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Monday, March 26, 2012

The New iPad and Thoughts on Accessible Textbooks

I've been testing the iPad with students for the past year (with the help of a couple great middle/high school students), looking at the potential for students with visual impairments. What excites me (and so many other teachers of the visually impaired) is the toolbox that Apple and developers have provided to our students for accessing the general education curriculum. Although the iBooks are not fully accessible for students who are blind, the text portion is by default (due to the great iBooks design), and I'm hoping that graphics will someday soon have descriptive/tactual features attached to them (see http://diagramcenter.org/about.html for more info).
For right now, our best hope for textbooks is with organizations such as Bookshare (www.bookshare.org) and Learning Ally (www.learningally.org, formerly RFB&D-Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic). They both have apps for the iPad/iPod Touch/iPhone, and provide many of the textbooks that our students need in an accessible Daisy format.
Now, for our low vision students, I think the iPad has become really exciting with its newest iteration. The improved camera makes it easier for the student to read what's on the board in the front of the classroom, or enlarge on the spot the worksheet that's 12-point font, by zooming in with the camera. We recently had a request for a textbook for a low vision student that wasn't available in large print. Turns out the book was available as an iBook textbook, and it is gorgeous! Compare the price of a large print textbook at prices around $750, to the iBook at $15; investing in the iPad plus the iBook is still less, AND the student can take notes, use the camera as a quick CCTV or scanner in a class, and get other texts in the future.
I recently joined several other TVI's (Teachers of the Visually Impaired) to present a workshop on Apple Devices and Accessibility at the California Transcribers and Educators of the Blind and Visually Impaired conference in Los Angeles. I have to say that I have never seen so much excitement in our field at the potential of the iOS devices to provide students with a means of access to the curriculum. An added bonus is the sense of empowerment I see in students; they are buying their own iPhones/iPod Touches/iPads AND buying great apps like Read2Go from Bookshare (more on Read2Go in a future post).
Is the iPad the solution for all our students? No, of course not. But, the potential is there for it to be a great teaching tool for TVI'S as well as an assistive device for low vision and blind students. I have created a Dropbox folder with resources about using iOS and the Mac with students who have visual impairments. If you'd like access to the folder, just send me an email, and I'll invite you to the folder (lschindler@me.com).



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

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