However students with disabilities who utilize Assistive Technology (AT) often have difficulty with CAT because the systems are not accessible to AT. They have, in particular, presented major challenges to students with print disabilities who use screen readers and/or Braille.

A recent article in Education Week describes what may appear to be a solution to this problem. Developed by the Oregon Department of Education along with help from the American Institutes for Research, the new adaptive test can be use with refreshable Braille displays and, if necessary, sections can be printed out by Braille embossers in the school.

It looks like it probably took a lot of time and money to accomplish this, but kudos to Oregon for leading the way.

Read the whole article on Education Week.

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Photo credit: Image licensed by Creative Commons by Sebastien.delorme

While much of Sarah’s presentation covered accessibility features I was already fairly familiar with (i.e., VoiceOver, screen flashing for deaf/hard-of-hearing folks, and sticky keys for folks with mobility impairments), she started off demonstrating the new AssistiveTouch feature. It was a lot to absorb.

I had almost forgotten about AssistiveTouch until yesterday when I discovered New York Times tech dude David Pogue’s article from November 10th where he described the new AssistiveTouch features in greater (and great) detail.

Rather than having me comment any further, please head over to Pogue’s Post entitled Apple’s AssistiveTouch Helps the Disabled Use a Smartphone

From CBS News-60 Minutes:

(CBS News) Ten-year-old Nuno Timoteo, an autistic child who does not speak, was thought to have the intelligence and attention span of a two-year-old until teachers put an iPad in his hands and learned he loved opera and classical music. Joshua Hood, 27, also non-verbal and autistic, was thought to understand much of his world, but his lack of speech frustrated him and all around him until he began communicating freely with a touch-screen tablet computer.

Nuno, Joshua and others whose autism prevents normal speech have made these breakthroughs with the help of tablet computers and special applications that allow them to communicate, some for the first time. Lesley Stahl reports on this new tool for understanding autism for a “60 Minutes” segment to be broadcast on Sunday, Oct. 23 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

More of this story from 60 Minutes…

A preview of the episode…

Fix the Web

There is an experimental website in development that will allow people to report websites that fail on accessibility. Using a “crowd-source” methodology, Fix the Web will allow “web users with disabilities to report accessibility problems by linking them with thousands of tech-savvy volunteers.” A trial version of Fix the Web has been launched and the full service is expected to be launched later this year.

According to the report, “the project’s initial goal is to sign up 10,000 volunteers to cover 250,000 websites a year.” They hope to sign up 1.5 million volunteers worldwide.

The Fix the Web website provides this description: “We can do this if many more disabled people report issues they are having with websites, so we need to make this very simple (less than one minute of time). We want thousands of volunteers on hand to take these problems forwards with website owners. Volunteers will increase their own knowledge and skills in the process – you don’t need to be an expert in e-accessibility.”

Kindle 3: Better Accessibility, But Still Not Perfect

As reported by us last year and this year, there has been an ongoing set of concerns regarding the accessibility of Amazon’s popular e-book reader, the Kindle. Troubles for the product were made widely public when the US Department of Justice spanked several large US colleges for requiring students to adopt the products for class use and in so doing unintentionally discriminated against people with disabilities since the first and second versions of the product were not accessible to students who were blind or had visual impairments.

According to E-Access Bulletin, the third version of the Kindle is better than the first two, but still not without problems. They report:

The Kindle 3, developed by the online retailer Amazon, features a display with improved contrast and an audible menu facility, ‘Voice Guide’, enabling users to select an e-book using sound and activate the device’s text-to-speech ‘Read to Me’ feature. The Kindle 3 also features a display with 50% improved contrast between the text and background, improving the readability of text for partially sighted users.

“The Voice Guide does improve the accessibility of the device significantly”, RNIB Principal Manager of Digital Accessibility Robin Spinks told E-Access Bulletin. “However, certain functions are not yet possible, for example, being able to browse the electronic bookstore using text-to- speech and being able to select, purchase and download book content from the device [using Voice Guide], rather than having to do that from a computer.”

To subscribe to this free monthly E-Access bulletin, email eab-subs@headstar.com with ‘subscribe eab’ in the subject header.  Portions of this blog entry are Copyright 2010 Headstar Ltd.

