ATFAQ174 – Q1. One-handed typing, Q2. Talking thermostats for visually impaired, Q3. Jitterbug phone accessibility, Q4. Real-time transcriptions for college lecture, Q5. On-screen keyboards with high contrast keys, Q6: Wildcard: Inspirational case studies

I have a question. Huh? Like what? I’ve always wondered. What about? Do you know? I have a question. I’ve always wondered. Like I have a question. I have a question. Oh, I have a question. I have a question. I have a question.

Welcome to at ATFAQ, Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions with your host Brian Norton, Director of Assistive Technology at Easterseals Crossroads. This is a show where we address your questions about assistive technology, the hardware, software, tools, and gadgets that help people with disabilities lead more independent and fulfilling lives. Have a question you’d like to answer it on our show? Send us a tweet with the hashtag ATFAQ. Call our listener line at (317) 721-7124, or send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. The world of assistive technology has questions and we have answers. And now let’s jump into today’s show.

Hello and welcome to ATFAQ, episode 174. My name is Brian Norton and I’m the host of the show. And we’re so happy that you’ve taken some time to tune in with us this week. I’ve got a great lineup of assistive technology questions for you today, but before we jump in, just want to take a moment to go around and introduce the folks who are here with me. First is Belva Smith. Belva is the Vision Team Lead for our clinical assistive technology program. Belva you want to say hi?

Hello everybody. Welcome back.

And next is Tracy. Tracy Castillo. Tracy is the End Data Program Manager and Tracy, do you want to say hi?

Hey everyone. Yeah, it’s the End Data Program Manager. Thank you, Brian.

There you go. You are so welcome. Absolutely. And then Josh Anderson. Josh is the Clinical Assistive Technology Manager here at Easterseals Crossroads. He’s also the popular host of AT Update one of the other fabulous podcasts that we have here with the In Data project at Easterseals Crossroads. Josh, do you want to say hi?

Hi everybody. Welcome, welcome.

Excellent, excellent. So before we jump into the questions today, I just want to take a moment for our new listeners and just review how our show works. So we come across various assistive technology questions and feedback for the questions that we talked about the week before we put those together in a show. And so again, a couple of things in order to get us your questions, so if you’re listening for the first time and you have some questions that you would like answered, you can do that in a variety of ways.

We’ve got three really helpful ways for you to get us your questions. The first is our listener line. That’s (317) 721-7124 or you can send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or you can just tweet your question with the hashtag ATFAQ. Those are all great ways to get us your questions, but I would also encourage you as a new listener that as you listen to our questions and the answers that we give today, if you have any feedback, if you’d like to chime in, provide us any type of feedback, maybe give us some additional information maybe that we didn’t talk about so we can make sure that the person who had called in with that question gets a well rounded answer.

We’d love for you to be able to do that, and you can use those ways to communicate us your feedback as well, that listener line, that email and that Twitter hashtag ATFAQ. So without further ado, I’m just going to jump into our first question today, and the first question came to us through email. It says, I have CP and would like to learn how to type with one hand. Any suggestions? Are there adaptive keyboards available and/or is there a program that can help me type one handed on a standard keyboard? So looking for one of two things, either an adaptive keyboard or a program that can help them learn how to type one handed.

Okay. So Brian, when I first seen this question, the first thing I thought about was the Space Saver keyboards, which are still available on Amazon, and they are just a standard qwerty keyboard, but they’re only about the size of a laptop keyboard, so therefore it makes it easier to try to reach the keys with one hand. And in fact, we have used those in many different cases where an individual might not be able to fully use both hands.

And then I also found online a website called typintraining.com, which is free for 28 days, and then after that you do have to pay a $9 fee, but that’s all about learning to type with one hand. And then also I found typingclub.com, which is also all about typing with one hand for free. So those might be two places to check out to get some training on that. And then of course, I’ve thought about the keyboard that we used to have, and I don’t even know if they still make it, and I don’t remember the name of it, but I’m sure you will, Brian, but it was the keyboard where it was kind of like a U and you put your hand inside of it specifically meant for one handed typing, but very, very complicated to learn to use.

Well, so that one’s called the Maltron one-handed keyboard and so it’s got a kind of curved out space where some engineers kind of looked at the keyboard, they figured out which keys you use most often, and they put it in that little bevel where the hand goes, and then they took all the keys you don’t use most often on a regular keyboard and put them out on the outside. And according to their research, you can type just as quick one handed as you can with two hands on a regular keyboard using that particular style.

The issue becomes is a lot of people don’t want to use something that’s different than what’s on a standard computer. You don’t want to look different in the classroom, you don’t want to look different in and amongst your coworkers, and so I’ve never recommended that particular keyboard, although it has all of the study and the research that goes with it to prove that it can really be helpful. I haven’t really recommended a Maltron one-handed keyboard before for that particular reason. Nobody that I know of that I’ve worked with wanted to use it because it looks so different than the next keyboard. I’ll also mention… Oh, go ahead, Belva, you were going to say something about that.

