1 Bookshare for Education Digital Texts Revolutionize Learning for Students with Print Disabilities, Kindergarten through Graduate School and Beyond

2 Bookshare for Education  Presenters  Mark Snyderman, Moderator  Office of the Undersecretary, U.S. Department of Education  Jim Fruchterman  CEO, Benetech, and Project Director, Bookshare  Karen Erickson  Director, The Center for Literacy and Disability Studies (CLDS), University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill  Shayla Parker  Law Student, Georgetown University

3 Books without Barriers  Agenda  Accessible Materials: The Federal Commitment  Bookshare.org for Education What is it? How does it work?  The Educational Need for Accessible Materials for Students with Print Disabilities  Bookshare from a Graduate Student Perspective  Q&A

4 What is Bookshare.org?  Bookshare.org is an online library of accessible media for readers with print disabilities.  Over 26,000 members  Over 3,000 schools and other organizations  Over 39,000 titles in the collection  Hundreds of new books added every month Bookshare.org Bookshare.org believes that people with print disabilities should have the same ease of access to books and periodicals that people without disabilities enjoy.

5 Bookshare.org for Education  In October 2007, Bookshare.org was awarded funding from the federal Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) to:  Provide Bookshare.org content and services FREE to all U.S. qualified print disabled students of any age  Expand the Bookshare.org collection  Focus on educational materials requested by teachers  Add textbooks from the NIMAC and publishers  Scan Once, Share Many

6 Benefits to Members  Increased access to materials for students with print disabilities  Free for qualified students through an award from OSEP  Library is available online 24/7  Flexible membership options  Free assistive technology software downloads

7 Bookshare.org Library  Textbooks  Growing number available from NIMAC, publishers and schools  Teacher Recommended Reading  Special Collections  New York Times Best Sellers  Newbery Winners  Caldecott Winners  Young Reader’s Choice  Spanish Books  Publisher Partnerships  Chapter books from Scholastic  HarperCollins bestsellers  Over 600 technical books from O’Reilly Media  Periodicals  Available through our partnership with NFB Newsline  150 national & regional newspapers and magazines NIMAC National Instructional Materials Access Center Why?  The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) of 2004 requires states to address the critical difficulty in obtaining accessible textbooks for students with disabilities. What?  Under the law, NIMAC provides a national repository to collect and store these files, in an accessible format called NIMAS (National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard) and makes them available to states.

8 Eligible Students DisabilityQualified/Not Qualified Examples of Certifying Professionals Visual Impairment (VI), such as blind or low vision Qualified A family doctor, ophthalmologist, optometrist, teacher of the visually impaired, Special Education teacher, certification from the National Library Service Physical Disability (PD) which affects one’s ability to read print, such as inability to hold a book or turn pages Qualified A family doctor or other medical professional, physical therapist, resource specialist, Special Education teacher Learning or Reading Disability Students with a severe enough disability, and a professional certifying that the disability has a physical basis A neurologist, psychiatrist, learning disability specialist, Special Education teacher, school psychologist, or clinical psychologist with a background in learning disabilities Autism Emotional Disabilities ADHD ESL and ELL Not qualified, unless accompanied by a visual or physical disability, or a qualified reading disability that has a physical basis Examples above Record of disability is kept at school

9 Access to Books Bookshare.org DownloadsWho Can DownloadStudent Qualification Public domain books Books with U.S. copyrights Books with international permissions Teachers and StudentsChafee Qualified NIMAC-sourced books Educators (K-12 U.S. public schools and agencies) Chafee + IEP Bookshare.org is authorized to produce digital books in accessible formats through an exemption in the U.S. copyright law called the Chafee Amendment.

