Centre for Internet and Society

Report on Training in Basic Computing with use of NVDA and eSpeak in Assamese

nirmita — 2015-06-03T02:44:33Z

This training was held at Monfort School in Guwahati on May 9 and 10, 2015. Laishram Lingappa was the trainer. Eleven participants attended the programme.

Situated in the backdrop of steep hills, Monfort school was the perfect location for training in use of eSpeak Assamese. The delegates came from all across Assam, and represented various organizations. The participants were extremely impressed with the quality of the eSpeak Assamese, and were able to follow the text-to-speech (TTS) very fast.

The visit to Gauhati University’s Cell for the Differently Abled was also a grand success. A presentation about the power of NVDA and eSpeak was made in front of the Chairman of Gauhati University, Registrar, Joint Registrar, Head of the Cell for the Differently-abled, Chief Librarian and the Chief of the Computer Section.

At the end of the two hour presentation, it has been decided that the Cell for the Differently-abled will take the lead in the following aspects:

Preparing a complete list of Persons with Blindness studying in various Colleges of Gauhati University

Organizing a Sensatising workshop for the identified Persons with Blindness.

Negociate with the Publishers associated with the Gauhati University, for Accessible Bookks.

Identify staff who could be trained in making books Accessible in both English and Assamese.

NAB – Delhi will provide Technical support to the Cell for the Differently Abled, as and when required.

A visit was also undertaken to the Gauhati Blind school, where in the students were presented with the different accessibility solutions. They were shown the Smart Cane along with the Plextalk Vachak. Most of the students took keen interest in knowing about the various solutions including eSpeak Assamese. Fortunately the school is supported by some very enterprising young Blind persons, who are extremely good in Technology. These volunteers have taken up upon themselves to teach computers to the students of Gauhati Blind School.

A 15 day follow up training will also be organized either at the sister organization of Monfort school in the district of Tora or the Cell for the Differently-abled in Gauhati.

Our thanks to Laishram for organizing the four day trip to Gauhati.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-in-basic-computing-with-use-of-nvda-espeak-assamese

Report on Training in Basic Computing with use of NVDA and eSpeak in Marathi & Konkani

nirmita — 2015-06-03T15:47:18Z

The training programme was organized at International Youth Hostel and Estrila du Mar, sponsored by Rotary Club of Goa and Estrila Du Mar from April 20 to 22, 2015. Seventy-seven delegates attended the training programme.

The Rotary club of Goa organized a RYLA for the visually challenged youth of Goa and Maharashtra. The event was sponsored by Estrila Du Mar. The event had components of career counselling, introduction to assistive technology, demonstration of assistive aids and appliances and reading and writing in Marathi and Konkani. The participants were extremely eager to learn about the different reading and writing solutions. They were given hands on demonstration of all the assistive devices.

The programme was inaugurated by the Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment, Ministry of Goa. This was followed by a session on "Needs Assessment" from the participants. Most of the participants expressed a strong desire to learn "How to Read and Write in Marathi and Konkani". The main sessions were conducted by Taha Haaziq, Resource Centre Coordinator, Central Library, Goa, Miss Zainab, Coordinator, Bookshare India and Dr. Homiyar.

The second day of the programme was dedicated to demonstrations of reading solutions. Participants were encouraged to listen to the eSpeak Synthesiser and understand the comprehension in Marathi. Most were comfortable listening to an e-copy of Sakal, a Marathi daily.

Many participants who had Android phones with them tried to read in Marathi using eSpeak at the end of day 2.

Day 3 was reserved for writing in Marathi. The participants who had basic knowledge of computers were encouraged to practice the in-script keyboard layout. They managed to write simple words at the end of the session.