Well, I was just going to say, I’ve only had one consumer that had that keyboard, and if you didn’t recommend it must have been Wade because I know I didn’t recommend it, but it was very, very complicated for the individual to get used to where… If you’ve got any computer experience, you kind of know where the keys should be and because as you mentioned, it kind of rearranges the keys, it’s just really complicated to get used to it.

Yeah. You got to go through a training process to even get comfortable, let alone productive with the keyboard like that. I’ll jump back to what you were mentioning about that Space Saver keyboard. I think what I do like about that type of an approach is it doesn’t change the format of the keyboard a whole lot. You’ve got all the keys and they’re all in the right spaces. They’re what you’re typically used to. I think the real benefit of a Space Saver keyboard is if you can imagine typing one-handed for a longer period of time, on a standard size keyboard, you’re moving your hand left and right quite a bit.

And then over a longer period of time, you get a lot of fatigue, you get a lot of strain and stress on your forearm, your upper arm, your shoulder typing for that period of time. With a one-handed keyboard or that Space Saver keyboard, as you mentioned, you mentioned already being able to touch just about every key. Well, you’re limiting that range of motion and allowing that person to be more productive for longer periods of the day. And so definitely a good approach because it doesn’t make them look any different than most other keyboards that are out there and would allow them to be able to save some of that fatigue that might happen over a longer period of time

And much easier to transport. If you’re taking it from home to school or home to work or whatever, it’ll fit into most backpacks without any problem, whereas the other one is it’s kind of big and bulky, so it wouldn’t be as easy to transport. I also think this is a good time to mention sticky keys if the individual happens to be using a Windows environment, and I’m not sure, but the Mac probably has something similar to that, but Sticky Keys is found in the ease of access and it just allows an individual to do key combinations without having to necessarily press two or three keys at the exact same time. So when it’s turned on, for example, if you wanted to do an alt-F4, you would just press the alt, release it, and then go up to the F4 and press it, and it would be as though you was holding those keys at the same time when you’re not.

Yeah, we used to recommend for that Space Saver keyboard, something called the Datalux Space Saver keyboard that doesn’t exist anymore. They stopped selling that a few years back. If you’re looking for a keyboard that’s similar to what we’re talking about, you might look up the Cherry compact keyboard, that is what we would refer to as a space saver type of keyboard for a particular situation like this. Some other ones that are more kind of an adaptive type of keyboard that kind of help when you’re typing one handed, again, there’s a learning curve with both of these, and so you have to be committed to learn how to use them. And so there’s one called the Half Keyboard, and there’s another one called the Half Qwerty Pro 508 keyboard. Basically what these do are, one is the half keyboard is just a small little keyboard that has a limited amount of keys, but each key hidden combination with a modifier key like an alt key or some other modifier, the Fn key that’s on most laptop computers, it changes the function of the particular key.

And so something to think about there, it’s really small, super compact. You can take it just about anywhere. It’s USB so you can plug it into most computers, but again, there’s a huge learning curve with that. You’re going to have to take some time to get comfortable and used to that. And then another one that we’ve started to recommend a little bit, I do know that there’s a part or a piece that takes a while for the manufacturer to get, and so keep that in mind. It may be a few months if you order one now, you might be a few months before you get it, but it’s called the Tipy keyboard. The Tipy keyboard is a great keyboard. It kind of looks like, I don’t know. If you take the imprint on your windshield, it looks like that. It looks like kind of where your windshield wiper goes.

It’s kind of a fan shaped, if you will, and basically what it allows you to do is allows you to basically have all those keys in a way where, again, you’re going to have to learn how to use it, you’re going to have to learn where those keys are, but it puts all those keys that you use most often in a more standard type of keyboard layout, yet you do have to relearn kind of the home row and where to reach, but it comes with some really helpful tutorials to help walk you through some of that. So I’ve actually trained a few folks on this particular keyboard, and after a day or so, a couple days, they’re getting pretty good and can really start to learn and hone in on that. It’s also got a nice hand pad where you can put your hand on it to be able to provide some comfort while you use that particular keyboard, but that’s called the Tipy keyboard, the T-I-P-Y. If you look up tipykeyboard.com, you can find more information about that.

And everything you guys have said have all been great things and could be great help, so really, especially it seems like with one handed typing and adaptive keyboards, it’s one where you really have to try some different things out to really kind of find what’s going to work best for you and even with CP, Brian, you kind of mentioned the mini keyboard that just has a couple of keys, but having to actually hold down those modifiers while hitting keys can be a real challenge depending on range of motion and how well that kind of one hand can be controlled.

