E.A. Draffan

I loved using the iPad on a recent visit to Japan where in two schools they are being rolled out to help students with dyslexia to keep up with their peers when reading by having e-texts with text to speech. This allows the student to choose a word with which they are having difficulties - listen to it and then read it themselves and continue with the task.

I am off to evaluate a similar project we have in UK with 40 students using laptops and text to speech or screen readers depending on their print impairment. So far evaluations are showing that the students gain in confidence, are taking control of their learning experience and even being more willing to attend school. It will be interesting to see if the Japanese project has the same results with the chic, lighweight and speedy iPad! I hope to learn next January but I suspect there will be lots of variables to take into account not least the different interactions with the text to speech where on the ipad you touch the word (characters) and on the laptop you tend to let the system read a phrase and then select a word with the mouse or keyboard! Does not have quite the same immediacy!

Apple has, with the iPad, taken a lead in accessibility for a general market product and much has been written about their success as communiction aids and as an assistive technology e.g. All Eyes on the iPad One good place to learn more is Ricky Buchanan's blog

On the subject of Flash - it can be made accessible and really helpful with embedded audio and keyboard access, but too often this is forgotten. However, I have to agree many teaching and learning materials include the use of Flash so this area needs recognition by Apple.

I love the way interesting topics all related to technology enhanced learning are discussed in this community and when I have time I can join in or just lurk. I am also immensely grateful for the sharing of experiences and constant updating of knowledge. I feel there is a friendship and trust that develops over time with support when questions are asked, answered or discussed.

Web 2.0 appears to me to be a huge amorphous mass of loosely linked interactive services that come and go with the odd one that catches on and seems to act rather like an octopus with tentacles extending into a range of other groups e.g. FaceBook and Linkedin with their APIs. If you choose to make the leap into subject specific groups you can cross boundaries and make use of the different types of services to keep up to date etc but it is much more pot luck and usually participation comes without strings attached.

Hope this makes sense!
Best wishes E.A.

Thank you very much Nick for making me think a bit more about the subject by asking for a definition as I tend to work from the disability and learning point of view. Caroline Davies and I had a stab at it when working on a project about Inclusive teaching at the Open University. However, I know Trace also took a wider approach, but no mention of 'diversity' in terms of our new Equality Act 2010, that includes sexual orientation and religious belief as well as race, disability and gender.

Thank you so much Emma and I am just so sorry I have not been able to contribute as much as I wanted. It has been such a busy time and going on holiday did not help! I will try to get an accessibility check on Google Wave onto Web2Access as soon as possible and if possible also add other Web 2.0 services that were mentioned that we have not looked at. This really has been an interesting discussion.

Yes this is a really useful service and was once known as Etherpad before it was bought by Google - I just hope it continues to be developed as it is so simple to use. Web2Access evaluation on Type with Me