The three day event was validated by the President of Rotary Club of Goa. The participants expressed about their learnings from the event.Most of them said that they had gained a lot of new knowledge and wanted to attend a short term basic computing workshop, for improving their skills. All the participants received a gift hamper containing CD’s loaded with set up of NVDA along with its tutorials.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-in-basic-computing-with-use-of-nvda-e-speak-marathi-konkani

Report on eSpeak Tamil Computing with NVDA Training Workshop at Tiruchirappalli

nirmita — 2015-07-21T01:32:10Z

The training workshop was held from May 4 to 8, 2015 at Centre for Differently-abled Persons, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli. Seventeen delegates attended the workshop.

Inauguration

The eSpeak Tamil Computing with NVDA Training workshop planned for 5 days (4th May 2015 to 8th May 2015) extensively for visually challenged college students and teachers was inaugurated on 4th May 2015 morning by respected Dr. M. Ravichandran, Registrar (In charge), Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli. Dr. R. Mangaleswaran, Syndicate Member, Bharathidasan University felicitated with august presence and speech. Mr. S. Shankar Subbiah, Assistive Technology Consultant and representative of National Association for Blind, New Delhi and The Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore, and the sponsors for workshop gave a talk on the purpose of the Workshop and need for Tamil computing among the visually challenged in the present educational and employment context. Dr. M. Prabhavathy, Asst. Professor and Centre Head gave the Welcome address and Vote of thanks, thanking the Guests for their interests on empowerment of visually challenged and the participants for their earnest efforts to get trained on new technologies.

The well-equipped and accessible ICT lab of the Centre for Differently Abled Persons, at Kajamalai Campus, Bharathidasan University served as the venue for training. In order to facilitate the participants with more concentrated and time efforts, High Tea and Lunch were also served for the Training days at the Centre. Volunteers with Computer Science background were there to assist the Trainees and served them enthusiastically. The participant trainees were from Tiruchirappalli district and nearby districts like Karur, Pudukottai and Thanjavur of Tamilnadu state.

The workshop began with Resource persons, Mr. K. Navarasan, Mr. S. Shankar Subbiah and Mr. G. Kumaresan, Assistive Technology Expert continuing with the training activities on their expertise areas. The below were the activities conducted during the training period.

Day 1 - 04/05/2015

Forenoon

The whole group of Trainees were divided into two groups based on their previous knowledge on computer.
The former group consisted of the persons who were beginners to computers and the latter consisted of the trainees who have previous knowledge on computers.
A general overview on keyboard and its layout was introduced to the trainees to ensure readiness among the beginner trainees by the Resource person.
The keyboard layout and key mapping for alphabets, numeric, special keys and functional keys were taught to the trainees.
For those with previous knowledge exercises were given for reading, writing in English using computers with newspaper content, answer to question kind of comprehensive paragraphs with the Resource persons and volunteers coordinating.

Afternoon

The beginner trainees typed the keys that were taught on the previous session and practiced simple words dictated the Resource person and volunteers assisted on difficulties.
For those with previous knowledge, the exercises were elaborated and assessed for their readiness.

Day 2 - 05/05/2015
Forenoon

Tamil keyboard layout of Microsoft Windows for default Unicode Tamil Font typing were introduced to the trainees by the Resource person.
The whole group of Trainees were trained to identify the keys for vowels and consonants of Tamil language, type and practice by themselves with the volunteers supporting them, when they had difficulties.

Afternoon

The Trainees were trained to identify the keys for combinations, type and practice by themselves with the volunteers supporting them, when they had difficulties.
A play and learn session was organized to spell out connected words for typing practice.
To make the training workshop more live, the participants also were requested and exhibited their Tamil native talents and knowledge.

Day 3 - 06/05/2015
Forenoon

The Trainees were trained by giving large sets of two letter, three letter, and four letter units of words to type and practice. The Resource persons and volunteers corrected them when they had difficulties.
It was followed up by smaller sentences to be typed by the Trainees.

Afternoon

The trainees were made to listen to the Tamil text phrases with the help of NVDA screen-reader supported by eSpeak voice
The trainees were suggested to type out the phrases listened on a separate document
The trainees were trained on file operations like folder creation, saving to required folder and retrieval of the particular file. Similarly, for navigating, opening the file saved and continuing editing

Day 4 - 07/05/2015
Forenoon

Introduction on DAISY books and knowledge sharing on the available resources to read a DAISY book was done.
Demonstration on using Android based tablets and mobile phones to access the Tamil DAISY books given to the Trainees using Bookshare.org. The Trainees were also given information to subscribe for Bookshare membership and Book search and retrieval.