So I would definitely say reach out to your local tech act. Tracy, I’m stealing your thunder. Sorry, I was doing it while you’re looking away for a moment. But yeah, reach out to your local tech act and see, they’ve probably got all kinds of keyboards and it could be that something maybe not even as small as the mini one that Belva is talking about, but one with just a little bit smaller footprint might be able to kind of work. So I would definitely reach out to them and try to see if they’ve got some different ones that you can just try and see what’s going to work with A, your system, something that’ll plug in and work there, and then B, with kind of your abilities to be able to reach all the keys and do what it is that you need to do.

Well, hey, I would love to open this up to our listeners. You can give us a call on our listener line at (317) 721-7124 or send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. Love to hear if you’ve had any experience with one-hand keyboards or have any recommendations for this particular person on their question about, again, one-handed keyboards and learning how to type one-hand. So thanks so much.

All right. So our next question came to us through email. And the question is, anyone know of a talking thermostat that can be used with the heater? Again, thinking probably a furnace so it can go on and off as appropriate and when the desired temperature is set. And so looking for a talking thermostat that works with a furnace, but we might also want to talk about a heater, just a standard space heater if we can. So I’ll open that up.

So I do have a smart thermostat that’s connected to my furnace and it does require that I have a smart assistant. So in my case, I have the Honeywell thermostat and I use the Amazon Smart Assistance. So what that allows me to do is at any time I can find out what the temperature in my house is as well as the temperature outside, and I can also turn it up or turn it down. So if you want Brian, I can do a quick demonstration of it.

Sure.

Computer, what’s the inside temperature? Inside It’s 66. Computer, what’s the outside temperature? Right now it’s 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Expect a low of 26 degrees. Okay, so we got a little bit of a forecast there too, but if I wanted to bump it up, I could just say the name, set the thermostat to 67 or 68 and it would just immediately do that. One of the best things I’ve added to my smart home devices, I think, because I will say, too, that I did have an HVAC company come and install the thermostat for me because I had no clue how to do it properly, but our old thermostat was just one of the old kind of dial ones and most of our listeners probably already know that my partner happens to be blind. So he was never able to adjust the thermostat other than to just wild randomly go over and turn it up or turn it down.

Well now he can easily adjust it. So I really love it. Cost was around almost as much to have it put in as it was to buy it, but the cost was around $400 I think. And I’m really not a hundred percent clear that they’re talking about a furnace rather than a heater just because it says so it’ll go off and come on as appropriate, which a thermostat should make that happen, but as far as one that talks, I wasn’t able to come up with one that would talk to me without having the assistant, but I think you did right, Brian?

Yeah, so there was a couple that I had found. One is called the Digital T87 Round Thermostat. Okay, so this one doesn’t necessarily talk, let me just go ahead and throw that out there first. It is a round, kind of like what you were describing, the old dial kind of thermostats, Belva, this is for a furnace, but what it does do is it does have a bright display. You’re not dealing with any analog numbers or things trying to read something off of the display. It’s really got a big bold display where it’s got the temperature that’s already set. And then as you adjust, you do click around the outside and every time you move it up a temperature notch, it’ll actually click. So you’re hearing it click up, up, up or click down, down, down as you go each temperature or degree you go up or down, it’s going to go ahead and click for you so you can feel and hear the clicks that can confirm the changes that you’ve made.

And if your low vision, you’ll still be able to see that display that’s there, and so something to keep in mind there, that’s called the Digital T87 Round Thermostat. The other one I want to mention is the Kelvin Talking Thermostat. So this is also what they would refer to as a low vision thermostat, but it is designed for folks who are blind or who have low vision. I’ve also seen or have read about folks who also use this with mobility or severe physical disabilities. It’s a programmable thermostat. And basically what this does is it has large tactile buttons, all of which talk, or you can operate those through voice commands. And so I would guess assume it’s kind of a smart thermostat in that way that you can still talk to it and to get it to do things for you.

In order to talk to it or to initiate the voice commands, you don’t have to use an Alexa to do it, you can do it directly with the device it looks like, but the user compress a button on the device to talk to it. You can clap your hands, you can knock the table or a desk or just whistle, and then you can just simply go up or down or use the other buttons to be able to adjust that temperature or give it a voice command to be able to initiate a change with where things are. That’s called the Kelvin Talking Thermostat, but again, it talks about how it’s got large tactile buttons and then all of which talk as you use those.

How much is that, Brian? That sounds really cool.

So that one is, let’s see if I got a price, it’s about $130, so-

Wow.

… 129.95, and so you can look that one up. And then the other one is something called the Visually Impaired Programmable Talking Thermostat. And so VIP 1000 is the model number, but essentially what this one is, it’s a programmable thermostat that does have voice output to guide the user through either the setup if you’re going to actually program it for different times during the day and/or for temperature options.

And so basically as you arrow up or arrow down through your temperatures, it’s going to go and announce the temperature changes that are happening, and so allows you to be able to get a programmable thermostat that has some voice output to it. So three other options. Again, very specifically for kind of a furnace type of application. It’s not to be able to be used with a space heater and those types of things. That I think if you are looking at space heaters, you’re going to have to go with one of the Alexa devices and a smart plug or just go to Amazon and see if they have a space heater that’s Alexa enabled. They probably do.

