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

[Gonzalo Odiard]

On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 2:36 PM, <marilyn at ourdyslexicchildren.org> wrote:

>  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.
>
Well, the support of epub files in Read activity was done more than a year
ago, I think by Sayamindu Dasgupta.


> 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 think the DDReader works only in Windows. About the books in
lerningally.org, are these books free?


> 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.
>

Probably is a good online solution. I don't know how do this offline,
because the recorded books a huge.


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

Probably is a good project, but need people with knowledge about dyslexic
and time to create and maintain it.


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

Thanks! I am only putting together the different pieces :)
We know there are a lot of work to do. but I think we can create a solution
in par or better than the commercialy offered.

Gonzalo


> Marilyn
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, 30 May 2011 12:00:05 -0400, iaep-request at lists.sugarlabs.orgwrote:
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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 <nicestep at gmail.com>
> To: Gonzalo Odiard <gonzalo at laptop.org>
> Cc: Sridhar Dhanapalan <sridhar at laptop.org.au>, iaep
> 	<iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org>
> Subject: Re: [IAEP] Texas Senate Bills 866 & 867 regarding dyslexia
> 	passed over the weekend
> Message-ID: <BANLkTim_aoCrbiFxaiq=0i_yjwatwUp6ow at mail.gmail.com>
> 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 <gonzalo at laptop.org> wrote:
>
> Well, you are describing our solution :) On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 3:15 AM,
> Sridhar Dhanapalan <sridhar at laptop.org.au> 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
>
> I think it's important to split the reading from the fetching to avoid
> having an overly complicated activity. The journal is the means by which
> they connect. What do people think of this idea? Sridhar On 29 May 2011
> 04:07, Gonzalo Odiard <gonzalo at laptop.org> wrote:
>
> Yes, I was working trying to merge the code in Get Books and Read
> activities. Now, you can read "plain text" files in Read, and Get Books can
> download books from Feedbooks and Internet Archive. A missing part is
> download books from Gutenberg project. Gonzalo On Sat, May 28, 2011 at 12:55
> PM, Sridhar Dhanapalan <sridhar at laptop.org.au> wrote:
>
> On 28 May 2011 04:36, James Simmons <nicestep at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Marilyn, I wrote an Activity called Read Etexts that might be of some use
> to you. ?It can take one of the "plain text" files put out by Project
> Gutenberg and read it aloud, like a Kindle. ?As it reads the words it
> highlights the word spoken. ?The highlighting needs a faster computer than
> an XO to keep up with the word being spoken, but it doesn't need to be much
> faster. http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4035 James
> Simmons
>
> This activity looks like it could have some real potential in our
> deployments. It seems like there's a lot of functionality crossover between
> Read Etexts, Get Internet Archive Books (your code) and Get Books (based on
> Get Internet Archive Books). Are there any thoughts about a merger? A reader
> that could pull content and vocalise the words from all of the sources
> supported by Get Books (plus external files) would be fantastic! Thanks,
> Sridhar _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An
> Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>
>   ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 30 May 2011 15:30:26 +0200
> From: Tony Anderson <tony_anderson at usa.net>
> To: iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org
> Cc: Gonzalo Odiard <gonzalo at laptop.org>, Nicholas Doiron
> 	<ndoiron at mapmeld.com>
> Subject: Re: [IAEP] Pathagar library
> Message-ID: <4DE39BF2.3030204 at usa.net>
> 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).
>
> 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 <e0425826 at student.tuwien.ac.at>
> To: IAEP <IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org>
> Cc: Sugar Labs Marketing <marketing at lists.sugarlabs.org>
> Subject: [IAEP] ASUS Eee PC X101 @ $199: A worthy non-XO platform for
> 	Sugar?
> Message-ID: <4DE3AFF8.5070407 at student.tuwien.ac.at>
> 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/
>
> Anyway, I'll definitely keep an eye on this one! :-)
>
> Cheers,
> Christoph
>
> --
> Christoph Derndorfer
> co-editor, www.olpcnews.com
> e-mail: christoph at olpcnews.com
>
>
> ------------------------------
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