Mac Attack ... Part II

Had a good meeting with the Apple Rep and a Sr. Engineer yesterday. Got the chance to introduce them to NIMAS and educate them on DAISY. As expected the sales guy listened politely while the engineer latched onto the tech stuff and got pretty interested. We chatted a bit about access [or lack thereof] issues on the Mac (the Rep giving the party line and the Engineering quickly realizing that I knew what I was talking about). They had a DAISY demo - a bit on production and then playback. We talked about specs and such -- I guess my main concerns can be summed up in this [very real] scenario::

1) LD student with a print impairment spends K-12 years getting books-on-tape (analog) or digital (more recently) as per their IEP. Playback devices are either loaned to the student for classroom and home use and/or student visits the school Resource Room or Library and uses devices and computers there [under the guidance of helpful SPED teachers].

2) Student then gets into college and parents decide to but him/her a computer for college. Student owns iPod, has bought into the Apple marketing, and decides upon a shiney new Mac.

3) Student shows up on my doorstep seeking their textbooks and such in an alternate format. I proceed to tell student all about the wonders of DTB's and describe the process of getting the students books in [or converted to] digital format and all is cheerful and bright until the student pulls their pearly white iBook out of their backpack.

Another demographic being older/returning students who purchase a Mac and then find they need assistance with accessibility issues.

I am not worried about the blind or low-vision students as they know better than to get a Mac - there simply are not the access options avialble. I should probably take this opportunity to semi-retract a statement I made earlier as it appears that the program VoiceOver has not gotten as good reviews as I believed - at least not by the blind community.

Anyway - central to my kvetching ... uhh ... conversation with the Mac guys was that I do not have access to a one and, therefore, cannot discuss access issues as much as I would like - nor help my students as much as necessary. The Rep is looking into getting me a loaner so that I can get to know my inner Apple. I will do my best to post updates as this learning process evolves.

Post-meeting the Engineer dropped me an eMail to let me know that he had gotten the KatiePlayer trial version to work on his system. He also infomed me that TextHelp's Read and Write now has a version for the Mac and introduced me to a new speech company Cepstral.

We did discuss the topic of mp3 playback on the iPod and, thanks to recent discussion on the alt-media listserv, I was able defend the argument that mp3's cannot be sped-up. The Engineer's off-the-cuff response/solution was "that's just a hack". Well - hacking my own mp3 player would be one thing but I don't want to have to hack a students personal equipment just to get them access to their textbooks. It's one thing for me to load a software program such as EaseReader on their laptop - but to hack their iPod - no thanks. I understand why some of my colleagues have a hands-off rule for student computers.

All this may all come to naught in the near future, however, if the prediction of Apple adopting Windows comes true. I'd wait and see -- but I'm not passing up on that loaner.