The Centre for Internet and Society
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Training of Malayalam eSpeak with NVDA
https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-e-speak-malayalam-with-nvda
<b>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. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Naufal T N, trainer of Chakshumathi gave an orientation to all participants on using mobile phones to read Malayalam newspapers and reading contents.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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.</p>
<hr />
<h3>List of Participants</h3>
<ol>
<li>Ali Mon</li>
<li>Sudheer S</li>
<li>Sreehari Narayanan</li>
<li>Ajith Kumar</li>
<li>Subhin H</li>
<li>Abin H</li>
<li>Rajith Kumar</li>
<li>Nandhu C S</li>
<li>Kannan C S</li>
<li>Reshma S</li>
<li>Divya S</li>
<li>Marina Damiyan</li>
<li>Mariyumma C P</li>
<li>Nabeela M</li>
<li>Meharuniza S</li>
<li>Sreeja V.K.</li>
<li>Vineesh Kumar</li>
<li>Chandra Babu</li>
<li>Raghavan</li>
<li>Albert </li>
<li>Safi Saif</li>
<li>Santhosh</li>
<li>Robinraj</li>
<li>Mubina M</li>
<li>Sabeena M</li>
<li>Anil Kumar</li>
<li>Lijin A</li>
<li>Ashok Kumar </li>
<li>Prof. L. Unnikrishnan</li>
<li>Akhil M (Chief Trainer) </li>
<li>Noufal T N (Asst. Trainer) </li>
</ol>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-e-speak-malayalam-with-nvda'>https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-e-speak-malayalam-with-nvda</a>
</p>
No publishernirmitaNVDATrainingAccessibilityE-Speak2015-07-20T15:19:35ZBlog EntryReport on use of eSpeak Bengali with NVDA
https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-use-of-espeak-bengali-with-nvda
<b>NVDA team conducted a training programme at Turnstone Matruchaya, Siligudi, West Bengal from September 7 to 9, 2015. Fourteen delegates attended. Nirmal Verma was the language trainer.</b>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Day 1</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Turnstone Matruchaya is an NGO working for the upliftment of Blind and other under privileged sections of the society. Located in midst of tea gardens, Turnstone Matruchaya had a perfect location for conducting a traning session.<br /><br />The workshop was attended by 14 computer teachers and special educators for the blind. The participants came from Sikkim, Darjeling, various districts of West Bengal etc. The participants had some idea about NVDA, though support for indian languages was a new concept for them. There was a lot of excitement and enthusiasm for learning to read and write in Bengali and Hindi.<br /><br />The workshop started with a round of introductions, where in each participant also spelt out his or her needs and expectations from the workshop. Most of them expressed the need for learning about an alternative screen reader, which would help them read and write in their vernacular language.<br /><br />This was followed by understanding the benefits of NVDA in comparision to other screen readers. The participants were taken for a brief tour of the NVDA home page and explained the process of downloading the installer for NVDA.<br /><br />A hands on demonstration was given about installation of NVDA, followed by the participants installing NVDA on their systems.<br /><br />This was followed by introduction to the menus of NVDA, and their utility. Each participant was instructed to configure NVDA, as per their requirements. They were instructed to select a suitable voice variant and rate, and also make certain changes in the keyboard and mouce settings.<br /><br />They were than given Bengali text to read. This text was taken from a Bengali daily newspaper. All the participants were very comfortable with the Espeak TTS, and were able to comprehend the text.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Day 2</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Day 2 started with introduction to the Bengali keyboard, followed by practice of typing words and sentences. The afternoon session was dedicated to writing practice, which was followed by a session on Bookshare as a source of accessible reading material.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Day 3</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Day 3 began with a revision session for Bengali keystrokes. This was followed by a session on using Espeak on Android. Various other features of the Android platform were also demonstrated during the session.<br /><br />The afternoon session was dedicated to giving information about different schemes for the benefit of the Blind. The participants were informed about the ADIP scheme, Loan scheme of Saksham, E-card scheme of Railways etc.<br /><br />The workshop ended with a feed back session. All the participants expressed their deep gratitude for the workshop and have promised to send their feedback on a regular basis.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-use-of-espeak-bengali-with-nvda'>https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-use-of-espeak-bengali-with-nvda</a>