Afternoon

As a reinforcement on the learning process, a Quiz Programme was conducted to the Trainees on Microsoft Tamil layout and key strokes required for different Tamil words, phrases.
Usage of Tamil in Internet, and the browsers supporting the Unicode formatted content and the NVDA development efforts to support Internet browsing was discussed.

Day 5 - 07/05/2015
Forenoon

The Trainees were provided with Tamil HTML content to use the NVDA navigation commands to read the content and practice.
Reading content received in Email, Copying content from Browsers and pasting on Word document were taught and practiced.

Afternoon

Oral as well as Typing Assessment for Tamil keyboard layout, key strokes, words and phrases typing, file and folder operations of a document were conducted for the Trainees to ensure the training and learning process have helped them.
The Resource persons and volunteers ensured that they have learned the intended content and were confident to move ahead in Tamil computing using NVDA and eSpeak

The Valedictory Function

The eSpeak Tamil Computing with NVDA Training workshop conducted for 5 days (4th May 2015 to 8th May 2015) had the Valedictory function presided by Prof. V.M. Muthukumar, Hon. Vice Chancellor, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli who delivered the valedictory address and got the feedback from the participants in the presence of Dr. D. Muthuramakrishnan,, Syndicate Member, Bharathidasan University who felicitated the gathering. Vote of thanks to CIS, NAB and the organizers was given by Dr. M. Prabhavathy, Asst. Professor and Centre Head and the training felt much useful ended up with the National Anthem.

Feedback
Mr. K. Nallusami, Government School Teacher, and Mr. R. Jeyaraj, Student from Bishop College gave the feedback, how the training was helpful and would be useful by implementing Tamil computing in their daily occupation. They also highlighted on the materials and useful tips by Resource persons while working with NVDA in MS Word, Internet using Tamil computing given and learned in the training workshop.

Mrs. J. Sumathi, a Teacher who was not knowing Computer previously explained how the Volunteers and Resource persons helped learn from basic Keyboard mapping to Tamil Typing and it was a kind of magic happening to her and sister. They both came 100 miles away from Tiruchirappalli and stayed with their relatives for training. But, really happy to spent these days’ worth getting trained and requested the Organizers to conduct more such trainings for other Teachers of their District too.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-espeak-tamil-computing-with-nvda-at-tiruchirappalli

Report on One day Workshop on Use of eSpeak Hindi with NVDA

nirmita — 2015-06-04T15:43:22Z

This workshop was organized on April 11, 2015 at All India Confederation of the Blind (AICB) and was attended by 19 participants

AICB conducts one year, Advanced courses for Computing for the Blind and Stenography in Hindi and English. The participants of this workshop were the students of this courses.

The workshop began with introduction to NVDA, as most of the participants were new to it. The important configuration’s of NVDA were explained to the participants, who later installed NVDA on their desk tops and selected their preferred settings.

The participants were than given a text in Hindi for comprehension, and a small quiz was conducted on the understanding of the E-speak synthesizer.

This was followed by introduction to the Hindi inscript Keyboard. The students were also taught how to configure the Hindi Keyboard.

This was followed by typing practice. The students were well versed in Godrej and Remington formats, so they were made to understand the advantages of Inscript typing.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-one-day-workshop-on-use-of-espeak-hindi-with-nvda

Report on 30 Days Summer Course on Basic Computer Competencies and Language Proficiency

nirmita — 2015-07-12T13:55:05Z

The month long summer course was held at Karna Vidya Technology Centre, Thiru-Vi-Ka, Industrial Estate, Chennai and was attended by 20 delegates.

