Digitial+talking+book+playing+program

1. Who needs this assistive technology?

A Digital Talking Books (DTB) is an assistant technology meant for the blind and seeing-impaired. DTB is essentially technology that converts books into speech. However, they are also recommend by travel guides as an easy and convenient way to listen to a book while in the car/traveling. Digital Talking Book Players come in two different types: stand-alone players and software players used on computers. The stand-alone players are the more convenient of the two because they are portable and are cheaper than having to own/buy a computer to use a DTB. MP3s and CDs can also be played on a DTB stand-alone player. The leading way to play a Digital Talking Book is through a program called DAISY standing for Digital Accessible Information System. This system comes in three types of publication:


 * 1) **Audio with NCX:** NCX is the Navigation Control Center, which is “a file containing all points in the book to which the user may navigate. The XML textual content file, if present, contains the structure of the book and may contain links to features such as narrated footnotes, etc. Some DTBs of this type may also contain additional textual components, for example, index or glossary, supporting keyword searching.”
 * 2) **Audio and full text: “**This form of a DTB is the most complete and provides the richest, multimedia reading experience and the greatest level of access. The XML textual content file contains the structure and the full text of the book. The audio and the text are synchronized.”
 * 3) **Text and no audio:** "DTB without audio. The XML textual content file contains the structure and full text of the book. There are no audio files." (Daisy online).

http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/10/16/dtb.html http://www.afb.org/ProdBrowseCatResults.asp?CatID=67 http://nimas.cast.org/about/resources/dtb.html#software http://www.thetravelinsider.info/roadwarriorcontent/audible.htm [|http://www.daisy.org/about_us/dtbooks.shtml]

2. What is the history of the assistive technology?



Prior to the advent of digital books, records, cassettes, and cassette players were used to listen to books. Now we are able to use CD-ROMs, CDs and downloadable files like MP3s from the internet. The program, DAISY was first started in 1988 when their were complaints about the current digital library system of the Swedish Library of Talking Books and Braille. There system was called TPB. TPB, "is a government library serving both public libraries and print impaired university students" (DAISY online). TPB was customized of analogue talking books which were very slow for the more advanced reader. In 1991, TPB applied for a grant from the government. The grant was for a three year project. There we two important goals that needed to be covered through this project:
 * that the program developed could store more than 20 hours of continues speech on a single CD-ROM disc.
 * that the program would give the reader random access to the talking book from the table of contents.

Some other important qualities the program needed to have according to the DAISY website were: > and in a future version:
 * Ability to skim the text, phrase by phrase or section by section, where section is a collection of phrases.
 * Ability to search for different parts in the text-based table of contents.
 * Ability to search for specific pages in the talking book.
 * Ability to place and search for bookmarks in the book.
 * Ability to underline and make notes in the talking book. (DAISY online)

After the first prototype was created in 1994, a meeting was held in Stockholm to elect a chairman for the DAISY Consortium. The objectives set were to establish a standard of Digital Talking Books, develop tools for this program as well as manage it, and to manage the licensing of DAISY.

The standard version of DAISY was finished in 1996 and the DAISY foundation was set up in Amsterdam.

http://www.daisy.org/about_us/history.shtml http://blindreaders.info/digitlbk.html http://www.wcbvi.k12.wi.us/assets/Photos/technology/digitaltalkingdevices.jpg

3. What benefits does the assistive technology provide?

One benefit that this assitive technology provides is that if you are using the software, it is easy to story an entire book on your computer. Also, these players have navigation tools that allow the reader to switch between sections, rewind, and fastforward. This navigation system is also often sorted by characters, chapter titles, and headings. You can also bookmark a particular page or section you are reading as well as go to specific pages and search through sections for keywords. You can highlight portions of the text as well as have the reader spell words out for those with visual disablitites if there are words they don’t know. It also has other features such as: high quality self-voicing capability, on-screen text display, keyboard input, mouse controls, and text enlargement features just to name a few. This product is very helpful and can adapt to many different types of learners and disabilities. [|http://www.ghbraille.com/dtb.html http://www.loc.gov/nls/z3986/background/features.htm#7.%20Document%20Navigation

4. How does the assistive technology work?

Most digital talking books are designed as to look similar to a compact, portable CD players. They have fastfoward and rewind buttons and overall seem rather simple to handle. There are more advanced digital talking book players, but the most popular ones that come up are all arranged fairly simpily. Commonly, these players all play DAISY formatted CDs, standard audio CDs and MP3s. http://www.independentliving.com/prodinfo.asp?number=240456DS&cid=froogle http://www.afb.org/ProdBrowseCatResults.asp?CatID=67

5. Exemplary examples of how the assistive technology would be integrated into an english classroom.  ·  For students with visual disabilities in the classroom can listen to a novel that the class is reading instead of someone having to read it to them. They can do this u sing a softward program on the computer or if they have hardward, they can use DAISY or download MP3s.  ·  Students who have difficulty reading or who have a reading diability can listen to a novel and follow along with a hard copy of the book.  ·  Students who are auditory learners can listen to the novel retain information better by hearing.  ·  Also, students can utilize both auditory and visual learning by reading and listening to a novel so that they can obtain information in two different ways at the same time. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'">Students with visual disability can make the text larger when using the software programs so the text is easier it see. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'">For papers, students can bookmark specific sections in the book, search for keywords, and navigate through characters so that when they go to write their papers, they have support and places they can flip back to for ideas. Home