<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"> <html><body> 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: <blockquote type="cite" style="padding-left:5px; border-left:#1010ff 2px solid; margin-left:5px; width:100%"> <pre>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: <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/BigAviationBookForBoys">http://www.archive.org/details/BigAviationBookForBoys</a> 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, <<a href="mailto:mokurai@earthtreasury.org">mokurai@earthtreasury.org</a>> wrote:</pre> <blockquote type="cite" style="padding-left:5px; border-left:#1010ff 2px solid; margin-left:5px; width:100%">On Mon, May 30, 2011 2:38 pm, Gonzalo Odiard wrote: <blockquote type="cite" style="padding-left:5px; border-left:#1010ff 2px solid; margin-left:5px; width:100%">On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 2:36 PM, <<a href="mailto:marilyn@ourdyslexicchildren.org">marilyn@ourdyslexicchildren.org</a>> wrote: <blockquote type="cite" style="padding-left:5px; border-left:#1010ff 2px solid; margin-left:5px; width:100%"> 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.</blockquote> Well, the support of epub files in Read activity was done more than a year ago, I think by Sayamindu Dasgupta.</blockquote> Good to know. I must go test it. <blockquote type="cite" style="padding-left:5px; border-left:#1010ff 2px solid; margin-left:5px; width:100%"> <blockquote type="cite" style="padding-left:5px; border-left:#1010ff 2px solid; margin-left:5px; width:100%">Can you also include a Daisy Reader or something that works with the RFB&D (Recording For the Blind & Dyslexic) books?</blockquote> </blockquote> 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. <blockquote type="cite" style="padding-left:5px; border-left:#1010ff 2px solid; margin-left:5px; width:100%"> <blockquote type="cite" style="padding-left:5px; border-left:#1010ff 2px solid; margin-left:5px; width:100%">Now they call themselves Learning Ally (<a href="http://learningally.org">http://learningally.org</a>). 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.</blockquote> I think the DDReader works only in Windows.</blockquote> Correct. <blockquote type="cite" style="padding-left:5px; border-left:#1010ff 2px solid; margin-left:5px; width:100%">About the books in learningally.org, are these books free?</blockquote> Some can be downloaded by registered users at no charge, but thy are not generally under free licenses. Important Copyright 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 or other physical disability, and who have provided documented evidence of a print disability <blockquote type="cite" style="padding-left:5px; border-left:#1010ff 2px solid; margin-left:5px; width:100%"> <blockquote type="cite" style="padding-left:5px; border-left:#1010ff 2px solid; margin-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.</blockquote> Probably is a good online solution. I don't know how do this offline, because the recorded books a huge.</blockquote> This is one of the intended uses of School Servers. <blockquote type="cite" style="padding-left:5px; border-left:#1010ff 2px solid; margin-left:5px; width:100%"> <blockquote type="cite" style="padding-left:5px; border-left:#1010ff 2px solid; margin-left:5px; width:100%">Can there be some sort of Sugar on a Stick version for dyslexic kids? I would definitely promote it and distribute it in Texas.</blockquote> </blockquote> We would probably not do a separate version, but would include accessibility in the base system. <blockquote type="cite" style="padding-left:5px; border-left:#1010ff 2px solid; margin-left:5px; width:100%">Probably is a good project, but need people with knowledge about dyslexic and time to create and maintain it.</blockquote> Nicholas Negroponte is dyslexic. We could talk to him about it. <blockquote type="cite" style="padding-left:5px; border-left:#1010ff 2px solid; margin-left:5px; width:100%"> <blockquote type="cite" style="padding-left:5px; border-left:#1010ff 2px solid; margin-left:5px; width:100%">Thanks to all of you who are contributing. It's great!</blockquote> 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 <blockquote type="cite" style="padding-left:5px; border-left:#1010ff 2px solid; margin-left:5px; width:100%">Marilyn</blockquote> </blockquote> [Irrelevant messages snipped.] -- Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation. The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination. <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks">http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks</a> _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) <a href="mailto:IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org">IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org</a> <a href="http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep">http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep</a></blockquote> </blockquote> <div> </div> </body></html>