I've been meaning to blog about this for ages and have finally got round to it!

The Oxford Owl web site has over 250 free Oxford Reading Tree eBooks for teachers, children and parents to read online. The books have a recorded narration (i.e. human, not computer speech) and you can zoom in and out to make the text and pictures bigger or smaller. Turning the pages is done with a click of a mouse - you can't use the keyboard or switches directly.  You could however point the mouse over the 'next page' button and then use a switch to click, to turn the page.

The books are ideal for using on a whiteboard or for individuals to read on their own computer (but not iPad - the books are Adobe Flash format which don't play on iOS).

There are also some activities for each book (although they didn't work on my computer - no doubt got the wrong version of Java / Flash / other plug in) and the 'Kids Barn' has a lot of information and games about Biff, Chip, Kipper and Floppy and the other characters. 

109 new books have just been added to the Books for All Database. They are all Large Print PDFs which have been created by the VTSS team in Edinburgh, and we are grateful to them for sharing these accessible copies via the Database. 

The books can be downloaded and printed out for pupils with visual difficulties, and they can also be read on screen, which can be helpful to learners with dyslexia and reading difficulties, pupils with physical disabilities who have difficulty holding the paper book and turning pages. 

Learners can read the books on computer using free Adobe Reader software, which lets you zoom in and out to change the size, and adjust the text and page colours. With most of the books, the text can be read out using either the free built-in Adobe Read Out Loud, or other text readers such as Ivona MiniReader, ClaroRead, Co:Writer, Penfriend or PDFaloud.  Pupils can use the Adobe Reader commenting and markup tools to highlight key passages and add their own typed or recorded audio notes. To find out more, take a look at our Video Guides and Quick Guides.

You can find the new books on the Database here. (Note you have to log in to the database see the new books).

The eBook revolution continues apace in all sorts of ways, and more Scottish public libraries are joining in by lending eBooks and downloadable audiobooks, for us to borrow and read or listen to on our computers, iPhone or iPad, and Android devices. So far, five local authorities offer eBooks and downloadable audiobooks:

• Aberdeenshire
• Dundee
• East Renfrewshire
• Edinburgh
• South Ayrshire.

Yesterday Apple launched iBooks 2, a new version of the iBooks app for iThingys; iBooks Author, a program for the Mac which is for writing and designing iBooks, and a range of interactive textbooks. The video about the interactive textbooks video a well worth a look - very promotional but also inspiring, and particularly relevant for those of us involved in supporting students with print disabilities.

Coincidentally, yesterday we ran a course for the first time on eBooks, Kindles and iPads. Preparing for it was an educational experience for Stuart, Sandra, Craig and I, and we learned a lot about the features and also limitations of Kindles, iPads and commercial eBooks.

A few observations, just from this one course:

• Over half the teachers on the course owned a Kindle.
• A teacher from a Primary unit for pupils with visual impairment has 6 Kindles and she says she's almost stopped using paper large print completely - she emails the materials to the Kindles and the pupils use large font sizes on the devices instead. It saves a lot of paper, printing and therefore money, and the pupils prefer the Kindles to most (not all) of the paper large print books (books with large colour diagrams might not be that good on the Kindle screen). It's also a lot quicker - printing out 800 pages of 36 pt text takes a long time, whereas emailing the file to the Kindles takes seconds. 
• Another teacher on the course has a son who is dyslexic. He used to need coloured overlays to read books and was never a great reader, but he can see the Kindle screen display: she says he now spends hours reading books on the Kindle whereas before he never read for pleasure.   
• Participants generally felt that the Kindle, iPad, iPod etc have a considerable 'cool' factor, which is of course a big issue. And because they are mainstream devices, you don't look that different if you use one to read books.
• The eBook formats and readers are definitely becoming more accessible - bigger range of fonts, options to change colours and font sizes, better access with text-to-speech software.
• Some public libraries (Edinburgh, Dundee and South Ayrshire, at least) are now offering eBooks on loan. You can borrow a book and read it on your computer, iPod, iPad, Android device etc.
• The most exciting thing, for me, is the huge increase in the availability of books and materials - as well as Kindle, we have iBooks, WH Smith, Google Book store. Although the commercial eBook formats and readers may not give us everything we want in terms of accessibility (yet), they are getting there, and we are already seeing how the technology can give print disabled pupils access to learning materials in a way that is quicker, cheaper, easier and more independent than what we had before.