So Brian, if you don’t want to use Alexa, if you don’t want something in your house listening to you all the time, there’s also ones that are Wi-Fi enabled that can kind of connect to an app on a phone. So it’d be kind of maybe testing a little bit, but if you’re a voiceover, maybe a talk back user, maybe if you’re looking for just a space heater, maybe for a small room that doesn’t have well a good a heat or something like that, it is possible that maybe one of these would work where you could actually just set the temperature there on your device. I know that a lot of Bluetooth thermometers for cooking and things work pretty well with your kind of built-in screen readers and stuff, so maybe that might be something else you could use in order to get around that and have it talked to you.

‘Cause you can always check and see what the temperature is as well as set it. If I want it 72 and I want it to kick off, I should be able to set it for 72 and have it kick off. Now all that’s going to depend on if the app works with voiceover or anything. Just a quick Amazon search, I’ve got six or seven different ones that pop up right there that all look like they use the same app, but they’re all a completely different app. So who knows which ones actually are accessible or not, but that could be an option if you just need that actual… Just because the question says heater and I’m never sure if that means the furnace are a little space heater, but it could be another option for you.

Yeah, and I did a little bit of searching out there and I found the Govee Smart Electric Space Heater, it’s around $150. It looks like it might be on sale now, but it says stay warm in the winter without high energy costs. So it even lowers your… No, it does not lower your energy costs, but it is voice and app controlled. So you’ll be able to control it with your phone. I don’t think you need to have an AI with it, but if you just want to connect it to your smartphone then you’ll be able to control your space heater. I don’t know my thoughts on electric smart heaters, but there you go.

Excellent. Excellent. Well, hey, I hope this answers the question of our listener today. I want to open this up to our listener line. It’s (317) 721-7124 or you can send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. I’d love to hear from folks if you have other experience with other types of talking thermometers or not talking thermometers but talking thermostats. We’d love to hear from you. Love to be able to provide some more information to this particular caller. Thanks so much.

All right, so our next question is, hello, does anyone know if the Jitterbug phone is accessible for a blind user? I know someone who recently got one for the ease of using a cell phone and she wants to know how she can get it set up. And so I’m assuming the person that they had given it to is blind and they’re wondering does it really work for someone who is blind?

Well, there is more than one Jitterbug. There is what they call the smartphone and then there’s the flip phone. I do have a lot of consumers that do choose to use the Jitterbug. The service is now provided through lively.com and to get the phone set up, the first thing they have to do is contact Lively to get it activated. Once it’s been activated, they will walk you through the setup process and kind of even show you or walk you through using the phone.

And how you do it is going to be different depending upon whether you have the smartphone or you have the flip phone, but the short answer to that question is it absolutely is accessible to a blind user and in a lot of ways it was created for the blind user as well as someone who might be elderly and just doesn’t really want all the bells and whistles that might come with some of the other smartphones, but would like to fill somewhat in the groove and be able to do a text or to be able to see a picture that their grandkids might send them or something like that.

So yeah, you can contact Lively either by calling them, I can give out the number if you want. It’s (866) 482-1424 and you can call that number directly from the phone even if it hasn’t been activated, I’m pretty sure, and they will be able to immediately give you the assistance to get it activated. You can also go to their website. They do have some great training videos on their website, which is L-I-V-E-L-Y.com. Don’t put it in wrong because I did that and I ended up someplace crazy. So again, it’s L-I-V-E-L-Y.com and on that page you can contact them from there to be able to start your activation and get you all set up.

Excellent. Belva, I’m kind of assuming with the flip phone version, person who is blind is just getting used to where those buttons are and knowing which button’s pressed to be able to do the different functions. So that seems pretty easy to me. As far as the smartphone, I know it’s kind of a simple interface, a kind of a user interface, it’s not as complex as kind of your traditional iPhone or Android device. As you navigate through their arrow up or down swipe left or right, I don’t know how they navigate, but are the functions spoken back to them as they navigate through there?

Yeah, absolutely, and it is kind of all an up and down menu, whereas on our smartphones we have the little icons that may be all over the place, but the menu is basically a straight up and down. And yes, it is spoken back to you. With both of those phones, you can also, I think it’s an additional cost, but you can also have a operator do your calls for you. So in other words, you don’t have to remember that Brian’s number is 555 or whatever, you can just call your operator and say, hey, I’d like to call Brian and as long as he’s in your contacts, they’ll be able to look that up for you and make that dial for you. You also have the option of having an emergency, and this is the great part, an emergency number rather than accidentally calling 911, there is a red star I believe it is

Yep, you’re right.

