428 - Technology for Reading
the latest tech i'm alexa i can answer your questions interviews and we are evolving and we are seeing an amazing opportunity that is happening accessibility accessibility is one of our core values it's even the title admission statement this is doubletap tv welcome to doubletap tv thank you guys so much for being with us today and each and every single week again if you want to get involved feedback at ami.ca is our email address on twitter follow us if you're not already following us come on come on hurry up it's at doubletap canada with the hashtag which is ask doubletap i am marca flala with steven scott by my side each and every single week stephen we're talking something close to your heart this week not really close to my heart because i honestly stephen i don't read much do you read a lot well you know you say it's close to my heart i'm not much of a reader either um and you know it depends what you define as reading now i know that i'm going to get myself into all kinds of hot water by saying this but you know reading a book is very different to reading or listening to an audio book um it's some people say it's the same i think it's different i think one is reading one is listening reading is about understanding the word uh whereas listening is taking in the words um so i think there's a difference there but i listen to a lot of audio books um not as many as i would like to i'm not the most well-read person in the world i admit that and you know when it came to growing up i had real challenges with reading because of course i couldn't see that well especially as a kid i could barely see at all to read and they would try and give me large print books that didn't really work i didn't learn braille as a kid so i was you know stuck in that point where you know i had to have audio books and there weren't that many around when you were growing up was braille something that they introduced to you at all or was that something that your parents had to go seek out for you to try and give you that tool well braille as i was growing up and i think it's the same today unfortunately was really reserved for those children who were totally blind and for the adults who were totally blind so if you were completely blind you'd be top braille at school and you'd have access to the braille libraries which was brilliant if you had access to that but of course the challenge there was getting access to the books you wanted because not every book was made available in braille it would take a long time for the books to be created they were huge as well you know a large book would take up several volumes of braille books because they're so large so you know there was lots of challenges there audio was the same it wasn't as available as it is today so you didn't have the ability to just go on the line and buy the audio version of the book it didn't exist uh you'd have to either get the book read for you i had that at school quite a lot school teachers would sit down with a tape recorder and record my books or my notes or my information booklets whatever it was i needed onto cassette tape i would then use a cassette player to carry that around along with a computer along with a large desktop magnifier going to class was an event for me i mean i i had more with me than beyonce most of the time um you know it was always a a real faff to go around but you know that was the only way that i could access the printed words and text fast forward to today or fast forward to at least you know the century um was there a moment in time that you felt that technology was at least catching up and giving people you know with low vision uh putting them on equal footing with people who can read i think it was the day when i heard audible by amazon now um talk about audiobooks as something that was for everyone and they did that by promoting audiobooks for people who were out running or driving in their car and wanted to catch up with the latest best seller instead of sitting at home or lying by the beach reading a book you could listen to it on the move and that changed things it changed the conversation around audiobooks and that allowed audiobooks to start becoming more popular and because they became more popular because more people were buying them the prices came down a good example was i bought a book that was about 25 an audio form that was only like five dollars in paperback um you know the price disparity was ridiculous whereas all that seems to have gone away although don't get me wrong audiobooks still cost more to buy but you can get subscriptions and credits with things like audible and there are local libraries now that benefit from the work that audible's done because those books are often donated to libraries like cnib in canada like rnib in the uk and equally in libraries around the world and you know that led to things like the marrakesh treaty coming along which enabled books to be transferred across borders so when a book was read in london in england that same recording didn't have to be reproduced in london and canada right that wasn't necessary anymore that book could transfer across borders so things have changed the attitude towards audiobooks changed it became more mainstream and that therefore meant it became more accessible to blind people of course but also to everyone that was when i think things changed in the audiobook market well if you haven't already figured it out we're talking all about reading and technology that enables reading for people with low vision and one of those stories comes to us from grant hardy contributor here to doubletap tv uh he's going to tell us about his experience right absolutely and grant tells a great story and i want him to tell it because ultimately he talks about his own experience growing up as a blind child and talking about some of those challenges i'm telling you about about my own education um but let's hear what how grant got on because even though i'm saying to you you know the kids who were blind maybe had that a little bit easier because they had the braille and they had the access to the library it wasn't as plain sailing as you might think hey ami reporter and doubletap contributor grant carter here from vancouver growing up blind i always loved to read but getting my hands on accessible books wasn't easy because i had to get either a commercial audiobook out of the library or buy it at a hefty price oftentimes getting an abridged version that didn't even include the whole story or else wait months for an organization like the cnib to produce and mail me an accessible format from all the way across the country for my favorite childhood series