With the support of Centre for Internet Society (CIS), Karna Vidya Technology Centre (KVTC) has conducted 30 days Summer Course on Basic Computer Competencies and Language Proficiency to introduce, strengthen and enhance the students on Computer Operations and language proficiency.

Inauguration

On the first of May 2015, the Summer course was inaugurated by Mrs. Sumathi, a Tamil poet cum volunteer. The function started off with a melodious invocation by KVTC trainee. The manager, KVTC, welcomed the invitees and participants. The course trainers outsketched the details of the course. It was followed by the chief guest’s address. The guest emphasized on the the need for professionalism and commitment. She inaugurated the course and conveyed her best wishes to all the trainees. With the vote of Thanks by one of the trainers from KVTC, the function came to an end.

Sessions:
The sessions are designed as:
02 00 pm – 04 00 pm Computers
04 10 pm – 06 00 pm English communication Skills.
Between 04 00 pm – 04 10 pm Tea Break

Session on Computers with NVDA

The trainees are given a thorough understanding of NVDA, it’s installation process, commands, Typing Speed and Accuracy, Desktop orientation, Menu Bars, Dialogue boxes, editing and alignment in MS. Word. They were also given training on Tamil Typing using NVDA. Online Bookshare Library was also introduced to them and some have got registered in the Library.

English Language proficiency :

Students had a valuable training on English Communication Skills. They were taught basic grammar and given various practical exercises on Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. Home assignments are also given and assessed.

Evaluation: The students were assessed at regular intervals and guided for their betterment. Special focus was given to slow learners.

Benefits:
This Summer Course was very benefitial, Since it focused and enabled three different categories of students namely:
Students pursuing Secondary (10th Std),
Higher Secondary (12th Std) and
Higher education (Graduates)
All the 20 students learnt the basics of NVDA and English only from KVTC. At the end of the course, they felt happy, as they were able to breathe the air of independent learning using screen readers. They have assured us that they would minimize their visit to reading centres and make use of E texts, Audio books and Online Bookshare Library for their studies. The trainees were given a folder comprising:

Certificate
A Book on English communications both in print and audio CD.

Valedictory Function

The valedictory function was graced by Mr. Pankesh and Ms. Abhirami from Paypal. We also had a special invitee Mr. Ramakrishnan Accessibility Consultant, IBM, Bangalore. The function began with the invocation and the manager, KVTC, welcomed the gathering. Then, Mr. Ramakrishnan highlighted on the various avenues available for the visually impaired candidates. The guests congratulated every trainee and wished them the best for their future endeavours. They also handed over the Study Kit for every trainee. The function ended with National anthem.

Thanks to Supporters

Karna Vidya Technology Centre would like to submit it’s sincere gratitude to all it’s supporters for being with all the endeavours of the centre at all stages. Especially, The Summer Course on Basic Computer Competencies and Language Proficiency, conducted from 1st May 2015 to 31st May 2015 had seen best outcome from the student participants. The support and guidance of DR. Homiyar Ji, CEO, NAB Delhi, The cooperation of centre for Internet Society, Bangalore - our funding partner for this course and our parent club Rotary club of Madras Coromandel enabled us to conduct the course smoothly and effectively.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-30-days-summer-course-on-basic-computer-competencies-and-language-proficiency

Report on Training in eSpeak Marathi

nirmita — 2015-07-16T01:48:09Z

The NVDA team conducted a training at SIES College, Sion, Mumbai on June 28, 2015. Thirty-four delegates attended the training programme. Harshad Jadhav was the trainer.

Voice Vision conducted workshops on June 27 and 28, 2015 for persons with visual impairment in Mumbai. These workshops were in partnership of National Association for the Blind (NAB) Delhi which has been a pioneer in the spread of Assistive Technology for the blind and Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) Bengaluru which has been conducting the project for development of Indian Language support for eSpeak TTS (Text-to-Speech) which is bundled as the default TTS with NVDA (Non Visual Desktop Access). The workshops were held at SIES college of Arts, Science & Commerce, Sion, Mumbai.

