Kurzweil 3000-Firefly for iPad Released

Today the Kurzweil 3000 firefly app was released for the iPad. Click here to download the free app. The app, firefly, is the iPad version of Kurzweil's cloud-based reader and file storage product. If you have a firefly account all of your saved documents will be available to read on the iPad as well as any Mac or PC. Watch the video above to see firefly in action. Click here to learn more about firefly.

Firefly has many useful reading features, but will not replace the full desktop version of Kurzweil. Similar to the desktop version of Kurzweil, firefly highlights words as they are read, which makes following along easier. Firefly includes high quality text-to-speech voices. Users can adjust the text-to-speech rate and highlighting options with ease. The interface is extremely clean and simple to learn. The app can read documents with images and rich text formatting. Firefly is a simple and easy way for teachers to distribute accessible instructional materials to their students with dyslexia or physical disabilities. While firefly is ideal for reading documents, it does not offer any annotation features such as highlighting, text entry, note taking or speech notes. Also, documents cannot be added to the firefly app directly from the iPad using the "open in" feature. It would be very cool if firefly offered the ability to scan documents using the iPad's camera and then read the document using optical character recognition (OCR).

The firefly iPad app is a must have for current firefly web users. If you do not have a web account you can still try out sample documents from within the app. For people who do not want to be tied to a computer all of the time the iPad app is also very useful. If you are not a current Kurzweil 3000 user but do not have firefly the new app may be a compelling reason to get a firefly web license. Click read more below to view screen shots of firefly.

   

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Learning Ally Audio App Updated But Still Missing Key Features

Today, the Learning Ally Audio app was updated to version 2.0.4. The Learning Ally Audio app costs $19.99 from the App Store. You must be a Learning Ally (formally RFB&D) member to use the app. The app allows members to listen to audio books downloaded from Learning Ally on the go. The update adds the ability to download books over the web without having to connect and sync with iTunes. It also has minor user interface improvements.

On the downside the app does not allow users to listen to their audio books in the background. In other words, you cannot listen to your books while you view the printed text in another application. This feature is very important for sighted users who want to read the printed text of an iBook with the audio support. You also can't check your email, browse the web or anything do anything else. Once you close the app, play back stops. iOS has had the ability to play background audio for over a year, but Learning Ally has yet to adopt the feature. 

If you are a Learning Ally member the Learning Ally Audio app is a great buy. If your not a member you cannot use this app. Read2Go, Bookshare's iOS app, is a more polished app. Click here and here to learn more about Learning Ally.

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Signed Stories Helps Deaf Children

Signed Stories is free service that provides sign and read aloud books. The books are signed for the deaf child and read aloud simultaneously for the non deaf parent or vice verse. There are many stories available for young kids. The stories can help parents who do not know sign language to read with their child who is deaf, or for deaf parents to have a book read aloud to their hearing child. Signed Stories are also helpful for kids learning sign language.

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Learning Ally Audio App Updated

Today, Learning Ally (formally RFB&D) released a substantial upgrade to their iOS app. Learning Ally Audio is available for $19.99 on the iTunes app store. The app allows Learning Ally members to download audio books directly to their iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad. If you are unfamiliar with Learning Ally click here. To be eligible you must have a qualifying disability. To learn about becoming a member click here. Downloading an audio book is simple and involves transferring the audio file to the app via iTunes. Once you've downloaded a book you can listen to it on the go with your iOS device. The app allows users to navigate the audio book by section or page number, bookmark important sections and speed up the speaking rate. The new update includes new features that make listening easier. One of the new features is the ability to jump to any page in the book. Another handy new feature allows playback to continue even when the screen is locked. Yet another new feature remembers where in the book you left off and starts playing from that point the next time you open the app. The Learning Ally Audio app is a must have for reading Learning Ally audio books on the go.

Learning Ally also announced in a press release that this fall they will support text as well as human narration. Learning Ally’s President and CEO, Andrew Friedman said,

"Looking ahead, the Learning Ally Audio app will include text to speech functionality, enabling learners to enjoy the best of both worlds: human narration as well as text content of their books and reading materials." 

Click read more below to see screen shots of the updated app.

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Whetting your APPetite Vol. 7: Toontastic is Fantastic!

