Visolve for checking colours and

Posted on September 6, 2018 by E.A. Draffan

The Visolve webpage or download allows you to check to see if colours are sufficiently distinguishable from each other. This can help those with colour vision deficiency or colour blindness. You can upload an image and it will provide you with the original view and other selected options such as Red-Green transform, Blue-Yellow transform, Saturation increase, Red, Yellow, Green or Blue filter and with added hatching.

Visolve is also available as an app for iPhones or on Windows and Mac.desktop computers.

This strategy is linked to Alexander studying for a distance learning MBA

Seeing AI for recognising things and reading out what it has found!

Posted on May 14, 2018 by E.A. Draffan

According to Stuart Ball this free Seeing AI iPhone or iPad app has multiple benefits for those with visual impairments or who are blind. It has been developed by Microsoft so has the ‘swiss army knife approach’ according to AccessWorld to telling you about the world around you. It searches out light sources, identifies colours and money and describes them using text to speech. It will recognise a person is approaching and offer a description. Barcodes can be read and optical character recognition is used for documents etc. Clear handwriting can be deciphered and scenes described.

Another college student called Veronica in USA has provided a very helpful Seeing AI review from a blind student’s point of view

Microsoft have produced a YouTube video about the Seeing AI app.

Thank you so much Stuart for providing this strategy.

Stuart Ball is an Assessor at the Cardiff Metropolitan University.

Claro ScanPen for image to text scanning with text to speech

Posted on December 1, 2017 by E.A. Draffan

I have found that Claro ScanPen works well with typed text and has the advantage of real time scanned conversions without an internet connection. You can take a photo of the text using your smartphone camera and the app will scan the content and read it aloud using optical character recognition (OCR). Having had the text read out you can copy and paste sections into another app such as Notes.

Claro Software have created the a video showing you how to use Claro ScanPen with Guided Access

It works both on an iOS or Android phones and tablets and is available from the Apple app store and Google Play. The Android version is free and updates have fixed some of the glitches, the iOS version costs £6.99 outright at the time of writing. This version has a restricted number of voices for different languages, whereas the premium version with an annual payment of £9.99 provides unlimited access to many different languages and option to have 10 free scans before paying as well as a 14 day trial.

Dr Abi James – Research Fellow, University of Southampton.

Using text to speech tools from Microsoft

Posted on July 7, 2017 by E.A. Draffan

In MS Office programs you can get instant access to text to speech via the ‘speak’ button by using the Quick Action toolbar in Word and other Office programs. Go to File > Options > Quick Access Toolbar > Choose All Commands from the drop down menu > scroll down to Speak > add

Craig Mill added “I also like the option to create a customised or personal Tab in Word’s Ribbon with essential tools such as Page Background Colour, Spelling and Grammar, Speak etc. You can also turn off all the other Tabs so you’re only left with your own set of tools – makes Word’s Ribbon a bit more manageable. To learn more go to Making the Most of Microsoft Word 2016 to Support Learners with Literacy Difficulties – a New Guide! ”

“Immersive Reading Tools which were originally available in OneNote (and required a download) are now available in Office 365 – Word Online and OneNote as standard – no installation required. It’s also cross platform so will work on a Mac with Safari browser.

To access the Learning Tools in Word Online or OneNote Online, log into your account, open Word or OneNote, go to the View menu and click Immersive Reader.
• Read Aloud—Reads text aloud with simultaneous highlighting – although no option (that I can see) to change the voice. Still, the voice is ‘okayish’.• Spacing—a range of spacing options to help declutter pages. • Syllables—Shows the breaks between syllables to enhance word recognition and decoding.• Parts of Speech —Supports writing instruction and grammar comprehension by identifying verbs, nouns and adjectives.

Immersive Reader also has options to change the page colour, font size, style etc. ”

For those using Outlook on the web, Immersive Reader will also provide text to speech support

Thanks to Craig Mill who has kindly added this strategy to our list of text to speech ideas and has a CALL Scotland blog with yet more ideas.

Colour filters come to iOS 10

Posted on September 24, 2016 by E.A. Draffan

colour tint iOS 10 Even though you could have colour filters on the Android and your desktop it has only been possible on the iPhone and iPad since the introduction of iOS 10. These filters can be useful for dulling the screen, offering different choices of colour overlay for those with colour deficiencies or visual stress. Go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Display Accommodations > Colour Filters. Turn them on and there is a choice of filters with the names of different colour deficencies such as Protanopia Red/Green filter. Go to the bottom of the list and there you will find the colour tint that allows you to choose a hue and the intensity to suit your preference.

Use Display Accommodations on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch

These filters have also been exciting star gazers as they provide a form of night vision according to Dave Mosher from Business Insider UK.

Free Microsoft Office Lens speeds productivity

Posted on May 19, 2016 by E.A. Draffan

Taking an photo of the screen

Office lens is a free app available on an iPhone, Android and Window smartphone that links to One Drive accounts and allows you to take photographs and put them straight into Microsoft Office applications. The really good thing about Office Lens is that when I take a picture of a presentation or whiteboard I can make sure it is exactly the right shape and is straight not set at an angle using the outline on the screen by selecting the document or whiteboard menu item.

Making sure the image is straight for OCR

That is really important if you are taking photos of text that you want to have read aloud later. If they appear out of focus or at an odd angle you will not be able to use Optical Character Recognition (OCR), to have the image converted to text so you can use a text to speech or screen reader application later on. Once you have taken your photo you choose which application you want to send it to and if this is Microsoft Word it will extract the text. The other options are your photos on the phone, OneNote, OneDrive, PowerPoint and Outlook or your phone mail if you want to send it as an email attachment. The app will also save it as a PDF.

Ready for exporting

The best thing I like about Office Lens is how it is linked to OneNote because I can collect all the images, notes and presentations, even photos of handwritten notes straight into my Notes folder and then I can search for them at any time, as I really have trouble remembering what I have heard in lectures etc and this process acts as a back up .

Getting started with Microsoft Office Lens from cnet

Abi James – Researcher University of Southampton.

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Accessible technology for learning

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