12 yr old was just diagnosed GT LD but we have been working with interventions such as Linda Moude Belle and Fast Forward since first grade. Using assistive technology in the classroom is new to us.
We have been advised to add Texthelp! and Kurzweil 3000 software to her laptop she takes to class.
I am looking into pointers on how to get all her texts and reading scanned in and burned onto CDs with the least effort. Scanning text as needed seems to be an incredible waste of resources to me. One father told us he spent four or five hours a week scanning text for his highschool daughter.
1] Our plan is to have a commercial printer remove the covers and slit the spines. He would normally have scanned it for us, but he did not think he could due to copywrite problems.
2] We are considering upgrading from our HP 6300 2 page per minute flatbed scanner to an Epson 1640SU 5 page per minute scanner with sheet feeder. Is that fast enough with enough capacity?
2] We plan to save by chapter. Is there a better way? Are their other tricks to ease naviagation?
3] Next we plan to save to hard drive and then burn to CD by title. Are there any tricks to this?
4] Rather than reglueing texbooks to cover we plan to hole punch and keep pages in 3 ring notebooks. Our thinking is that she can carry just the text chapters she needs to school reducing her backpack weight.
5] We would preferred to use books scanned by others but if we do have to scan ourselves it will hurt less if donate our scanned texts to a shared library so others can use them. Does anyone know anything about the scanned text sharing services such as bookshare.org, guttenburg project and accessible book collection?
We plan to start on our first textbook soon but appreciate your insignts or comments even several months from now.
ASsistive Tech. listserv
YOu might want to cruise http://www.qiat.org . That question has come up but generally the copyright issue is a serious one (‘cause you are, legally, reproducing the material so you’d need permission for it).
Kurzweil, WYNN and TextHelp! are the main make-it-auditory products. I’d look for an AT expert who’s familiar with what you’re using (asking a Kurzweil person for advice using TextHelp! might get uncomfortable).
Re: ASsistive Tech. listserv
Sue makes a good point. You may be interested in checking out the following website as well: http://www.bookshare.org
They are dealing with just these sort of issues, and there is a section about copying copywrited material.
Steve
Re: How to 4 Scanning Text for Kurzweil or other Text Reader
We just hosted a discussion entitled “Student Success: Incorporating WYNN in the Classroom” on the Closing the Gap Forum. You can visit the website at www.closingthegap.com to read the archived messages.
You will see a discussion including several helpful messages regarding scanning. Following are some of the ideas generated in regard to being creative with the task of scanning:
1. Take your textbooks to the local Kinko’s and have them cut the binding and put them in a flexible binder. This makes them easier to scan.
2. Use educational assistants to do the scanning.
3. Use Bookshare.org to access books others have already scanned.
4. Hire a high school vocational group or a group of transition kids who would benefit from some training in specific skills.
5. Get the Junior National Honor Society or other service clubs to scan stuff. They often need projects to accumulate volunteer hours.
6. Start a summer “work-study” program that will have students scanning books. This serves two purposes - it gives students summer job opportunities and enables textbooks to be scanned and ready to go by the new school year.
7. In Wisconsin, inmates in a correctional institution have been trained in scanning and editing. After they have scanned a textbook, they burn the text to CD, then return the book & CD to the district.
8. Have parent volunteers assist with scanning.
9. Remember to look for out-of-copyright books and other historical documents on the Internet prior to scanning.
10. Ask the Senior Citizen’s group in your community to scan in text books.
Scanning for Kurzweil 3000
I also checked into this scanning problem and found it prohibitively expensive (at my local Kinkos). In calling several of the local colleges (all of which seem to use the Kurzweil 3000) their procedure is that if the student owns a copy of the book (and shows it to the AT person in the office), he/she can then obtain the copy on disk. If it’s a book that the school doens’t yet have on disk, they cut apart the student’s copy, feed it into the automatic scanner, do the corrections?, and return the book in I thnk a 3 ring binder along with the disk.
I joined Bookshare.org, but if you want to read their books on the Kurzweil,you must “convert” them. Not a big deal because it’s done overnight on your own computer, but you do need the Read and Scan ($1895 list) not just the Read Program.
I haven’t yet bought the Kurzweil (awaiting my December AT meeting at school, but not holding my breath. Truth be told, I know they’ll say no and I’m prepared to buy the Kurzweil 3000 (found it on “sale” for $1595 for just the next couple of weeks, so I have to decide now!
I’m probably going to buy an automatic sheet feed scanner because even if I can get the school district to scan his textbooks, I’d like to scan other “fun” books for him to “read” (and then I’d share the electronic version with Bookshare.org.
Best of luck Kathleen
Scanning for the Kurzweil 3000
I just ordered a high speed sheet feed scanner so I can scan books and documents for my son. (My school district is willing to do almost nothing!)
The scanner is not cheap ($600 discounted) but that’s not much at all for a school district. It scans at about 20 pages/min (for black and white at 200 dpi) on both sides of a page at a time, so even a lengthy textbook is not impossible. If anyone is interested, I”ll let you know how it turns out after I learn the scanner. (Maybe I’ll start a side business in scanning - I know I can undercut Kinko’s by a significant margin!)
Kathleen W
Re: How to 4 Scanning Text for Kurzweil or other Text Reader
Just watch the copyright issues (especially if you start doing it for other people). There are specific regulations about just what rights you have (tho’ of course it’s unlikely the Copyright Police will break down your door… but if you were to start copying disks and giving them out that would be a clear copyright violation). In general “It’s for education, not for profit” isn’t as true as it once was, simply because it’s *too* easy to copy things.
My son uses texthelp
Hi,
We were also recommended to use these products by our local school for my son.
In the end we chose to go with the texthelp product as it seemed to offer much better value for money. My son has been using texthelp read and write for a few years now and he would be lost without it.
I have never used the kurzweil systems so i cant comment on that, but i would say that if you give texthelp a call they are allways very helpful. And Irish accents too!
Their web address is: www.texthelp.com
We recently got their new version of read and write, i will post some comments once we have worked our way through all the features.
Duncan
Scan and Read Pro from Premier Software
Let me tell you of an exciting software firm called Premier Software at the following web site:
www.readingmadeeasy.com
They are working on a program that has the total functionality of Kurzweil 3000 or WYNN but only costs $150 for parents to buy!!! This software should be available within the next month. Their current software Scan and Read Pro will scan and read but without the graphics being saved. In the next month they will have our version which they call see what you scan which will save the graphics.
Text-to-audio will turn text to reading aloud which you can automatically burn to a CD ($29)!!!
This is an exceptional opportunity for both parents and schools to acquire adaptive assistive software at a reasonable price!!
Jim — Michigan
I would suggest contacting technical support at Kurzweil. As I understand it there may be sources for books previously scanned to CD and I know they can make some recommendations on a robust scanner for you to use.
Good luck.
Steve