[IAEP] Daisy Readers

[marilyn at ourdyslexicchildren.org]

James, 

Ah . . . I think I understand. The thing about
RFB&D/Learning Ally is that their books are free for students who have
been diagnosed with dyslexia or other reading impairments by a doctor.
It has to be really official and documented. However, most dyslexic
students will not have the opportunity to be diagnosed in that way.
Learning Ally is trying to become more accessible - but maybe in the
interim it is better to stick with public domain works. After all -
there are so many great classics. I plan to put my audio book server
online and expand it. 

So maybe we just stick with the great work you
have already done . . . . and how about voice recognition software and a
good keyboarding program? 

Marilyh 

On Tue, 31 May 2011 11:07:11
-0500, James Simmons wrote: 

> Marilyn,
> 
> The only free source of
material in Daisy format that I know of is the
> Internet Archive. For
example, one of the books I donated:
> 
>
http://www.archive.org/details/BigAviationBookForBoys [3]
> 
> Looking
at the Daisy file it seems to have no advantage over a plain
> text
file. I understand that there *are* advantages. For instance,
> if you
are blind you can get Daisy format books from IA for books not
> in the
public domain. However, from a technical standpoint you could
> take the
XML file inside the Daisy file, strip out the XML tags, and
> load it
into Read Etexts and you'd have most of what a real Daisy
> reader would
give you, at least as far as IA books are concerned. (IA
> books are
created by doing OCR on photographed book pages. The OCR is
> high
quality but far from perfect).
> 
> To make a Daisy reader desirable
you'd need a free source of high
> quality Daisy files which could not
give you a plain text version of
> the same content.
> 
> Its possible
I'm missing something here. I'm not a Daisy expert.
> 
> James Simmons
>

> On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 7:14 PM, wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, May 30, 2011
2:38 pm, Gonzalo Odiard wrote: 
>> 
>>> On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 2:36 PM,
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.
>> Good to know. I must go test it. 
>> 
>>>> Can you also
include a Daisy Reader or something that works with the RFB&D (Recording
For the Blind & Dyslexic) books?
>> We have been discussing that for
years, and some work in that direction was done using the text-to-speech
engine in Speak, and following the model of Same Language Subtitling of
Bollywood films with coloring of the text as it is spoken or sung. (The
most effective literacy campaign in India ever.) If you can drum up some
volunteer developers or financial support for the project we can
probably complete it for English and Spanish, and then offer it to other
language communities for adaptation to their speech and writing systems.
Accessibility is one of the critical targets for the Replacing Textbooks
project that I manage, to get rid of print and go to digital Open
Education Resources. Now they call themselves Learning Ally
(http://learningally.org
>> 
>>> ot 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. Correct. 
>>> 
>>>> About
the books in learningally.org, are these books free?
>>> Some can be
downloaded by registered users at no charge, but thy are not generally
under free licenses. Import
>> Notice The contents of all Learning Ally
books are protected under copyright law. Learning Ally regulates the
distribution of materials within a qualified member population of
individuals who have a learning disability, visual impairment 
>> 
>>>
pe="cite" style="padding-left:5px; border-left:#1010ff 2px
>>
n-left:5px; width:100%"> 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. This is one of the intended
uses of School Servers. Can there be some sort of Sugar on a Stick
version for dyslexic kids? I would definitely promote it and distribute
it in Texas. We would probably not do a separate version, but would
include accessibility in the base system. 
>>> 
>>>> Probably is a good
project, but need people with knowledge about dyslexic and time to
create and maintain it.
>>> Nicholas
>> dyslexic. We could talk to him
about 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 off
>> Marilyn [Irrelevant messages snipped.] --
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin Silent
Thunder is my name, and Children are 
>> 
>>>
eplacing_Textbooks">http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks
____________________________________
>> AEP -- It's An Education Project
(not a laptop project!) IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org [2] http:/
>> 
>>> 

 


Links:
------
[1] mailto:marilyn at ourdyslexicchildren.org
[2]
mailto:IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
[3]
http://www.archive.org/details/BigAviationBookForBoys
[4]
mailto:mokurai at earthtreasury.org
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