The following issue of The Bulletin was prepared by Deb Lewis (Co-ordinator, Statewide Vision Resource Centre).
The SVRC PD program for 2005 can be found at: http://www.visiontech.svrc.vic.edu.au/pd.htm
All activities are open to subject teachers, integration teachers and aides, careers teachers, therapists, parents VTs, students, folk from other agencies and interested personnel etc. Please remember to register: tel (03) 9841 0242, fax (03) 9841 0878 or email svrc@svrc.vic.edu.au
What about Embarking on a Graduate Certificate in Educational Studies (Special Education) or a Master of Special Education (Sensory Disability) through Renwick College???
Renwick College offers a large array of vision-related courses (subjects), many of which are offered through distance education, online components and residential schools. The following subjects are on offer in 2005:
Renwick College is located in the grounds of the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children in North Rocks, Sydney. Reasonably priced accommodation is available on the site. All degrees offered at Renwick College are awards of The University of Newcastle. For more information, contact the College Secretary Jill Watson (02) 9872 0303 or the Distance Education Co-ordinator Claire Farrington (02) 9872 0811 or claire.farrington@ridbc.org.au.
The following articles appear in the October edition of JVIB:
Would you like to be part of the inner sanctum of this exciting and dynamic organisation - your professional organisation? If so, please contact Sandie Mackevicius (03) 9761 0011 or Deb Lewis (03) 9841 0242 / deblewis@svrc.vic.edu.au to express your interest.
An exceptionally detailed review of the access features built into Windows XP appears in Issue 5, 2004 of OnLine Newsletter. Author Jeff Souter notes:
For some students, using the accessibility features that come with XP may be sufficient to increase their use of the computer and, hence, their learning. It’s worth trying some of these features for students who may be having difficulties. Even those students that are already using some form of assistive technology may be able to improve their learning opportunities by incorporating access features. It is always worth experimenting to see if there is a positive response from the student to any changes. Don’t forget, if you own XP, you already own all the access options. It would be a shame to have the opportunities to improve student learning and not use them. If you’d like a copy of the article, please contact us.
Computer My Way AbilityNet hosts an interactive resource called “Computer My Way” that helps the user to learn about the various specialist assistive technology that is available for the PC, and how easy it is to alter how the computer looks and responds. Go to: http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/myway
Source: OnLine Newsletter Issue 5, 2004
This page offers the same search facility but it is less cluttered and may be more suitable for students with vision impairments – just add it to their Favourites!
Source: Article by Tom Macmahon, Statewide Advisory Visiting Teacher – Assistive Disability Services Support Unit, OnLine Newsletter, Issue 6, 2003
The term text-to-speech refers to the production of spoken output from a computer of text being displayed on the screen. This is most commonly achieved by selecting or highlighting the appropriate text (by using the mouse or keyboard commands) and copying this text to the Windows Clipboard. Some programs provide options to paste text into an editing window, open an existing text file or sometimes even key in new text. The text in question will then be read out with varying degrees of control over speech rate and quality, the range of voices from which to choose and even font styles and colours for text and background - according to the program being used.
ReadPlease 2003 (free version) is probably a good place to start if you are setting out to explore text-to-speech software. It is free, uses the Microsoft speech engine, is described as being ‘internet aware’ and reads any text from the clipboard, including email and web pages.
TextAloud MP3, offers such possibilities as saving a number of files, web pages, email messages etc, into one file, using multi-article mode. The file can then be saved in an MP3 format.
AllWrite is described as ‘a talking word processor that provides complete speech support (including talking cursor keys) and large print editing’.
WordAloud is one notable example of a program which permits text to be read back with synchronised speech and highlighted text in large fonts, with adjustable contrasts and screen colours and with a range of available voices. Its developers are even striving to incorporate sufficient speech support to allow independent access by non-sighted users. Such programs can provide a powerful tool to individuals with low vision and reading difficulties.
Teachers are discovering the potential of being able to create audio files from keyed, scanned or downloaded texts. These can then be listened to by students on MP3 players, copied onto audio media (CD, mini disk or cassette) or played on their computer from disk or directly from the school’s network.
In addition to TextAloud MP3 mentioned above, other programs of interest in this regard include Text-to-Audio (a ‘high-end application that can take existing digitized text files and convert them to multiple standard audio formats’), the latest version of Read and Write textHELP! and specialised scanning/Optical Character Recognition software such as Open Book.
The Open Book option is, of course, a much more sophisticated program with a price tag of almost A$2000 to match. Those who know its capabilities can appreciate its power and flexibility, and the recently added option (Version 6) of being able to save a scanned page, document or section of a book as either an MP3 or a ‘wav’ file, can be very useful.