… on phone. Yeah, and if you press that red star, it calls an operator from Lively who will then ask you what’s the emergency? Do you need an ambulance? Do you need a whatever? And that way there’s no false calls because you can say, oh no, that was an accident. I have a consumer who accidentally calls 911 pretty much on a daily basis. I’m kind of surprised that he hasn’t gotten in trouble for it yet. And I think eventually he will. So they decided that by using that red star they would prevent that and then they would be able to get the appropriate help to you as quickly as possible, but I do feel like that feature is an additional monthly fee. The cost for these phones is typically way cheaper, especially the smart phones, than what you might have to pay with others.

And you used to be able to buy them at Walmart, but I am recently hearing that Walmart’s no longer carrying them, so I don’t know, but it sounds like this person’s already got one, they just need to know how to get it all set up. Well in fact you do have to contact them to get it activated. So other phones you would have to take down to AT&T or whatever the other phone companies might be to get them activated, but with this phone, you just need to call them and they do the activation while you’re on the line with them and it usually takes maybe 20 minutes for everything to happen and you to be able to actually start using the phone.

Wow, that’s great. I was kind of looking at their website, the Jitterbug Smart Three is their new smartphone, and to your point, Belva, you mentioned the health and safety side of the device. You talked about that red star, it’s called Urgent Response. They also have a nurse on call, so if you need a nurse or to talk to a nurse about something, they have a feature like that. They also have Lively Link, which is something to be able to keep your loved ones up to date on your health and safety. And then they also have something called Care Advocate Personal Operator, which is what you mentioned before, who will make phone calls for you. Lively Rides, so if you need a ride from one place to next, I’m sure these folks that they have access to have been vetted as far as safety and background checks and things like that.

But a whole lot to it, yeah, more than I would’ve thought. I’ve heard of the Jitterbug and known about the Jitterbug for a long, long time and it looks like a really great option for folks, and to your point, it’s pretty inexpensive as far as not only the device itself but also the plans that come with it as well. So pretty great. I need to get this for my mom. She struggles with her iPhone all the time and man, to simplify that would be a lot easier. Excellent.

Well, hey, I’d love to open this up to our listeners. If you have any feedback, maybe you’ve used the jitterbug, you’ve had some experience with it, love to hear from you, provide that feedback to our listener. And so you can give us a call on our listener line that’s (317) 721-7124 or send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. Love to hear from you. Thanks so much.

All right, so our next question came to us through email and the question is, does anyone know of software or AT that records college lectures and transcribes them into text? My son has a hard time listening and writes extremely slow. He has an auditory processing disorder along with [inaudible 00:31:01] and will not have a note taker at his university. So looking for software that can record a lecture and transcribe the lecture into basically notes. So I’ll go ahead and throw out there, this is something that I’ve been using quite a bit and I use it online and in person. It is called Otter AI. Otter AI is a great tool and essentially what it does is it basically, even if you’re online, if you’re in a Zoom meeting, you can have it running alongside the Zoom meeting and it’s picking up everything that’s being said.

You would have to have it coming over your computer speakers at that point. I don’t believe it would do it if you have a headset on, but it’s picking up the conversation and it’s transcribing it into real time notes, and so if your hard of hearing, not necessarily the situation we’re talking about here, but it’s a great way when you’re just having a conversation one on one across the table or in a group to be able to have everything that’s being said transcribed, just so you can figure out or follow along in the conversation a little bit easier. In this particular situation, what I would love about this particular software being applicable to this situation is the fact that it does create notes. It does transcribe everything into text, and then at the end, once it processes that text, it’ll actually turn it into a note that you can send yourself.

So you can send it to yourself to your email or someplace else, and in addition to that, it’ll actually strip through all of the text to pick out those keywords that were spoken. So if there’s words that were spoken over and over and over again in the conversation, it’s going to go ahead and highlight that word as a keyword and give you a list so that you can click on the keywords that would appear at the very top of that recorded lecture, that transcription that was created, and it’ll basically highlight all of those words throughout the entire text. And so that way you can just skim through it and find those words and be able to look through things a little bit more quickly and more productively than you would be at other times. And so something really, really helpful.

And Brian, I’ve been using Otter AI, they did make some changes lately, at least on their-

Yeah, I noticed that.

… pay structure. If you’re using the free version, you can’t do more than 300 minutes and it cuts you off after 30 at a time. So that kind of is a bit of a kick. I think it used to be 600 and it’d give you an hour before it’d kick you off, is that right?

That’s correct.

In fact, you actually have to go to the business plan to get what you used to get with the pro, which is 6,000 transcription minutes, which really for a class in college, I guess it depends on you’re going to have to look at how many classes you’re taking on really which plan might be right for you. Now the business plan is still $20 per month, which that does add up over four years of college, but it makes all the difference in the world if it’s allowing you to be able to have notes. And like you said, they’re searchable and they’re really and truly helpful and it is a great program, but I would say, I don’t know if it’s something you do want to get on, I’d say get on soon before they change those plans again and give you less for more at the same time.

