75 Years of AFB and Talking Books

This site has been up for a while and I admit I should have taken a look-see before now. But I am glad I finally found the time because the American Foundation for the Blind on-line history exhibit titled 75 Years of AFB and Talking Books is well worth the time and includes a histiry of AFB and Talking Books as well as photos, sound bytes and original materials celebrating the history of the organization and of the talking book.

We will get around to the accessibility issues ...

... right after we fix a few other bugs.

A story out of the University of Kansas tells the tale of 900+ exams that had to be tossed out due to software issues with the classroom 'clickers' used to take the exam. This story caught my eye because one of the topics discussed at the annual business meeting in November, 2007 was the formation of a Consulting Group that would work with institutions, companies, public entities, etc. to assess the accessibility of their products and services. A specific example provided by the head of this subgroup was that of a vendor of ‘classroom clickers’ who desired an outside and objective opinion of their products. These devices are more formally known as 'student response systems' or 'classroom response systems'.

The question before the ATHEN membership was to ascertain interest in doing such accessibility evaluations. In general - do we as an organization have the ‘horsepower’ to create an Accessibility Evaluation group and accept payments for such services. Yes -- 'payment' -- and there is where the conversation got a little uncomfortable for some of the members. Another possible catch for entities who hire ATHEN for such work is the insistence of leadership that such evaluations be made available for public consumption. We are a non-profit educationally affiliated organization with the mission to "collect and disseminate best practices in access technology within and for the higher education environment". The idea of doing such evaluations and then not making them available for at least our membership was something to consider.

In the end the matter was left to the membership to consider and for interested parties to think about it and have an off-line conversation with President Ron Stewart. Hopefully we will hear of updates about this at the CSUN conference.

NFB - Access Technology Blog

Another new blog of interest to our readers has come to my attention. The National Federation of the Blind has started The Access Technology Blog. This is produced by the NFB Access Technology Team and is led by Clara Van Gerven.

Altformat.com Survey

Altformat.com, the international knowledge base project that ATHEN President Ron Stewart has been working on, is seeking folks to complete a short survey for them.

Please visit: http://www.altformat.com/index.asp?pid=354 if you can find the time to provide them with this much needed feedback.

Portable Apps Update (and Accessibility)

The latest issue of PC Magazine has a brief article on creating the ultimate USB key. This sort of article is not unusual and appears every six months or so as new hardware and software finds its way to market. Reading such articles and checking out the websites and services they mention is a good way to keep up with what is new out there.

It's also fun to take a look back on this blog as I did and found a posting from December 2005 where I am excited about a getting my hands on a 4GB portable drive. Yeesh -- flash forward two-and-a-quarter-years and I can now get a 32GB flashdrive for less than the 250GB external harddrive I bought about a year ago! For that matter- I recently loaded an 8GB microSD card onto my BlackBerry. It cost me almost nothing as it was part of a package deal when I got my new device. Now that's what I call portable storage!

Anyway - the purpose of this post is to note that the Portable Apps site is still one of my favorites and to point out a their listing of accessibility items that may be of interest to the ATHEN community. These include the Virtual Magnifying Glass Portable, the Firefox Accessibility Extension, and the On-Screen Keyboard Portable. How useful any of these items is remains with the end-user. For example, I have heard good things about the Firefox extension but do not personally use Firefox as my web browser.

Home | Accessible Content Magazine

Like this blog, Accessible Content Magazine took a little time off and has now returned for your reading enjoyment. I enjoyed this magazine when it first appeared but like a lot of small startups was not suprised when it disappeared - getting a new venture up and running is not always easy - especially when the goal is to provide free content that also demonstrates quality in content and appeal. From what I see on the homepage, they have rounded up some good sponsoers and I wish them the best of luck.

However -- a magazine or journal such as this cannot be successful without input from readers and submissions from the community to which the magazine is geared. It may be bold of me - but I challenge the membership of ATHEN and the readers of this blog to not only subscribe to Accessible Content Magazine but to also provide articles, comments, and content.

ATHEN Updates

After a hiatus it is time to get the blog up and running again. How better than to provide some updates on the organization to which this blog is entrusted.

• First up is Minutes for Accessing Higher Ground Conference Meeting 2007 ATHEN. These are the official minutes from the annual business meeting back in November. A previous post had some information and links (and an excellent picture of President Ron) but they were unofficial and incomplete.
• Next up is information on ATHEN membership. The membership application has been updated and we are now able to accept credit card payments through PayPal. Complete information is available on the Membership Page.
• The third (3rd) issue of the ATHEN e-journal is available for your reading pleasure (along with the first two issues). This issue provides an overview of the State of Assistive Technology Support for Students with Disabilities in the United Kingdom. The content of this issue came from our international members across the pond.
• The ATHEN Wiki is now up and running as well. Both members and n0n-members are welcome to contribute. I know that all of us have something to add -- the trouble is in finding the time to do so (kinda like running a blog)
• Several members recently attended and took part in ATIA and many more will be attending and taking part in CSUN. We will also be represented at NERCOMP (Educause), the UConn PTI, AHEAD, and the national Educause. Details on conferences past, present, and future will be presented in later postings.
• Also note that members and non-members alike are welcome to join the conversation on the ATHEN e-mail list. We would prefer that - if you are going to do more than lurk - that you join the organization. But all opinions are welcome (more or less).