Accessing+Digital+Text

Accessing Digital Text
Let's start with some humor...what was it like when the first book was introduced?

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And what do some students today think about text books? //**Tools to be Explored**// There are many free tools that assist students in accessing digitized text. Two tools we will explore are Readability and Natural Reader. These two tools work well together.They may help many students gain access to materials that would otherwise be above their reading level. Many students are able to understand words when heard in context, but are not willing to "read" an article that is above their reading level. ** Readability ** allows you to take an article that is online (not the home page of a website) and it removes the clutter that surrounds the article.We know that many students find it difficult to focus on the content when the screen is flashing "You are a winner! Click here". Readability removes these distractions. There is a free version and a paid version. The handout discusses the free version. ** Natural Reader **  is a free text-to-speech engine that will read websites or any other digitized text. Students may also type within the program and have their work read back to them. There is a free version and a paid version. The handout discusses the free version. **// Online Hand-outs //** Readability Directions Natural Reader Directions Connections to the New Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for ELA & Literacy

**//Additional Resources //** For those interested in understanding the history of how we have reached this need to provide students with access to curriculum in a timely fashion you may want to check out a slide show called **Reaching All Students - NIMAS, NIMAC, IDEA - Why all the Acronyms? ** **WebAnywhere - [] **  <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Quoting from the website: <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: medium;">WebAnywhere is a web-based screen reader for the web. It requires no special software to be installed on the client machine and, therefore, enables blind people to access the web from any computer they happen to have access to that has a sound card. Visit [|wa.cs.washington.edu] to access WebAnywhere directly. And, it's completely FREE to use! <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: medium;">WebAnywhere will run on any machine, even heavily locked-down public terminals, regardless of what operating system it is running and regardless of what browsers are installed. WebAnywhere does not seek to replace existing screen readers - it has some big limitations, namely that it will not provide access to desktop applications like word processors or spreadsheets. <span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: medium; text-decoration: none;">**Free and Open Source Textbooks** <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;">** [|Resources for Free Digitized Books] **