ILLUSTRATED DIGITAL TALKING
BOOKS: EXTENDING THE DAISY/NISO SPECIFICATION
Presenter(s)
Steven Landau
Touch Graphics, Inc.
330
Day Phone: 212—375—6341
Email:
sl@touchgraphics.com
Presenter
#2
Helene Holman
Exceptional Teaching, Inc.
Presenter
#3
Stephanie
Herlich
New
digital technologies are leading to significant increases in the number of
books produced that are accessible to readers who are blind, visually impaired
or otherwise print disabled. The emerging DAISY/NISO specification is quickly
becoming the international standard for digital talking books; hundreds of
thousands of titles will be converted to DAISY format over the coming decade (National
Library Service, 2004). However, none of these are expected to include
diagrams, illustrations, figures or graphics of any kind. This limits the types
of books that can be effectively converted to digital talking format. Books
that require access to graphics are especially important in early childhood
(Larsen & Jorgensen, 1989) education, technical training and advanced
studies in math and the sciences, so attention should be paid to developing
good, practical strategies for adding to the next generation of digital talking
books.
Touch
Graphics, Inc. has designed, implemented and tested the world’s first
illustrated Digital Talking Book (IDTB), under funding from the National
Institute for Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NJDRR). The CSIJN presentation
will include a discussion of this work, and the first public demonstration of a
new version of Touch the Sun (Once, 2005), a NASA-funded book written by Noreen
Once, that was originally executed in traditional Braille book format. The new
IDTB version of Touch the Sun consists of a set of 12 tactile overlay sheets
designed for use with the Talking Tactile Tablet (TTT), and a program on CD
The
sheets include illustrations in raised-line and textured format and a
collection of control buttons and data entry tools. A reader places individual
sheets on the TTT device, and then presses on parts of the images to hear
appropriate, recorded human- voice descriptions of what they are touching. They
also use a Main Menu of options, which includes an Index that allows them to
scroll through a list of all of the graphical elements contained on a
particular sheet, and then choose one to have their finger led to it. They can
also place and go to bookmarks, perform text-based searches, and change
settings such as speech rate and touch sensitivity.
The
presentation will include results of preliminary user testing. Here, ten
braille-literate participants were asked to use both the new Illustrated
Digital Talking Book version, and then the original braille version of Touch
the Sun. Afterward, both groups received the same content examination and
picture identification test, to measure relative differences in comprehension,
retention and reader satisfaction between the two versions.
One
of the system’s developers interacting with the TTT
Based
on successful outcomes in this preliminary research, the Company hopes to be
awarded follow-on finding, for the purpose of developing a proposal for a
modular extension to the official DAISY/NISO Specification (DAISY, 2005), to
ensure that tools for including interactive talking tactile graphics in digital
talking books are incorporated in the emerging standard. For the purpose of
carrying out this complex task, Touch Graphics is teaming up with the Benetech
Initiative, an associate member of the DAISY consortium, and the developers of
Bookshare.org, a widely used service for producing and distributing
DAISY-formatted digital talking books. The long term ambition of this team is
to ensure that many categories of books not currently considered appropriate
for conversion to accessible format will be produced and made available to
visually impaired
readers.
References
Larsen,
S. & Jorgensen, N. (1989). Talking books for preschool children. Journal of
Visual Impairment and Blindness. AFB Press.
Grice,
Noreen. Touch the Sun: A NASA Braille Book. The Joseph Henry Press, Washington.
2005.
Kerscher,
G. (2005). DAISY/NISO Z39.86 Modular Extension Guidelines.
http ://www.daisy.org/download/securedownld.asp?dir=dl&fn=modular extensions
guide lines v6.html. The DAISY Consortium.
National
Library Service (2004). NLS: That all may read. Current Strategic Business
Plan: Implementation of Digital Systems, Executive Summary
http ://www. loc.gov/nls/businessplan/executivesummary.html
SAL2:
RECONFIGURING SAL BRAILLE LITERACY COURSEWARE FOR DELIVERY VIA THE ECONOMICAL TALKING
TACTILE TABLET
The
SAL System for teaching Braille literacy allows students to practice skills
introduced by a teacher of the visually impaired. Students work at an individual
pace, as they interact
with
a virtual instructor in carrying out increasingly more challenging tasks and
drills. Now, Exceptional Teaching, Inc. has teamed with Touch Graphics, Inc. to
create a new version of the system that is designed to run on the Talking
Tactile Tablet (TTT). In contrast to the original, stand-alone SAL unit, the
TTT is a computer peripheral device, so it is dramatically less expensive and
has the advantage of being able to be used with a whole collection of other,
existing and future applications, such as the National Geographic Talking
Tactile Atlas of the World, the TTT Authoring Tool and TTT Crossword Puzzles
and TTT Match Game. Also, new features have been added to the SAL courseware in
this latest configuration; these improve the system’s overall power,
effectiveness and ease of use for both teachers and students.
The
main concepts and the pedagogical approach in the new system replicates the
original SAL Courseware: the student places one of a large number of embossed
paper sheets on the TTT device, and then follows instructions for carrying out
activities, For example, one activity requires the student to press their
finger on any line of Braille on a sheet that begins and ends with the letter
“g”. As the student works, the virtual instructor announces, “right”, “way to
go”, “good job”, or in the event that he or she makes a mistake, “no”, “that’s
not right”, “try again”, etc. Upon completing a sheet, the student presses the
circle button, and gets instant feedback on the total number of correct
responses and amount of time taken to complete the activity. In other
activities, students are asked to read a short story and then answer a series
of multiple choice questions to demonstrate comprehension. As in the letter
identification exercises, the system provides immediate feedback to the student
regarding their performance, thereby enhancing his or her feeling of progress
and independence.
One
important new tool that has been added in SAL2 focuses on improving teachers’
ability to review student performance and progress. To use this feature, the
teacher logs in as “teacher”, and then is asked to select one of the SAL2 users
who have worked on that computer. Once the student is selected, a summary
report is displayed (and spoken aloud), in which the teacher is first given an
overview report, which includes total number of activities worked on, most
recent date worked, total number of hours and minutes worked, and the student’s
average percentage of correct responses. For finer grain reports, the teacher
is asked to select a SAL2 title and lesson, to find out results for any
activity on which the student has worked. It is also easy for the teacher to
request a printed report for any student, and this can be saved to that
student’s records for the purpose of an Individual Education Plan (IEP), determining
grades or sending reports to parents.
Another
important innovation that is embodied in SAL2 is a Main Menu that provides a
range of powerful functions and tools. A program logic flow diagram,
illustrating the entire Main Menu structure and features, appears below as
figure 2. A “Library” option permits the student to view a list of all SALZ
materials loaded on the computer, and to find the sheet number for any
activity; once an activity has been selected, the student is coached to remove
the current sheet and replace it with the desired new one. Other features in
the Main Menu include tools for creating and retrieving bookmarks, and a full
range of user settings, including speech rate, volume, voice and touch
sensitivity of the TTT.
So
far, the two companies have completed work on the Mangold Braille Reading Program
for Young Readers Ages 5-12. Readiness for
The
presentation will include a discussion of findings from user test Stephanie
Herlich, a Teacher of the Visually impaired will discuss her experiences in
testing the SAL2 with her class of eight visually impaired elementary school
students. The session will end with a demonstration of the system.
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