[Athen] Text to Speech products recommended?

[Jamie Bird]

We have both Kurzweil and Read&Write at SLCC. After a multi-division pilot last year we purchased Read&Write as an institution-wide literacy tool for all student, faculty, and staff for universal access. It was surprisingly affordable to get a domain license, and we've had a ton of positive feedback. Our Disability Resource Center currently still pays for Kurzweil for alt text accommodations.

We have found Read&Write to work better with textbooks that are embedded in Canvas since the screenshot reader can do OCR on the fly in the same window if the text is locked down at all. Kurzweil's screenshot reading feature takes them to another tab in the web browser to read it in Kurzweil3000.com, which can feel disruptive while studying. In my experience Read&Write's ePub reader<https://www.texthelp.com/resources/blog/introducing-the-new-read-write-epub-reader/> to works better for ePubs than Kurzweil. Read&Write also has a lot of other helpful accessibility features, like built-in dictation on the same toolbar. It allows students who use text-to-speech and dictation to get what they need in one program.

As far as I'm aware the only real down-side to Read&Write, which some people may not feel is a down-side, is that they rely on cloud storage through Google or Microsoft, where Kurzweil has their own book cloud storage, and it can link with the other cloud storages as well. One implementation annoyance with Read&Write was that they are very Google-focused. Although they also support Microsoft logins and OneDrive storage a lot of their tutorials and verbiage still only mention Google Drive or logging in with your Gmail, which can be confusing for users when you're a Microsoft campus.

I hope that's helpful.

Sincerely,
Jamie Bird
Assistive Technology Coordinator
Salt Lake Community College
Disability Resource Center
801-957-4506  |  STC-053A
jamie.bird at slcc.edu<mailto:jamie.bird at slcc.edu>


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From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> On Behalf Of Kevin Price
Sent: Thursday, October 6, 2022 9:02 AM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: [Athen] Text to Speech products recommended?

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Hi,
We are reevaluating our Text to Speech solution (highlighting, speech, etc.)  that we support on our campus for those using e-text reading (not screen reading we have JAWS for that).  We are considering our current solution, Read & Write, but also looking into Kurzweil 3000 and Natural Reader.  We are looking towards free software we can give out or software licensing where we can manage the licenses on our end such as Kurzweil 3000.  Any feedback would be appreciated in helping us make a decision on what solution has worked best for your campus.
Thank you,
Kevin
Kevin Price, MSW
Assistant Director of Accessible Technology
Student Accessibility Services
Ginsburg Center for Inclusion and Community Engagement

University of Central Florida
4000 Central Florida Blvd Ferrell Commons, Room 155B
Orlando, FL 32816-3661
Office: 407.823.2371
kevin.price at ucf.edu<mailto:kevin.price at ucf.edu>
sas.sdes.ucf.edu
Please note: Florida has a very broad open records law (F.S. 119). Emails may be subject to public disclosure.
SAS acknowledges the value of expressing identity-first (disabled person) and person first (person with disability) language in our communication.

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