A few initial observations may be of interest and assistance:
Source: OnLine Newsletter Issue 5, 2004
The American Printing House for the Blind has developed APHont (pronounced Ay-font) for people with low vision. There is a regular, bold, italic and italic bold version available for those with vision impairments as a free download. Go to: http://www.aph.org/products/aphont.html
Pam Hyden is selling a recently serviced and updated Mountbatten Brailler for $2,200. Please contact her on 0409 021665 or 5447 4259.
Abridged article from EducationGuardian: http://education.guardian.co.uk/
Ledero primary school, in the Samburu district of northern Kenya, is a cluster of buildings so isolated one wonders where the hundreds of children who crowd its weather-beaten classrooms appear from each morning. Among them is 10-year-old Saweina Lerantilei, who joined the school - her first – this year.
Saweina has glaucoma and severe deformity of the eye sockets, which causes her eyes to bulge and a never-ending bubbling of tears that she constantly blinks away. Amid the cheery hubbub of class 1, she sits shyly at the front, close to the blackboard; close, too, to the doorway that allows her maximum light, but also invites in clouds of dust that leave clothes and papers salted with dirt. But, says her teacher, Zachary Mbugua, she is happy.
"Initially, the other pupils looked down upon her. They were seeing her as different. With time and interaction, they are now together. Now, when the children go home, they talk to their parents ... the attitudes become different."
Saweina was not sent to school by her parents. She was found abandoned under a tree by Grace Seneiya, an itinerant teacher charged with tracking down children with visual impairments and placing them in school.
Seneiya trawls the Samburu landscape on a motorbike; a chance puncture stalled her where Saweina had been left. When she found the girl's mother, she scorned the idea of an education for her daughter. "But I told her, 'this girl will go to school and she will be a better person because of it'."
The Samburu people who populate these 20,800 sq km of savannah and desert are closely related to the Masai of southern Kenya; they share a language, a semi-nomadic lifestyle and a bleak attitude towards disability. Seneiya is the linchpin of the Kenya Integrated Education Programme (Kiep), a national scheme supported by eye health charity Sightsavers International. Some 90% of visually impaired children worldwide do not go to school. With 80% of blindness preventable, schools assume an additional importance – from screening for early signs of damage, to simple lessons in hygiene, to ensuring blind children are not confined to the home…
Last year, the Kenyan government introduced free, universal primary education for ages six to 16, a seismic policy in a region like Samburu, where 83% live below the poverty line. Those majority of children whose parents could not afford yearly fees now heave themselves into overburdened classrooms to learn maths, English, Kiswahili, religious education and civics. Kiep’s aim is to make sure visually impaired children are side by side with them.
For more information about SightSavers, go to: http://www.sightsavers.org/
When: 3-5 December
Where: the Age
Theatre at Melbourne Museum
Bookings essential: (03) 9699
8497
The Other Film Festival celebrates cinema by, with and about people with a disability and aims to increase the visibility and voice of people with a disability, to provide an accessible cinema experience to all patrons and to encourage dialogue. Jane Trengove, Chair of The Other Film Festival notes, “real stories of people with a disability have largely been submerged and misrepresented by mainstream film culture. For those of us with disabilities, this festival provides a chance to be seen and heard through the film medium.”
If you’d like a pdf version of the program, please contact the Arts Access EASE Ticket Service on (03) 9699 8497 or email ease@artsaccess.com.au or download a booking form from http://www.otherfilmfestival.com/
The NLB (National Library for the Blind) provides an online library and information service for people with vision impairments.
Based in the UK, NLB house Europe’s largest collection of braille and moon books and provide a free postal library service to blind and partially sighted people worldwide.
NLB readers (including readers overseas) can search its real time catalogue online. NLB’s catalogue contains about 40,000 titles which can be searched by author, title or subject. You can check to see if a book is in stock and then order it directly online or through the Statewide Vision Resource Centre.
Revealweb provides independent access for people with vision impairments and their intermediaries to a web based national database of accessible resources. Maintained by NLB and RNIB Revealweb already contains more than one million titles from over one hundred suppliers and it is growing. You can search the catalogue at http://www.revealweb.org.uk/ to find out what is available, who has it and in what format.
Resources listed in Revealweb are available in one or more of these
accessible formats:
Braille, Braille Music, Moon, Braille with
Print, Tactile Maps and Diagrams, Audio Cassettes 2 & 4 track, Talking Books
8 track, CD-Roms Spoken Word, Daisy (DTB) Format, Electronic Text Files,
Electronic Braille Files, Large Print, Audio described video.