We have just uploaded the six TeeJay Maths secondary books to the Books for All Database, which means that all the TeeJay textbooks are now available for pupils with print disabilities to use. The files have been kindly supplied to us by Tom and John at TeeJay, and there are strict terms and conditions regarding who can download them and use them: they are only to be used by upils who cannot access the printed books..

The books are in PDF format and so are accessible on screen for learners with physical or motor impairments, mild visual impairment, or reading difficulties. When you open them in Adobe Reader you can:

• use keyboard or mouse to navigate;
• zoom in and out (press CTRL + and CTRL - or use the buttons on the toolbar);
• use text-to-speech to have the text read out;
• use the TypeWriter tool or the Comment and Markup tools to type answers on the page, add drawings and diagrams, highlight text, and add labels and notes.

• if you use the built-in Read Out Loud tool in Adobe Reader, you'll find it tends to read the whole page, so you're better off with a text reader where you can select what you want to read, like PDFaloud, ClaroRead, Natural Reader, Penfriend, Ivonas MiniReader, etc;
• the books don't re-flow and you can't change the page colours - something to do with the way they were originally laid out.

We have added a new section to the Books for All web site which gathers together all the quick guides and also the new video guides on the Education Scotland web site, into separate pages. It should be much easier to navigate and find the resources you need. 

We'll be adding to these in the coming months and if you have any suggestions for topics that need covered please add a comment or let us know.

Earlier this year Stuart and I were videoed finding, using and making books in accessible formats, and the videos are now available on the Education Scotland web site. They provide a quick and reasonably (we think!) straightforward introduction to Books for All, and you can download the videos and the transcripts for CPD. The only unfortunate thing about the videos are the dodgy presenters.

There are also some very illuminating and useful comments from staff and young people about how accessible formats can be used in practice, and why it's so important for learners to have books and materials that they can read and access independently.

Essential viewing!

We are pleased to say that there are now 59 books in Daisy format availlable from the Books for All Scotland Database. These books were produced by Kim Walker and Jamie Cutherbertson and the team at RNIB Scotland Transcription Centre in Glasgow with Scottish Government funding and we are grateful to them for sharing these Accessible Books via the Database. Thanks also to Patricia Carroll, Jennifer MacDougall and Anne Beverdige at LTS for liaising with RNIB to obtain the books.

What are Daisy books are why would you be interested in them?

These Daisy books give you both text and synchronised human narration, so for novels especially, this can be a more pleasant and engaging reading experience than using a computer (even with Heather!) to read the text. Across the Barricades, by Joan Lingard, for example, which is set in Northern Ireland, is narrated by a reader with an Irish accent. The Daisy talking book format was originally developed for people with visual impairment, but Daisy books are also very accessible for anyone with a print disability because they (should) have built-in structure for easy navigation; the reader software has keyboard shortcuts for readers with visual or physical impairments, and readers with visual or learning difficulties or dyslexia can read the books using either the recorded narration (if provided in the book) or text-to-speech.

How can I read the Daisy books?

You can read Daisy books on lots of different devices. On a Windows PC, for example, you can use the free Amis Reader. This gives you control over font size and colours, keyboard control, and it highlights the text as it is read out. Another popular Daisy book reader is Dolphin's EasyReader.Or if you have an iPad, iPod Touch or iPhone, you can use a Daisy book reader such as Read2Go, InDaisy or DaisyWorm to play the Daisy book.

You can also listen to the Daisy audio with a Daisy audio player.

If you want to find out more about Daisy books visit the Daisy Consortium web site. In the meantime, happy reading!

The Kindle for PC Accessibility Plugin is now available for UK customers (and also for users in Australia, Canada and the U.S.). Kindle for PC is free software for reading Kindle eBooks on your Windows PC. The main feature of the new plugin is a text-to-speech tool which means that blind, visually impaired and severely dyslexic readers can listen to the book being read out by the computer. Kindle for PC Accessibility plugin has:

• Text-to-speech reading with adjustable voice settings
• Voice-guided menu navigation
• Large font sizes
• High contrast reading mode
• Keyboard navigation
• Accessible shortcuts

The Kindle reader software can be used to read out the text of the book, and blind readers can use Jaws or NVDA to read the menus and navigation instructions.