The inauguration of the event was done by the Chief Guest from the social justice & special assistance ministry, Yashwant More, Regional Deputy Commissioner, Department of Social Welfare, Konkan Bhavan.

This was followed by the training session on NVDA which was conducted by the CEO of NAB Delhi himself, Dr. Homiyar Mobedji. It was a practical training session for the participants on how technology can be used for the non-visual access of computers. Dr. Homiyar and his team along with the zeal of the participants to learn about NVDA made it a wonderful session as recorded from the feedback received.

The NVDA training was followed by a lunch break. Post the lunch break there was a session on eSpeak TTS in Marathi language and was conducted by Harshad Jadhav, Marathi Tester for the eSpeak project.

A total of 34 people attended the workshop held on the June 27, 2015 at SIES college of Arts, Science & Commerce, Sion, Mumbai.

The workshop saw participation from people from every walk of life, students, job seekers, special educators and the like. More than 45% of the attendants were students and 12% of them were trainers in professional life.

Forty-nine per cent of the attendants said their overall experience with the workshop was excellent, 43 per cent said it was very good while 8 per cent of the attendants felt their overall experience to be good.

Sixty-three per cent believed that the workshop was highly helpful for them personally and professionally, while 37 per cent believed that the workshop was surely helpful somewhat suggesting that they were very much satisfied with the workshops.

A whopping 74 per cent of the respondents were highly impressed by the trainer and termed him ‘excellent’, 23 per cent said he was very good and 3% said he was good.

Ninety-one per cent of the respondents were overwhelmed by the quality of work put in by our volunteers and termed them ‘excellent’. Nine per cent said the volunteers were very good.

Fifty-one per cent people regarded the content material provided as excellent, 34 per cent said the material was very good whereas 15 per cent said it was good.

					Pictured above: Participants undergoing training in eSpeak Marathi at the workshop in Mumbai

Learnings from the Workshop

Forty-two per cent of the respondents felt that the Marathi typing session which was conducted would immensely help them in their career and the overall response was that all the activities which happened in the workshops would help them in their profession.

Thirty-seven per cent of the respondents were satisfied with the workshop content and thought nothing more is required. Some other responses were directed towards need for more of such workshops as well as workshops in various other regional languages.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-in-e-speak-marathi

Report on the Training in the Use of eSpeak for Indian Languages during TOT Conducted by Enable India

nirmita — 2015-07-21T02:32:43Z

Enable India, Bangalore conducted a TOT for training computer teachers for the blind, which was held from May 11 to 20, 2015 at Blind Empowerment Association, Kolkata and was attended by 26 delegates.

A day was dedicated to training the participants in the use of Espeak with Indian Languages. The participants from various states were educated in the following:

Advantages of NVDA.
Important configurations of NVDA.
How to select various languages in Windows 7 and 8.
The Indian language keyboard.
Sequence of characters.

All the participants were made to type in their respective languages. It was noted that the participants were able to understand the layout of the Indian Language keyboard very easily.

The intention of adding Indian language training in the TOT was to empower the trainers to teach their students in their own mother tongue.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/espeak-indian-languages-during-tot-conducted-by-enable-india

Report on Training on the Use of eSpeak Hindi on Windows and Android Platforms

nirmita — 2015-07-21T14:30:54Z

Indian Association for the Blind conducted a one day workshop on the use of eSpeak for Windows and Android platforms on May 28, 2015. Twenty-seven delegates attended the training programme held at Indian Association for the Blind, Delhi. Kaifee Asami was the trainer. The programme introduced eSpeak for reading and writing in Hindi on both computers and mobiles.

The session started with introduction to NVDA and its advantages as a screen reader. This was followed by demonstration of reading Hindi text using eSpeak. Different variants of eSpeak were also demonstrated.

A hands on session was conducted following the comprehension, where in the participants were made to type the Hindi characters and a few simple words. This was followed by demonstration of the Android platform and its versatility. The participants were shown how to download eSpeak from the Google Play store and how to configure eSpeak in the keyboard and language settings.

