My Dream Classrooms

My Dream Classrooms

From the news release:

March 25, 2010 – HumanWare and its partners announced today at the 2010 CSUN Conference the launch of the second phase of the mydreamclassroom.com website. This new interactive tool was designed to help educators discover different solutions for students who are blind, have low vision or learning disabilities. It will also help them find out how assistive technologies can increase their students' learning independence.

This website shows classrooms where various assistive tools are found on students' desks. By simply clicking on the item of interest, the users can learn about each product, its interactions with other tools, and available sources of content. An entire section of the classroom is dedicated to the various providers of accessible talking books supported by the featured devices.

Now in its second phase, the mydreamclassroom.com website is better suited to address the specific needs of educators. They can now select one of three school levels: elementary, high school and college. Educators can also select different categories of technological aids within the same class (blindness, low vision, learning disabilities). The "My Wish List" option allows users to create an online list of assistive tools they would like to have in their classroom. This wish list will also facilitate the purchasing process when acquiring the products.

The website also features useful sections such as the Resource Center where you can find additional information, including training material, instructional webinars and workshops.

The mydreamclassroom.com website is an initiative undertaken by a group of manufacturers of technological aids that includes HumanWare, Intel, View Plus, Quantum Technology, as well as providers of accessible content such as Audible.com, Bookshare, Don Johnston, Read How You Want and Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic.

Peyton's comment: Many of these technologies could also be used in school, academic and public libraries.

Wildfire -- Talking Pen and Paper

Wildfire

This is a new invention that combines automatic language translation with a smart pen (pen-based scanner with audio output). The inventor sees it as useful for conducting incoming patient interviews in a hospital, but I can imagine a wide variety of educational and commercial uses, such as providing menu translation in restaurants to both sighted and blind patrons.

Book Use Book Theory: 1500 - 1700

Book Use Book Theory: 1500 - 1700

We may be living in the future, but our future or present exists as it is only because of the book. Here's an interesting web-based exhibit on the history of the book, courtesy of the University of Chicago Library.

Tom's Glossary of Book Publishing Terms

Tom's Glossary of Book Publishing Terms

Thanks to Carol Reich for sending me the link to this very funny glossary of book publishing terms.

Edge 311

Edge 311

If you're not already reading Edge, then you're missing out on some of the most insightful writing on our path deeper into the future. Read a recent sample at this link.

Publishing: The Revolutionary Future - The New York Review of Books

Publishing: The Revolutionary Future - The New York Review of Books

Jason Epstein has had a long, distinguished career in publishing. His latest project was the development of the Espresso Book Machine. In this article, he argues for the importance of books as printed, ink on paper, objects that cannot be deleted with the click of a mouse.

After Amazon's deletion of Orwell's 1984 from the Kindles of customers who had "bought" it (what more appropriate title? except perhaps Fahrenheit 451) demonstrated the reality of digital purchases as licenses for use rather than as permanent purchases of ownership, I began rethinking my own belief about the permanency of digital rather than printed books. Naively, I had liked the fact that digital books could be stored in the cloud; I hadn't reckoned with the legal and technical fragility of them.

As always, Jason Epstein is worth reading. Please let me know what you think on this subject, too.

Slashdot Technology Story | Five Years of YouTube and Forced Evolution

Slashdot Technology Story | Five Years of YouTube and Forced Evolution

Here's a new update on the HTML 5 issue, based on the idea that Google spent so much when it bought YouTube for $1.65 billion that it has developed Chrome and the Chrome IE Tab in order to ensure that its investment pays off, and that it can take over the online world.

Conspiracy theory? Coincidence? or Make Sense?