[Athen] Capturing Information on a Board

[Shelley Haven]

To augment Wink's comments and address E.A.'s queries, mimio 
handwriting recognition (Windows version only) is "adequate" but will 
undoubtedly require editing just like any alt-formatted material. 
(Most people don't write as legibly on a board as they do on paper.) 
You can grab the material in real-time and select "Recognize Ink" to 
immediately change the display, convert ink to text after the fact on 
a saved board, or add text to a saved board with a typed annotation 
(just like adding a text box).

In addition to JPEG, PNG, HTML and several other formats, these mimio 
boards can be saved directly as PDF files to the connected computer 
-- no conversion necessary.  If the monitor for that "connected 
computer" happens to be an LCD projector, and the image is projected 
back to the whiteboard, you have the equivalent of a SmartBoard 
interactive whiteboard.  So you can project PowerPoint slides or a 
webpage, annotate with mimio, then save the results as a PDF.

I just tried this with my personal mimio and used both Kurzweil and 
WYNN to scan and OCR the saved PDF.  As you might expect, the results 
depend a lot on the source material and the resolution (I'm not sure 
about mimio's maximum resolution).  A colorful webpage with 
less-than-ideal contrasts, lots of fonts, and inverted text produces 
less than satisfactory results.  A PowerPoint with consistent (and 
larger) fonts might work OK.

As for math...mimio won't convert equations satisfactorily.

Hope this helps (or at least gets the wheels turning!).

- Shelley Haven



>Thanks for the good wishes, E. I tore a tendon in my knee (driving knee no

>less!) and had it repaired last week. It's well on the way to mending. I

>already have cabin fever, so the recuperation is going along nicely. Will

>be back to work and thundering speed next week.

>

>In my poking around, I found some interesting ideas to pursue in re both

>smart board & mimio. Both offer a handwriting recognition plug in which would

>also allow a projection (PPT etc.) on the board to have comments written

>ON it and saved as text rather than images. Don't know how accurate it may

>be, but also I found these conversion programs which may help in the process:

>Image Converter Plus (appx. $49), Universal Document Converter ($69) and

>'Convert Image to PDF' from Softinterface Inc. (free download), the JPEG,

>TIFF or GIF files can be converted to PDF and a screen reader can be used.

>If the conversion is to text, again there is a choice of refreshable Braille

>or hardcopy Braille. I do not know how easy it would be to convert math,

>but with MathType and MathSpeak software, it would be a worthy experiment

>to find out!

>

>My daffodils are blooming today and I am going to take photos before it rains.

>

>Blessings

>

>Wink

>

>

>>-- Original Message --

>>From: "E.A. Draffan" <ea at emptech.info>

>>To: "'Access Technologists in Higher Education Network'" 

>><athen at athenpro.org>,

>>

>>	<norm.coombs at gmail.com>

>>Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 09:33:04 -0000

>>Subject: Re: [Athen] Capturing Information on a Board

>>Reply-To: ea at emptech.info, Access Technologists in Higher Education Network

>>	<athen at athenpro.org>

>>

>>

>>Hope you are making a full recovery Wink and all is well.  I would also

>be

>>interested to learn how you separate or add text with the images in an

>>accessible way from digital white boards unless it is part of the original

>>presentation?  It is the same dilemma I have been trying to think about

>when

>>students have OneNote files for organising all their ideas.

>>

>>Best wishes E.A.

>>

>>Mrs E.A. Draffan

>>Learning Societies Lab,

>>ECS, University of Southampton,

>>Tel +44 (0)23 8059 7246

>>http://www.lexdis.ecs.soton.ac.uk

>>http://www.emptech.info

>>

>>

>Ms. Wink Harner

>Manager

>Disability Resources & Services

>Mesa Community College

>Mesa AZ

>

>480-461-7447

>

>

>

>

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