology Training Session, 1pm to 3pm, room 215 – Richard Krafsig of TCS Associates demos the Orabis Read-Aloud text reader CCTV, a read-aloud text reader and a magnifier in one device, and the Braille Pen, a Braille display and Braille keyboard that works with iOs devices, as well as JAWS, System Access, Talks, Mobile Speak, has Bluetooth, connects to phone, netbook, PC or PDA, write SMS, does 6 key entry.  After the Saturday Session guests are welcome to visit the Open Data Hackathon in the  LibraryLab space on the first floor.  The Open Data Hackathon is a gathering of citizens in cities around the world to write applications, liberate data, and publish analyses using open public data to show support for and encourage the adoption open data policies by the world's local, regional and national governments.

December 3^rd, Braille Book Club for Kids, 11am to 12pm, room 215

December 3^rd, American Sign Language Story Hour, 11am to 12pm, Children’s Division,  

December 3^rd, Deaf Education and American Sign Language, 1pm to 3pm, Great Hall

December 5^th – Maker Mondays, 6pm to 8pm, room 215  – experiment with Talking Communities and other technologies for remote participation, Kevin Johnson, Red Cross

December 6^th – Tech Talk Tuesdays, 6pm to 8pm – Introduction to iPhone, iPad, iTouch and other mobile, gestural accessibility, open to all levels

December  20^th – AccessibilityDC meetup 6:30pm to 8:30pm, room 215

Accessibility hackathon ideas

Accessibility hackathon

The following is a list of products that have been proposed to be built colaboratively at the Accessibility Hackathon at DC Public Library on Saturday, Nov 12, 2011, 10am to 5:30pm, in the Library Lab space and Room 215. Please send any comments or aditional ideas to patrick.timony@dc.gov . Register at: http://accessibilityhackathon.eventbrite.com/

1. Light weight version of Bookshare for BrailleNote users using the Bookshare API (http://developer.bookshare.org)

2. TTS Twitter client either using Chrome TTS APIs (http://code.google.com/chrome/extensions/tts.html). See example code at http://github.com/gcapiel/ChromeWebAppBookshareReader

3. Searchable Repository of 508 Technology Guides. Jamal would contribute zip of content. Could be done in Drupal or Wordpress.

4. Mobile Accesible Book Generator - Scan a book with your phone, type in, speech recognize or OCR the text, keep the images and output an RTF, DAISY 3 text (http://daisy.org), or EPUB version, which can be submitted to Bookshare and other repositories of accessible ebooks for people with print disabilities. Particularly useful for children's books which have few pages and words.

5. Mobile App that detects when the person in line in front of you has moved. One idea is to check when the iPhone camera comes out of focus.

6. Mobile color identifier that speaks a smaller set of colors (8 or 16?).

7. Accessible version of Tor

8. Accessible fork of privacy tools at http://guardianproject.info using Android's Accessibility APIs

9. Alphabetic keyboard for beginning level VoiceOver users. The QWERTY keyboard arrangement is a barrier for some users.

10. Facetime Audio description network.

11. Face-Name or Voice-Name recognition Quiz for social networks - a system that would train the user to associate either images of a face or recordings of a voice with the name of the person they belong to

12. VoiceOver Math Equations, Audio Description for Video Programming, instead of audio track, have metadata - pause the screen and get an audio description, searchable

13. App for movie description via iPhone, a collection of inaccessible material made accessible using a mobile accessible format conversion station

14. Something that makes Twitter easier to read - automattically read a stream of information to you, using live regions ARIA Web App, a New Tweet comes in announces it automatically

15. Are there any apps that desperately need to be made accessible?

16. non visual mind mapping app -- structure information present non-visual trees, branching tree nodes, windows explorer - folders, nested folders, tree control http://www.informationtamers.com/WikIT/index.php?title=Mind_mapping_for_people_who_are_blind

17. An application that integrates with TheMashupApp, a powerful personal database that could work together with #4, #10, #18 and possibly others.

18. an application that makes audio description non-linear, with text to speech, from educational point of view, tagged, with layers of information

19. QR codes could be used to put in an app or provide info to the iPhone, add contacts to your iphone, a QR code on movie ticket, push description to iPhone, embeded in clothing, various object, specialized information, walking directions, signs specialized info pushed to iphone, tactile identification so you know where it is.

