RNIB - See differently



Access Technology and Grants with Joanne Hi there, my name is Joanne Wilson. I'm the technology for life coordinator for RNIB, Northern Ireland. Today, I'm going to go through the presentation related to accessible technology aimed at giving you just more information and advice regarding accessible devices, how to make computers, tablets, smartphones, accessible apps which are particularly good for education and for social and just lots of different tips and hints about things that can make technology work better for you or for your child. I will show a PowerPoint throughout this, but all the information that I put in on the PowerPoint, I will talk through. So if there's anything that you have difficulty in viewing visually, I'm not going to leave anything out. I'm going to speak and share that.So I'm just going to share my screen now which will allow you to see my presentation and I'll get started working through this.Any questions that you might have after watching this, please just direct them back to myself or to the Technology for Life helpline, and we will do our very, very best to answer them. And if we don't know the answer, we can always research it and get you the right one. Technology for Life ServiceSo I am the technology for life coordinator for Northern Ireland, as I'd already said, but we do have a UK wide technology for life service and that technology for life service has various elements to it. We have a helpline which is available Monday to Friday, nine to five, and you can access that through the main RNIB helpline number and that's 0303 123 9999. You can also e-mail us at tfl@.uk. That's tfl@.uk. Our helpline and our service is there for anyone who has sight loss and anyone who supports someone with sight loss, so it could be that you're a parent, a relative, a friend in a professional capacity, you can give us a call and any technology related queries or problems that you might have. We'll do our very best to help with over the phone. We also have a great team of volunteers, in pre-covid times our volunteers would have gone out to people's homes and helped with learning to use particular devices such as iPods or tablets or phones or computers, and they may be helped get things set up. Help with any troubleshooting issues that may have occurred. But at the minute, we have restrictions on our face to face activity so all our support is being provided remotely.That is through the helpline or through arranging a set time to call a customer and take the time to work through whatever query or problem or training need they may have. Or it could be through providing information and training material in whatever format that that, that person needs and has requested. So at the minute, the volunteer face to face work is on hold. Whenever that restriction is lifted, obviously we will update everyone but for now we are delivering our service mostly over the telephone. Technology resource hubWe also have a technology resource hub. So the technology resource hub is filled with really, really great information and fact sheets about all different types of accessible and up to date technology It gets updated on a regular basis. It's got some really, really good info in there. So please do check it out and see if anything in there is helpful to you. I have the link put at the end of this presentation as well. I'm hoping that I'll be able to send the presentation out so you will all be able to access the resources that I've included in here so you can follow up and get some more information as well on things that are of particular interest to you. I'll start with the computer options for accessibility. There's obviously quite a lot of options out there when it comes to accessibility.I'm going to try and cover quite a lot of them today, but I'm not going to go into major, major depth of the mall because it's a lot of information to take in. So I'm going to give you an overview of the most popular options. And I've included then the links to the websites where you'll find more in-depth info about them as well. However, if you would like to discuss them any further, like I said, you can give us a call or you can send your details on to the Children and Families team who will send them on to our team. And some of them will be in touch, most likely for Northern Ireland you'll you would be talking to myself. But just if I was off or wasn't available, there's always someone on the team that can advise.So we'll start in with computers then desktop and laptop computers. Computer accessibilityThe most, I suppose, basic starting point with accessibility on a computer is to look at the options that are built in already to the device. Because those options mean that you don't need to add anythingadditional to the computer.You also don't need to spend any any money on any extra software, adaptation to the computer. And the great news is that in these times there is quite a lot of really good built-In options to almost all computers, tablets and smartphones. So for the computer, if you have a Windows computer, Windows 10 is the one that most people are likely to have.It's the most up to date and the supported operating system out there atthe minute. There is the ease of access centre. The ease of access centre is filled with great options for you to increase the font size on your computer screen, for you to change the size of the cursor or of the mouse, for you to adapt the colour contrast so you can change background you can change colours of the text. You can really tailor the computer to suit your needs. It's really worth going there.If you have a computer that runs windows, Windows 10 and the earlier versions of Windows as well will have these features.You