The software comes with two American voices - one male and one female - which are OK but not as good as Heather, for example. You can start, pause and stop the speech and read the current, previous or next sentences (see the list of shortcuts below). You can't use other voices on your computer with the Kindle software, and it doesn't highlight the text as it reads.

Like the standard Kindle reader, the font size can be massive (up to about 90pt), and you can change the colours (white on black, black on white, black on sepia).

For keyboard only users, there are keyboard shortcuts to navigate around the software and the eBooks.

The new Kindle reader is a significant step towards making commercial eBooks accessible for readers with print disabilities. There are now over 700,000 books available from the Amazon UK website and so it's a huge source of digital books.

I've updated our Kindle Quick Guide with the new features and you can now download it.

Adobe have just released new versions of Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat Pro. Adobe Reader is the free program that most people use for reading PDF files, such as the Hodder Gibson textbooks that we distribute for pupils who cannot read the paper versions, or the SQA digital exam papers. Acrobat Pro is what we use for creating and editing PDF files.

We will examine the new versions and update our information and web sites in the near future, but for now here are a few important comments.

Adobe Reader X

You can download the new Reader X free from Adobe's web site. It is similar to version 9, except that most of the tools now appear to the right of the screen rather than as toolbars along the top. This makes it looks tidier and less confusing because there aren't loads of mysterious buttons littering your screen, but old pros like us get slightly irritated because it takes more clicks to find things.

The goods news is that PDFaloud and other text-to-speech programs still work with Reader X. You may have to re-install PDFaloud, or manually copy it from the old Reader 9 to the new Reader X folder. (See our FAQs on how to do this.) 

Another good development is that you can add highlights and sticky notes to any PDF (not just ones which have been 'reader-enabled') which can be useful for pupils who are studying with PDF textbooks, or for staff who want to set and mark homework using PDF.

We'll review the new version in more detail soon - watch this space.

Adobe Acrobat Pro X

The new Acrobat Pro X has lots of new and refined features, but there are two in particular which make it really useful for those of us who want to make digital learning resources.

New editable, correctable scanning and OCR

With Acrobat Pro 9 you could scan paper resources into PDF and convert into readable text, but you couldn't correct any scanning mistakes. With Pro X, you can! This means that schools can, for example, scan paper prelims to PDF and correct any misrecognised words so that the questions can be spoken out correctly using text-to-speech software. With Pro 9, you would have had to buy another program like FineReader to do your corrections. We have tested the scanning and OCR with Pro X and it's pretty straightforward and easy to use.

Save to Word or text

Another major improvement is the formatting when saving from Acrobat Pro into other formats such as Microsoft Word - Pro X seems to do a much better job of giving you a Word file that looks like the original PDF. Saving to plain text also seems to give more accurate and reliable results.

Taken together, both these features now make Acrobat Pro X a very useful tool for anyone who wants to create accessible resources and Books for All: you can scan paper resources to PDF, check and correct any errors in order to produce a PDF digital version of the book that looks exactly like the original; and you can also save to Word or plain text and then edit it for example to produce a large print version of the book.

Adobe Acrobat Pro X is now available to Scottish schools from Learning and Teaching Scotland for approximately £51 per licence, plus £20 for the program DVD. You can download a 30 day trial version free from Adobe.

A few years ago Aileen MacIntyre, who teaches at Croftcroighn School in Glasgow, produced some 'symbolised' versions of Oxford Reading Tree books for pupils in the school who were struggling to learn to read. Aileen's books and work was featured in Examples of Best Practice in the 2007 Books for All Report. The idea of adding symbols to books intended to help children learn to read might seem unusual, but staff at Croftcroighn have found that the books help children with engage with the text, and they are sure that the books have improved the childrens' reading and word recognition skills.