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Image licensed through Creative Commons – by Horia Varlan

The article notes that at this year’s E-Access ’10 conference in London, participants heard terms like are “revolutionary” and “game-changing” in the descriptions of Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices.

As quoted from the article:

Kiran Kaja of the RNIB Digital Accessibility Team told a mobile phone workshop that while accessibility applications are available for other smartphones – such as the ‘Eyes Free Shell’ for Google’s Android phone – the iPhone 3G is a “game-changer” because its accessibility features are built in across all its functions.

Using the standard touch-screen you can move your fingers along and the phone reads what is underneath them; and if you swipe down with two fingers it reads from that point to the end, Kaja said. A double-tap with three fingers will magnify the screen.

“A lot of people say they can’t use a touch-screen, but when I show them this it really changes their perspectives,” he said. “People have started asking why they should pay extra money for accessibility on mainstream devices. So slowly we are seeing changing expectations. When Symbian [an operating system for mobile phones] was released in 2000, it was two or three years before assistive technology was developed for it, so phones could be out of date before assistive technology appears. With the iPhone, I could use it the same day as my sighted friends.”

Accessibility features that are built in by the manufacturer are also more stable than added extras like screen-readers running on top of an operating system, Kaja said.

The article goes on to praise the new Apple iPad as well noting, “The iPad’s size…was a ‘revolutionary’ improvement for partially-sighted users, who could use it at a normal distance like a more visible smartphone, with applications and the keyboard feature all viewed larger.”

One of the features in both the iPhone and iPad are the built-in gyroscopes and accelerometers. The article refers to “the free ‘Dasher’ app which allows the user to tilt and move the phone with one hand to select items, a feature of use to many people with impaired mobility.” Information about the Dasher app can be found here.

To subscribe to the E-Access free monthly bulletin, email eab-subs@headstar.com with ‘subscribe eab’ in the subject header.

My mind works that way. Give me a few words, and a song title or lyrics pop into my brain and usually out my mouth.

“Magic Mouse, build me a hundred….I want it, I want it, I want it…”

I know…I am showing my age.

In any case, the Apple Magic Mouse caught my attention and I did indeed secretly want to get my hands on one. It’s shape, color and “trackpad” features intrigued me. So, when I was in fact in need of another mouse – this for my new MacBookPro (MBP), my AppleFanBoi friend suggested I get on.

Seventy dollars later, it was ordered and within a week the box arrived.

I must confess that I have also been intrigued by Apple’s packaging department. They don’t do anything without panache. It took me a week to figure out what that flat black thing wrapped in plastic was in the MCP box. Who would have guessed they would supply you with a silk-like “dust cloth” to keep your screen clean. Don’t get me started with Apples use of all of that unique thin plastic wrap.

So, after what seemed like an inordinate amount of time to get the MBP’s Bluetooth to discover the mouse – or vice versa – the device came alive.

Sadly, my first discovery was that the Magic Mouse is designed for people who have hands the size of a … mouse. It is tiny, and flat. It immediately reminded me of the hockey puck that came with the original iMacs back in the mid 90′s. I had thought that Apple had learned its lesson by now. The Magic Mouse does NOT fit my paw.

The second big disappointment is: unless you are using your Magic Mouse on a mouse pad, the device does not slide very easily, and because the bottom is made of metal – unlike the el Cheapo plastic ones I have all over the house – it makes a considerable amount of noise when it “scrapes” along on the top of my desk.

The positives should also be mentioned: the touchpad-like scrolling function is flawless, very accurate and easy on the hand. Unlike a standard scroll wheel, there is no tension in the motion and you can control the cursor with much more accuracy than with a wheel, especially a wheel with a gear in it that gives the mouse that “ratchet” feel.

Second positive: the zoom feature. While holding the Control button, the scroll function activates the screen zoom. I don’t use it much, but it is nice to have.

But the small size of the Magic Mouse may be the deal breaker for me. We’ll play with it for a while longer and see.

The Magic Mouse does not support all of the great features that are found in the MBP trackpad and that was a big mistake on Apple’s part. It seems to me they could have added the three- and four-finger actions; maybe we’ll see those in the next version.

So, if you have seventy good ones burning a hole in your pocket and own a late model Apple computer, you’ll probably want one of these. If not, I’ll sell you mine – cheap.