can access it through the control panel or you can press the Windows key on your computer, which is the key with the four squares to the left of your space bar and the letter you at the same time and that brings up that ease of access centre. It also allows you to access a magnifier so you can magnify in on the screen content very easily by just pressing a couple of different keys on the computer as well. Or you can have a magnifying lens, which is like a magnifying glass built onto the screen. So lots of options that are really worth looking into and really worth just spending a bit of time playing around with adapting and they can all be turned off and they can all be easily changed if you do change it and decide that it's not going to be the best one for you.If you have a Windows computer and you've tried out those accessibility options that are built in and you feel that they're really not sufficient, they don't magnify to the best standard for you, they don't allow you to change the colours in the way that they're needed to be changed.Another option then would be looking at getting a software added on to the computer.ZoomtextZoomtext is probably the most popular software that we would do with. And there are lots of other options out there as well, which I've mentioned. But Zoomtext allows you then to completely adjust the screen that you can magnify to whatever level you need to magnify to.You can change all your colour options. You can really adapt everything to make it completely suitable for what you need. So using some text might be an option for those that the ease of access centre just really isn't sufficient for. You may find that Zoomtext is more needed if you are using the computer more for education. For maybe down the line for the workplace as well. So that that's an option that's out there. DolphinIf you have other options for Windows as well, would be Supernova from a company called Dolphin. Dolphin products are really worth checking out. They have really good magnification software and they also have really good speech. software. A lot of their softwares are easier to use than others. They have them designed so that they are very straightforward. That may mean that they're quite limited in some ways, but for some people that works perfectly. I would really recommend going to the link that I have on that presentation for Supernova and for your dolphin and having a look at some of their videos on there because they're very good, at just describing and showing you how that software works.So you get a bit of an idea whether it would be suitable for you or for your child.Apple AccessibilityApple then if you have an Apple computer again, they'll be really good built-In options with Apple, you shouldn't need to add anything additionally, on the settings which are built in, there should be sufficient. You can have built-In magnification, which is called Zoom. You can change the colours, you can change the text size. And it's all within the accessibility menu on an Apple Mac computer. There's also a company called Claro and we're going to have a look at them in more depth as we go on through the presentation.Screen Reading OptionsSo screen reading options then if you need a screen reader, there are lots of different options, both paid for and free for windows, for Apple, there are a whole range of solutions out there. It is worth at this point saying as well that some people don't just need one or the other.Some people maybe would use Zoom, some of the time, but might use need speech for particular things, such as read in large essays, reading large bits of text off the Internet, that sort of thing.There are middle ground options to all of these as well.One of the most popular middle ground options would be if you are using windows would be use in narrator side by side with it. It's their free built-In screen reader. So you might only use that some of the time. You might use it all of the time. You might use it in conjunction with magnification. If you felt that again, that it wasn't advanced enough, that it really didn't give you what you needed for especially for your child's education or, as it mentioned before, down the line for the workplace then there there's another option called fusion, which will give you the combination of the screen reader and the magnification software together. And there are free screen reading options.So Narrator, as I mentioned, is the Windows built in one.You can add a software to the computer called NVDA, which is a screen reader and is completely for free. Or there's also Jaws, which is that your paid for probably most advanced screen reader. You find that a lot of people for home use would use narrator or NVDA and people who are maybe needing the more advanced features for the workplace, possibly for education, may use Jaws.It just depends on the individual and how well those other options work for them.All of these screen reading options are controlled. Learning different strokes. So pressing different letters to do different things, the keyboard, there's no mouse for you to visually follow because the idea is that if you can't if you can't see where the mouse is where the cursor is, then you should be able to control the whole screen. So it's all a process of needing to learn what the different strokes are for each.The video that I've included besides Jaws. Sorry, the link that I've included beside the Jaws option has some really good learning videos in there as well, which would be worth checking out and having to look at.And there are options.Again, Middle Ground dolphin that I've mentioned before has some really good speech options in their devices and software that you can buy and add on to your own computer, which