Absolutely. Yeah, definitely. A couple other ones I’ll just kind of throw out there for folks. I also use a couple programs on my iPad. These would be either iPad apps or you can also get them for your smartphone. One is ClaroPDF, not that it does what this particular person is asking as far as making a transcription of the notes, but what you can do with it is you can actually record the audio while you’re typing out your notes. They mentioned that this person can type faster than they can write, and so you can record while you’re taking down notes. You can also not only do that, but you can also have the teacher if they can provide an outline or a presentation beforehand and you can create your notes directly on that PDF or file that they’ve sent you, the text file or the PDF file that they’ve sent you of the lecture notes or the presentation, the PowerPoint slides.

So you’re creating it all there. You can also create a video, so on devices that have cameras, forward facing cameras so that you can get pictures of the teacher up in front of the room, you can also record the lecture that way too and be able to fill in any gaps that come along the way when you go back and review your notes, you can tie whatever you’ve written, whatever you’ve typed, whatever you’ve annotated within those slides or within that PDF form back to that lecture so that as you move through that lecture, as you move through it’s actually moving you down through your notes so that you know where you are and where you left off. You’re not having to match the two up on your own.

And so really, really powerful ClaroPDF would be a good one. The other ones that are out there too is one is called Notability, that’s an iOS only app, or I guess it’s an app, but it does some of those similar things that ClaroPDF does. And then the other one, I’m trying to remember, Josh, what’s the one on Windows machines and really kind of cross platform that’s Notability-like?

AudioNote.

Yeah.

Yeah, AudioNote. And I have a hard time finding it lately, especially on Windows. So I’m not sure if it’s something that’s going away. Now, folks that I’ve had that used it and have it on their computer, it seems to still work and still be there, but as far as finding where the heck to purchase it, I’ve ran into some difficulty kind of been able to do that. And it was great because it didn’t transcribe, so it didn’t kind of do that, but you could record everything and just take very basic notes and you typed them, I believe it said that the individuals much better at typing on here and those kind of gave you landmarks almost, is what I was kind of calling them ’cause I can go back and click on what I was typing right then, and it goes back to that part of the recording.

There’s another program, and Brian, I think you mentioned this called Glean, it used to be called Sonocent, does a lot of the things that Brian was kind of talking about, does not do the transcription. So you’re still going to have to do some note taking in there, but it can record so that you can go back and listen. So if I need to listen to something a couple times to get it, I can. I can mark that recording as what is going to be important.

So if the professor says, hey, on your next project you need X, Y, Z, maybe I can mark it so I can go back and find that. Or if he says, this is going to be on the test, I can go back. It used to be able to integrate with Dragon NaturallySpeaking in order to transcribe those recordings, but I do not believe it can do that any longer, and that wasn’t ever really a perfect science anyway. I would say that Otter actually did a better job at the transcriptions when trying to mix those two together, but it is another option and another tool that can be out there.

Yeah, the other thing I would reach out to or people I would reach out to in this situation would be, I know you’ve mentioned that they don’t have note takers at his particular university, but I would reach out to them and figure out what they do have. No matter where people are going, if you’re this particular caller or someone else who’s going to college, a lot of universities, they have disability services, a department dedicated to be able to provide those supports that are necessary for folks to be successful in college, to be able to take classes. And so they become your advocate in classes. So maybe you’re not getting a note taker, but maybe you can have an accommodation with your professor to say, hey, can you give me the notes beforehand? Can you give me just your lecture notes beforehand so that I can know what’s happening?

There’s all sorts of different accommodations that can be provided. And again, but in order to do that, you have to reach out to that disability services department to see what type of supports are available to make sure that you’re communicating with them that it’s a necessity, and being able to prove that to them by bringing up information about your disability, what your needs are, maybe what was provided in high school is important for them to know as well so that they can make sure that you have the supports that you need where you’re at currently.

And so it’s also important to note at universities sometimes professors really do get a little weirded out about being recorded, and so whether that’s using a live scribe pen or some of the tools and apps that we’ve talked about today, you may need to get that cleared by your professor as well, and/or at least through the disability services department, talk with them about that need to make sure that they are advocating on your part to make that something that is applicable or usable within your particular classroom.

And so I just want to kind of mention that too as we talk about it. I would like to open this up to our listeners. If you have any additional information to be able to share on this particular question, give us a call on our listener line that’s (317) 721-7124, or send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. Love to hear from you. Thanks so much.

All right, so our next question is, I am looking for an on-screen keyboard with high contrast and large keys. This is for a student in my seventh grade classroom. Any suggestions?

