[Menvi-discuss] College textbooks

Tue Jun 24 10:11:00 EDT 2014

Hi Winona,

It's good you are taking the finding of books into your own hands.  I assume you're aware that you may not find everything you need, and there will be times you will need to have non-music portions scanned by someone or read to you.  Readers were essential in the old days, and they still are sometimes.  Again, it's good you are taking control, but does your school have a disability services office that can help?  When you mention choices of formats, Have you found places that have them to give you?  Some textbook publishers make them available to schools, and that might be something the student services office can look into, if they haven't already.  They can also scan, and hopefully, check for readability and correct outstanding scanning errors before they give the files to you.

My experience is that it doesn't hurt to work with Learning Ally, especially if the books have a lot of non-musical text to get through.  Learning Ally sometimes have people play musical examples on a piano in the studio, which can be really helpful for a music appreciation or history course.  Also, Learning Ally is good at describing things.  You may find that besides music, the texts have pictures or charts, which wouldn't make much sense in braille without a lot of concentration, and they're really only meant for the student to glance at.  An audio description can be much faster for that--or skipped if it's not helping and you know what the illustration is getting at anyway.

If the books are not already in the Learning Ally or someone's catalog, it's really important that you get the transcribing or recording process started.  You probably know that in many cases, the transcriber or people reading can send you installments.  In such cases, it's not only a good idea to have the class schedule, but to know specifically what you will need to read and how you will be expected to work with the material.  There might be a glossary, for example, that you'd need at the very beginning, or the teacher may do chapter 5 before chapter 3.  Depending on how specific the schedules you have are, you may want to arrange to meet with teachers (if they haven't run away for the summer).  It may also help to go through a copy of the print book with someone so you know exactly what parts are going to be challenging for the transcriber or reader, or what format would work best for you if it already is available.  

In making choieces of what format would work for you, you should remember that pdf can be a mess if not tagged properly; you might get all the page numbers in the table of contents together before the chapter names, or might not be able to read any words at all.  The best formats would be Daisy or HTML, but you're more likely to find Word, which can be okay, again, if it's done right.  Word files can have links, sometimes, and would work on most notetakers.

David

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Winona Brackett 
  To: This is for discussing music and braille literacy 
  Sent: Monday, June 23, 2014 8:30 PM
  Subject: Re: [Menvi-discuss] College textbooks

  Yes. I was asking the best way to read the non music parts of the textbook. Sorry i didn't state it more clearly before. 

  Winona 

  trumpetqueenwb at gmail.com 

  "Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it." -Lou Holtz 

  Sent from my iPhone using VoiceOver 

  On Jun 23, 2014, at 7:05 PM, "Teresa Haifley" <dthaifley at iowatelecom.net> wrote:

    Are you asking what format for the transcriber?  I must have misunderstood.
    I thought you were asking what format in which to read the non-music
    portions of the books.  

    I got along well with Learning Ally when I home schooled one of my kids.
    PDF's are okay but not quite as easily navigated with Jaws as I would like.
    You will probably need to use more than one format.

    -----Original Message-----
    From: Menvi-discuss [mailto:menvi-discuss-bounces at menvi.org] On Behalf Of
    Kathleen Cantrell
    Sent: Monday, June 23, 2014 5:54 PM
    To: This is for discussing music and braille literacy
    Subject: Re: [Menvi-discuss] College textbooks

    Yes, PDF is the easiest way!

    -----Original Message-----
    From: Bettie & Bill Downing
    Sent: Monday, June 23, 2014 6:05 PM
    To: This is for discussing music and braille literacy
    Subject: Re: [Menvi-discuss] College textbooks

    PDF

    On Jun 23, 2014, at 4:58 PM, Winona Brackett wrote:

      Hi all.

      I will be attending stetson university and majoring in Music 

      Performance starting this fall. I have received my schedule along with 

      the required textbooks. For the music classes specifically, in what  

      format have you recieved yourbooks? Should I use learning ally? PDF 

      file? . No matter which file type I choose I would have to have the 

      music portions of the books transcribed. . So my question is: which 

      format has worked best for you and why?

      Thank you for your suggestions and recommendations; I really 

      appreciate each one as I make this important decision.

      Winona

      trumpetqueenwb at gmail.com

      "Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what 

      you do. Attitude determines how well you do it." -Lou Holtz

      Sent from my iPhone using VoiceOver

      Please visit www.menvi.org/donate.html  to make a voluntary 

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