</p>
No publishernirmitaNVDAAccessibilityE-Speak2015-11-09T15:57:18ZBlog EntryReport on Training in eSpeak Marathi
https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-in-e-speak-marathi
<b>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.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A total of 34 people attended the workshop held on the June 27, 2015 at SIES college of Arts, Science & Commerce, Sion, Mumbai.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br /> 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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.</p>
<p style="text-align: center; "><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Workshop.png" alt="Workshop" class="image-inline" title="Workshop" /></p>
<table class="invisible">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th></th><th></th><th></th><th></th><th></th>
<td colspan="25">Pictured above: Participants undergoing training in eSpeak Marathi at the workshop in Mumbai</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Learnings from the Workshop</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-in-e-speak-marathi'>https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-in-e-speak-marathi</a>
</p>
No publishernirmitaNVDAAccessibilityE-Speak2015-07-16T01:48:09ZBlog EntryReport on Training in Basic Computing with use of eSpeak and NVDA in Oriya
https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/training-in-basic-computing-with-use-of-espeak-nvda-odia
<b>This training was held at Orissa Association for the Blind at Bhubaneswar from February 8 to 10, 2015. Thirty six delegates attended the programme. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The highlight of the training was that we received an overwhelming response from the participants. The training had to be conducted in the main auditorium of the Orissa Association for the Blind, instead of the computer lab, which had only a capacity of seating 10 trainees. The participants acknowledged the importance of Oriya support for their career growth. There was a lot of excitement amongst the participants to know how to read and type in Oriya.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The eSpeak training was preceded by a Career Counseling Workshop, which highlighted the importance of Reading and Writing in the local vernacular language for a career growth. The main challenge faced during the training was that there was virtually no material available in Orriya on the internet in Unicode font, for the participants to practice reading. Hence the participants had to first learn typing and than create their own little lines to read.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The training was conducted by Ganshyam Mohante, who had also contributed as the tester for Oriya. The Inauguration was attended by the whole managing committee of Orissa Association for the Blind, who had specially assembled for the event.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Orissa Association for the Blind is also very keen on organizing the 15 day follow up programme, where in more persons will be trained in reading and writing in Oriya, along with the knowledge for using basic computers.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/training-in-basic-computing-with-use-of-espeak-nvda-odia'>https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/training-in-basic-computing-with-use-of-espeak-nvda-odia</a>
</p>
No publishernirmitaNVDAAccessibilityE-Speak2015-06-03T01:24:53ZBlog EntryReport on the Training in the Use of eSpeak Hindi with NVDA
https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-the-training-in-the-use-of-espeak-hindi-with-nvda
<b>This workshop was organized by the newly established NGO called “Lakshay for the Differently Abled’”. The main objective of the organization is to spread the knowledge of Assistive Technology amongst the Visually Impaired population of the State of Jarkhand.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The event was conducted on-line by Dr. Homiyar over skype, with local support from Mritunjay Kumar and Zainab.<br /><br />The participants were a mix of Trainers and students from all walks of life. They had come in from all parts of Jarkhand and Bihar.<br /><br />The event started by an inauguration by the local Municipal Deputy Mayor. The DY. Mayor of Ranchi promised a new premises for the newly formed NGO during his inaugural speech.<br /><br />The main training began with a round of introductions and Expectations from the participants.<br /><br />This was followed by sessions on Introduction to NVDA, Advantages of NVDA, Download and Configuration of NVDA and Configuration of Windows for Hindi.<br /><br />The post lunch session was dedicated to explanation of different menus of NVDA, followed by comprehension of Hindi text using Espeak.<br /><br />The last session was used to introduce the Hindi Inscript Keyboard.<br /><br />Day 2 started with a quick revision of the Keyboard followed by an extended session on Hindi typing.<br /><br />The post lunch session was dedicated to Bookshare and Reading and Writing on the Android platform.<br /><br /></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-the-training-in-the-use-of-espeak-hindi-with-nvda'>https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-the-training-in-the-use-of-espeak-hindi-with-nvda</a>