Well, I’m going to assume that they’re using a Windows environment, and in that case, I would suggest using the ease of access features that are available, starting with the Zoom so that you can make the keyboard as big as you want or as small as you want. And then also the high contrast setting can be adjusted as you need it to be. The keyboard command to turn on and off the zoom would be the Windows plus, and then Windows plus Escape will turn it off. Now that’s going to zoom and allow you to make the keyboard the size that you need it to be. And then the high contrast, again, you can find it in the menu, but the quick way to turn it on and off would be the alt left shift and print screen that’s both to turn it on and turn it off. Now if you want to make adjustments to the high contrast, then you’re going to need to go to the menu. That’s just the keyboard command to quickly turn it on and off.

Excellent. Hey, so you mentioned the onscreen keyboard in windows. You can turn on the one through the accessibility settings, that particular keystroke for folks, I’ll just throw that out there, if you hit the Windows logo key, the Windows Key plus U, and then you can press Alt K, which is then going to bring up your keyboard, and that’s kind of the standard adaptive keyboard. You might also want to consider just turning on the full keyboard layout. So in Windows 10, there’s a touch keyboard. It’s made for tablet users, but I believe it’s there for really all users if you turn that on. And so with it on, I believe you can use your mouse to be able to activate it, but if you go to the settings app on your Windows device, you can do that from the start menu. You can also once you get to that settings menu, you click on Devices, it’s where you’ll find Bluetooth printers, the mouse and more.

Once you’re in there, you can go to typing or tap on typing, then you can then from typing, you’ll find something that says, add the standard keyboard layout as a touch keyboard option. There’s a little toggle on and off, you can toggle that on, and then basically down in your system tray, there’ll be a keyboard icon that shows up… I’m sorry, or your task bar. I call it the systems tray, but you’ll find a little keyboard that you’ll find there. If you click on that, you can have it show the touch keyboard button, and then it’s going to bring up a bigger keyboard than just that one you’ll find under, I believe, in the accessibility area.

So yeah, Brian, you can also bring that onscreen keyboard up with Windows Control O.

Oh, much easier.

Yeah.

Excellent.

That’ll bring up the standard onscreen keyboard.

Perfect. Perfect. But again, I would think with the standard one, you get bigger keys are available to you, you’re not going to get probably some of the extra features, or maybe you can turn those on, I haven’t looked at it a whole lot, but the extra features I’m talking about would be word prediction that you can find, so that as you’re typing, it’s automatically trying to predict what words that you’re trying to type. And then as a shortcut, if it does bring up that word, you can just simply click on that word and it’s going to put that into your edit box or wherever your insertion point is in the window that you’re working in. But again, just that bigger keys, I think that can be really helpful for folks. And it’s white letters on a black background, so you’re also getting that high contrast look as well.

So definitely, definitely helpful. I would really steer you towards the stuff that’s built into Windows. If there’s one thing I know in the K-12 environment, you’re looking for something that’s sustainable and something that someone would be able to use over the long haul, and so since it’s built into Windows, you’re not going to have to pay for something now and then have to upgrade it every year down the road. And so thinking about longer term in a sustainable way to go about that, you might look at what’s already built in there and try those couple of options, just the onscreen keyboard or the one that comes through the accessibility wizard on Windows 10.

So couple different options for you. So I’d love to open this up to our listeners. You can give us a call on our listener line that’s (317) 721-7124, or send us an email@techeastersealscrossroads.org. If you have any additional information about a high contrast, large key, onscreen keyboard for this particular student, we’d love to hear from you. Go ahead and let us know. Appreciate it. Thanks.

And now it’s time for the wild card question.

All right, so our next question is the wild card question. And this is a question that Belva’s had time to think about and prepare for us, but we haven’t had any time to think about to prepare an answer for. So Belva, what do you got for us today?

So for our regular listeners, you may recall in our previous show, Brian took control of the wild card question and asked us about what it is that keeps us passionate about our job? I thought about that question a lot after the show because there are lots of things, it’s not something that you can answer, in my opinion, anyway, in just a few short words.

So my question for today is I wondered if everybody could give us kind of an overview of one of their most, I almost hate saying this word, but rewarding cases because to me, it is a reward when we’re able to help someone do something that they just simply weren’t able to do, but need to do or even just want to do. And I know I have so many of them from the years that I’ve been doing this, but there are those few that are spectacular and I will just never forget spending the moments with them when they were able to do something that they never were able to do before or thought that they would never be able to do. So if everybody could just take a quick minute and give us… Of course, we don’t want to give away any HIPAA stuff, so no names or anything like that, but just give us a little snapshot of one of your really rewarding cases.

I would like to start, is that okay?

Sure.

I’m going to ask permission. So I do not get out in the field like you guys do. I am mostly at the building. If I’m working with somebody, I’m at the building. I’ve worked with lots of different volunteers that are coming into the depot and learning job skills. Recently I received, or I don’t know if it’s received, recently, I’ve had a volunteer come through. When I met this person, this person was completely catatonic.