might make everything a bit more straightforward.You don't need to use the key strokes for using Dolphins screen readingprogram called Dolphin Guide. You can control most of it by using the arrows and the computer, but it would make it quite limited in its functions then. So, for instance, it would be more for social rather thanfor if you were using it for education.Macs, then and again, as I mentioned before, Apple have built accessibility, so they've got voiceover built into the computer, you may well have heard of voice over for the tablets.This is just the version for the laptops and the desktops. So that's built in as well. And again, it can be controlled by use of different keystrokes.It can be controlled by using the arrows, the keyboard. It's just a combination of those things to really get the most out of using it.There's also a dictation software for those who that is important to with with typing. That can be quite a hard task whenever you're trying to do that alongside a screen reader. And it can be quite hard to focus for a long time on the keyboard and on what you're typing on the screen.So whilst there will be dictation options built in to Windows and to the iPad sorry to the Mac, there is the option of adding on a software which you would have to pay for, but which is much more advanced then.And it would be the most popular in terms of the dictation software that's out there is called Dragon. I've put a link on to their website on there as well for that. So lots of options with computers and with laptopsand obviously computers on laptops are used quite a lot in education,in the workplace and socially as well.Tablets and Smartphones So it's always good to know what's out there and what you can adaptto a device you might already have. Going to move on to talkingabout tablets and smartphones. You will probably find that more and more people are more and more schools and classrooms use iPadsnow rather than the computers. So this this section could be really relevant.I do tend to see more students that have iPads than would have any other make device for education purposes. But for social purposes, obviously, there's options for both when it comes to accessibility.So I'll start off by saying the iPad and the iPhone are identical.There is no difference between the two other than the screen size, your iPad will obviously have a larger screen. You can get three different sizes of iPad screen. You can get the iPad mini, the standard iPad which is 10 inch, and then the iPad pro, which is 12 inch.The main difference being, obviously, you get you can fit more onto a larger screen, but also it does make it a bit more expensive. So it is worth maybe going and have a look at those devices and allowing, you know, your child or whoever is going to be using it, the chance to see what one what really works better for them, because it's not always the case that the larger screen is the best option for some people.It absolutely is. And that's fantastic. And for other people, it's not.The 10 inch with the accessibility is just as good an option.So it's worth having a look at what’s out there and what works best for you. Apple was the very first company to build accessibility into their devices, which kind of makes that makes them lead the way with accessibility. They have really, really good options for magnification, for full screen magnification and for window magnification.Window being just again, having a little magnifying glass on the screen instead of having the whole screen magnified. They've got large and bold text options, options to invert colours, to take the colour out completely and use grayscale and to differentiate the colours for that would be particularly relevant to people who have colour blindness, a need to change colour, higher colours viewed on their device.There is a middle ground option between using an iPad completely from magnification or using it completely as a screenreader, and that is called speak screen and what's speak screen does is whenever you turn it on in your settings, you do a two finger flick down from the top of the screen at the end, brings up a little bar on the screen with a play button, a rewind to fast forward an option to speed up or slow down the speech, and then it will read out the screen content. So particularly good if there is a big bulk of text that's on the screen, which could be good if you're getting homeworks, things like that set sent to the device and it doesn't have to be used all the time. It could just be used if that is the preference of whoever's using the device and we want the magnification some of the time.They would like the speech function for certain things that can work very well then and we do have built in voiceover in all the Apple products.So the voiceover then will make the device completely accessible.Voiceover on tablets is controlled by learning to use different gestures. So that means tapping the screen and with a spongy bit of your fingertip and different taps do different things. So similar to what I talked aboutwith the key strokes in the in the screen readers for computers with tablets, the screen readers are controlled by how you your you tap the screen.So tapping at once will read out what's underneath your fingertips. Added a double tap will open that particular up.But if you want to move on to the next app, doing a little flick on the screen will do that. Lots and lots of different gestures and you can get to read everything from the top of the screen to the bottom of the screen. Without you touching the screen at all, you can get it to pause. You can change the voice. You can slow it up, speed it up, slow it down. You can just do lots of different functions with voiceover. It tends to