</p>
No publishernirmitaAccessibilityE-Speak2015-10-04T10:52:40ZBlog EntryReport on the Progress in Bengali Language Testing
https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-the-progress-in-bengali-language-testing
<b>The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is doing a project on developing a text-to-speech software in 15 Indian languages. This blog post captures the key updates of the work done by CIS team for Bengali language. </b>
<p>Indian Bengali was added to eSpeak by the Indian team. The language was added and improved based on user testing and review.</p>
<ol>
<li>Conjunct consonant pronunciation when (ba) is conjunct was corrected.</li>
<li>INHERENT vowel PRONUNCIEATION SOME TIMES NEED TO BE SUPPRESSED. It was made possible programmatically.</li>
<li>Changed phoneme rules for য dZV modified to ্) যা :&</li>
<li>sissue with য়/ Oj eg; desired pronunciation /Poi'sa but was being pronounced as 'payosa'</li>
<li>Modified the [phoneme to jV and phone,me rules C)য় (C j</li>
<li>Issue with 'ja'fala, that should double the pronunciation of the preceeding consonant, was rectified. Eg; Onnay was pronounced as 'onyai' as against the desired pronunciation</li>
<li>The Bengali files sent by the developer on 20th December and Third January had been updated in the version.</li>
<li>71 Bengali Exception words had been included with their pronunciation rules - where inherent vowel even being between two consonant is not pronounced.</li>
<li>Changed phoneme rules for য dZV modified to ্) যা :&</li>
<li>issue with য়/ Oj was corrected. eg; desired pronunciation /Poi'sa but was being pronounced as 'payosa'</li>
<li>Issue with 'ja'fala, that should double the pronunciation of the preceeding consonant was rectified. Eg; Onnay was pronounced as 'onyai' as against the desired pronunciation, The Bengali files sent by the developer on, 20th December and Third January had been updated in the version.</li>
<li>4/Auguest/2014Few exception words had been added দশটা , তিরিশটা, চল্লিশটা, পঞ্চাশটা, ষাটটা, সত্তরটা, করবে, বলবে, চলবে, শুনবে, শুনব, মানকচু, ওলকপি, ফটকিরি, চরণপদ্ম.</li>
<li>In eSpeak Indian test build 1.11, the following exception words were added:</li>
</ol><ol>
<li>অমরসঙ্গী O:mor'SongI</li>
<li>চুপচাপ cup'c,ap</li>
<li>পাগলা pa',g'la</li>
<li>পাগলামো pa',g'la'mo</li>
<li>মর্যাদা mO:rJ,ada</li>
<li>আমপাতা 'ampa,ta</li>
<li>আকাশবানী akaS'banI</li>
<li>বিদঘুটে bi,dg#Ut.e</li>
<li>দেবদেবী deb'debI</li>
<li>অথচ O:t#oco</li>
<li>আমরাই am,rai</li>
<li>খেলা k#&'la</li>
<li>খেলবো k#el'bo</li>
<li>চারটি car,t.i</li>
<li>একটি ekt.i</li>
<li>একটা &kt.a:</li>
<li>দরকার dO:r'kar'</li>
<li>দেখছি dek#'c#i</li>
<li>বলছি bo,lc#i</li>
<li>করছি ko'rc#i</li>
<li>শুনছি Sun'c#i</li>
<li>ভাবছি b#a'bc#i</li>
<li>ঘুরছি g#U,rc#i</li>
<li>দিনরাত din'rat.</li>
<li>সবরকম SO:b,rO:kom</li>
<li>কাজকর্ম kaJ,kO:'rmo</li>
<li>দুঃখ duk#'k#o</li>
<li>তিনটে tin't.e</li>
<li>চারটে car't.e</li>
<li>পাঁচটা p~ac't.a</li>
<li>সাতটা Sat't.a</li>
<li>আটটা a:t.'t.a</li>
<li>দশটা dOS't.:a</li>
<li>একুশটা ekuS't.:a</li>
<li>বাইশটা ba:iS't.:a</li>
<li>তেইশটা tei'St.:a</li>
<li>চব্বিশটা co'b'biS't.:a</li>
<li>পঁচিশটা p~o'ciS't.:a</li>
<li>ছাব্বিশটা ch:a'b'biS't.:a</li>
<li>সাতাশটা Sat.aS't.:a</li>
<li>আঠাশটা a:t.#a:S't.:a</li>
<li>উনত্রিশটা un'triS't.:a</li>
<li>তিরিশটা tiriS't.:a</li>
<li>একত্রিশটা ek'triS't.:a</li>
<li>বত্রিশটা bot:riS't.:a</li>
<li>তেত্রিশটা tetriS't.:a</li>
<li>চৌঁত্রিশটা c~ou:triS't.:a</li>
<li>পঁয়ত্রিশটা p~oj'triS't.:a</li>
<li>ছত্রিশটা chot:riS't.:a</li>
<li>সাঁইত্রিশটা S~ai'triS't.:a</li>
<li>আটত্রিশটা a:t.triS't.:a</li>
<li>উনচল্লিশটা uno'col'l:iS't.:a</li>
<li>চল্লিশটা col'l:iS't.:a</li>
</ol>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-the-progress-in-bengali-language-testing'>https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-the-progress-in-bengali-language-testing</a>
</p>
No publishernirmitaNVDAAccessibilityE-Speak2015-04-05T16:23:35ZBlog EntryReport on the Progress in Assamese Language Testing
https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-progress-in-assamese-language-testing
<b>The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is doing a project on developing a text-to-speech software in 15 Indian languages. This blog post captures the key updates of the work done by CIS team for Assamese language.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Assamese was added to eSpeak by the Indian team. Rules for the language were introduced and after testing and review, modifications were carried out to ensure basic support. The present document lists issues which were addressed under this project.</p>
