online Teaching and Learning
WebCT Content and "Text to Voice" Screen Readers
At Cambrian, there are over 400 students with learning disabilities in virtually every program here - including those offered through WebCT. Many of these students require text to voice conversion.
These students can comprehend what they hear while perhaps only comprehending what they READ at the grade 6 or less level. This is due to a processing difficulty that they cannot control and that is not related to intelligence. In fact, some very successful people have this condition (Charles Schwab, the stock broker, Craig McCaw, the inventor of the cellular phone, Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the Media Lab at MIT, Henry Winkler, Actor).
To be successful readers, these students need to HEAR the words as well as SEE them. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways; having a friend read everything aloud, getting text books transcribed to audio tapes or digitally to be sounded aloud by a screen reader. It is this last method that is generally preferred. The screen reader reads the words aloud as the student scans the text providing the dual input that is needed to understand the meaning of the word.
To accomplish this, students purchase their books, then we assist them in obtaining the electronic version from the publisher or we scan the book into the Kurzweil program so that the student can hear/see the text.
That is where the problem comes up with WebCT content and delivery methods. The Kurzweil program will read the words on the WebCT page, but not the secondary windows that open up so often. So the student copies and pastes the secondary windows into MS Word so that the Kurzweil screen reader will recognize and say the words aloud.
This only works when it is possible to extract the text - otherwise, the words used in the course are incomprehensible for the program.
This means those students need to rely on family and friends or their lower comprehension ability to access the course content.
How can faculty/designers help:
1) Design course content (e.g. Adobe Acrobat .PDF documents) used in WebCT that can be 'read' by a screen reader - don't protect the text. If you are concerned about intellectual copyright, there are strategies that both the Glenn Crombie Center and eLearning staff can suggest.
2) When building "single pages" or similar links to documents or other web sites, choose NOT to pop-up a separate browser window
3) Create an alternate version of the course in electronic format in MSWord to be provided to the student with a diagnosed disability much the same as standard copyrighted textbooks are currently being made available.
4) Consider the possibility of streaming audio - converting lecture notes or similar content to an audio file which is streamed to the user's computer
Please contact us the Glenn Crombie Center at 566-8101 ext 7420 or our technicians Robert and Yvan at 7546 or 7433 if we can assist you in providing your students with the format they need to be successful in your course.
If you need assistance with WebCT-related strategies and options, contact Cambrian Online at 566-8101 ext. 7522 or ext. 7464.
Many thanks,
Susan Alcorn MacKay, M.Ed.
Director, Disability Services The Glenn Crombie Centre
&
Director, Northern Ontario Assessment & Resource Centre
Cambrian College
1400 Barrydowne Road
Sudbury, On P3A 3V8
705 566-8101 ext 7793
705 566-5452 fax
http://homepages.cambrianc.on.ca/snrrc
1400 Barrydowne Road
Sudbury, Ontario
Canada P3A 3V8
(705) 566-8101
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