work with pretty much everything that you do on the iPad or the iPhone and if it doesn't work with a particular app or particular website, then usually the problem lies within that website, that app, and it's been developed.So it's always worth contacting the person who developed the developers of the app to make them aware of the accessibility issue.As I'd said, the iPad and the iPhone are exactly the same.The only difference is the size and the fact that your phone is also obviously a phone for making calls with the iPad.You're going to be only making calls on things like FaceTime and video calling functions over the Internet.So that's the main difference between the two.SiriSiri is really, really useful. It's the built-In assistant to the tablet and the smartphone for Apple. Siri allows you to speak commands into the device. So asking it to look up things on the Internet and ask it to maybe make a call. If you have a phone, you can say call Joanne and if I was in your contacts, it would start calling me straight away.You can ask it to look up a phone number, you can ask it to give you directions somewhere and all of this with your voice without having to type anything in, without having to strain what's to see what's on the screen. It can all be spoken into the device. When you use it with the screen reader, It reads back everything that's there. I should also say with a screen reader, It basically just retired everything that's there on the screen.So if someone was calling you and you had a phone, it would tell you who's calling or it would read out the number because obviously the assumption is if you're using that screen reader you either have very little or no vision to be using it. So it's just designed to make it completely accessible. So apple are very locked down, they have the same facilities right across all their devices. There's no difference in them. They are very exclusive. And what they offer, you can't really adapt those settings or change them in any way other than they've been put into your settings to do so. You can't add a software or anything like that. Everything is just as it is. You go in and have a look in your accessibility menu, in your settings app and adjust it for what you need it to be. It can all be turned off and turned on very easily. So dependent on whether your site changes from day to day, you can adapt your device, to allow that.And a really good app that you can get for Apple devices as well as called Seeing AI. And I'm going to talk about that later on also.AndroidOK so obviously we have Android then we've talked about Apple and basically Apple software as iOS and it's only available on their products. Android is the software that almost all the other companies takeand put on to their devices. So whilst Apple is very locked down, Android is it's more out there on different devices and can be taken and adjustedand adapted to whatever company take it and put it on to their phones, their tablets. So Samsung have Android software on theirs, Lenovo, HTC and all those sorts of makes. Amazon the Kindles do have a form of Android as well. With Android it really depends on what device you have and what age the device is, what model the devices are on, the settings that are available. When it comes to accessibility, most of them will standard have Talk Back, which is the screen reader, and it's very, very similar to the voiceover that I've mentioned that Apple have with Samsung. You call the screen reader voice assistant and with Kindles and Amazon devices, you call it voice view.So it's all a very similar process and it's all very similar.Screen reader works in the same way, but it's just got a different name on depending which makes a phone or a tablet that you have the old standard. They also have magnification and there it's very few that wouldn't have that, especially anything that's new and up to date options to make your text large and bold, options to invert your colours, options to have that speak screen. It's called select to speak on Android option within it, as well as a middle ground for those people that want to use magnification some of the time and want to use and still have the speech option available to them.So options will just vary device to device.The best thing to do is go into your settings, have a look in youraccessibility menu and see what is there and yours, and just have a play around with it because it's easy to change and easy to adapt.There is another app is particularly good call Envision AI. I and again, I'm going to look at that in more depth.I think what I will say is Android have very much caught up with Apple when it comes to accessibility.There's lots of really great options out there and available, but we probably still see more people, particularly if you screen readers using an Apple device. And the Apple devices seem to be the ones that are used the most in education.Voice assistantsSo I mentioned a little bit about voice assistants like Siri, where you talk into the device and you give it a command. So Siri is the assistant that's built into Apple and Android. You've got Google assistant. In Microsoft, you've got Cortana, Amazon, you've got Alexa.And I also talked about the fact that you can add on software to your computer as well for the more advanced dictation options, particularlyfor school work and education. I think that that would be relevant. So you can get these assistants on computers, tablets, smartphones, and you also get them built into smart speakers.So that would be the Amazon echo, the Google home devices that you've maybe heard of before as well.They are very, very good for people with sight loss because obviously there's no visual element there.Once they're set up, it's all