00:05.97
Hi there,
My name is Bill Travis and I'm one of the

00:08.57
accessibility advisors of the Fred Smithers Centre for Student Accessibility

00:12.44
here at Saint Marys University.

00:15.20
Today I'd like to give you a short demo on how Read and Write software works.

00:20.61
Read and Write is a software tool that can provide text to speech and speech to

00:26.58
text support for students with print related disabilities.

00:33.28
To get your own copy of Read and Write

00:37.510
as a student with who is registered at Saint Marys University,

00:41.62
all you would do is log into Bright Space, go to Student Resources,

00:47.24
choose Accessibility Tools from that menu, and then Scroll down to Read and Write.

00:56.39
On this page you can watch a video on how
it works and you can install,

01:01.84
Read and Write as a Google Chrome extension, Microsoft Edge extension,

01:07.23
or a standalone tool for Windows, Android, iPad or Mac.

01:12.91
As you can see at the top of my screen, I have the standalone

01:18.13
version of Read and Write for Windows and it appears as a toolbar at the top of my

01:22.93
screen with the play button with the a bunch of other icons on it.

01:30.050
Let's experiment with

01:32.45
dictating using reading, Write, read, and write.

01:35.43
Let's say I want to dictate an e-mail that would open my e-mail,

01:39.40
click on the talk and type icon in the middle of the toolbar.

01:49.39
Dear John,

01:53.460
I would like to have a chat furthering
our discussion from the hallway yesterday.

02:01.89
I think this topic warrants further discussion.

02:10.11
I'm free tomorrow and Friday afternoon after 1:00 PM.

02:14.46
Do either of those times work for you, Bill?

02:27.94
Then I can dictate my subject.
I could type in my e-mail or paste in the

02:33.17
e-mail address that I want to send it to. Hit send.

02:38.21
Easy as that. In terms of the other tools

02:43.04
that read and write offers the reading tool. For example, um,

02:47.56
let me find something to read.

02:53.61
OK,
here's a page with a little bit of text.

02:57.47
Let's say I have a learning disability or

03:02.73
or even a visual impairment and finding it hard to read off the screen or I get

03:07.16
migraines from reading off the screen too often.

03:09.88
I just want to have the computer read it for me and I can look elsewhere. I can

03:16.52
select, text, press play

03:19.08
and listen.

03:20.41
Our team of exam accommodations, Administrators A's,

03:23.00
manages the coordination of these accommodations with both students and

03:26.53
faculty members.

03:29.97
As you can see,
there's a little bit of a lag in both the

03:32.94
dictation tool and in the reading tool from when I press play or for when I

03:36.84
dictate something.
And then when I get that feedback,

03:41.79
If you've seen the video that we have on our website on Microsoft Word and the

03:47.31
Dictate tool built into Word or the Immersive Reader tool in the view menu in

03:52.76
Microsoft Word, it's much more immediate. So that's an advantage of using the

03:58.21
built-in version programs that have their own built-in readers or dictate tools.

04:03.88
With this one,
I'm using a standalone product that's

04:07.58
speaking to another software program. So there's going to be a leg.

04:12.93
A small disadvantage though, considering some of the other features.

04:17.01
You've got a screenshot reader.
You've got the ability to plug in your

04:21.21
scanner,
scan from a physical textbook and have it

04:24.23
read aloud to you.
You've got an audio maker.

04:26.96
If I want to take this text,

04:30.09
copy it into the audio maker,
and then make an MP3 file in the voice of

04:35.12
my choice, of course,
You might have noticed that I was playing

04:39.59
it back just a moment ago.
I had it set to

04:43.71
I believe an English male voice with a Welsh accent.

04:50.81
This is your new voice, is it OK? You can change the pitch,

04:54.09
you can put pauses between words, you can alter the voice speed.

04:57.65
Once you have the speed you want though, then you can

05:02.15
plug that text into your audio maker and make an audio book of anything you wanted

05:07.48
to read.

05:08.91
It's pretty handy in terms of writing tools. It also has yeah, word prediction,

05:13.97
dictionary, spell checker.
So there's a variety of tools to

05:17.76
experiment with a PDF reader,
4 different colour highlighters if you

05:22.13
want to highlight your readings and let's say for different essay topics.

05:26.81
So you can just go back and read all the yellow highlights if you choose the

05:31.68
yellow topic if you colour code them that way.

05:36.46
If you have any questions about how to use read and write,

05:40.17
don't hesitate to reach out to us at Fred smithers

05:45.07
Do check out our assistive tech videos on

05:49.10
our website on other things like green and the assistive software tools built

05:54.01
into Microsoft Word, for example.
I hope you've enjoyed this and have a great day.