Saturday, May 07, 2011

ADE Accessibility

Apple are proud of their accessibility features. In particular that the same features work across the range (e.g. The same gestures used on a trackpad work on the iPhone).

Many of the accessibility features are useful beyond the accessibility audience, for example the screen Zoom option is great for presentations and because it can zoom right down to pixel level, it is interesting for Computing/Art/... Voice Command is also worth playing with (we were encouraged to use the undocumented tell a joke feature!).

The Voice Over feature is something they are pleased with. A fully featured screen reader which describes everything on the screen. The speed of the voice can be increased and still it is intelligible. Useful also for some other types of learning difficulties. Braille keyboards can be hooked up (with no additional hardware or drivers needed - it is built-in to the OS and it is free). Up to 32 keyboards can be hooked to a single device so a teacher can communicate with a whole class of pupils at the same time.

Also talked about Proloquo2Go where an app replaces the need for an expensive text to speech device.

Two websites where you can get extra information and email support: special education and accessibility.

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