Resources are available under these headings and
more:
Non Fiction, Animals, Autobiography, Biography, Crime, Food
and Drink, Health and Beauty, History, Languages, Plays, Politics and World
Affairs, Psychology, Social History, Spiritual, Sport, Television and Media,
Travel, War, Women, Children’s Fiction, Children’s Non Fiction, Teenage Fiction,
Teenage Non Fiction, Canadian and South African Titles…
NLB also produces two magazines (in various formats) for library members – NLB Read On and NLB New Reading. The SVRC has these magazines in audio cassette format which is available for Visiting Teachers and other users. Please contact Lyn Robinson on 9841 0242.
Address: The National Library for the Blind, Far Cromwell Road, Bredbury,
Stockport SK6 2SG UK
Telephone 01613552000 (Outside UK: Insert 44 at the
beginning of the numbers)
Email enquiries@nlbuk.org
Website http://www.nlbuk.org/
The Melbourne Optometry Clinic, a department of the Victorian College of Optometry, University of Melbourne offers low cost eye care and glasses for pensioners and others of limited means. This service is supported by the Victorian Government Department of Human Services. The Melbourne Optometry Clinic also offers special Clinics for children, people with additional impairments (eg physical, intellectual) and for those who need language assistance from people with non-English speaking backgrounds.
You are welcome to attend the Clinic if you are a permanent resident of Victoria and:
Full time students are welcome to attend the Clinic but fees for glasses and contact lenses are higher if you don’t hold a Health Care Card. Eligible people who live in rural Victoria may have their eyes examined and obtain subsidised glasses through local eyecare practitioners.
Please contact the Victorian College of Optometry on (03) 9349 7400 and ask for the Victorian Eyecare Service for more information.
Where: Corner of Cardigan and Keppel Streets, Carlton
(accessible via bus and tram)
Appointments: 9349
7455
Hours: Mon to Fri 8.30am to 5.45pm; Sat 8.30am to
5.00pm
The following list of Social Skills Resources was provided by Nan Shiels, Speech Pathologist, Rossborne School at the EMR Disability Conference, 2004
Excerpt of article by Holly Cooper, Outreach Technology Consutlant, TSBVI Outreach, published in See/Hear, Summer 2004
As vision teachers, we are aware of the vast differences in access to reading materials between print and braille users. Sighted children grow up in a world in which they are able to use vision to gain information from both near and distant sources. They see print everywhere in the world around them. Early in childhood potential print readers begin to recognize and attach meaning to signs, symbols, and letters, as any parent of a toddler who sees a sign for their favorite fast food restaurant will testify. Strong correlations have been established between environments rich in print and children’s early success in learning to read. Preschool and kindergarten teachers routinely label items around the room, post signs and schedules, provide books and consumable print materials, and do art and learning activities which use letters and words. Our students who are blind miss out on many of these rich opportunities. Parents and early childhood service providers struggle to find and make books in braille, but this is just a small part of the literacy experience of young children.
There have been great strides in technology for braille users in the last decade. Unfortunately, most braille reading students in the primary grades do not have access to much of this technology. Our grant selected one device, which we believed would be versatile and easy to use both by the student and by the teacher. This device was the Mountbatten Pro braille writer, which has features allowing it to: be used as an electronic braille writer; connect to a computer keyboard and will output braille; connect to a visual display device and show in print what is written in braille; connect to a printer and output in print; and connect to a computer, and with braille translation software, be used as a braille embosser. The Mountbatten also has voice output capabilities and speaks the letters or words as the user writes. Because of the ease of use this device provides in going from print to braille and braille to print, we believed it would be an ideal device to enrich the literacy environment of braille reading children. We also believed it would facilitate interaction between the print reading general education teacher and the braille reading student, and between the braille reading student and the class peers.
Classroom teachers were very interested in the technology and the ability to create braille. We soon heard stories of classroom teachers making lists of spelling words, writing the ‘question of the day’ in braille, or introducing a topic for the student’s journal page in braille. Classroom teachers were generally eager to use the Mountbatten and to make materials for the braille reading student. Vision teachers loved the ease of use and the ability to download materials translated by Duxbury using the computer into the Mountbatten and output them in braille in the classroom. Close collaboration between the vision teachers and the classroom teachers was now possible, as they became partners in educating the braille reading student.
Results of surveys and other feedback from teachers indicated overall satisfaction with using the Mountbatten to teach braille writing, and to support braille reading. Several specific advantages were mentioned:
Some other features that vision teachers listed or stated were helpful for their braille reading students were the following:
For more information about the Mountbatten Braille Writer, see the resources listed below:
Go to: http://www.tsbvi.edu/Outreach/seehear/summer04/index.htm
Source: Circular 303/2004
The Blueprint for Government Schools is the framework for building a system of government schools to ensure that all young people, regardless of their background or location, have an opportunity to reach their full potential. To achieve this goal it is necessary to build a system of effective schools, headed up by effective leaders and staffed by effective teachers.