A few of the participants who had internet connectivity on their android devices were then able to read Hindi newspapers on the internet. The overall satisfaction of the students was appreciable. Most of them expressed deep satisfaction on the day's event.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-in-use-of-espeak-hindi-on-windows-and-android-platforms

Report on the Use of eSpeak in Urdu and Kashmiri

nirmita — 2015-07-21T15:39:50Z

NVDA team conducted a training programme at Kashmir University from June 15 to 17, 2015. Forty-four delegates attended the training programme. Kaifee Asami was the trainer.

Inauguration

The programme was inaugurated by the District Commissioner of Srinagar. He emphasised the importance of Technology in lives of persons with visual impairment. Head of Radio Kashmir, Head of Cell for the differently-abled students, Kashmir University, Head Librarian – Alama Iqbal Library and Head of Students Cell also graced the occasion.

The inauguration was followed by a press conference. At least 7 members of print and electronic media covered the function. The event also got a lot of publicity on Doordarshan Kashmir and Radio Kashmir.

The inaugural function was attended by more than 100 persons with blindness, parents of blind students, faculty and staff of Kashmir University and volunteers helping during the event.

The main training was conducted in the Reading / Training room of Alama Iqbal Library. Commendable efforts were put in by the library staff for arranging for the 2 day training.

Students from all across the Kashmir valley attended the training. They were overwhelmed by the technology presented. Most of them were very new to screen readers, whilst most had never imagined that reading and writing in Urdu was possible for blind persons.


Above: File photo of delegates posing at the end of the training session held in Kashmir

The event was declared as a grand success by one and all. There were numerous requests for conducting many more such trainings,as J&K has been left out of the technological revolution.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-use-of-espeak-in-urdu-and-kashmiri

Report on eSpeak Marathi Training at MJ College, Jalgaon

nirmita — 2015-07-22T01:22:40Z

The Centre for Internet & Society conducted a workshop for reading and writing using eSpeak with NVDA at Dreamy Eyes Resource Centre in Jalgaon on June 23 and 24, 2015.


Participants seen practicing on their computers during the workshop

The two days event comprised of the following trainings:

Introduction to NVDA.
Advantages of NVDA.
Configuration of NVDA.
Installation of Espeak for Indian Languages [Developer Version 1.31]
Configuration of Espeak synthesiser.
Configuration of Language options in Control Pannel.
Introduction to Marathi Keyboard.
Typing short words and sentences.
Reading and Comprehension in Marathi.
Knowledge about Assistive devices.

Most of the participants were college going students, who were very excited to start reading and writing in Marathi. They expressed deep gratitude for empowering them in their mother tongue.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-espeak-marathi-training-at-mj-college

An Interview of Vera Franz

praskrishna — 2013-07-15T09:49:16Z

This interview was conducted at the Diplomatic Conference to Conclude a Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works by Visually Impaired Persons and Persons with Print Disabilities on June 26, 2013.

Vera Franz praises Rahul Cherian of Inclusive Planet while talking about her work. Watch the video below:

Video

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/interview-of-vera-franz

Goa (Govt) Notifications

praskrishna — 2013-07-16T06:11:56Z

The following folder contains a series of notifications published by the Government of Goa.

Click on the links at the end to download the PDFs or Word Files (zip folders) to read the notifications containing:

Rules Regulating the Grant of Award to a Married Couple in which Either of the Partners or Both are Disabled Persons.
The Scheme for Scholarship for Differently-abled Persons
Incentive Scheme for Employment of Differently-abled Persons
Scheme to Provide Subsidy to Kadamba Transport Corporation in Lieu of Travel Concession Provided to Senior Citizens and Persons with Disabilities.
Goa Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Rules, 1997.
Scheme to Provide "Residential School" to the Visually Disabled Children.
Voluntary Retirement Scheme for Government Employees who are Parents of Persons with Disabilities.
Rules Regulating the Grant of Financial Assistance to the Physically Handicapped Persons for the Purpose of Undertaking Gainful Self Employment in the State of Goa.
Rules Regulating the Grant of Financial Assistance to a Person with Severe Disability.
Schemes for Social Audit in Respect of the Implementing Agencies under the Persons with Disabilities Act.
Scheme of State Awards for the Welfare of Persons with Disabilities.

