LSR goes hi-tech to help out disabled TNN | Aug 3, 2013, 01.03 AM IST NEW DELHI: Rinku Shekhawat won't have to ask her teacher to scan her books for her anymore. "Technology makes us self-reliant," says the third year English honours student of Lady Shri Ram College in new delhi, and LSR's swanky new learning and resource centre—for students with disabilities and from disadvantaged backgrounds—is as hi-tech as such centres get.
"Most assistive technology is used by English-medium students," says Karuna Rajeev who teaches English at LSR and is also the coordinator for the equal opportunity cell (EOC). The centre at LSR is going to equally benefit students of Hindi and Sanskrit. "There are 10 desktops here with screen readers. The software is NVDA with Lekha with which you can also read vernacular texts," says Rajeev. They have also installed a Braille-embosser—more for the use of this group than those who study in English. But it is the Hindi OCR (Optical Character Recognition) that'll make the most difference. It was launched in the market last year. "Earlier, we never had OCR for Hindi. Hindi text could be scanned but it would only be an image file. Now we have a very advanced recognition software than can read the text," says Rajeev. The centre's assistive equipment also includes a batch of recorders, readers, specialized keyboards for those with low vision. Built with corporate social responsibility funds from KPMG,the centre, housed in flat 10 on the college campus, is even decorated with artwork by the disabled and has notices in both regular text and Braille. It contains a recording room where visually impaired students can record their lessons—they can even carry the Daisy recorders to class to record lessons. ------ Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of mobile phones / Tabs on: http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/accessindia@accessindia.org.in/ To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in Disclaimer: 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent through this mailing list..
