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Thread: Has anyone worked on accessible childrens' activity books?
Number of posts in this thread: 6 (In chronological order)
From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Mon, Aug 01 2016 10:24PM
Subject: Has anyone worked on accessible childrens' activity books?
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For about the third time, my firm is being asked to make a childrens'
activity PDF book accessible, and this one is proving to be the most
challenging one yet! These PDF books are designed for primary- to
middle-school kids and focus on learning specific topics, such as nature.
Are there any published guidelines for this type of activity/educational
material? I haven't found anything yet in my searches.
Of course we'll make the text accessible with tags, headings, and lists.
Since the graphics are critical, we're adding visually rich Alt-text so that
children learn the basic visual characteristics of the flowers or animals at
the nature center.
But what can be done for an activity with directions like "draw a picture of
what you saw at the nature center"? Our team has come up with these
possibilities:
a. Keep the box for drawing and add a nearby form field/text box where
kids can type in the items they saw.
b. Remove the box for drawing and have only the form field/text box
for typing.
c. Create 2 parallel PDFs, one "as is" for printing, and one that's
customized for digital accessibility, including adjusting the activities for
accessibility.
This project also has crossword puzzle. Any methods or suggestions for
making it accessible in a PDF?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions about this type of material.
--Bevi Chagnon
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Bevi Chagnon | <http://www.pubcom.com/>; www.PubCom.com
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From: Jamous, JP
Date: Tue, Aug 02 2016 5:22AM
Subject: Re: Has anyone worked on accessible childrens' activity books?
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I know this doesn't help much, but is this project for children with disabilities?
What can be done for an activity with directions like "draw a picture of what you saw at the nature center"?
If they are blind how are they supposed to do so? That got me confused.
Can you give us more information maybe I can try to scratch my head more on this one? I think it is quite interesting, but the tagging is for people using assistive technology. Screen readers are the first type of AT I could think of. Adding drawing to it and they don't add up. Maybe I have been away from school for 20 years and technology has gone way ahead of me.
From: Terzian, Sharon
Date: Tue, Aug 02 2016 6:01AM
Subject: Re: Has anyone worked on accessible childrens' activity books?
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I don't know if this answers your question, but we have a huge selection of adapted books on our website. Though the PDFs themselves are probably not truly ADA (a lot of them are done by volunteers/students and just given to us, beggars cannot be choosy), we use writing with symbols, simplified language, abbreviated stories, etc. We also get some of them into PowerPoint (also done by volunteers/students as most of us don't have extra time)
I've asked for (and not really gotten an answer) making the PDFs more accessible and as an agency, we are trying to go that route with all that we do, but many here just don't 'get it', even when it comes to the web, I'm getting overruled a lot lately.
http://www.ric.edu/sherlockcenter/wwslist.html
Sharon Terzian
Webmistress/Accessible Content/Sherlock Center
Adjunct Professor/CIS/College of Management
Rhode Island College
www.sherlockcenter.org
From: Moore,Michael (Accessibility) (HHSC)
Date: Tue, Aug 02 2016 7:01AM
Subject: Re: Has anyone worked on accessible childrens' activity books?
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You might want to reach out to Jim Allan at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. He or one of the other staff members there may have some ideas.
Contact me off list and I will get you his contact information.
Mike Moore
Accessibility Coordinator
Texas Health and Human Services Commission
Civil Rights Office
(512) 438-3431 (Office)
From: Thad C
Date: Tue, Aug 02 2016 7:05AM
Subject: Re: Has anyone worked on accessible childrens' activity books?
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Another good resource may be light house sf.
http://lighthouse-sf.org/contact/
Feel free to contact me if you need a contact there as well.
Thaddeus
On Aug 2, 2016 6:02 AM, "Moore,Michael (Accessibility) (HHSC)" <
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> You might want to reach out to Jim Allan at the Texas School for the Blind
> and Visually Impaired. He or one of the other staff members there may have
> some ideas.
>
> Contact me off list and I will get you his contact information.
>
> Mike Moore
> Accessibility Coordinator
> Texas Health and Human Services Commission
> Civil Rights Office
> (512) 438-3431 (Office)
>
>
From: Jim Allan
Date: Tue, Aug 02 2016 8:56AM
Subject: Re: Has anyone worked on accessible childrens' activity books?
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comments below...
On Mon, Aug 1, 2016 at 11:24 PM, Chagnon | PubCom < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:
> For about the third time, my firm is being asked to make a childrens'
> activity PDF book accessible, and this one is proving to be the most
> challenging one yet! These PDF books are designed for primary- to
> middle-school kids and focus on learning specific topics, such as nature.
>
> Are there any published guidelines for this type of activity/educational
> material? I haven't found anything yet in my searche
> âs
>
> Of course we'll make the text accessible with tags, headings, and lists.
> Since the graphics are critical, we're adding visually rich Alt-text so
> that
> children learn the basic visual characteristics of the flowers or animals
> at
> the nature center.
>
> But what can be done for an activity with directions like
> ââ
> "draw a picture of
> what you saw at the nature center"? Our team has come up with these
> possibilities:
>
â?? is the pdf supposed to be interactive or is it for formatting and
printing?
if the directions say â
ââ"draw a picture of what you saw at the nature center"â - unless the pdf
is interactive and includes a drawing tool, I would assume that a piece of
paper and coloring/drawing tools are provided. Then kids can create to the
best of their ability. For blind kiddos - it depends on many things ... has
the child had hands on experience with "what ever aspect of nature the pdf
is talking about"?, perhaps clay to sculpt, or wikki-sticks, or many other
kinds of materials to create a meaningful (to the child) drawing. The
special ed teacher (for whatever disability) should be able to provide
information/experience.
Perhaps a statement about talking to the special ed teacher about adapting
the activity.
>
> a. Keep the box for drawing and add a nearby form field/text box
> where
> kids can type in the items they saw.
>
> b. Remove the box for drawing and have only the form field/text box
> for typing.
>
> c. Create 2 parallel PDFs, one "as is" for printing, and one that's
> customized for digital accessibility, including adjusting the activities
> for
> accessibility.
> â
>
âunless there are drawing tools in the pdf. To me there is 1 document. It
meets pdf/UA - so readable with AT, it can be printed or converted to
braille and embosses. the activities are assumed to be not electronic
unless âspecifically stated. Information is provided about adapting the
activities or resources about how to adapt them.
>
> This project also has crossword puzzle. Any methods or suggestions for
> making it accessible in a PDF?
>
âagain, it is supposed to be completed digitally? This really sounds like
something to be printed. â
âFor electronic versions that are accessible an additional piece of
software may be useful -- Talking Word Puzzles
http://tech.aph.org/pz_info.htm â
>
> Thanks in advance for any suggestions about this type of material.
>
> âHappy to talk with you more. or if you can send a sample, I would be
happy to provide suggestions.
Jimâ
--
Jim Allan, Accessibility Coordinator
Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired
1100 W. 45th St., Austin, Texas 78756
voice 512.206.9315 fax: 512.206.9264 http://www.tsbvi.edu/
"We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us." McLuhan, 1964