<ol>
<li>Pronunciation rule changes for - 40 - 49. 52 - 56 57 - 59 61 - 64 66 - 69 72 - 75 78 - 80 82 - 86 88 - 89 92 – 99 were corrected.</li>
<li>Pronunciation rule for Hundreds _0C rule were also added and improved.</li>
<li>Conjunctives in asamese were added.</li>
<li>Simple Assamese words following general rules of pronunciation were reviewed.</li>
<li>Finalized pronunciation of joint words.</li>
<li>Modification of rules for (sO) becoming (hO) when in the beginning of the word was done.</li>
<li>Modification of rules for /Ja falaa was done.</li>
<li>Revised the rules for /khio.</li>
<li>Fixed the pronunciation of individual alphabets.</li>
<li>Fixed the pronunciations of "ব" when a vowel is suffixed.</li>
<li>Fixed the pronunciation of "ূ" suffixed to a consonant.</li>
<li>Fixed the pronunciations of "ৱ" in words.</li>
<li>Fixed the pronunciation of a few words with combination of three consonants.</li>
<li>Fixed the pronunciation of "চ" and "ছ" in a word.</li>
<li>Fixed the pronunciations of "ষ" in a word.</li>
<li>Words end with "ত" has an additional sound of "ো" were removed.</li>
<li>The pronunciations of "স", "শ" and "ষ" when it is contracted with another consonant (juktakhor) in a word was made similar to Bengali pronunciation (utcharon).</li>
<li>Pronunciations of "প্ৰ", "ক্ৰ", "শ্ৰ", "ত্ৰ", "গ্ৰ", etc in a word without any suffix of vowel was made clear.</li>
<li>Pronunciation of words ending with "jophola (য)" were rectified.</li>
<li>Pronunciations of Words with "jophola" in the middle were corrected.</li>
</ol>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-progress-in-assamese-language-testing'>https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-progress-in-assamese-language-testing</a>
</p>
No publishernirmitaNVDAAccessibilityE-Speak2015-04-05T16:16:05ZBlog EntryReport on eSpeak Tamil Computing with NVDA Training Workshop in Tirunelveli
https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-using-espeak-tamil-with-nvda-training-tirunelveli
<b>The training workshop by the NVDA team was held at Anne Jane Askwith Higher Secondary School for the Visually Impaired, Palayamkottai, Tirunelveli from June 3 - 7, 2015. Sixteen delegates attended the workshop.</b>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Inauguration</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The eSpeak Tamil Computing with NVDA Training workshop planned for 5 days (3<sup>rd</sup> June 2015 to 7<sup>th</sup> June 2015) extensively for visually challenged college students and teachers was <b>inaugurated</b> on 3<sup>rd</sup> June 2015 morning by Mr. V. Jayakumar. District Project Officer for Rural Women Development, Tirunelveli. Mr. J Kingston James Paul, Principal of the School gave the Welcome Address. Mr. S. Shankar Subbiah, Assistive Technology Consultant and representative of National Association for Blind, New Delhi and The Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore, the sponsors of the workshop explained the purpose of the Workshop with the need for Tamil computing becoming necessity among the visually challenged in the present educational and employment context. Mr. Periadurai, the Co-ordinator of the Workshop gave the Vote of Thanks and emphasized on using NVDA in Government given Cost Free Laptops as it is preloaded and supports Tamil language too. He thanked the sponsors as this is first of its kind organized in this region for the visually challenged students as hands on training.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Training Hall in the School served as the venue for training. In order to facilitate the participants with more concentrated and time efforts, High Tea with Snacks and Lunch were also served for the Training days at the Venue. The Girl students numbering 10 who came from neighboring Districts were given free accommodation in the School. Morning breakfast and Evening Dinner was provided by the Organizers. There were volunteers from Smile Charitable Trust, Tirunelveli who gave Laptops to those students did not have and also assisted the Trainees, who were new to computer. The participant trainees numbering to 16 were from Tirunelveli district and nearby districts like Kanyakumari, Tuticorin, Virudhunagar and Ramanathapuram of Tamilnadu state.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Workshop Schedule</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The workshop began with Resource persons, Mr. Pandiyaraj, Mr. G. Kumaresan and Mr. S Shankar Subbiah continuing with the training activities on their expertise areas. The below were the activities conducted during the training period.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b> </b></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Day 1: June 3, 2015</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Forenoon</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>The whole group of Trainees had few who were new to computers, few with knowledge on operating until the level of Notepad and few in an advanced level working on MS Word and Internet.</li>
