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