just six out of over 50 books were available to me in braille and this was the norm as i got older scanners became more mainstream hold each page of a book completely stationary against a glassy surface not an easy thing for a kid to do and you'd eventually get an ebook though it could be quite riddled with errors at the same time specialized blindness hardware for reading became readily available braille note takers and fisher-pricey hardware where you could load up e-books and audiobooks on a storage card connect headphones and listen to your heart's content but the problem was still getting my hands on ebooks a hot new release on the day it came out yeah not likely today the accessible reading landscape is a thousand times better the sighted world has finally woken up and realized what blind people knew all along ebooks and audiobooks rock many commercial books on platforms like apple books and amazon kindle are accessible and in the blindness landscape the cela center for equitable library access gives you access to over a million e-books through their own catalog and through the american site bookshare.org all for free you can read these books anywhere you want like a computer or braille notetaker but one indie developer winston chen has single-handedly changed the way we read these ebooks and audiobooks with his app voice dream reader for blind users features like multiple navigation modes speed adjustment many high quality voices and the ability to pick up the exact word where you stopped make reading a pleasure and for partially sighted users features like multiple magnification levels and font adjustment make reading visually pleasing i use this app personally for my ebook collection and reading but don't be surprised to find it everywhere from a student's ipad in the classroom to devices right here at ami there's nothing like getting lost in a good book that will never change but what has changed since i was a kid is how easy it is to get my hands on a book where suddenly i feel like most books are within reach of my fingertips but i wouldn't want you to think that i've ever gone back and read some of those sci-fi kid books i was never able to finish at the time that would just be way too crazy right that is double tap tv and ami's grant hardy talking all about his experience with the reading and we're talking all about reading this week on double tap tv i am marca flala with steven scott we're going to take a quick break but when we come back a gentleman who hosts a show called my life and books on ami audio and an ami exclusive podcast stick around for more great double tap tv content visit ami dot ca double tap is double tap tv welcome back to doubletap tv thank you guys for being here talking all about reading this week on this edition of double tap tv get involved feedback at ami.ca of course is our email address if you're not already following us on twitter it is at doubletap canada and use that hashtag which is ask doubletap well today on the show we have a very special guest a host of a fantastic podcast and radio show over on ami audio that is my life in books the host is red sail and he joins us now red great to have you here on doubletap tv hi stephen how are you i'm great red thank you uh so i wanted to get you on because i know you're very passionate about books hey you do a show about it right so you know you're a passionate man about books um what does reading mean to you i've always loved books i i was a voracious reader as a child i was one of those kids who just used to hide underneath the duvet with a torch and uh hope that my mother didn't come and check that i was asleep and i just you know gobbled up everything from tintin to enid blyton to aleister mclean and then i went to study english at university so it's it's always been my window on the world when you began to lose your sight red did you i mean i imagine a lot of things went through your mind but did you think about losing the ability to read at least physical books anyway i mean did that go through your mind it was the thing that scared me most i got my diagnosis when i was 19 years old and i just gone to university to study english and maybe for the first time in my life i wasn't exactly reading for pleasure i was having to read an enormous amount of books and really big hefty books like dickens and i'd already noticed that my my reading speed was getting much slower and i just didn't know why and and then when i was given this diagnosis and told quite bluntly that i could expect to be totally blind by the age of 30 it just felt like a death sentence to me to be perfectly honest at any point during your journey did you think to yourself maybe that technology could be the solution to your challenge and then help you read the printed word yeah i got contacted fairly early on by the royal national institute for the blind and they said look you know there are books on tape you can ask for them and you know for for some of the books like the dickens or the milton it was i i got these big chunky tapes come through the post but there was a bit of a wait time on them and i needed to read these books you know two or three a week um and then produce essays on them and they were also read really slowly by these you know actors from the 1950s and 60s when they'd first been recorded and so actually i just i got the magnifier and the bright light and i just struggled my way through and then the books that i wanted for pleasure the books that were being published whilst i was you know whilst i was at university and afterwards i'd have to wait a year or so until they actually got recorded so to be honest technology just didn't help me apart from the ancient technology of a bright light and a magnifying glass you know as someone who never really enjoyed reading physical books because of the challenges i had with it i i guess you'll know about this as well and you have come to this experience yourself taking the information inaudibly is quite different you know reading is a very silent experience for a lot of us it's all about taking in that information just sitting back on a sunday afternoon you know letting that information come in quietly it's part of the the joy of reading so how did that translate for you when you had to change all that to audio yeah you're diving into another world and a little bit like sort of diving into water you almost need to shut off your other senses and just let your mind swim and i think it was i've got so used to being visual with reading i didn't realize that actually now my eyes had been switched off that i could just let my ears do the work and i was still only using one sense i was turning everything