Accessible Test

Talking Word Puzzles

(Continued)
Purpose

To produce an Accessible educational game on CD that uses hidden word or crossword-type puzzles.

Project Staff

Larry Skutchan, Project Leader

Mario Eiland, Programmer

Rodger Smith, Programmer

Rosanne Hoffmann, Research/Project Assistant
Background

The need for an educational type of game like hidden word and crossword puzzles has been long expressed by customers and experts in the field. APH's Product Advisory and Review Committee (PARC) supported the idea for such a project in May 1998, and the programming group began work on the program in FY 2000. Project staff wrote program specifications for the program. Features planned include an intuitive text-to-speech and large print navigation system through the puzzle grid. The interface includes appropriate, responsive speech and highlighting feedback as the student uses the shift key along with the arrow keys to mark a word in the grid and distinguishable characteristics as the student moves across words already marked. Specifications also call for a creation process that allows the teacher to enter either a list of words or a list of words and clues to those words in the case of a crossword puzzle. These data are committed to persistent storage and all puzzles are dynamically generated from this information.

Work during FY 2009

Tested on 64-bit versions of Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7.

Work planned for FY 2010

Future enhancements will be made as identified.

Teacher's Pet

(Continued)
Purpose

To develop a program used to create and take tests and practice drills and to provide student progress record keeping.

Project Staff

Larry Skutchan, Project Leader

John Hedges, Programmer

Tessa Wright, Consultant/Project Assistant

Rosanne Hoffmann, Research/Project Assistant
Background

APH has long been interested in providing an Accessible means of creating and delivering test content to blind and visually impaired students. An early attempt at this goal, Teacher's Pet for the Apple II, was a huge success. Members of Educational Research continue to receive requests for a Windows-based program that would perform similar functions. The group designed a new program to deliver content and record progress using Extensible Markup Language (XML) as its native file format. The design specifications call for software that is self voicing with easily adjustable display characteristics and a simple user interface that provides mechanisms to repeat or more closely examine test material. The program must also store and retrieve student statistics and access settings and provide an interface to make the teacher's job of preparing the test simple through modern drag and drop capabilities for multi-media objects like graphics and sounds. Teacher's Pet must also manage and display student records.

Staff wrote program specifications that include the support for a variety of question types including open-ended, fill-in-the-blank, true/false, matching, information, and multiple choice. Programmer John Hedges created a prototype of the application in March 2000 using JavaScript as the programming language. (This was APH's first venture into this language in its attempt to identify a language that provides rapid deployment possibilities yet supports Accessible design concepts.) He created techniques for providing user interface elements supporting universal design concepts and incorporated the APH digital audio component and APH Speech Environment to provide some of the core services the software required.
The programming team successfully solved a number of access and design issues. The program received such capabilities as an automatic integrated sound recording and playback facility that includes the ability to limit the time of the recording (through the APH Digital Audio Control), Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) support for flexible display adjustment, selection and display routines, a dialog to open and identify Teacher's Pet test files, evaluation functions that are extensible enough to permit a variety of formats for acceptable answers, and functions to preserve and restore user preferences and access settings. The programmers added the user interface and input mechanism that lets the student enter the answer in whatever format the teacher or parent specifies and the dialog and input routines that lets the teacher or parent create the test material. Functions were written to present the question, to navigate from question to question, and to move through long questions as is the case when there are several paragraphs or pages of text to read.
Work during FY 2009

Staff began a major rewrite on this project to convert it to the c# language. Much of the underlying structure is actually similar to the functionality needed for the Family O&M Book project, so foundation code is being written to support both projects.

Work planned for FY 2010

The project in version 1.x is complete. A new version is expected to be complete this year.

Verbal View of the Net and the Web

(Continued)
Purpose

To teach blind and visually impaired computer users background information about the Internet.

Project Staff

Larry Skutchan, Project Leader

Peter Duran, Project Consultant and Author

Keith Creasy, Programmer

John Hedges, Programmer

Rodger Smith, Programmer

Kathy Lewis, Technical Support Specialist

Steve Mullins, Special Projects Manager

Robert Conaghan, Studio Monitor
Background

A new technology typically affects a specific industry or group of workers or customers. It is a rarity that an emergent technology affects every industry and virtually every person worldwide. Usually it takes a long time for a technology to spread throughout its sphere of influence. There are two recent innovations, however, that violate these patterns: the Net―a worldwide network of connected computers, and the Web―a global collection of connected multimedia documents. Both of these developments have emerged in the past quarter century and have already influenced every aspect of human endeavor throughout the civilized world.

Now that a personal computer costs about the same price as a quality television set or high-performance stereo system, an individual can afford a personal computer and can access the Net and the Web any time anywhere. The personal computer has invaded every area of human activity, and its ubiquity has made the Net and the Web commonplace. No other technology has spread throughout our culture as rapidly as the personal computer, those placed on desktops and those concealed within most appliances, cell phones, microwaves, cars, medical equipment, and tools of all kinds.
The personal computer, together with the Net and the Web, has altered and enhanced all aspects of culture and human interaction forever. This tutorial, Verbal View of the Net and the Web, presents an overview of this omnipresent technology. You will rely on this technology when you take courses, when you work, when you play, when you communicate with others, and when you visit a library. Additional tutorials from APH about the Net and the Web describe ways to send and receive e-mail on the Net, browse documents on the Web, and much more.
These tutorials are written for blind computer users who possess computers (desktops or laptops) that run Windows XP. They teach readers how to connect to the net, surf the web, send and receive e-mail, and much more. All the essential aspects are explained, and all the essential tools are discussed. No prior knowledge of the Net or of the Web is assumed.
There are two types of tutorials: descriptive and audio-interactive. The former type is in "textbook" form. You read the material in a preferred format and then practice it. The latter is in "mimic" form. You listen to a cassette tape or an audio CD and attempt to follow the instructor's steps.
These tutorials about the Net and the Web are descriptive in style and are distributed as DAISY books on compact disks. DAISY stands for Digital Audio Information System; this "electronic book" format is accepted worldwide as a standard form for audio books produced for visually-impaired and blind readers.
These tutorials are written for blind users who wish to employ the Net and the Web for educational, vocational, and recreational pursuits. A few topics are discussed at length, although omitted from most books, because they greatly benefit blind users.
These tutorials are written for persons who have limited or no access to training centers and must learn independently. They are written for users who want or need to access the Net and the Web primarily with the keyboard. The use of the keyboard is emphasized and summarized throughout. The keyboard and the mouse are compared whenever appropriate so the strengths and weaknesses of both are apparent.
Work during FY 2009

This project was made available for sale.

Work planned for FY 2010

The material will be updated as needed.