Accesssibility on the Refresh Desktop

Transcription

1 ASL Technology has worked together with both the Educational Technology & ICT Contract Manager & the ACCESS REFRESH Team to make it simpler for all staff and pupils to access additional ICT support. Below is a screenshot of the desktop, as it looks at present, with the Recycle Bin at the top left corner and, below it, five folders down the left side of the screen. Accessibility features on the Schools Network can all be found in this folder near the top left corner of the desktop. Double click on the icon to open and you will find these items 1 Ease of Access see page 2 2 Study Bar see page 3 3 Ivona MiniReader- see page 3 4 Wordtalk- may not appear as a separate folder on all desktops but a 3 page guide is attached to this document Updated 06/12/13

2 1.Ease of Access Folder This folder is mainly aimed at pupils with a physical, visual or hearing impairment (VI, PI or HI). Once settings have been made for an individual login they will open automatically on that same PC but will need reset on other machines. Ease of Access Ease of Access Simply click on the shortcut and follow the instructions to set up for individual pupil (or staff) needs. Further guidance on this can be found at Microsoft.com Magnify This is a useful tool for pupils and/or staff with a VI. It has three modes and can be adjusted to suit the needs of individuals. VI teachers will usually advise on appropriate settings and users are usually quick to identify the mode they prefer. NB: Icon can be pinned to the task bar for easier access. Narrator Only use if advised by a specialist teacher e.g. VI- rarely required by school-age students. Really useful for pupils with a PI allows use of mouse or alternative devices as required. Onscreen Keyboard By clicking on the options button you can adjust the settings as required. It is also possible to activate word prediction along the top of the keyboard. This may provide support for some learners to input text more readily. Speech Recognition Only use if advised by a specialist teacher as training the computer requires a lot of time & effort. Rarely used successfully by school-age students. P a g e 2

3 2. Study Bar This is a collection of useful apps that can be used individually or in conjunction with others to support a variety of needs. Most are straightforward to use but if in doubt check out the individual Settings/ Help menus (These can usually be accessed by right clicking on either the application or the Icon that appears on the Task bar on opening). We recommend the first five items on the list as being generally effective. Orato; text reader > Copy (Ctrl+C) & can be set to read automatically- similar to Wordtalk. Overlay: tints the screen- good for pupils who suffer from visual stress RapidSet: allows you to change the background & font colours T-Bar: masks text by producing a coloured rectangle which you can move about as required. Vu-Bar: is a screen ruler that adapts to font size & provides a window for text Sonar: screen magnifier that moves with the mouse pointer Thunder; screen reader good for pupils with a Visual Impairment (VI) Balabolka: writing support/mp3 Win7Voice: can ignore this for now Talking Dictionary- no translation options available as not activated 3. Ivona Minireader Play Button Stop button Choose the voice Speed slider Volume slider Ivona Reader will read any text you can highlight- , internet, document or PowerPoint (in edit mode). Simply select/highlight the text then click on play to listen. The tool bar can be minimised to sit on the task bar when not in use. **TIP Drag bar by top left corner & avoid clicking on blue Buy IvonaReader 3

4 4.Wordtalk This does not now appear in everyone s accessibility folder as it should open automatically with MS Word Documents. If it doesn t you should speak to your ICT Coordinator and in the meantime: In the Accessibility Folder double click on Wordtalk and a blank document will open with an Add-Ins Tab on the menu bar. To drop the Wordtalk ribbon click on the Add-ins tab as below Basic Features of Wordtalk still apply- but there are now some additional options from Cursor Sentence Selection Configure WordTalk About WordTalk Paragraph Word Stop ing Talking Spell check Type or paste some text into your Word Document. Put the cursor somewhere in the text, and click W, S or P on the WordTalk toolbar to read the word, sentence or paragraph. There will be a short delay the first time it speaks while the voice is loaded. You should only need to do this once as Word will remember that WordTalk is allowed the next time you use it. 4

5 Configuring WordTalk When the Configure button Colour, Keys & Options. is chosen, a window appears. It now has four tabs Speech, Make changes to Speech & Colour as below To set up Keyboard Shortcuts click the Keys tab > tick the Keyboard Shortcut Box > Save setting > OK Under the Options tab > tick the boxes as required to make a change > Save setting > OK Speech The Speed of the voice can be changed by dragging right/left along the speed bar. The Volume of the voice can be altered by dragging right/left along the volume bar. Voices can be changed by clicking here. NB: Don t forget to save your settings If adding a background colour to the current text being spoken is helpful then choose the background colour wanted and click OK. Some colours are not particularly useful as a background as they obscure the text more than anything else. However blue, dark red or light gray are fine. 5

6 Glasg Glasgow Education Accessibility on the Refresh Desktop Talking Spell Check Word has a good spell checker of its own. WordTalk uses the Word dictionaries with a few phonic enhancements. WordTalk also speaks the suggestions which can be helpful in some cases. To use the WordTalk spell check, place the caret in the word to be checked and then click on the WordTalk spelling icon. Listening to the suggestions To listen to the suggestions, select the word in the list that you wish to hear by left clicking on it. The suggestion will be spoken. If a correct suggestion is found, select it and click Replace Spelling to correct the word. Listening to synonyms Sometimes it is useful to get a list of the synonyms of a word, for example, to clarify the meaning. To do this, select the suggestion and then click on the Talking Spellcheck Icon. Click on Find Synonym. If there are any synonyms in the Thesaurus dictionary they will be displayed in the synonym box. You can listen by left clicking on each suggestion. To choose Click on Replace Synonym *** The Council takes no responsibility for the installation of any software on an individual s home computer. 6