The Blueprint changes the way all sections of the education community work together whether they be students, teachers, principals and leadership teams, school councils, regions and head office, parents/guardians, stakeholders and the general community. This change emphasises the importance of strong relationships, communication and coordination that will be supported by the Blueprint website.
The website structure reflects the theme of effective schools and their characteristics:
Each characteristic is linked to the relevant Blueprint initiatives and contains a list of professional readings to stimulate thought and discussion. The website will be updated on a regular basis to reflect the latest developments in the strategies and initiatives and expand the list of professional readings.
The Blueprint for Government Schools website address is http://www.sofweb.vic.edu.au/blueprint
Source: Circular 281/2004 The Privilege and the Price: A Study of Principal Class Workload and its Impact on Health and Wellbeing
The Privilege and the Price: A Study of Principal Class Workload and its Impact on Health and Wellbeing has now been released and is available on the department’s occupational health and safety website: http://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/hrweb/ohs/health/prin.htm
The Principal Class Workload Study was commissioned to address the concerns raised by the organisations representing principals in Victorian government schools and was conducted for the Department by Saulwick Muller Social Research.
Source: Information Technology Division Update (2004/50)
The Software Rolling Fund has undergone a number of changes to enhance and improve the current service and web site functionality.
The fund will now be known as the Software for Education (S4E) Program. The web site will reflect the name change and has been redeveloped to enable schools to access information on products and pricing more efficiently. Users will be redirected to the new site located at http://www.sofweb.vic.edu.au/ict/software/S4E/index.htm
All software currently supplied by EdSoft must now be ordered on-line directly from this supplier at http://www.edsoft.com.au/
Karen Goodall, Co-ordinator of the Visiting Teacher Service – Loddon Campaspe Mallee Region wrote recently to let us know that Visiting Teacher Gary Pell died recently after a long battle with cancer. A trained teacher of the deaf he also worked with students with physical, health and vision impairments.
In his eulogy presented by ‘the girls’ (the other Visiting Teachers in the Bendigo office), Gary was described as “…a gentle giant with a heart as big as himself. He was totally at ease working comfortably as the only man in an office of sometimes, volatile women. His even temperament kept him unflappable even when those around him were losing their cool. He ignored what he didn’t need to notice… Gary was totally reliable. He never refused a request no matter how trivial and often anticipated what was needed. If we picked up a box of books, or a crate of teaching materials, it was whisked out of our hands and packed in the car without a word spoken. He made things easy for us without any fuss…”
Faye’s student Emma-Mae has written another delightful story:
Once there was a girl named Emma-Mae who had a pet elephant. His name was
Ashley the African elephant.
Ashley was big and grey – he had large ears, a
long trunk and huge tusks.
Emma-Mae wanted her elephant to be a great
performer because everyone loved performing elephants.
But I don’t want to
perform Ashley thought I just want some time to play.
Every time she took him
to the circus he would never perform,
“How about you perform next time ey?”
she would often say.
One day she took him to the circus.
“Now Ashley to
balance on his stand and juggle 3 red balls with his trunk” the ringmaster
announced.
But the elephant wouldn’t perform because he just liked to play
and daydream.
Ashley stood still in the ring thinking about squirting water
on himself.
“Hurry up Ashley and perform! I promise you can squirt water on
yourself in the swimming pool!”
So Ashley began to juggle his balls and
balance on his stand.
Emma-Mae was very excited. Everybody clapped and
cheered then everyone cried, “He’s performing at last.”
So Emma-Mae took him
to the swimming pool and Ashley squirted water on himself and at the children in
the pool. Then he got out and started to squirt water at the audience.
After
that Ashley always performed at the circus and Emma-Mae was happy because he was
a great performer and as well as elephant training, she became a trapeze
artist
Included in this Bulletin is an invitation to all Visiting Teachers to attend our Morning Tea for volunteers and people who have supported the Statewide Vision Resource Centre over the past twelve months. As the SVRC is your resource center we invite you to extend this invitation to other members of your school communities who have been supportive to you and your work. The more the merrier just let us know the numbers for catering purposes.
Thanks to Maria Elford, Annette Godfrey-Magee, Toni Chilton and Gloria Ng for contributing to this edition of The Bulletin. Thanks to the fantastic and long-suffering ‘folding and stuffing’ crew and thanks also to my fabulous brand new proof-reader Maria Elford.
Deb Lewis (who can be emailed at deblewis@svrc.vic.edu.au).