ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY TOOLS, TIPS AND TRICKS
ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY TOOLS, TIPS AND TRICKS for STUDENTS AND ADULTS with LEARNING DISABILITIES AND COGNITIVE CHALLENGES (http://www.nsnet.org/atc/tools/contents.html), designed by James Roy of the Technical Resource Centre in Waterville, Nova Scotia has a plethora of nice resource lists and guides. His Table of Contents is reprinted below, but click the link above to visit.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Technical Resource Centre
What is Assistive Technology?
Assistive Technology: A Brief Overview
Assistive Technology Low-tech" to "Hi-tech" Considerations
Strategies for Effective Implementation
Points to Consider
Meeting the Challenge: Overcoming Barriers
Reading Printed and Electronic Materials
Learner Profile
Common Issues
Possible Student Outcomes
Toolbox
Text-to-Speech (TTS)
Screen Readers
Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
Talking Web Browsers
Electronic Text (E-Text)
VISUNET Canada
Audio Books and Playback
Writing and Spelling
Learner Profile
Common Issues
Possible Student Outcomes
Toolbox
Low Tech Writing Tools
Outlining
Proofreading Programs
Word Processing
Talking Word Processor
Electronic Spell Checkers and Dictionaries
Portable Keyboards / Stand Alone Word Processors
Keyboards and Keyboarding Skills
Word Prediction
Voice Recognition
Processing and Understanding Language
Learner Profile
Common Issues
Possible Student Outcomes
Toolbox
Personal Listening Devices
Tape Recorders
Graphic Organizers
Multimedia Presentations/Creativity/Authoring
Expressing Ideas through Language
Learner Profile
Common Issues
Possible Student Outcomes
Toolbox
Inspiration and KidSpiration
Multimedia Presentations/Creativity/Authoring
Brainstorming and Organizing Ideas
Graphic Organizers
Planning and Organization
Learner Profile
Common Issues
Possible Student Outcomes
Toolbox
Time Managers
Digital Voice Recorders and Memo Recorders
Electronic Organizers Personal Digital Assistants (PDA)
Information Organizers
Planners
Free-form databases
Math
Toolbox
Calculators
Electronic math worksheets software
Assistive Technologies by Area of Difficulty Chart
Sources & Resources
Technical Notes
Comments
How OCR technology can save you from having to
type documents.
OCR software has come of age allowing for very
accurate recognition and conversion of low quality
faxes
Traditionally, fax machines come with an industry
standard 200 dpi scanning resolution, far too low
for accurate OCR recognition, but this is
changing.
Certain vendors however have done a lot of R & D
into getting their OCR software to cope with the
broken ligatures and characters so typical of
faxed documents, and some have got it right.
A few online service providers have started using
these advances in OCR technology to start
offering convenient overnight document conversion
services.
Just fax your docs to them and you get a formatted
and spell checked MS Word or Excel file back by
e-mail, but you have to check these few tips.
1) Always fax your documents on the "fine" setting
2) Documents with shaded backgrounds should be
avoided.
3) Small text should be enlarged on a
photocopier before faxing.
4) Only printed and
typewritten documents can be OCR'd
5) Remember
that the OCR process isn't perfect and that a lot
of OCR error correction has to take place in order
to provide you with highly accurate spelling and
formatting.
Next time you have to convert a long document to
MS Word or extract tabular data from printed
format, I suggest you save yourself a heap of time
and look for one of these service providers on the
net. http://faxtodoc.com
Posted by: H Holder | July 21, 2007 7:34 AM