[IAEP] I am so excited I can hardly stand it - how about a Daisy Reader too?

[marilyn at ourdyslexicchildren.org]

Hi! 

Oh my goodness . . . you can read EPUBs? That is great!! Even
the book reader people say they can't speak EPUB - I am thinking about
KNO and the reader that Barnes and Noble is pushing. They say they can't
do it. 

Can you also include a Daisy Reader or something that works
with the RFB&D (Recording For the Blind & Dyslexic) books? Now they call
themselves Learning Ally (http://learningally.org). There is something
open source that works with Firefox for Windows called DDReader. I am
not techy enough to know if it is adaptable. The Learning Ally files are
audio. Formerly they have been encrypted mp3s or wmas, but now they are
in a push to make everything more accessible. They have a huge
collection and most current textbooks. 

I am also a big fan of
Librivox. Last semester I was at an elementary school and had what I
called an audio book server. I just used the Gutenberg html versions
with embedded audio of Librivox recordings. Using the web browser, the
child clicked on the book and it started reading when the text and
pictures came up. Kids liked it. 

Can there be some sort of Sugar on a
Stick version for dyslexic kids? I would definitely promote it and
distribute it in Texas.  

Thanks to all of you who are contributing.
It's great! 

Marilyn 

On Mon, 30 May 2011 12:00:05 -0400,
iaep-request at lists.sugarlabs.org wrote: 

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> Today's Topics:
> 
> 1. Re: Texas
Senate Bills 866 & 867 regarding dyslexia passed
> over the weekend
(James Simmons)
> 2. Re: Pathagar library (Tony Anderson)
> 3. ASUS Eee
PC X101 @ $199: A worthy non-XO platform for Sugar?
> (Christoph
Derndorfer)
> 
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
>

> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 30 May 2011 08:21:14 -0500
> From: James
Simmons 
> To: Gonzalo Odiard 
> Cc: Sridhar Dhanapalan , iaep
> 
>
Subject: Re: [IAEP] Texas Senate Bills 866 & 867 regarding dyslexia
>
passed over the weekend
> Message-ID: 
> Content-Type: text/plain;
charset=ISO-8859-1
> 
> Actually, Read Etexts already has a built-in
downloader for Gutenberg
> Etexts. Just open it from the Activity ring
(instead of resuming an
> existing text) and you'll see the
Gutenberg-specific downloader.
> 
> It is much easier to implement text
highlighting on a plain text file
> than it is on a PDF, EPUB, DJVu,
etc. Speech is easy. It's knowing
> how to do the highlighting that's
difficult.
> 
> Now that PG is distributing EPUBs maybe support for
plain text files
> is less important, other than TTS with highlighting.
I was scratching
> my own itch when I originally wrote it. I wanted to
read free e-books
> on my XO and the only thing Read supported was PDFs.
If I had known
> about Feedbooks, which converts the plain text files
from PG to PDFs I
> probably would not have written it. (In fact, if the
Kindle had been
> cheaper when it first came out I might not have
participated in OLPC
> at all).
> 
> PG text download is done using a
built in book catalog that is created
> from a text catalog of books
that PG updates now and then. OPDS
> support for downloading plain text
files would be a lot better, but
> there was no such thing when I wrote
it.
> 
> I'm pleased that Gonzalo is working on improving Read. I'm
working on
> a book on using e-books with Sugar and it looks like I'll
need to
> check out his latest work before I can finish it. If he can
make Read
> Etexts totally unnecessary it will live on as sample code in
"Make
> Your Own Sugar Activities!" at least.
> 
> Read Etexts also has
multiple bookmarks, annotations, and text
> highlighting, and if the
paragraphs aren't too long it will remove the
> line endings from PG
texts so they can be re-wrapped to fit the screen
> and font size. It
will even convert Baen Free Library RTFs to plain
> text files, another
dubious feature now that Baen has EPUBs.
> 
> James Simmons
> 
> On Mon,
May 30, 2011 at 7:24 AM, Gonzalo Odiard wrote:
> 
>> Well, you are
describing our solution :) On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 3:15 AM, Sridhar
Dhanapalan wrote: 
>> 
>>> On further thought, it seems to me that there
should be two activities. The first is a reader. At minimum it should
read plain text, PDF and EPUB files. The Read activity fulfils this
requirement. An additional feature would be text-to-speech, with word
highlighting (as Read ETexts has). In this way, you can run TTS on any
source file.
>> Read can open PDF, EPUB, DejaVu and text files. Can do
text to speech with word highlighting of text files, and only text to
speech of EPUB files right now. The idea is add the capability to the
other formats. 
>> 
>>> The second is a fetcher. It allows searching
through different pre-defined repositories, and the selected book can be
downloaded to the journal. The Get Books activity fulfils this
requirement. Files opened from the journal open up in the reader. An
additional feature would be to add additional source repositories
(similar to how Software Update works). This will allow deployments to
create their own catalogues of books and make them available online.
>>
This is the description of GetBooks. A deployment can use Pathagar to
create a book repository. In eduJam, we talked about how improve the
tagging of books to create catalogs, and we need to do a few changes in
the server code. Nicholas and Daniel worked in code to add dynamic
catalogs to GetBooks, and we are trying to improve it. GetBooks and
Pathagar use the OPDS protocol. Gonzalo
> 
>
------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 30 May 2011
15:30:26 +0200
> From: Tony Anderson 
> To: iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org
[19]
> Cc: Gonzalo Odiard , Nicholas Doiron
> 
> Subject: Re: [IAEP]
Pathagar library
> Message-ID: 
> Content-Type: text/plain;
charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I am trying to install
pathagar on my schoolserver (having a little 
> trouble configuring
httpd correctly). I hope to start with a 
> representative sample of the
English items in Pustakalaya 
> (www.pustakalaya.org [23]).
> 
> I
believe the library needs to handle not only e-books but also media 
>
(images, video, audio). I am planning to use a web interface
(Firefox).
> Hopefully, each item will be identified with a mime-type.
The mime-type 
> can then be used to download the item to the Journal
and to launch the 
> appropriate activity (Read, Read Etexts, Jukebox,
ImageViewer). The item 
> needs to be downloaded so that the child can
access it at home away from 
> the schoolserver.
> 
> One of the
problems with Pustakalaya is that the Nepali and English 
> items and
descriptions are intermixed in a way that would be difficult 
> to
separate. In Nepal, content in English, Nepali, and other Nepali 
>
languages is appropriate. In Rwanda, the collections are likely to be 
>
English and Kinyarwanda (with possible addition of French and
Swahili).
> In Haiti, it is more likely to be French, Haitian Creole,
English and 
> Spanish. Django should make it easy to prepare a script
which will 
> create a copy of the library which contains only items in
selected 
> languages. I also like the interface on International
Children's Digital 
> Library (ICDL) - especially the Basic Search. It
is iconic and so less 
> dependent on translation.
> 
> Yours,
> 
>
Tony
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 30
May 2011 16:55:52 +0200
> From: Christoph Derndorfer 
> To: IAEP 
> Cc:
Sugar Labs Marketing 
> Subject: [IAEP] ASUS Eee PC X101 @ $199: A
worthy non-XO platform for
> Sugar?
> Message-ID: 
> Content-Type:
text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> it's still early days
but it looks like the ASUS Eee PC X101 presented
> at a pre-Computex
press event today could be a good platform for Sugar.
> At a price-point
of $199, less than 1kg of weight, and with a 1.33GHz
> Intel Atom CPU
this really does look like an interesting product for
> schools, both in
developing and developed nations.
> 
> Since it runs Meego I would
assume that on the software side of things
> getting other Linux
distributions to run on it shouldn't be too hard,
> but others will know
more here.
> 
> Engadget has a quick hands-on video of the X101 which
might of interest
> to some of you:
>
http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/30/asus-brings-out-extra-skinny-eee-pc-x101-running-meego-hands-on/
[28]
> 
> Anyway, I'll definitely keep an eye on this one! :-)
> 
>
Cheers,
> Christoph
> 
> -- 
> Christoph Derndorfer
> co-editor,
www.olpcnews.com [29]
> e-mail: christoph at olpcnews.com [30]
> 
>
------------------------------
> 
>
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> End of IAEP
Digest, Vol 38, Issue 57
> ************************************

 


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