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May - June 2007 - Volume 6 Issue 1 - @Freedom Scientific Newsletter @Freedom Scientific is a free newsletter packed with the latest information about Freedom Scientific technology. Please feel free to send us your feedback.
The Power of JAWS® Scripting Leads to the Creation of a Fun, Innovative Teaching ToolIf you needed to learn to type, would you rather learn how from a dry, boring instructor or from a program that makes the lesson fun and exciting? David Pinto knows most people would choose the latter, and that’s why he worked so hard to make his typing tutor, TypeAbility, both educational and fun-to-use. The TypeAbility program, which can be downloaded from Pinto’s Web site, YesAccessible.com, teaches both children and adults how to type with a standard QWERTY keyboard plus how to navigate through text documents. It works with JAWS 6.0 and later and with MAGic® 10.5 and later.TypeAbility evolved from a program Pinto created in order to help him teach children his first love, music. Pinto is a classically-trained pianist who has been teaching music since he was 13. He worked as a concert pianist in his teens and early twenties, and he later composed, conducted and arranged for various jazz and pop groups in and around Los Angeles. In the mid-1990s, Pinto returned to the symphony orchestra scene as a soloist. In 1999, Pinto was teaching blind music students how to use his CakeTalking JAWS scripts to run the CakeWalk music recording program at a music conservatory. "Since I had students as young as five years old, with no computer or typing experience, I needed to teach them a handful of basic keys so they could run CakeTalking for CakeWalk,” Pinto said. Pinto found that the limited keyboard instruction he gave the students was not enough, and they were often stuck browsing through menus in CakeWalk rather than using their lesson time to successfully record and play their music. That’s when he wrote up a set of scripts, which he called TypeAbility, to teach keyboarding to the visually impaired. “Using JAWS scripting capabilities, I started developing a learn-to-type program,” Pinto said. “I had to make it fun, yet simple enough for young children to do by themselves.” By amassing a JAWS database, Pinto was able to create a program that mimicked the way he taught and responded to students’ questions. “For instance, for each task that JAWS would prompt the students to type, JAWS would track the number of times the student typed the wrong letter,” Pinto said. “If the student typed the wrong key twice, JAWS would respond with an ‘observation’ and information on where the correct key was and what hand and finger to use.” Pinto made the response observations humorous — “Hold your horses! Holy moly! You must be kidding!” — so that students would feel no shame when they made a mistake. He also scripted JAWS to track the number of consecutive correct typing instances, with responses becoming more and more enthusiastic. Pinto also modulated the JAWS voices’ pitch, speed, and inflection to create an even more motivating teaching tool. By the end of the 68-lesson TypeAbility program, students will have learned all the letter, number, punctuation and special character locations, as well as the text navigation basics. As a bonus, at the end of every lesson, the program tells the student a joke. The humor can be set at child or adult levels. In addition to TypeAbility and CakeTalking, Pinto also wrote a set of JAWS scripts called SibeliusSpeaking that makes Sibelius, a professional music notation program, accessible to the blind. “SibeliusSpeaking is what I taught Ray Charles so that he could use Sibelius to print out his arrangements for his orchestra,” Pinto said. “Up until then, he would have to dictate each note of his scores, one by one, to his arrangers to write down.” Pinto’s company, YesAccessible.com, is also developing an interactive program called PCEZ, set to be released in the summer of 2007. It will provide a totally safe location in which to learn how to use JAWS in the general Windows® environment, plus in Microsoft® Word, Outlook® Express, and Internet Explorer®. TypeAbility and all of Pinto’s other programs are terrific examples of how the power of scripting in JAWS — and in MAGic — can lead to some amazing new ways to make the world more accessible to people with vision impairments. Return to Table of Contents from the First Story
Freedom Scientific Premiers Another First – Fully-Scriptable Screen Magnification Software – And It’s On Sale!Freedom Scientific’s newly-released MAGic Pro Scripting Edition is the world’s first screen magnification software that allows users to write their own scripts to modify its operation in any application, providing greater usability. “The same scripting technology that makes JAWS the most powerful screen reading technology in the world, is now available in our MAGic screen magnification application,” said Dusty Voorhees, Senior Product Manager. “This exciting new upgrade opens up a whole new world of opportunities for MAGic users by presenting them with a much greater level of flexibility to customize in any program.” The key benefits of scripting offered through the MAGic Pro Scripting Edition include:
“Another great benefit
of the new scripting capability in MAGic is that the thousands of scripts
previously written for JAWS can easily be modified to include MAGic
functionality,” added Dusty.