<li>A general overview on Operating System, Applications available in Windows, Screen readers and other Assistive Technology like OCR, Scan and Read applications available for Visually Challenged were dealt with.</li>
<li>NVDA was loaded in Laptops who did not have them installed previously and Tamil language keyboard settings was added.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Afternoon</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>The group was divided in to three groups. First without prior knowledge on computers were given training on Keyboard mapping and basic computer operation commands through NVDA.</li>
<li>The second group was given practices on NVDA shortcuts, Windows operations and an introduction to Word.</li>
<li>The third group was given exercises to work efficiently on using MS Word through Shortcuts and Tamil computing introduction through passages to read.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b> </b></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Day 2: June 4, 2015</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Forenoon</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Tamil keyboard layout mapping of Microsoft Windows for default Unicode Tamil Font typing were introduced to all the trainees by the Resource person and it was decided to use Notepad for uniform training.</li>
<li>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.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Afternoon</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>The Trainees were trained to identify the keys for combinations of vowels for typing and practicing by themselves as few of them wanted more time. Combinations with two letter, three letter, four letter word units given as dictation to those who were bit advanced in their typing skills.</li>
<li>A play and learn session was organized to say the keystrokes for vowels and consonants at the end for memorizing. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b> </b></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Day 3: June 5, 2015</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Forenoon</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>The Trainees were trained by giving large sets of four, five and bigger letter units of words to type and practice as a revision. </li>
<li>It was followed up by smaller phrases and then sentences to be typed by the Trainees.</li>
<li>The trainees at this point of time, were introduced with short cuts for navigation within the text, spell check, cut, copy, paste commands. Almost everyone were in the same page at this point of time, regarding Tamil typing skills. And, now they were allowed to use Notepad or MS Word, whichever is comfortable for them.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Afternoon</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>The trainees were made to listen to the Tamil text paragraphs with the help of NVDA screen-reader supported by eSpeak voice.</li>
<li>The trainees were suggested to type out the phrases listened on a separate document.</li>
<li>The settings of NVDA to change Voice, rate and other settings were given for practice to do themselves as a revision. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b> </b></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Day 4: June 6, 2015</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Forenoon</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>The trainees were introduced to toggle language between English and Tamil for bilingual content typing and practice.</li>
<li>Next training on file operations like simple formatting, folder creation, saving the file in Unicode format to required folder and retrieval of the particular file. Similarly, for navigating, opening the file saved and continuing editing. </li>
<li>The Trainees were given a home work to listen a Tamil content, type and save it as a separate file.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Afternoon</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Introduction to HTML, various tags and formatting that can be done, Forms and fields, Email Clients and Browsers were given to the Trainees. Usage of Tamil in Internet, and the browsers supporting the Unicode formatted content and the NVDA development efforts to support Internet browsing was discussed.</li>
<li>Introduction on DAISY books and knowledge sharing on the available resources to read a DAISY book was done.</li>
