Alistair McNaught's blog entry explains it all; Ofqual has launched an open consultation on language accessibility in...

• national curriculum assessment tests; and
  

• general and vocational qualifications.

Your views are sought on two topics through a questionnaire: Deadline 15th September 2011.

Find out more from Alistair's Blog at http://blog.jisctechdis.ac.uk/?p=608, and follow the links to make your contribution.

Providing a transcript – a textual version of a video and/or audio – increases accessibility of the content. Practitioners and/or learners who are deaf-blind can access the content by using a refreshable (dynamic) Braille display, which converts text into Braille.

Providing transcripts also has other benefits:

• The text is then searchable by search engines.

• People can double-check a point without listening to the audio/video again.

• Some people prefer reading rather than wa...

The very popular digital media discussion service VoiceThread has launched a new accessibility option called VoiceThread Universal.

VoiceThread Universal...

• is designed for those who use screen-readers to access online media.

• removes extraneous visual and text elements;

• concentrates on providing clear and concise information;

• makes it possible for more learners and more practitioners to participate in online conversations about media.

Note: VoiceThread is popular with ed...

It is difficult for me to assess the value of this online software as I can see.

WebAnywhere is a web-based screen reader for the web. It requires no special software to be installed on the client machine and, therefore, enables blind people to access the web from any computer they happen to have access to that has a sound card.

The huge plus is WebAnywhere...

• will run on any machine,
  
• will run on heavily locked-down public terminals,
  
• will run regardless of what operating system ...

I can hear Chrissie and Keith (Senior Adviser and Technical Adviser) tut, tutting at me for even flagging up software in Alpha; but here goes anyway.

Twitter has emerged as one of the world’s most widely used social networking services.

Twitter’s appeal lies in...

• its simplicity, and
• the way it fosters a sense of immediacy.

Communication on Twitter must be brief and to the point, because “tweets” are limited to 140 characters; it doesn’t have to take up a great deal of ...

Tar Heel Reader, set up by Gary Bishop, is an amazing online collection of accessible “books for beginning readers of all ages” that has grown to approximately 6000 titles!

Tar Heel Reader books are...

• beautifully illustrated with images from Flickr
• truly engaging for a wide range of readers
• accessible to ALL learners.

Tar Heel Reader books can be...

• read and/or listened to online.
• accessed with a mouse, with up to three switches, or via overlays on Intellikeys.
• downloaded qu...