20. Any of various tasks that would help out the Adaptive Technology Program like making an accessible interface for Ustream where all the STTS audio and video is stored, captioning those videos, dragon-recognize Victor-Streamed interviews from the beginning of Accessibility Camp

21. an accessible conferencing solution

22. create accessibility templates, wizards

23. an iphone app for Metro Access that shows the location of all vehicles

24. basic, accessible installation profiles for Drupal, JoomLa!, or WordPress. Initial configuration settings, modules, and themes would be selected so as to maximize accessibility. Documentation would be included that explains why each installation profile was built in the ways chosen. Results of testing on WCAG or ARIA guidelines would be included if possible.

Accessibility Clearninghouse

As required by the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act
of 2010 (CVAA), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has launched a
clearinghouse of information about accessible communication technologies.
The official URL of the Accessibility Clearinghouse is

http://apps.fcc.gov/accessibilityclearinghouse/

Note that the path portion of the URL (after fcc.gov/) must be in all
lower case. An unofficial, possibly friendlier URL that is
a bit shorter and not case sensitive is

http://AccessibilityClearinghouse.info

That URL redirects browsers to the official home page of the Accessibility
Clearinghouse.

Library Tech Project during DCWEEK

http://digitalcapitalweek.org/projects/library-tech/
DC WEEK is a week-long festival in the US capital focused on bringing together designers, developers, entrepreneurs, and social innovators of all kinds.

Library Tech is a project that includes a series of events at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library that will bring together developers and users from the accessibility community to produce tools that meet community needs.

Please bring ideas for tools to the Nov 5^th Problem Identification Workshop.

Examples of tools that have been built at similar projects or have been suggested for this one:

·      An e-reading software for Bookshare books

·      A social network for using the FaceTime videophone app for remote audio description

·      A captioning tool that uses Dragon Naturally Speaking

·      A system that helps broaden the networks of Twitter users in the accessibility community

Saturday Nov 5th, 1pm to 3pm — Accessible App Demo

Saturday Nov 5th, 3pm to 5pm — Problem Identification Workshop

Monday Nov 7th, 6pm to 9pm — Accessibility Hackathon Preparation Session

Saturday Nov 12th, 10am to 5:30pm — Accessibility Hackathon

Details follow:

Saturday Nov 5th, 1pm to 5pm, Room 215, Adaptive Services, MLK Library

Accessible App Demo and Problem Identification Workshop

Presentors: Mark Reumann – Patent Office, Zuhair Mahmoud – Library of Congress, Don Barrett – Dept of Education

Agenda:

1pm to 3pm: demos and discussion of accessible apps, like MoneyReader or Color Identifier

3pm to 5pm: developers host a Problem Identification Workshop, to come up with tools can be built at a Hackathon the next Saturday.

Monday, November 7th, 2011 – 6:00pm to 9:00pm, Room 215, Adaptive Services, MLK Library

Accessibility Hackathon Preparation Session

Speaker: Gerardo Capiel, Bookshare

Agenda:

Gerardo will advise on choosing projects and how to set up the development environment.

He will speak about some related technologies like the Bookshare API:

http://developer.bookshare.org

and the new Google Chrome TTS APIs:

http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2011/10/new-text-to-speech-api-for-chrome.html?showComment=1319148125417#c3671817693482193507

Saturday, November 12, 2011 – 10:00am to 5:30pm, LibraryLab space, 1st Floor, MLK Library

Accessibility Hackathon

Agenda:

With the preparation of the Problem Identification Workshop on Saturday Nov 5th, the Hackathon Preparation Session on November 7th, and the help of organizations like Bookshare, Random Hacks of Kindness, LibraryLab, and the Wikimedia Foundation, we hope to be able to come up with a simple and completable ICT solution to needs that are defined by the user community.

Accessibility Camp DC 2011

Welcome

Thanks, for coming to register for Accessibility Camp DC, on October 22, 2011.

Date and Location

We are going to have Accessibility Camp DC at the Martin Luther King Library here in Washington, DC, on October 22, 2011, from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Check-in will begin at 9:30 AM once library opens.

The Martin Luther King  (MLK) Jr. Memorial Library is located at:

901 G St NW, Room 215
Washington, DC 20001-4531

General Overview

We are still in the major planning stage for this event and are still looking for volunteers and sponsors. Please e-mail us at info@AccessibilityCampDC.org, if you would like to help or sponsor this event.

This event is going to be run like a typical BarCamp, which is an un-conference, where the people attending are the speakers, please come with a talk or discussion in mind.

Registration for this FREE event to attendees will open on Wednesday August 24, 2011, at noon eastern.

The reason we are holding off opening registration for all the tickets (150) is we are trying to make sure people don't just sign-up to get a spot not knowing what their schedule is going to be in two months and then not show up.

