Holly's Pages

Let's Make Switch Accessable Talking Books

There is a really great tutorial on how to make your own switch accessable talking books which I found and highly recommend. It's called Assistive Technology Training Online (ATTO) and located at:
http://atto.buffalo.edu/registered/Tutorials.php . You can print out this tutorial and follow along with the text and pictures and make talking books using Power Point or Clicker 4. I have found the Power Point format is easier and faster to use, and I believe a lot more teachers and others have access to Power Point. You can download Power Point Viewer for free and install it on any of your computers, and copy it on a CD along with your talking books. This will allow anyone to view the talking book you make, but with PPt Viewer software only, you cannot create or change talking books. The source for this is the Microsoft website at: http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/2000/Ppview97.aspx

 

The ATTO tutorials, written by Rich Walter, explain some basics about how to use a scanner and copy pages out of books into graphics files, and save and insert them into Power Point. These were written in Great Britain, so bear in mind that what they say about copyright laws differ some in the US. I'm no lawyer, so my information is subject to error and don't make decisions based on what I say. However, we believe the laws about copyrights which allow copying materials and converting them to formats accessable for blind readers applies in this case. If anyone has any more reliable information on that, please email me and send me information.

 

I strongly encourage our readers to experiment with making their own talking books. I am especially excited about the idea of using this format for language experience books, and Sharon and myself are working on a couple of them to share on this website. Making language experience books involves selecting a target event, taking a camera along, pencil and paper to make notes, and taking pictures and thinking of text to tell the story of the event. Language experience books are a good use of your time because:

• they are appropriate for users of all ages and a variety of ability levels
• they relate to real life events
• they help build memories so students can recall events or activities distant in time and place
• they become a focus for communication about about an event or topic
• they build communication, social interaction and language skills
• they can be used to teach a sequence of steps in a functional activity such as "how we get ready for school", "grocery shopping", and more
• they are fun to share with peers and others

Getting photographs into your computer is easier than ever. You don't really have to buy a scanner or digital camera, but if you have them, by all means use them! If you feel like you are one of the technology impaired, then just take pictures, and when you take your pictures in for processing ask about having them put on a CD. Most film processing places are able to do this now. Once you have them on a CD, you can copy them into your talking book. Photographs take up a lot of memory space on a computer, and there are ways to reduce or compact the amount of memory the photo uses which I won't go into here. If you want to try to do this, ask people in your own life, it's much better to have a real live person there that you can ask questions of. Once you get photos in a digital format, start up your Power Point and follow along with the tutorial, and pretty soon you'll have an exciting product you can share in a lot of different settings.