<li>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.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b> </b></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Day 5: June 7, 2015</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Forenoon</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> The trainees were given information on Higher Education options available as well as career opportunities ahead in Government and Private Sector. The trainees were explained of various scholarship and assistive devices schemes as they had a request have a session on this.</li>
<li>This was followed up with a game based assessment for their Computer skills and Tamil computing knowledge imparted through training. It was a two hour session, with initial 45 minutes being spent as a chain to say the right keystrokes for letters, keystrokes for different words and make a sentence using the keystrokes for Tamil alone. The next 45 minutes concentrated on their bilingual word processing skills, shortcuts, file operations, formatting through interactive questions, and group quiz. These the students felt like a revision and practiced them on their Laptops too.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b> </b></p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">The Valedictory Function</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">After the Lunch, The eSpeak Tamil Computing with NVDA Training workshop conducted for 5 days (3<sup>rd</sup> June 2015 to 7<sup>th</sup> June 2015) had a great Valedictory function presided by Mr. T. Manoharan, District Officer for Welfare of Differently Abled, Tirunelveli. The District Officer, also felicitated the gathering and distributed the Certificates to the participants. Few students demonstrated their Tamil computing skills to the District Officer by operating on Laptop. He was happy to note that and informed the Trainees he would discuss with the higher authorities to organize more such Workshops during the holidays or after Laptop being distributed. He thanked the organizers for choosing Tirunelveli and invited the local TV media reporter immediately to make a record of it. This would be shared in his sensitization programme for Government officials to create awareness on potential capabilities of the Visually Impaired if training opportunities were given particularly in computers. The certificates were distributed to the Trainees thereafter. The Principal of the School, Mr. Kingston also gave a felicitation talk on how the training have to be further continued through practice. He thanked the sponsors and organizers for a timely measure to use the Summer holidays much useful for the Trainees by learning Tamil computing. Vote of thanks to CIS, NAB and the organizers was given by Mr. Periadurai, the Co-ordinator. The training that one such programme to be conducted in Tirunelveli as per the District Officer felt much useful and requested to extend in coming Holidays ended up with the National Anthem.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Previously, the Tamil equivalent ‘Dinamani’ of The New Indian Express covered with a one fourth page content of the Training programme interacting with the students and the coordinator. A scanned copy of this news is attached herewith.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b> </b></p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Feedback</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Ms. Gnanam, a Tamil Teacher felt it would be now easy to type her lesson plans in Tamil and she could read more e-text novels available in Tamil. Also, do emails in Tamil. She thanked the Organizers for a good stay in their old school and a useful training with her friends coming together.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Ms. Keerthika, a graduate who exhibited her typing talent to the Officer was happy and felt that this day was a markable in Life for her. The five days training introduced her to many shortcuts not known to her and also gave her more confidence now for using computers in her higher studies and career.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The mother of Ms. Anna Sundari, felt that it was a great opportunity for all the trainees as they were able to spend their time much useful. And, as mother is happy to see her Girl typing in Tamil all their names. She thanked the organizers for the workshop in a nearby district and wanted one such run regularly in the school. This would help the students in their education, reduce dependency on scribes, readers and work independently.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-using-espeak-tamil-with-nvda-training-tirunelveli'>https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-using-espeak-tamil-with-nvda-training-tirunelveli</a>
</p>
No publishernirmitaNVDAAccessibilityE-Speak2015-07-12T07:50:27ZBlog EntryReport on 5 day TOT for Training in Use of Espeak Kannada with NVDA
https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-5-day-tot-for-training-in-use-of-espeak-kannada-with-nvda
