Centre for Internet and Society

Training of Malayalam eSpeak with NVDA

nirmita — 2015-07-20T15:19:35Z

NVDA team conducted a two days training on January 24 and 25, 2015 in Tiruvananthapuram. The programme was inaugurated by Dr. Veeramanikandan, Pro Vice Chancellor of the Kerala University and the eSpeak new version was launched by Suresh S, PSC member, who is an advocate for the blind in getting jobs in Kerala government.

Felicitation speeches were delivered by Prof. L. Unnikrishnan, Head of Department, Economics Department, SB College and Dr. Sindhu Nair, Professor at St. Michales College. Both colleges were running a DAISY resource centre for their students. The programme was chaired Er. N.T.Nair, vice chairman of Chakshumathi.

Chakshumathi’s main trainer Akhil M. took espeak Malayalam classes and Dr. Homiyar took classes on NVDA and accessible equipment. The participants were first given a round of training on reading with espeak and then given a through training on Malayalam keyboard layout and combinations.

Naufal T N, trainer of Chakshumathi gave an orientation to all participants on using mobile phones to read Malayalam newspapers and reading contents.

Closing ceremony on 25th was attended by Chakshumathi’s Chairman Prof. V.K. Damodaran, along with representatives IEEE SIGHT (Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technologies) who are the partners of Chakshumathi’s accessible eyes free science projects. IEEE was represented by their Humanitarian technologies former global chair Dr. Amarnath Raja and Ms. Holly Schneider Brown, SIGHT staff lead from New York headquarters. She was on a journey to Tiruvananthapuram and provided an update on the SIGHT program, as well as SIGHT group activities from around the world. Ms. Holy Brown distributed the certificates to participants.

Chakshumathi is now planning to conduct regional workshops on espeak and NVDA at their resource centres at Calicut University and Kochi office for local participants.

List of Participants

Ali Mon
Sudheer S
Sreehari Narayanan
Ajith Kumar
Subhin H
Abin H
Rajith Kumar
Nandhu C S
Kannan C S
Reshma S
Divya S
Marina Damiyan
Mariyumma C P
Nabeela M
Meharuniza S
Sreeja V.K.
Vineesh Kumar
Chandra Babu
Raghavan
Albert
Safi Saif
Santhosh
Robinraj
Mubina M
Sabeena M
Anil Kumar
Lijin A
Ashok Kumar
Prof. L. Unnikrishnan
Akhil M (Chief Trainer)
Noufal T N (Asst. Trainer)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-e-speak-malayalam-with-nvda

Training in Use of eSpeak with Malayalam

praskrishna — 2014-11-30T11:50:38Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) in partnership with DAISY Forum of India (DFI) and Chakshumathi Assistive Technology Centre, Trivandrum cordially invites all computer teachers for persons with visual impairment for a two day training in the use of eSpeak Malayalam with NVDA for reading and writing in Malayalam.

Training in the use of eSpeak with NVDA

Training in the use of Open Source Screen readers like NVDA will be a focal element of the event. As NVDA with the help of eSpeak provides support for eight Indian languages it will be promoted as a reading tool. The aim of the training is as follows:

The candidate should be able to read e-text using NVDA and eSpeak in any one of the eight Indian languages currently supported.
The candidate should be able to download accessible content from the various platforms and repositories of accessible material.
The candidate should be able to use computers as a knowledge searching tool.
The candidate should be able to type using either phonetic, In script or traditional keyboards.

The training will be provided by experts from CIS and DFI.

Who will benefit?

The event is targeted at promoting the use of eSpeak with NVDA amongst senior computer teachers for persons with visual impairment.

Facilities

Accommodation: Seperate accommodation will be provided for ladies and gents.
Food: Breakfast, lunch and dinner will be provided, courtesy Chakshumati.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/events/training-in-e-speak-malayalam

Mini TTT and MWT conducted in Hyderabad, India

dutta — 2016-12-15T05:28:44Z

Mini Train-the-Trainer and MediaWiki Trainer program was conducted on 10 and 11 December 2016 in Hyderabad. 15 Wikipedians from 4 cities of Andhra pradesh and Telangana 2 Indic Wikimedia communities participated in the event. Here is a report.

The 2016 iteration of mini Train-the-Trainer (TTT) and MediaWiki training (MWT) was conducted on 10 and 11 December 2016 at Golden Threshold, Hyderabad. Train-the-Trainer and MediaWiki training are two of the biggest annual national events conducted by CIS-A2K. The first program attempts to groom leadership skills among Indian Wikimedians, and in the second event Indian Wikimedians are taught about MediaWiki, Wikipedia tools, scripts, gadgets and technical things. Following the national-level annual event state-level or city level iterations of the program are conducted.

In this year’s Hyderabad mini TTT and MWT, 15 Wikimedians from 4 cities of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana - Hyderabad, Vijayawada, West Godavari, and Visakhapatnam participated. It is unfortunate that only 1 among the 15 participants was female. 14 of the participants were Telugu Wikimedians, and 1 was from Bengali Wikimedia community. CIS-A2K representative Tito Dutta, from Bangalore, participated in the event as a resource person. Rahmanuddin Shaik, a Telugu Wikimedia administrator Rahmanuddin Shaik attended as a technical resource person. Another CIS-A2K representative Pavan Santhosh was the co-ordinator and also a trainer during the event. 3 student Wikipedians from Andhra Loyola College, Vijayawada participated in the training.

On 10 December, the first day of the event, these topics were discussed:

Editing Wikipedia with Visual editor (mainly for new editors)
Enablings different options in the Wikipedia preference page, including Wikipedia skins, gadgets such as HotCat, Navigation pop up; (mainly for new editors)
Conducting a program: group discussion: pre-event activities, conducting an event, post-event activities, preparing report, reimbursement process, Global Metrics;
General discussion and knowledge sharing on topics like Wikimeetup, education program.

On 11 December, the second day of the event, these topics were discussed:

Wikipedia articles structure, and different Manual of Style topics
Wikipedia tools, gadgets;
Wikimedia Foundation new grant structure and different grant options
Introduction to Wikidata and Wikidata tools such as Wikidata game
Discussion on Telugu Wikipedia’s workplan

At the end of the event two Telugu Wikipedians a) User:Pranayraj1985 and b) User:Meena_gayathri.s, who completed 100wikidays challenge recently, were congratulated and felicitated.

Image source

Source: Wikimedia Commons. author: User:Pranayraj1985, license: CC SA 4.0 International

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mini-ttt-and-mwt-conducted-in-hyderabad-india

Mini Train-the-trainer and Mediawiki Training for Marathi Wikimedians in Pune

garule — 2016-05-28T02:45:22Z

During May 28-29 in Pune, a two-day long train-the-trainer programme and a Mediawiki training are being organised for the contributors of the Marathi-language Wikimedia projects like Marathi Wikipedia and Marathi Wikisource.

Agenda (for Mediawiki training):

Bug triage
Bots
Mediawiki extensions and scripts
Wikidata

Depending on the community needs, we will balance the depth of each topic.

Agenda (for Train-the-Trainer training):

Discussion with the community to come up with ideas on topics such as planning, organising and reporting outreach
Public speaking
Advanced editing skills
New grants structure.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/mini-train-the-trainer-and-mediawiki-training-for-wikimedians-in-pune