10 NIMAC/NIMAS  State agencies ask Bookshare to convert K-12 textbooks from the NIMAC into student-ready forms  One-week average processing time for NIMAC- sourced book requests by 2009  We encourage state and local education agencies to partner with Bookshare.org in an effort to build the world’s largest digital library of accessible media Teachers who are interested in accessing textbooks that are not in the NIMAC are advised to contact their state’s NIMAC coordinator first. State contacts can be found at

11 Membership Options  Everything is done online at Bookshare.org  Nonmembers  Search by title or author  Download public domain books  Individual Memberships for non-students  $50/year with one-time $25 registration fee  Organizational Memberships  Free downloads for all qualified U.S. students through an award from OSEP  Other organizations buy book download packages  Individual Memberships for students  Students under the age of 18 need permission from parent/legal guardian Free for U.S. Educational agencies Schools Colleges and Universities Students Fee Libraries Resource centers Rehabilitation agencies Retirement communities Group homes Community centers International

12 Reading Books in the DAISY Format  DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System)  Read books on a computer using visual presentation and/or synthetic speech (multimodal)  Makes file more readable and easy to navigate  Includes page numbers and paragraphs  Like HTML, plus some extra tags  Convert and play on MP3 player

13 Reading Books in the BRF Format  BRF (Braille Ready Format)  Use notetakers or refreshable Braille displays  Download books to embosser  Order hardcopy Braille books online through partnership with Braille Institute

14 Multimodal Reading  Four ways to enjoy Bookshare.org books  Listen to them (synthesized speech)  View them enlarged (on a PC screen or printed)  See and hear the words simultaneously  Read Braille (digital or hardcopy)

15 Compatible AT Software  Any AT software supporting text-based files Examples:  HumanWare Victor Reader Soft  Don Johnston Read:OutLoud  Kurzweil 3000, 1000  WYNN  OpenBook  Window-Eyes  JAWS  ZoomText  TextHelp Special free version available for download!

16 Compatible AT Hardware  Any AT hardware supporting text-based files Examples:  HumanWare VictorReader Stream and ClassMate Reader  BookCourier and BookPort  Braille displays like the BrailleNote  ICON tm  MP3 players (Educator or Member can convert)

17 Bookshare.org at Home  Access Bookshare.org from home on personal computers to:  Work on homework  Read for pleasure

18 Bookshare.org in Schools  Students with print disabilities keep up with their classmates  Read and listen to books simultaneously  Keep track of what they are reading

19 Bookshare’s Goal  That every student with a print disability has equal access to materials as students without disabilities experience:  Access to the same books, periodicals and reference materials  Access at the same time  Access at the same cost  Access to high-quality media  Access to free or affordable access technology

20 Contact Information  All contact information is on  School and Organizational Memberships:  Customer Service:  General Information:

21 Special Educators and Bookshare  Why are accessible materials important for students with print disabilities?  Limited access to text for reading and listening has a negative impact on vocabulary development.  School-aged students learn ~3,000 new words each year (Miller & Gildea, 1987; Nagy & Herman, 1987; Nagy, Herman, & Anderson, 1985)  After 3rd grade, most of new words are acquired through reading (Nagy, 1988; Nagy & Herman, 1987)  Speech is not a substitute for reading/listening to text because speech does not have the lexical diversity of written language (Stanovich, West, Cunningham, Cipielewski, & Siddiqui, 1996)  Diversity of text types (breadth and depth) is required to maximize vocabulary development (Gardner, 2004)

22 Special Educators and Bookshare  Why are accessible materials important for students with print disabilities?  “…individual differences in exposure to print … affect both the development of cognitive processes and the declarative knowledge bases supportive of further gains in comprehension growth.” (p.6, Stanovich, West, Cunningham, Cipielewski, and Siddiqui, 1996)  Quantity of text reading is significantly related to listening comprehension ability (Hedrick & Cunningham, 2002)

Special Educators and Bookshare  What are the implications of accessible materials for personnel preparation?  Increased understanding of the relationship between listening and reading comprehension (Carlisle, 1991; Stanovich, 1991)  Readers & listeners must know at least 95% of the words they encounter in text in order for basic comprehension to occur (Hu & Nation, 2000; Laufer, 1989, 1997; Liu & Nation, 1985; Wixson & Lipson, 1991)  Increased understandings of Universal Design for Learning and related instructional planning processes (e.g., Planning for All Learners by CAST)  Increased understandings of AT software and hardware

24 Students and Bookshare  Shayla Parker discusses the challenges faced by students with print disabilities in obtaining accessible materials  Access technology  Book scanning  Disabled Student Services

25 Q&A Bookshare.org is a project of Benetech - Benetech’s nonprofit motto: Technology Serving Humanity

26 Bookshare for Education