<b>A unique programme was organized in partnership with Mitra Jyothi – Bangalore, Enable India – Bangalore and NFB Karnataka. The aim of the programme was to empower the Computer Teacherrs for the blind in the use of Espeak Kannada and apprise them with Modern Teaching Techniques for the Blind. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The training programme was held from September 21 - 25, 2015 at Mithra Jyoti in Bangalore. Fourteen delegates attended the programme. Suresh, Sandesh and Moses from Enable India were the trainers. NFB Karnataka helped in sourcing the participants, Mitra Jyothi hosted the event and the female participants and the trainers were from Enable India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The workshop started with a round of introductions and expectations from the participants. All the participants expressed various needs, which include the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>Need to learn to read and write in Kannada.</li>
<li>Need to learn new teaching Techniques.</li>
<li>Need to learn how to make accessible materials for teaching computers.</li>
<li>Need for learning EYE tool and /spelling tools.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><br />The participants were a blend of Sighted and Blind Trainers. The Sighted trainers were very keen in knowing all they could about the new Teaching Techniques and the Screen Readers. They were also excited to know more about Assistive Technology for partially sighted students.<br /><br />The Blind trainers showed special interest in NVDA and Assistive Technology.<br /><br />The Session began with an introduction to NVDA and its advantages followed by a detailed presentation by Suresh.<br /><br />The validation function was conducted by Major A. Singh – CEO Mitra Jyothi.<br /><br /></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-5-day-tot-for-training-in-use-of-espeak-kannada-with-nvda'>https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-5-day-tot-for-training-in-use-of-espeak-kannada-with-nvda</a>
</p>
No publishernirmitaAccessibilityE-Speak2015-10-04T10:34:33ZBlog EntryNVDA e-Speak Text-to-Speech Project Update (March 2014)
https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/nvda-e-speak-update-march-2014
<b>CIS in partnership with the Daisy Forum of India is engaged in a project supported by The Hans Foundation to develop enhancements to the open source screen reader for Windows NVDA (Non Visual desktop Access) and e-Speak text-to-speech synthesiser in 15 Indian languages.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Under the NVDA project, we have been working in the past year on issues relating to Excel, Power Point and MS Outlook. The issues which have been fixed are:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>3680 : Read all formula in excel sheet (NVDA+f7).</li>
<li>3681 : Read all comments in excel sheet (NVDA+f7).</li>
<li>Finished implementation for 'viewing modes' supported like Cells-Flat, Row-Cells, Column-Cells, etc.</li>
<li>Pressing NVDA+f7 will print a dialog box. This has a choice to show cells with comment or formula. Pressing 'Enter' at any selection in the tree will close dialog and select cell or area.</li>
<li>3231: NVDA incorrectly speaks previously entered but later deleted characters when the space bar is pressed in PowerPoint.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">#3538: Office 2010, NVDA now reads the selected symbols in the insert|symbols dialog box in Word and Excel 2010.</li>
<li>#2921: In Excel, NVDA will say 'has comment' if the cell has a comment in it.</li>
<li>#3043 : In Excel, Ctrl+A doesn't notify the change in selection.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">#1938 : In word 2007 and 2010, NVDA does not automatically speak the error text in the spell checker dialog after the first time the dialog is launched if the focus is already in the error text field.</li>
<li>Ctrl + Up and Down arrows in Word now skip blank paragraphs.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">#3431: Spell check in Word 2010 now reads the correct context error text instead of reading all bolded text in the context.</li>
<li>#3290: Bulleted text is now correctly read with Ctrl+Up and Down arrows.</li>
<li>#1686: Protected documents are now read in Word 2010.</li>
<li>#649: Status bar in Word Office 2010 is now read.</li>
<li>#2816: Auto complete suggested contacts in Outlook 2010 are now read.</li>
<li>2047: Language detection in Word is available now.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Some of these fixes are available in NVDA and can be downloaded from <a href="http://www.nvaccess.org">www.nvaccess.org</a>. The info about these fixes can be checked in what’s new section of the application at the website.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We have also been working on some documentation for the project, primarily FAQs to cater to the community’s needs for users switching from Jaws to NVDA which is available at <a class="external-link" href="http://code.google.com/p/saksham-projects/wiki/Tutorials">http://code.google.com/p/saksham-projects/wiki/Tutorials.</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The project wiki is available at <a href="http://code.google.com/p/saksham-projects/wiki/WikiContrib">http://code.google.com/p/saksham-projects/wiki/WikiContrib.</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We are also working on the development of e-speak text-to-speech synthesisers for the following languages:</p>