controlled by your voice. So the main thing with these assistants are that you need access to the Internet.So you need to be on your wifi or you need data.You need to speak slowly, clearly and have no background noise because it will probably pick up anything that's been said, the background and as soon as it's activated, it is pretty much listening to you. So whenever you hear the little beep that that most of them have or whenever you give it the command to wake it up. It's pretty much time to just start talking to it then at that stage and that's just some of the examples of the commands that you can give so you can play games, play music at the minute with the Amazon.Alexa, you can ask it to read books from Audible and from Amazon.That's the only option right now for that. Hopefully that's something that keeps getting developed. You can look at Web pages, get numbers and directions and that sort of thing and whatsapps as well, sending WhatsApps and text messages all by voice. And if you use it in conjunction with the screen reader, such as Voice Over or Talk Back, it will read back what you've said as well.Accessible AppsSo I'll move on to talk about some other accessible apps that are out there that might be particularly useful, seeing AI is the app for Apple, which will read documents back. So when you have that app, if you hold it over a page, it will read instantly, read what is written on the page. So particularly good with things like letters or writing on cans or anything that's printed. So the instructions, that sort of thing, if you hold your phone or your tablet over it, it will read out what it says.For a longer document, you can take a photograph of it and then it will take a photograph and then you hit the play button and then it will readback what that longer document says. You can also have a handwriting element in there and it will read back someone's handwriting so you could take a photograph of with a card somebody written or if there's something written down somewhere, take a photograph of it and it will read it back. And that up also has the built in colour detector to note detector, a light detector for those who wouldn't be able to tell if the lights are on or off or who find it difficult to tell that and also take photographs of someone and it would tell you what to describe them and tell you roughly what age they are. That is a free app that's only available on Apple. So you can add that on to any Apple device.The equivalent of it for Android is called Envision AI and that is the difference with that is that it's free to get and free to try for two weeks. And if you find it useful, you can keep it on at a subscription and there's lots of different subscription options that you can choose from. I think they start from around five pounds a month. So it depends how useful and good you find that app if you're using an Android device. A free alternative to it is via optimal daily.What you can get for Android and Apple does a very similar function with the text reading and it's free. So worth trying and getting as well.You've also got things like Dropbox for sharing documents across homeworks, that sort of thing. You can use that, which means thatyour child can get their homework and their information from the teacher onto their device and then make it accessible in whatever way they need to. If that's through magnification, depending on the document, if it's through the screen reader as well. Notability, I'm going to go into ita bit more detail on Mag X.I'm also going to go into in a bit more detail.There is an app called Be My Eyes.It might not be as relevant for younger children, be more for adults, but I just wanted to let you know about it so that you know that it's out there and that it what it does. It’s a free app developed by Microsoft and what it does is it links someone with sight loss to a sighted volunteer.So if a person is on their own and they needed something read or described to them or use the computer and had some difficulty with what was being shown on screen or something like that, they could press the button to get a volunteer and they would have a video link to a sighted volunteer and there is a specialist support element to it which allows those using it to call RNIB if they need some support.So our technology team can use that to help someone struggling with what's on the computer screen and maybe the grade me to work in, or they can't see where something's plugged in or something like that. They can use that video to show it to hold the camera off their phone toward whatever it is they need to show. And then one of the advisors that will that is on the other line will be able to see that it is only for adults.But I just wanted to put it out there so that, you knew, that it's one of the things that's out there and available and it's all free and that's just a little bit more information about Seeing AI and I'll link to it if you want to look that up and the same with Envision AI as well.Apps for EducationSo education wise, then, notability is one of the apps that I know RNIB would mention and would demonstrate quite a bit. Notability is available on Apple and it's a great app for creating notes. You can create notes, you can highlight them, you can import your textbooks and documents and forms and images and that sort of thing. You can customise colours, you can do handwriting and use one of the the virtual pens. You can create audio notes throughout lectures and that sort of thing as well.And that will be updated on to whichever document you're using at the time. You can annotate imported documents. It'll work with PDFs and obviously, depending on the accessibility that you use on your iPad with this app will that will be a