Learn more on the MAGic Pro Scripting Edition product page. If you’re wondering about running MAGic in Microsoft Vista™, Freedom Scientific has announced that MAGic 11.0 will be released and available in coming weeks. All new purchasers of MAGic since April 2, 2007, will be entitled to MAGic 11.0 once it is released. MAGic 11.0 is required to run MAGic in Windows Vista. Return to the Table of Contents from the Second Story
SARA™ 8.0 - The Best Just Keeps Getting Better: Now Featuring New Voices, Better OCR, and an Enhanced Visual Display MethodFreedom Scientific’s SARA (Scanning and Reading Appliance) has been upgraded as SARA 8.0. SARA customers can update their current SARA unit to 8.0 by contacting their local dealer or by requesting an update DVD from Freedom Scientific. The new features of SARA 8.0 include:
Listen to the SARA voices at www.SARA-SCANNER.com Return to the Table of Contents from the Third Story
PAC Mate™ Now Reads DAISY Books from RFB&D®On the leading edge once again, Freedom Scientific’s PAC Mate, the accessible Pocket PC, can now play AudioPlus® books from Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic (RFB&D), further establishing its position as the notetaker of choice for blind students. PAC Mate is the first notetaker to offer RFB&D support. FSReader™ 1.1, the latest version of Freedom Scientific’s DAISY player for PAC Mate, allows users in the United States to utilize the large array of audio materials available from RFB&D, now numbering in excess of 30,000 digital titles. “With FSReader for PAC Mate, users can easily read and navigate digital talking books and e-books produced in the DAISY format,” said Freedom Scientific Product Manager Ron Miller. “Readers can navigate to sections of a book by browsing headings or flipping pages, can set multiple bookmarks, and can resume reading where they left off when a book is reopened. As RFB&D begins to include text as well as audio in its titles, PAC Mate users with braille displays will also benefit from reading text in braille, switching to narration when it suits them.” AudioPlus books are protected, as they are only available to qualifying RFB&D members, and, therefore, cannot play on just any DAISY player. To access RFB&D AudioPlus books with FSReader, users will need the RFB&D special User Authorization Key (UAK), available for purchase soon. The UAK can be purchased by calling 800-221-4792. Current users of the FSReader for PAC Mate1.0 should have the 1.1 update that is compatible with the RFB&D UAK before contacting them. Download the update from the Freedom Scientific Web site. Return to the Table of Contents from the Fourth Story
WYNN® 5.1 Teaming with VistaThe Freedom Scientific Learning Systems Group (LSG) is busy developing enhancements and support for WYNN 5.1. While some school districts have already switched to the new Microsoft Vista operating system, many others are planning to make the switch during the summer. To support our customers, LSG will release a new Vista-compatible version of WYNN in May 2007, in time for information technology changes being completed in the summer months. The Learning Systems Group also will release a new WYNN 5.1 Training CD in May. The CD, which provides an overview of the product and defines the educational benefits of WYNN’s features, has been created by Peggy Dalton, LSG’s Director of Professional Development. Peggy, who has expertise in learning disabilities, also narrates the CD. The CD covers many aspects of using WYNN, including Web browsing, word prediction, and homophones. Return to the Table of Contents from the Fifth Story
The PAC Mate — A Real Puzzle SolverDid you know that the now extremely popular puzzle game Sudoku was initially created by a blind mathematician? In the mid-1700s, Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler worked on 9-, 16-, 25-, and 36-cell number square theories. His work led to what is termed “a specially-restricted Euler Square” — what the world now calls a successfully-completed Sudoku. Today’s popularity of the game is credited to a Japanese publisher who began redistributing the old puzzles in the late 1990s and named them a Sudoku, which is a Japanese abbreviation of the phrase, “The digits must occur only once.” PAC Mate users like Rachael Warke, who resides in Ottery St. Mary in England, have discovered that they can use their PAC Mate to join in on the Sudoku craze. “The first thing I ever did on my new PAC Mate was a Sudoku,” said Warke. “I get most of my puzzles from www.Websudoku.com and from the BlindSudoku mailing list.” Warke stores her Sudoku puzzles on a CompactFlash® card she accesses through her PAC Mate QX440. “I often use CompactFlash cards to transfer files between the PAC Mate and the PC,” Warke said. “I could use ActiveSync®, but the cards are easier. The actual harvesting of puzzles from the Internet is easily done on the PC, but the latter parts - cleaning them up and making them presentable - are more easily done on the PAC Mate.” To assist others who may be interested in tackling Sudokus on a PAC Mate, Warke offers these tips:
Here’s one more example of an “accessibility puzzle” the PAC Mate can help solve! Return to the Table of Contents from the Sixth Story
It’s All About You, the Users! Don’t Forget your Freedom Scientific PodcastFSCast Episode 5, April 2007FSCast is Freedom Scientific’s monthly podcast. Hosted by Jonathan Mosen, Vice President of Blindness Hardware Product Development, FSCast features news, interviews, and product demonstrations relating to Freedom Scientific products. FSCast is a great way to make the most of the products you have, as well as learning what’s new and what’s just around the corner. Last month on FSCast, Jonathan spoke with Dan Clark of the Freedom Scientific Training Department. Dan discussed all the resources that Training produces to help you get the most out of your Freedom Scientific products, as well as the variety of training courses you can attend. Jonathan also interviewed Doug Lee, who talked about the free JAWS scripts for Skype™ that he has written. Look for an interview with Dr. Lee Hamilton, President and CEO of Freedom Scientific, in the next FSCast offering. By subscribing to FSCast (there is no charge to subscribe), subsequent monthly episodes of the program will be automatically sent to your computer as soon as they are available. Subscribe at FSCast Web page. From this page, you also can download an MP3 of the content. Return to the Table of Contents from the Seventh Story
From the Training DepartmentHere’s What’s New from the Training Department:
Now available is a list of all the MAGic keystrokes in one page. Use the MAGic list of headings (MAGIC KEY+F6) to move to the keystroke section you want, or use the Find command to search through the entire document to find different items. A version of the MAGic keystrokes in PDF format is also available. Also new, download the MAGic Basic Training lessons in MP3 format. These files are packaged in ZIP form. Download and extract them to the folder of your choice on your computer. The audio files were extracted from our MAGic Basic Training DAISY book for those who wish to listen to them in an alternate format. For example, you could put them on a portable MP3 player or perhaps burn them to a CD for easy listening. One link contains a single ZIP file with the entire seventeen modules of MAGic Basic Training in MP3 format for ease in downloading. The individual modules are also available for download separately. Go to the MAGic Training Headquarters to access these two new sections. Also New from the Training Department:Laptop Keystrokes with JAWS is the latest new free DAISY book from the Freedom Scientific Training Department. This brand new text and audio DAISY book is posted on the JAWS Training Headquarters. Laptop Keystrokes with JAWS shows you how to make the most of JAWS when using a laptop keyboard instead of a regular desktop keyboard.
Return to the Table of Contents from the Eighth Story
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