<ol style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Hindi, </li>
<li>Bengali, </li>
<li>Telugu, </li>
<li>Malayalam, </li>
<li>Sindhi, </li>
<li>Punjabi, </li>
<li>Gujrati, </li>
<li>Oriya, </li>
<li>Asamese and </li>
<li>Manipuri.</li>
</ol>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">They are all in different stages of development. We are near to closing our work on Gujrati this month. The issues which we have worked on are:</p>
<ol style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Introduction of Gujarati in e-speak.</li>
<li>The following issues were identified by the reviewer and closed:</li>
</ol>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Character support for Gujarati language was introduced.</li>
<li>Introduced rules for Gujarati language.</li>
<li>Gujarati numbers have been introduced and set according to the feedback received. </li>
<li>Several other changes made.</li>
<li>Fixed the R sound which was sounding inappropriate when at the end of a word.Fixed the number sound 200 according to the feedback received.</li>
<li>Problems with half characters where the half characters come before the same full character have been fixed.</li>
<li>e-Speak could not join sounds of these two characters: ka, ch, tta, ta.</li>
<li> The character name of the character [anna] has been modified according to the feedback received.</li>
<li>Number 2 has been modified when it comes as the third character from the right. </li>
<li>The name of two characters: [Hnna], [ ણ ], [adda] [ ડ઼ ] was modified according to the feedback received. </li>
<li>The phoneme sound of letter [Gnna] [ જ્ઞ ] has been modified according to feedback received.</li>
<li>Phoneme [ra] [ર] has been improved because at the end of a Word it was pronounced wrongly.</li>
<li>When [Va] [વ] comes at the end of the word the matra was sounding wrong. This has been fixed.</li>
<li>Incorrect pronnounciations: All words which ended with "Va" like Sarva Maanava Daanava Sarva Kharava Jakhava, etc., have been fixed. </li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/nvda-e-speak-update-march-2014'>https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/nvda-e-speak-update-march-2014</a>
</p>
No publishersumanE-SpeakAccessibilityText-to-SpeechNVDA2014-04-09T06:27:07ZBlog EntryeSpeak Training in Hindi Language
https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/espeak-training-in-hindi-language-1
<b>National Association for the Blind, Kullu hosted a 2 day training in the use of eSpeak in Hindi language with NVDA for its special educators, in-service blind, and blind students. The programme was attended by 20 participants who came from all parts of Himachal Pradesh.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The event started with a round of introductions and expectations. Most of the participants expressed their desire to learn Hindi typing in order to either use it in their workplace or use it during their studies.<br /><br />This was followed by an introduction to NVDA. NVDA was new to most of the participants, and they were amazed to know the benefits of NVDA compared to other commercial screen readers.<br /><br />The next session was dedicated to installation of NVDA, introducing different menus and configurations options.<br /><br />This was followed by a comprehension of Hindi text. Barring just 2 candidates, all others were able to understand the text immediately.<br /><br />The day 2 started with Hindi keyboard. Participants were taught the use of Inscript keyboard. They were also taught configuring hindi keyboard in Windows.<br /><br />Writing words and short sentences was the next item in the training, in which most of the participants excelled beyond expectations. Most of them started writing sentences with ease.<br /><br />The post noon session was reserved for spreading awareness about different sources for obtaining accessible reading material, including Bookshare; android and its advantages, different sources for obtaining easy finance for purchase of computers and laptops, information about ADIP schemes.<br /><br />The workshop was covered by E-TV HP and they filmed the participants typing in Hindi.<br /><br />The event ended with a vote of thanks from the President NAB Kullu- Mrs. Shalini Vats.<br /><br /></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/espeak-training-in-hindi-language-1'>https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/espeak-training-in-hindi-language-1</a>
</p>
No publishernirmitaNVDAAccessibilityE-Speak2015-10-04T08:43:22ZBlog Entry