Learning to travel independently and safely is a skill we expect all students to acquire. It is a greater challenge for a student who is blind and who lives in a remote village. For people who are blind we call learning travel skills “orientation and mobility” (O&M). Jeremiah Ticket is a talented, 10-year old blind student from Buckland, AK. Jeremiah, family and school staff has received training in O&M in the village of Buckland. Jeremiah is ready to learn different O&M skills needed to travel in the small town of Kotzebue. Northwest Artic School District brought Jeremiah, his mother, sister, and two school staff into Kotzebue to meet and work with SESA’s O&M specialist for 3 days of O&M instruction.

Photos: Jeremiah Ticket has independently completed a walk around a block in Kotzebue. This is a high point in the travel skills for anyone who is blind. For Jeremiah it was even more challenging because there are no sidewalks around the block he traveled.

Via: The Official Google Blog
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Speech-friendly textual directions from Google Maps
By T.V. Raman, Research Scientist
12/26/2006 08:31:00 AM

by permission from T.V. Raman

From time to time, our own T.V. Raman shares his tips on how to use Google from his perspective as a technologist who cannot see — tips that sighted people, among others, may also find useful. – Ed.

Google Maps and its associated local search is a quick and easy means of locating businesses and obtaining directions. Most people who use it already seemto enjoy the graphical interface with its extremely reactive GUI. But when using spoken output, this visual richness can get in the way of quickly listening to the results of a maps query.
As an alternative, Google Maps also provides a simple to use a textual interface that serves up directions very efficiently when working with a screenreader or a Braille display. This alternative view into Google Maps is here, at the Textual Maps UI.

LINK:

http://maps.google.com/?output=html

It’s extremely useful for blind and visually impaired users, as well as an effective solution for those times when you’re at a non-graphical display and need to quickly look up a location.

Just type a simple English query of the form start address to end address and quickly get the information you’re looking for. Though we added this option to enhance the accessibility of Google Maps for blind and low-vision users, perhaps others will find this alternative view a useful addition to their maps arsenal.

LINK TO T V Raman

http://emacspeak.sourceforge.net/raman/

(Source URL and permalink below)

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/12/speech-friendly-textual-directions.html