else off and yeah i mean do i miss visual reading and that that kind of deep dive in and making the voices in my own head yes i do but actually i think nowadays narrators are so good they're so nuanced that actually they do a fair amount of that for you i i heard a wonderful narrator called lucy scott describing it as theater for one and that's how she does it she she is the entire cast of characters and they've all got a slightly different voice and i think to be honest since audio books have become more of a mainstream activity and for that i think we have really to thank stephen fry reading the harry potter books the the the game has been changed and and all the narrators have upped their game and they are they are literally thespians to be honest yes seriously it is doubletap tv we are talking to red cell this week all about reading and technology for reading i am mark of lala with steven scott we're going to take a quick break and come back with more of red after this for more great double tap tv content visit ami dot ca double tap this is double tap tv back here on doubletap tv thank you guys for being with us we are talking all about reading this week on doubletap tv i am mark of lalo with steven scott and our guest this week is red cell the host of my life and books a show you can hear in podcast form on ami audio exclusives and also on ami audio red i've got to ask you a question because we're talking about the experience of going to audiobooks and and that you know line but what tech are you using these days to actually enjoy the audiobooks because there's got to be you know a device in particular that you like so right predominantly i use my iphone um and i'm linked up to the rnib reading services platform and to audible and i just download my books straight onto my phone stick my headphones in and pot around the house doing my chores and avoiding doing other pieces people's chores to be honest uh so you know i i learned long ago that you can cook or iron whilst listening to an audio book which i couldn't do when i was holding a penguin book in my hand and um and trying to chop vegetables it just didn't work so actually i'm reading far far more books than i ever did but every so often for my job i get sent books as reader um as early reader copies and or review copies and they haven't been loaded up onto any of the electronic platforms yet and i'll get those usually sent through something like dropbox and i'll download them onto my laptop and because i don't want to be carrying my laptop around i'll stick them on a memory stick and i've got my friendly sonics sovereign mp3 player which is as you can see it's big it's chunky it's got the kind of buttons that i can use because i climb rocks and my fingers are all mashed up and it's just really simple to use and again i just plug some headphones in stick that into the pocket of my fleece and wander around to the house listening to that i guess the only thing i don't like about that so much is that it jumps forward only in chapters or sections and um so i can't rewind and listen to the um listen to that sentence or paragraph that i missed again without having to jump back through the whole chapter but you know for for sedentary end of the day with a glass of wine in your hand type of reading it's perfect now red we know each other pretty well and i can say this with experience that you've because you've told me you're not the most techy guy in the world but it seems that you've got to grips with some of this technology the iphone at least right um yeah i the phone i have to say i i did end up moving away from um having an android phone to an iphone just because i do find voiceover and the general commands just much easier um yeah it's it's i'd say it's relatively easy it's easy enough for me not to get so frustrated i give up and go and ask one of the sighted members of my family to do it it's mastering that sort of flow sheet of steps um reading services it's a bit clunky but it's that's the one that you use with dolphin easy reader it's a bit clunky but it it's good enough and the voice recognition now is good enough that i usually find the book that i want and can download it easily enough um amazon yeah it's not so bad i can i i download my books off amazon and load up the audible app and and get it to play uh on my phone i've also linked it to my um alexa dot which is nice and easy because i just shout at that and it resumes the book uh from where i last left it so yeah i'm getting i think it gets a bit easier every six months and whether that's partly because i get more used to using the technology or because the technology just gets smarter and smarter and recognizes my commands better um yeah i'm i'm i'm a lot happier with it than i used to be the weird thing is i'm actually happier since i've gone totally non-visual now that i can't see it's forced me not to try and cheat i suppose trying to peer at it as well as using voice over and i think maybe i was trying to ride two horses at once and it's it's easier now i've gone non-visual you know red considering where you were when you began losing your sight and where you are now in regards to audiobooks and reading at least has the joy of reading come back to you i am as happy as i was when i could read novels in physical form i uh to be honest i'm probably better off than i was because i have so many more books to choose i pay my monthly subscription which really you know it isn't as much as going out and buying that new hardcover book from my local bookshop you know i get it for the price of the paperback it's there immediately and i can read it in bed at night when my wife's asleep without being told off for having the light on red thank you so much for coming on to doubletap tv thank you very much stephen no thank you red and thank you guys at home for joining us this week as always if you've got something to say let us know uh feedback at ami.c is our email address we welcome all forms of questions comments and criticisms if you have to uh if you want to reach out on twitter it is at doubletap canada and use that hashtag which is double tap on behalf of our guest red zell and of course steven scott i am mark of flallow thank you guys for being with us this week we'll catch again next week on double dab tv hosted and written by markaflallo and stephen scott editing in motion graphics jordan steves integrated described video specialist ron rickford coordinating producer jennifer johnson director of production karen i director programming brian perdue vp content development and programming john melville president and ceo david arrington copyright 2022 accessible media inc
2022-03-26 16:06