Click on the links below to download the files:

PDF Zip Folder (1336 Kb)
Word Zip Folder (230 Kb)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/resources/goa-govt-notifications

How tech brings self-reliance to students with disabilities

praskrishna — 2016-05-29T07:47:30Z

Rakshit Malik, 18, has every reason to be pleased with himself. He just scored 96.4% in his Class 12 exam -the third-highest score in CBSE's disabled category.

The article was published by the Times of India on May 29, 2016. Nirmita Narasimhan gave inputs.

He treats his visual impairment matter-of-factly: "My ability is stronger than my disability". A humanities student who wants to specialize in history, Malik learns by listening. He hears the material, pauses, and assimilates it. "While we found audio versions of NCERT textbooks in Classes 9 and 10, they are not available for Classes 11 and 12," says Malik, who then used his own method. "Mama recorded herself reading out my textbooks".

This year, there was merely a 12-mark difference between the student who topped the disabled category and the highest scorer in the exam. In many cases, learning outcomes are aligning, and advances in assistive technology have something to do with the trend. While it is still essential to know Braille, the system of reading raised dots by touch is falling out of use in many parts of the world. In the US, fewer than 10% of the visually impaired read Braille. Now, digital screen readers and magnifiers, and text-tospeech apps make sure that a blind student and a sighted one are on the same page. "Tactile diagrams can be used to teach geography , science and other subjects that require visual aids," explains Nirmita Narasimhan, accessibility expert and policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society , Bangalore.

As more learning material is put online, students have it much easier than they did a generation ago. They also get study notes from peer-to-peer forums.

According to the 2011 census, 2.21% of the Indian population -around 26.8 million -have some form of disability . On paper, the state is committed to supporting these students, and to providing aids and appliances, access to material, scribes and readers; and easing exam processes.In practice, it is far from smooth, explains Diana Joseph of the Fourth Wave Foundation, a Karnataka NGO that bridges the gap between government and students with the Nanagu Shaale programme."Each integrated education resource trainer has to oversee 30 schools. So it's often perfunctory . For example, they may supply hearing tools, without explaining that the battery must be replaced."

Over the last five years, there has been progress in both technology and policy. Copyright restrictions have been lifted for the use of the disabled. Textbooks have been proactively digitized. But ultimately , success depends on the mundane but critical matter of the right standards, explains Dipendra Manocha, who leads the DAISY for All project in India. DAISY, or Digital Accessible Information System, is an international standard for printed material that can be read in Braille, large print, audio, etc on a computer or mobile phone. By contrast, something scanned as an image file can't be read.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/news/the-times-of-india-may-29-2016-how-tech-brings-self-reliance-to-students-with-disabilities

Centre for Internet and Society

Report on Training in Basic Computing with use of NVDA and eSpeak in Assamese

Report on Training in Basic Computing with use of NVDA and eSpeak in Marathi & Konkani

Report on eSpeak Tamil Computing with NVDA Training Workshop at Tiruchirappalli

Inauguration

The Valedictory Function

Report on One day Workshop on Use of eSpeak Hindi with NVDA

Report on 30 Days Summer Course on Basic Computer Competencies and Language Proficiency

Inauguration

Session on Computers with NVDA

English Language proficiency :

Valedictory Function

Thanks to Supporters

Report on Training in eSpeak Marathi

Learnings from the Workshop

Report on the Training in the Use of eSpeak for Indian Languages during TOT Conducted by Enable India

Report on Training on the Use of eSpeak Hindi on Windows and Android Platforms

Report on the Use of eSpeak in Urdu and Kashmiri

Inauguration

Report on eSpeak Marathi Training at MJ College, Jalgaon

An Interview of Vera Franz

Video

Goa (Govt) Notifications

Contents

How tech brings self-reliance to students with disabilities