Please follow http://www.twitter.com/AccessCampDC to know what is going on and when registration and other points of interest are occurring.

Talk Ideas

The main idea of this event is to get a whole lot of smart people together to learn and teach each other how to improve the web, software, even mobile applicatins, and make it accessible to all.

Some suggestions for talks we had in mind are listed below. If you have other ideas send them to us or add them to the wiki, once we have that ready.

• Section 508 Compliance
• Practical Ways to Make Your Website Accessible
• Accessible PDF's
• Making Flash Accessible
• What is WAI-ARIA - (Web Accessibility Initiative - Accessible Rich Internet Applications)
• Accessible Video and Transcription
• Panel Discussion on “Issues Effecting Individuals with Disabilities on the Web”
• Captioning
• Mobile Application Accessibility

Schedule

Below is a breakdown of the schedule and how the day will unfold. Would greatly appreciate it if you can make sure you are on time for registration so we can get started on time.

9:30 AM - 10:00 AM - Registration

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM - General announcements about Accessibility Camp DC, sponsors, and then most of the time creating the rest of the event schedule of speakers.

Each talk will be 45 minutes including questions and then attendees will have 15 minutes to get to there next talk. We will be able to have four or five talks going on at the same time if we have enough people willing to talk or be in charge of a discussion.

11:00 AM - 11:45 AM - First set of talks

12:00 PM - 12:45 PM - Second set of talks

12:45 PM - 2:00 PM - Lunch

2:00 PM - 2:45 PM - Third set of talks

3:00 PM - 3:45 PM - Fourth set of talks

4:00 PM - 4:45 PM - Fifth set of talks

4:45 PM - 5:30 PM - Closing remarks, clean-up, and after event wanderings.

DC Center for Independent Living Event

Bring your IPOD and walking shoes, as the

DC Center for Independent Living celebrates

30 years of service to the community! 

When:  October 15th, 2011 From 10:00AM-2:00PM

From: 1400 Florida Ave NE(DCCIL) TO:3rd & H ST NE and From: 3rd & H ST NE To: 1400 Florida Ave. NE

**Encourage your family and friends to help DCCIL continue the legacy of breaking down barriers for people with disabilities for another 30 years and beyond!** 

• For more information on how you can help, call:   DCCIL Main Office:  (202)388-0033 TTY:  (202)388-0277

Hadley School for the Blind, Lifelong Learning

As of September 19, the Forsythe Center for Entrepreneurship is open for enrollment.  The goal of this new business, entrepreneurship and technology program is to provide individuals who are visually impaired with the knowledge, resources and networking opportunities enabling them to advance in their careers or to successfully launch and grow their own businesses.

Ten courses are open for enrollment as of today:

*  Self-Employment with a Minimal Investment

*  Business Fundamentals

*  Business Communications

*  Business Law 1

*  Business Law 2

*  Business Writing

*  Using Excel

*  Screen Readers: Listening Skills

*  Screen Readers: Web Browsing

*  Screen Readers: Formatting Word Documents

Six new modules are also open for enrollment:

* Market Research

* The Financial Plan

* The Marketing Plan

* The Business Plan

* Business Insurance

* Forms of Ownership

Hadley is embarking upon this program, in part, to address the deplorable employment rate among people who are visually impaired.  Although statistics vary somewhat, the most reliable data sources suggest that the

under- or

unemployment rate of persons who are blind or visually impaired is 70%-80%.

The program is designed to be practical, relevant and interactive.  Courses are open to anyone who is blind or visually impaired, over age 14 and is serious about starting or growing a business.  Coursework is offered free of charge and is mostly online.

To learn more and enroll, please visit

[1]http://www.hadley.edu/fce.  If you

missed the seminar last week about the Center, you can access it through the [2]Past Seminars.  Please contact Tom Babinszki at [3]fce@hadley.edu with any questions.

The Hadley School for the Blind, Lifelong Learning, since 1920 700 Elm Street, Winnetka, IL 60093

800-323-4238

[4]www.hadley.edu

References

1.  http://www.hadley.edu/fce

2.  http://www.hadley.edu/PastSeminars.asp#3

3.  mailto:fce@hadley.edu

4.  http://www.hadley.edu/

AT Videos from WebAxe

Here's a great list of videos and YouTube channels about web accessibility, assistive technology, and more. And from some excellent sources! 
http://webaxe.blogspot.com/2011/08/accessibility-videos.html

Adaptive Technology Training Videos from CAP.MIL

The Computer Electronic Accomodations Program at the Department of Defense has some great AT training videos: http://cap.mil/PublicationsForms/productMaterials.aspx


CAP has a number of resources that can inform you about assistive technology (AT) and ergonomics. Our AT Demonstration videos can provide information about the different types of accommodations and how these solutions help employees with disabilities. We've included links to some helpful AT documents with information about what is available for certain networks and agencies. We also have information about workplace ergonomics to help you set your workspace up in a manner that can help to prevent repetitive stress injuries.

