Image to text reader

Greetings Tek-Ninjas! Hope you are surviving the election well enough.

I wanted to share with you all a Google extension which I stumbled upon recently. The extension is called Project Naptha. Project Naptha is a screen reader, which works in your Chrome Browser, regardless of computer platform. It is unique for two reasons.
1. It's free.
2. It is designed to convert any text image into digital text with an OCR converter, thus allowing your native screen reader to read the text to you.

I've found it to be immensely useful, however, the quality of the image does have a direct impact on how well the image inverts to text.

Happy therapy!

Tar Heel Reader!

Hey Tek-Ninjas, are you familiar with Tar Heel Reader? If not, you should be. The Tar Heel Reader is an online collection of FREE, easy-to-read, and accessible books on a range of topics. 

Books are written by anyone, including students, parents, teachers, and therapists. Books can be read aloud using one of three different computer voices to choose from, a child's, a woman's, or man's. Or, read by the user. Each book can be accessed using a variety of interfaces including touch screens, Intellikeys, or up to 3 switches. 


Currently the books are available in several different languages, and the site even challenges users to contact them for help with translations. 

When writing a book yourself, you must first email the administrator and get a registration code. This was a little frustrating, as I had to hunt around the website to find this information. 


One thing to be aware of. Tar Heel Reader was originally created to provide appropriate subject matter for older individuals who struggled with reading (i.e.: not having 16 year olds reading Dr. Seuss). as a result there may be some subject matter that is not appropriate for younger children. As with every intervention, adult supervision is necessary. 

This is a really terrific resource both for readers and writers. 

Happy therapy!

An Elegant Chrome-based Reading and Writing Solution, part 2

Yesterday I wrote about TextHelp's Read&Write for Google (RWG), which is a great extension for your Chrome browser or operating system.  Mostly I focused on it's applicability as a word prediction tool and study tool. Today, I want to share one other significant function of this extension: screen reading.

Rather than recap the tool, I will share the video made by the TextHelp:

RWG will read PDFs, ePubs, and KES files, as well as any text in your Google Word Processor.  The voice quality is very good. To emphasize this, while reading the sentence being read is highlighted in yellow, and the word in blue. This function allows the reader to follow along with the text. The translation tool is interesting and unique. Also, the tool bar is simple and intuitive.

Toolbar

The combination of word prediction, study tool, screen reader, and translator makes this a very powerful tool, again a possible must have for your EC students.

Happy Therapy!

An Elegant Chrome-based Reading and Writing Solution

My school district is struggling with the question of "how do we afford to replace our teacher laptops"? Every organization struggles with this eventually. Best practice suggests replacement every 3-4 years. That, as you can imagine can get to be very expensive. One option we are considering is the variety of Chrome laptops. As a linux-based operating system which utilizes web applications Chrome products are often relatively inexpensive ($200 to $500), fast, and capable.

The primary concern that I have, is making certain that my staff are able to take advantage of the various special software that we've grown accustomed to using, including read aloud, word prediction, and symbol software. More and more companies are addressing this issue, increasing the functionality of Chrome laptops.  Such products do exist, such as word prediction by Appwriter, and Google's Screen Reader, but these are stand alone extensions. 

TextHelp, veteran software designers for our EC students have developed a terrific app or "extension" for Google Chrome called Read&Write for Google (RWG).  RWG works on PCs, Macs, and Chrome-books. RWG is incredibly robust, rolling together word prediction, read aloud, highlighters, vocabulary list building, dictionary (with picture symbols), annotation tools, translation, and navigational tools into one product.

The RWG tab is built right into your Chrome browser, and you can open or close the app with a click. The word prediction is powerful, with good phonetic spelling. In addition, the user can determine how many word choices are offered. 

Symbol Definition

The dictionary is excellent with the ability to provide symbol based definitions, or make a direct Google search. 

There are 4 different highlighters, and the ability to "collect" highlighted colors in groups. From those collected words, the user can build a vocabulary list with definitions provided. 

The read aloud voice is of good quality, not too robotic sounding, and the pace of reading can be customized. 



Premium subscriptions are available for single users, groups of users, or domains.  Not sure? Well, the good folks at Text help offer a 30 day fully functional trial to see if the product is for you.



I would like to see a tailorable dictionary for the word prediction such as beginner vocab, medium vocab, and advance vocab. Also, a small nitpick detail, is that when I see the numbers next to the word on the word prediction choices, my inclination is to pick the number off the keypad to make my choice. This only types the number. So, I'd like the software writers to either remove the number, or give me the ability to "turn it off".  Those are my only two criticisms of RWG. 

Read&Write for Google is a very powerful addition to the Chrome experience.  It is one of the apps that makes the Chrome-book a viable option for the special educator. Speaking with a representative of the company, they are already anticipating specific improvements to come to this first iteration.  If that is the case, this very capable add-on will be a "must have" for your Chrome browser or Chrome computer. 

Happy Therapy!

FREE Screen-Reader!

It appears that Google is ramping up their accessibility features. They may prove to be a serious power house for our special needs users. 

Orange Box Is Reading

I have recently stumbled upon ChromeVox, which is their screen reader that installs into the browser Chrome. Google makes this app available for no cost.  First you would need to install Chrome on your computer, which is also free. Chrome works on PC, Apple, and Linux platforms.  ChromeVox can be downloaded here. 

When in Chrome, anywhere there is text (not a picture of text) the user can click on it. The text will be surrounded by an orange highlight box as shown in the picture.  Chrome will begin reading with a reasonable quality voice.  

Another great feature is the online tutorial which Google makes available. It is designed to be learned through experiential education (which is always better than didactic instruction), and very thorough.

Anyone else using ChromeVox out there? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Yes, that is shameless self-promotion in the picture above.

Happy therapy!