Teachers might have concerns that children will rely on the symbols rather than learn to read the text, but the exact opposite seems to happen: for example, one teacher at Avenue End primary says:

"It is having a huge impact on their reading. It has helped with their recognition of high frequency words. They can now identify a lot of these words without the symbols. This is improving their reading and is now transferring to their writing."

Another advantage of the books is that they motivate children who are struggling to learn the words. Another teacher remarks that:

 "These children were struggling with the reading scheme being used in class and were showing signs of losing confidence. Use of this innovative symbolic approach as an aid to word recognition has helped the pupils regain their enthusiasm for reading with definite signs of progress being made by them.

 Aileen has now set up a company called Help Me Read to publish the books, together with worksheets, communication boards and record sheets to support teaching in class. The books are high quality publications, similar to the standard ORT books, and have Widgit symbols printed above the text.

The web site has information about who might benefit from the books, how to use them, an online ordering facility, and examples of how they can be used to support children with additional support needs, reading difficulties or English as a second language.

Most people think of alternative formats as being for example, Large Print, Braille, audio or digital books: Aileen's publications are a great example of how symbols can be used to make books more accessible in a different way.

Today is Burns Night and so we'll all be reading, reciting and singing songs from the bard. You can even download a free App to help you remember the words and find out what they mean (See An App's an App for a that).

So, I was thinking, what about children who use voice output communication aids? How can they join in the fun? 

Well, I suggest they need a decent Scots voice for their communication aid for starters. So girls are maybe OK, because they can get Heather, provided free of charge courtesy of the Scottish Government. So click below to hear Heather reciting the first verse of A Red, Red Rose:

O my luve's like a red red rose,

That's newly sprung in June.

O my luve's like the melodie,

That's sweetly play'd in tune.

Not quite Eddie Reader, but better than some of the alternatives, especially if you want a bloke's voice ....

Not pleasant.

Or we could have delightful Daniel assuring us that a man's a man for a' that:

Hmmm. Loses something I feel.

Culture Minister Fiona Hyslop said:"Robert Burns is Scotland's greatest cultural icon, recognised and celebrated all around the world. His legacy is of incalculable value to Scotland and the country's image abroad."

What we need on Burns Night is a high quality MALE Scottish computer voice! Then boys who use voice output communication aids can have their say too!

The Seeing Ear library is a free online library with about 2,300 books in digital format. Until recently only visually impaired or physically disabled people, or staff  working them, could join, but Seeing Ear has a new CLA licence which means that it can now be used by any person with a print disability, which includes dyslexia.

This is great news for pupils in Scotland and the UK because the library has files for loads of books by popular children's authors such as Jacqueline Wilson, J.K. Rowling, Eoin Colfer, Michael Morpurgo, and many more.

To join the libary and download books go to the Seeing Ear web site.

Most of the books are 'Plain Text' (.txt) files which can be read using almost anything on your computer, but you'll probably want to open them with Microsoft Word  or another word processor like OpenOffice and then change the font and font size to your own preferance. Then read them on screen or print them as e.g. Braille or Large Print.

During November 2010, all Primary 1 children in Scotland will receive a free copy of Manfred the Baddie from the Scottish Book Trust. Manfred won the 0-7 age category of the Royal Mail Awards for Scottish Children's Books last year, and over 11,000 children voted in this age group. The books will be delivered to local authorities for distribution to every P1 class in the area. The author, John Fardell, is 'on tour' meeting pupils and will also be taking part in a Glow Meet on Thursday 25th November from 1.45 to 2.45. The Scottish Book Trust web site has more information and also videos and teacher resources and posters.

However, some children won't be able to read or access the books. Some pupils can't hold the book or turn the pages because of physical disability; some pupils with sight loss won't be able to see the book; others, with learning difficulties, will struggle with the text.

Last year we produced accessible digital versions of Manfred so that pupils with these 'print disabilities' could read the book and take part in the awards. Pupils with physical disabilities can press a key, click the mouse, or hit a switch to turn the pages, while children with other difficulties can listen to an audio narration of the story.

If you have any children in your class who won't be able to read the Manfred paper books and you would like a digital version for them, download a request form (PDF format or DOC format) and send it to us, and we'll send you a CD.

Note that these digital books are only for children who can't read or access the paper copy.