This. is. amazing. Many thanks to my new ADE friend, John Shoemaker - a technology coordinator from Palm Beach, FL - who shared this amazing app with me. Toontastic is Puppet Pals on steroids. I still care deeply about Puppet Pals, but Toontastic is my new app boyfriend.

So what caused this switch? Toontastic seems to have been developed with the writing student in mind. The app embeds writing lessons into its beautifully animated screens - but doesn't hit your kids over the head with the fact that they are learning.

For example, this app asks kids to story board before beginning to create their movie. It breaks the "film" into scenes labeled 'setup', 'conflict', 'challenge', 'climax', and 'resolution' -- all in that same graphic story arc we teachers use to teach writing. Once your student selects the scene he or she would like to animate, they have the option to either use a stock setting or illustrate their own. They have this same option for their characters - choose a pre-created character or create one with the paint palette. (An additional plus to these characters over the Puppet Pals figures is that these characters can move their appendages. Groovy.)

Next up, mood music. And I do mean mood music. After developing the visual aspect of their scenes, narrating the plot, and determining their plot sequence, students select the mood  of each scene and its intensity. They use a sliding scale to modulate exactly how happy, sad or frightening a particular plot element may be.

So far, so great - right? Well, it gets better. Your students can upload their toons to ToonTube -- and watch other children's masterpieces as well! I'm not sure if it is up yet, but I am told that this "channel" will eventually (if it doesn't already) allow students to view a globe and select various geographic areas -- then see all the toons uploaded from that locale. So now students from Chicago, IL can watch toons created by students in Seoul, Korea. Wow.

What's more is I hope to also use this in math. MATH?! Yes, math. I am going to have my students animate short real-world mathematical problems to pose to one another, then post them for a classmate in our room or across the globe to solve. Paired with Edmodo or Schoology I think this will be a powerful and engaging tool.

Moreover, who says a character can't be a pie slice? Let's animate a fractions lesson shall we? We can put on some extremely happy music, and narrate the visual addition or subtraction of mixed numbers using pie slices as the "characters" and the "whole" as the background.

Considering the endless opportunities that this well-designed and visually appealing app offers, can you blame me for wanting to go steady with it?

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Free Kurzweil Webinars

The maker of Kurzweil is holding a set of free webinars this summer. The webinars will inform users about features Kurzweil version 12. Learning about features of Kurzweil can be very helpful to users who don't know about all of the things Kurzweil can do. The webinars will take place between June 21st and August 30th. To sign up for the webinars look after the break for dates and times.

Kurzweil 3000 V12 Overview

Tuesday, June 21, 2011, 2:00 p.m. EDT
Sign up now.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011, 2:00 p.m. EDT
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Tuesday, July 5, 2011, 2:00 p.m. EDT
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Tuesday, July 12, 2011, 2:00 p.m. EDT
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Tuesday, July 19, 2011, 2:00 p.m. EDT
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Tuesday, July 26, 2011, 2:00 p.m. EDT
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Tuesday, August 2, 2011, 2:00 p.m. EDT
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Tuesday, August 9, 2011, 2:00 p.m. EDT
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Tuesday, August 16, 2011, 2:00 p.m. EDT
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Tuesday, August 23, 2011, 2:00 p.m. EDT
Sign up now.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011, 2:00 p.m. EDT
Sign up now.

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Bookshare Summer Reading Program

Bookshare.org is holding a summer reading program. To enter the program click here. The program is open to all Bookshare members and runs through August 19th. Everyone that is participating in the program is entered into a contest to win an iPad 2. There will be other prizes such as a Victor Reader Stream, MP3 player and Read2Go iOS app. If you're not already a member go to Bookshare.org to see if you qualify. Have fun reading!

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"Directions For Me" Helps You Know What Your Buying

For people who are blind, have low vision, or other print disablities knowing what you are buying is a challenge. Food labels have small print but the information is very important. If a person is allergic to an ingredient, knowing the ingredients of the food is critically important. So what do you do if you can not see the label and there is no one to ask? Directions For Me is a great resource. Directions For Me is a free site that has food labels in electronic format. To research the ingredients in your food just search for the food in the search bar. The site has food, health and beauty item information. The site is very easy to use and has most products in its database. If you have an allergy or just would like to know the nutrition facts of a food use Directions For Me. Never wonder what is in your food again.

Source: http://www.learningally.org/Blog/Access-and-Achievement/144/pg__1/vobId__2958/

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