factor in how accessible it is.It’s really it's one that we would usually talk about through our at our education events and things like that. So worth having a look into as well.And Claro, are really good company that to software for computers,all based around education. Basically their background is that they develop software and apps for people who would havedifficulty reading the information on the screen, whether that be through a visual impairment or whether that be through dyslexia, they have a whole range of software that you can add onto all different computers can be for Windows, for Macs. And they have apps for the iPhone, forthe tablet, the iPad for Android as well.An example of what their software is there's text to speech options.There's audio note recorders, there's screen readers, which will follow line by line text if that's something that you maybe struggle with.There's talking calculator options in there as well.Their website runs through their products in really, really good detail to you.So it's good to maybe take a look at that if you think that the Claro software might be something worth looking into.They have a free app called Mag X, which I would recommend for the iPad for sorry, for Apple and Android and it is it is the magnifier. So you can put it on your device and then you hold your device over a page, a letter, any form of text, anything you want to read and it will allow you to magnify it up to whatever size that you need to be and it will also allow you to change the colour contrasts and to freeze the image as well.So it can be really, really useful. Just on that to using the camera that's built into smartphones and tablets is another handy tip for magnification.If you if your child is struggling to see something, whenever you've got the magnifier or whatever you're trying to read something in, they're going to buy it or they're at home and it's very difficult for them to seethat you can take a photograph using the camera on the device and then pinch the screen to zoom on it afterwards.That's also very good for things that have to be written up on walls and written up high that are quite hard to read, noticeboards and that sort of thing. So reading on these types of devices that is obviously hugely important, and I'm covering computers and tablets and smartphones and this there are so many different options when it comes to access and books, which is fantastic. It gives you lots and lots of choice.And some of them are free and some of them are paid for.So for some examples for the Kindle, you can get obviously for the Kindle Fire, you have the Kindle app, which will come with it.But you can also get the Kindle app onto Apple and Android. Apple have their own books, Apple books placed Android, have their own books, playbooks.Project Gutenberg is a good resource to have a look into.It's a free library which allows you to borrow books. Libraries NI have a great app called Libby and also RB Digital for magazines,which is free and you can join.It just depends on really what way, what of the optionsyou're going to go for. If you're going for something like Kindle or Apple, obviously you pay for those those books and what they have available and they have a range of audio books and e-books and all of these options.So audio books will be a proper actor's voice reading out the book, which makes it much more enjoyable, much easier to listen to an e-book is the text. So it's printed text on the screen but that can be very easily adapted to whatever text size that you need to allow you to change the colours. And you can use a screen reader with a lot of the time.It'll just mean that the books read out in that real computerised voice.It's just giving options.If your child is a Braille user, you can also if you had a Braille devicesuch as an orbit reader or Braille display, you can get to a smartphone, tablet or computer and have the info and have the books that are available on those different resources that I've mentioned coming out in Braille onto the Braille display for libraries NI in Northern Ireland, you can join online as a virtual member or if you've already got a membership, you can just log in with the membership number that you have. If you don't have that, the libraries are very good at looking that up. If you just give them a call or you can go in and become a full member, which means you can borrow the books both online and within the library, there are there are different subscription options with the more pad for apps.So basically you can with kindle, you might be able to to sign up to audible and pay a set amount of month, or you could pay back by book as well.RNIB Reading servicesRNIB reading services have just launched a new service at our previous digital service for talking books was called Overdrive, so Overdrive ceased to work. We don't work with overdrive anymore. basically, as of the end of May, we have a brand new service. So if your child or yourself or previously signed up to RNIB Overdrive, then with RNIB, that will no longer work.So you have to sign up again as it wasn't an automatic thing that everyone was transferred over. You have to go on and register on the website which I've put in this this PowerPoint. It is self register so it's where you go and you put your email address in and you pick your own password and you can then access our library of books.There's over thirty thousand options there and they are adding to that and that's for audio books and also for books which are epub, which is text. And then that will also work for Braille displays and it's free and it's a really great new service. So it's worth checking out and signing up too.You can get it onto the computer windows or Apple or you can get it through