1. Using student experiences to deliver
an employability resource aimed at
disabled students
o Simon Ball and Lisa Featherstone
o JISC TechDis
o www.jisctechdis.ac.uk
o helpdesk@techdis.ac.uk

2. What do JISC TechDis
do? (In theory)
o A leading UK advisory service on
technologies for inclusion. We explore and
promote inclusive practices, resources and
advice for learning and teaching in UK
higher education, and the wider further
education & skills sector.

3. What do JISC TechDis
do? (Actually)
o Staff development o TechDis Voices
o TechDis Tuesdays o Jack & Jess
o Xerte Friday o Text-to-speech
o Accessible IT Practice o SBRI
Support Programme o MyDocStore
o TechDis Toolbox o Navitext
o Aimed at learners o uKinect
o Working smarter with o PSLT
technology

4. TechDis Tuesdays
o Fortnightly updates on Tuesdays, 13.00
o Intro dialogue (~10 minutes)
o Detailed discussion with delegates (~20-30
mins)
o Show notes to highlight further reading
o Podcast, transcript, discussion summary and
show notes all posted online
o www.jisctechdis.ac.uk/tdtuesdays

5. So, why am I here?
o In the creation of the Toolbox (including the
Voices), we utilised students heavily to
design, develop and disseminate the
resources.
o First of all, a brief introduction to the
resources….

6. TechDis Toolbox
www.jisctechdis.ac.uk/tbx

7. TechDis Voices
Who will benefit?
o People who prefer to listen.
o People who prefer to multitask.
o People with better oral than literacy skills.
o People who like making use of dead-time
eg travelling, queuing etc.
o People who don‟t carry around files but do
carry around phones. Listen to them.
o People with print impairments.
o Tutors who want to give more options to
learners.

8. TechDis Voices
How do I get started?
• Make sure you are eligible (post 16
learning provider in England delivering
publicly funded courses).
• Go to www.jisctechdis.ac.uk/voices
• Watch the videos and follow the
instructions and links.

9. Community-Based
Participatory Research
Kushalnagar, Williams and Kushalnagar (2012)
“Most accessible technology research approaches
include the target population as end-users, not as
community partners”
“Community-Based Participatory Approach: Students as
Partners in Educational Accessible Technology Research”
Lecture Notes in Computer Science 7382, Computers
Helping People with Special Needs, ICCHP Proceedings
July 2012, Part I

10. Why the Toolbox came
about…
o We asked students (via focus groups in special
schools, independent specialist provision for
young adults, mainstream colleges and students
from Higher Education with diverse needs) „what
should your tutor have told you but never did‟?

11. What they said…
o Feedback from students showed many had
informal support networks outside of education
environment.
o It also showed that in the wider skills area, there
were a lot of gaps in people‟s knowledge, and the
informal support networks were the only real way
of obtaining „training‟

12. So we created mini-
videos
o Inspired by the Commoncraft videos – parents
and carers told us they were ideal.
o Here‟s an example:
o http://jisctechdis.ac.uk/techdis/multlinkres/detail/CC_
Wiki
o We commissioned similar videos to „fill the gaps‟
in basic digital literacy skills. Here‟s one
example:
o http://jisctechdis.ac.uk/techdis/multlinkres/detail/PDF_
ReadOnScreen

13. Simultaneously to
this….The Voices….
We regularly received anecdotal feedback that
free text-to-speech voices were:
o Too „computerised‟ or „robotic‟
o Too old
o Too American
Most institutions only had licenses for the „good‟
voices for specific students, mitigating against
their wider use.

14. BIS agreed to fund
development of two
national „free‟ text-to-
speech voices
o CereProc won the tender, and provided us with
voice samples from 7 young British actors.
o 400 students provided feedback as to which they
preferred (not only existing TTS users)
o Many were still critical: „too posh‟, „too Southern‟

15. Jack and Jess
o Following the feedback on the voice of „Jack‟ we
asked Cereproc to find 7 female actors with „not
posh‟ and „not Southern‟ voices.
o Eventually „Jess‟ was selected from feedback
from 400 students again – the first ever
„Northern English‟ text-to-speech voice.
o Both voices were taken back to the 400 students
again who suggested re-working to better
pronounce key words.

16. Feedback from students 1
o I have quite a basic Dell laptop perhaps not as
sofisticated [sic] as some (obviously provided by
my employer for the job) so chose this one to
use rather than my personal computer . I think
it's clear enough .
o I didn't read the instructions - as might be
expected to be the case for many :)

17. Feedback from students 2
o The files are big and the install takes a while to get
going - or perhaps my slow old PC. I used
Powertalk to test and the voices are pretty
good.
o I did the installation and I listened to the Jess and
Jack voices in the 'Speech' properties. I then
listened to both voices. Both of which sound
really great, the best I have heard. I now can't
seem to get this to work or find instructions on how
to get this to work in the BBC news site for
example.

18. Feedback from students 3
o Nathan, from Henshaws College
“I like using the Voice with my light writer as it
helps me chat up girls”

19. Now using students for
dissemination
o Both Toolbox and the Voices need to be spread
widely, at both institutional level (in which we
have some experience) and at user level (where
we have much less).
o Students have been absolutely key here. We
have worked with a variety of „Ambassador‟
groups such as the DOTs (Digital Outreach
Trainers)

20. Who are these
„ambassadors‟?
o We discovered that several regions have
schemes where young people are used as
informal „trainers‟.
o South Yorkshire DOTs – Digital Outreach
Trainers – give an hour a week to train people
on IT.
o Waqas – used Toolbox to get his autistic sister online
o Khaled – working with refugees in Rotherham using
Toolbox and Voices to teach English and IT

21. We decided we could
learn a whole lot more
o The Ambassadors so astounded us we started
looking for them elsewhere. We went to ISCs to
ask students how they used technology, both
formally at college and informally at home - and
some of the results were quite impressive:
o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEGLlOiLHLU

22. Future work
o A large Ambassadors project in the South East
o www.clickstart.org – London based communities
for students with learning disabilities – we want
to roll this out nationwide, possibly using Inbook
o Bid currently in for creating Northern Ireland
voice(s)
o Many more short videos on Freemium services
eg Evernote, Skype, Dragon Dictate for iPhone,
Twitter, Camstudio, Jing etc

23. This has been just a small sample of what
JISC TechDis has to offer.
Visit our main website for more advice on
technologies for inclusion.
www.jisctechdis.ac.uk