Updated Audio Tutorial for the Victor Stream

HumanWare is pleased to release an updated audio tutorial for the Stream.

It is available for download from:

www.humanware.com/en-canada/support/vr_stream_documentation

On that page, look under the English heading for a zip download of the audio tutorial files.

This tutorial is very comprehensive , covering basic and advanced features of the Stream. It is approximately 5.5 hours in length with 21 different sections. Here is a list of the topics covered:

01 - Introduction

02 - Player Overview

03 - Bookshelves

03.1 - Exploring SD Card Bookshelves

03.2 - Transferring Content to SD Card Bookshelves

04 - Playback and Navigation

04.1 - Playing and Copying USB External Media

05 - Voice Recordings

06 - Bookmarks

07 - NLS, Stream Activation, and BARD Book Download

07.1 - Transferring a DAISY Book Using Companion

08 - Bookshare Online Books

08.1 - Companion Online Books Menu

09 - Advanced Features, Multi-Level Bookshelf

09.1 - Advanced Features, Music Navigation and Temporary Playlist

09.2 - Advanced Features, Text Search

10 - HumanWare Companion Overview and Installation

10.1 - Book Transfer Window and Companion Menus

10.2 - Companion Transferr of TXT, HTML, DOC, and PDF Files

10.3 - Transfer a DAISY CD Book with Companion

10.4 - Using Companion to Get Software Updates

The download is a zip file of approximately 225MB. If you unzip the Stream Audio Tutorial folder into your $VROtherBooks folder then you can navigate backward or forward through the tutorial sections using the 4 and 6 keys of your Stream.

If you are new to the Stream sections 1 to 6 will help you get started.

Seasoned Streamers may wish to investigate advanced features of section 9. The HumanWare Companion is appreciated by so many that we have devoted the entire section 10 to the features of the Companion. For new or seasoned Streamers alike we believe there is something of interest for all. We hope you enjoy the new tutorial with our compliments.

Indiana Assistive Technology Act (INDATA) Project.

http://blog.eastersealstech.com lots of videos on assistive technologies

http://eastersealstech.com/

Easter Seals Crossroads has been providing assistive technology solutions in Indiana since 1979.  In 2007, Easter Seals Crossroads partnered with the State of Indiana, Bureau of Rehabilitative Services to establish the Indiana Assistive Technology Act (INDATA) Project.  The INDATA Project is one of 56 similar, federally-funded projects designed to increase access and awareness of assistive technology.

INDATA core services include: Information and referral, funding assistance, public awareness and education, device demonstration, device loan, and equipment reutilization.

RoboBraille

What is RoboBraille?

RoboBraille is an e-mail service which can convert digital text documents into either Braille or audio files. It is quick and easy to use RoboBraille. You simply send an e-mail with an attached text document to RoboBraille. Shortly after, you will receive the document back from RoboBraille in the specified format - an audio file, for example.

It is free for non-commercial users to use RoboBraille. http://www.robobraille.org/frontpage

BlindHow

The NFB of Utah is excited to announce a new website, BlindHow.com.   BlindHow.com allows for community members to view and share video, audio, or written tutorials and information on a myriad of topics regarding blindness and visual impairment.
Topics could include, "How do you use an iPhone with voiceover?"  "This is how I put on makeup every day, how do you?"   "How do you mow your lawn?"  "This is how I downhill ski." 
If you can't find the answer you are looking for, then we want you to ask!  If you have something to share, then become a contributor today!   We know that there are many different ways to do one thing.  For example, I may iron my shirt one way … and you another!  Knowledge is power and sharing is caring!  You can make a difference!
http://blindhow.com/

Links from May STTSDC

AppleVis www.applevis.com 
Maccessibility http://maccessibility.net/iphone/apps/ 
Assistive Technology Tips and Hints http://atthdc.blogspot.com/ 
Saturday Technology Training Sessions http://sttsdc.blogspot.com/ 
List of CSUN 2011 resources http://curbcut.net/ 

VizWiz

VizWiz Social

www.vizwiz.org

VizWiz Social is an iPhone app that allows blind users to receive quick answers to questions about their surroundings