the Dolphin Easy Reader app for tablets and smartphones if you have any difficulty in signing up, any difficulty in using it. Please just give us a call.We talk everyone through that quite a lot and it's definitely worth looking into.RNIB NewsagentThere is also an RNIB newsagent available which allows magazines and newspapers to be emailed to customers and that can be through getting them in an email or getting them through. The Dolphin Reader app might not be as relevant for younger children, but for those over 18, it could be a better it could be a good option to know about.This means you can get newspapers and magazines in whatever formatthat you need them to be. A little bit more about Libraries NI there. I've put the link in to what you need to go to sign up and to access the books. The Libby app is really, really easy to use, really straightforward.And RB digital for the magazines is really good as well. Basically, magazines of all different genres that you can you can borrow for free.So it's a resource worth looking into.And then education wise, we have RNIB Bookshare, so RNIB Bookshare is the U.K. education collection providing textbooks and materials to support the UK curriculum.So it offers a range of accessible formats that can be read electronically or adapted to suit the personal reading needs of the learners.They have quite a lot of titles that are the five hundred eighty five thousand five hundred fifty eight titles, and they're always adding to that.They allow then the learner to listen to the books and a text to speech voice, which can make a big difference, having that good quality voice whenever you're whenever you're listening to something like that, especially a textbook which will probably have quite a lot of information in there.You can have the words highlighted on the screen can be used with Braille and it can be read directly from an Internet browser.So the school should be registered to have this.If they don't, you can ask them to contact RNIB or you can ask RNIB to contact them and get signed up to be able to use that facility.It is only for people in education, but it's definitely a good resource to have the details on how to get signed up and the details onjust further info about what's there with it are all within that link that I've put on to the PowerPoint as well.Touch TypingThink touch typing is another thing that comes up quite a bit in education so a really good app is called Ed Club and it will work really well with a Bluetooth keyboard.So whenever someone's using an iPad, especially in something like education, where there's quite a lot of text to be inputted, you can use dictation,you can speak into the device, but it can be very difficult to do that for large amounts of text. So it might be really worth getting a Bluetooth keyboard. There's all different types of Bluetooth keyboards. There are smaller ones. There’s ones that are large print.You can get them on Amazon, you can get them from RNIB, you can get them at Apple. So if you have an iPad and it's being used for education and maybe typing is something that you have to do, quite a bit of, a Bluetooth keyboard is a really good that's a reallygood option to look into. You can then obviously use the talkback and or the voiceover and the speak screen to read back what you have typed as well.So Ed Club is a good app for learning to touch type.And then you've also got Azabat for learning to touch type on the computer as well as a good resource for that as well.And I have included both the links for them if you wanted to look into them and more detail too.GrantsSo there are different grants that are out there that will be the obviously would help with the cost of some of the equipment that I've talked about, I mentioned are going to be have a technology grant.It is very much open and still going and it's means tested.It can help contribute towards the cost of a tablet, smartphone,magnification, software and your application needs to be supported by support worker, someone in RNIB supporting the application.But we do see quite a lot of success for that if you're eligible to apply.Victa currently have their grants suspended with covid-19, but hopefully it will be worth having a look into that for the future as well.It's another really good scheme that we've done a lot of work with in Northern Ireland and also Guide Dogs and Family Fund are two other good resources for getting grants and help them towards the cost of the different equipment that's available out there.Contact DetailsSo that brings me to the end, my contact details are, as I said at the beginning, through the main RNIB helpline which is 0303 123 99999. You can email me at TFL@.uk or absolutely give your details to one of the children and families Team who will pass it on and I'll get in touch with you if there's anything that you'd like to discuss in further detail, if there's anything that I perhaps didn't mention that you might find useful or if there's something in particular that that your child or yourself want to know more about, are you struggling with when it comes to technology?There are a lot of really great options out there.There's a lot of support available and learning to use the devices.I have instructions for pretty much everything I've mentioned and I'm more than happy to send them in any format that you would like as well.I'm more than happy to advise any of you at any time also.So thank you so much for taking the time today and I will try and get the PowerPoint to you as well and hopefully some of the resourcesin there will go into further detail about what I've mentioned.And hope you'll have a lovely day. Thank you.Document Ends ................
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