| The words "DAISY" and
"books" have been linked together in the minds of some individuals
working with audio resources for a number of years now. Yet it is only
fairly recently that issues about how this innovative technology, which
is portable, easy to use and exciting to work with, are becoming more
widely appreciated and understood.
DAISY stands for Digital Accessible Information
System, and is a worldwide standard for creating digital books that are
easy to navigate around, using a limited number of keys, and which uses
digitally recorded speech rather the relying on a speech synthesiser.
It synchronises the recorded speech with text on screen, linked using
a web language "glue", that could also include images and other
sorts of files. The clever and unique feature of DAISY is that is conceived
with the needs of a wide population of users with a print disability,
specifically computer users who have sight difficulties.
Cleverly, the DAISY format books (which
at present usually come on CD but in the future will be held on all sorts
of other small and compact storage media) will also play on DAISY players,
which resemble CD walkmen players. In fact, many of the newer models will
play MP3 CDs and other music and audio CDs. This means a student might
be able use them whilst on a train or bus, with easy navigation, and not
feel that he or she was carrying around something extraordinarily different,
something that separated them from other people.
Historically, those working with DAISY and
promoting its use havehad to get to grips withissues of Digital Rights
Management,that is the assurances that copyrighted material put into DAISY
format will not be copied and distributed outside the community of users
for whom it was created. This is stil being tackled, but many publishers,
like Time Warner in the USA, have produced top selling titles in DAISY
and sell these alongside other versions. It seems likely that encryption
will become a feature of future books to prevent piracy, with a code needed
to be entered to access the content of a book. Here in the UK, changes
to the Copyright Bill that came into effect in May have ensured that sharing
books for use by pupils with a visual impairment has become much more
open and acceptable.
The challenge now is getting some high quality
resources available in DAISY format, and understanding how users get to
grips with the material. Issues about how popular it is, how well used
by friends in class, how easy it is to search and bookmark texts, all
these will hopefully emerge as themes from current research. Leading one
substantial project is the DAISY Literacy materials for the Inclusive
Classroom project led by the RNIB, with support from Dolphin Computer
Access, the University of Birmingham and three sensory support services
across the Midlands. This is funded via the Department for Education and
Skills, who are keen to evaluate its educational potential. We are working
together on both aspects mentioned above: producing a core of seven highly
relevant texts in DAISY, followed by a rigorous and thorough programme
of evaluation, which will take in the thoughts of students, class teachers,
advisory teachers and the University research team. It is hoped that this
will pave the way for greater awareness and understanding of the power
of digital talking books in relation to traditional accessible materials,
such as standard recorded audio, large print and Braille.
Initially, the power of DAISY software
players rests with its inclusive design, the fact that it looks and feels
so much like many other Windows media players, but that keyboard accessibility
was central to the build. The fact that current players recognise that
"skippable" content would be used, where features such as extra
notes, page numbers and line numbers can be switched on and off as needed.
But overall, it seems clear that it is going to prove a very valuable
tool in the hands of students who are already adept at multitasking. The
requirements now in many schools and colleges is for students to be able
to work in programs like Word and Excel whilst listening to recorded material,
and the software players have a "remote control" function that
makes this task easy. What is also exciting, and what emerged from an
exciting project in Scotland called the DAVIE project, was that many students
felt empowered and motivated when creating their own DAISY books, knowing
how easy it would be to structure and get around their stories or essays.
This has the potential to be one of the most dynamic and revolutionary
aspects when DAISY has achieved wider exposure and, critically, a number
of enthusiastic users.
Screen Shot:
This is Easereader, the software player used in the DfES funded project:
Web references:
DAISY Consortium website: http://www.daisy.org
RNIB Technology website: http://www.rnib.org.uk/technology
Dolphin Computer Access Audio Publishing website: http://www.dolphinse.com
Report into aspects of DAVIE Project: http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public
documents/publicwebsite/public_pomb1.doc
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