They were so scared to talk or so nervous and so distraught about the new situation that they could not talk to me. They mumbled when they talked to me when they would talk to me at that time. They’ve been volunteering for about a year, maybe less than a year. And recently I’ve just seen a really big change in this person. They come in, they’re talking, not a lot, there are times they come in they’re a little bit more subdued, but most of the time they’re talking, they’re okay, they feel confident in what they’re doing. And those are the cases I like, just watching a person go from being not able and able to walk into the room and say hi to walking in, taking care of the stuff that they need to do and then going on. So that’s my highlight.

Well, and that’s a great story too, Tracy, because as you said, you don’t get to get out into the community as much as we do, but I think that just goes to show that you also help people do things that they just never knew that they could achieve, I guess. I’ll go next and Brian always says something that y’all haven’t had time to think about. I’ll be honest with you, I put this question together just like a minute before we started the show. So I really didn’t have enough time to research it the way I should have, but I will tell you one of my most memorable moments or rewarding moments was working with a young man who ended up doing a story for us. So if I knew how to, I would tell you how to find the complete story on the InData YouTube channel, but I seem to never be able to find it when I want to find it, but I won’t use his name. I will just give you a brief background. This individual happens to be both hearing and visually impaired, actually totally blind.

He has not always been that way. He became both visually and hearing impaired as an adult. Prior to losing his sight and his vision, he had built what was to be his vacation home. So it’s in the middle of nowhere, literally the middle of nowhere. And he lives alone. It’s like a very small community of maybe seven or eight other folks who have vacation homes in the same area, but they’re not always there. So he truly lives alone with him and his dog. So we were introduced to try and help him do distance communication through the I Can Connect program. And I will just say that it was a huge challenge to, number one, even figure out how we were going to get him internet access. Number two, was he going to be able to learn how to use the computer to be able to do distance communication?

And the short story is, it was a lot of work to get there, but the day that he was able to open his email and read an email message from his cousin was a tear jerking moment. It was myself, him, an interpreter and his sister. And I think he was the only one in the room that had a dry eye because we were all just so elated with seeing the excitement on his face to be able to have this communication with his cousin who lives in a different state.

He hadn’t been able to communicate with him in years and years. He literally just didn’t have any way to communicate with anyone who didn’t know sign and wasn’t right there with him in his home, which his sister is the only person who really regularly came to see him. And she was excited because now he was able to communicate with her what he wanted for his groceries and that kind of stuff. Long story short, it’s now going into nine years, he still uses his email to communicate with his friends and family, people that he hadn’t spoken to and 10-15 years he now communicates via email. So that story will always lay in my heart as, wow, that’s a case where technology really, really made a difference for him.

That’s really awesome, Belva. I think it’s super important for us all to… And maybe which makes this question a little hard, is to zoom out just a little bit. I always feel like we’re kind of moving from one case to the next case, and you don’t really step back and realize the impact you might have had once you finish up a project with somebody. And so it’s important for everybody in our positions, no matter who’s listening, to step back a second to kind of really just take in what might have been accomplished in your last interaction with somebody about really helping them solve something that’s been a lifelong problem or lifelong issue for them. And so for me, I don’t know, I’ve had a lot of those. A little bit to Tracy’s point, I’m more in the office more than I like to.

I do take cases from time to time because I don’t want to lose that side of who I am. And so something that always kind of spoke to me as far as a client that I’ve worked with, I had a guy who was working in a movie theater, many of you guys have already heard me talk about this before, but it was really my first ever step into the world of assistive technology. I wasn’t even in assistive technology at that point. I was a job coach and I was really working with this person to help improve his employability and make sure that he could keep his job long term. And when I got to the movie theater, he was a ticket tearer, and he had been in a vehicle accident, had lost a lot of his mobility on his left side, and so really he just had the ability to use his arm.

And what he would do is when people would hand him his tickets, he’d rip them off in his mouth. And obviously you can imagine, you know what, hey, as far as an employability thing, that’s not going to work long term, especially these days with COVID. Of course, this was 20 years ago, but it really kind of was like, okay, what can we do to help him tear these tickets? And to be honest, it wasn’t anything fancy. I invited someone from our assistive technology team out to help us, because again, I wasn’t in assistive technology at that point, and they pulled out a hacksaw blade and they attached it to the kiosk that he was at. And I thought, really a hacksaw blade? I could have thought of a hacksaw blade, but of course I didn’t think about it, and by attaching the hacksaw blade little thing, little unknown thing about that is hacksaw blades will cut paper all day long.

They won’t cut you unless you really try to cut yourself, and so he was able to slide those tickets up underneath that hacksaw blade and rip up against them to be able to tear the tickets. He was able to keep up with folks. And so I thought, wow, that’s just a small, inexpensive, no big deal accommodation that really made a big difference for this person, not only from a productivity standpoint, but also just being able to not have to tear the tickets… Sanitary, it was much more sanitary. Hygiene was a lot better at that point instead of tearing them off in your mouth. And so I thought, wow, that’s really, really cool. Still have a friendship with that person today, 20 years later, and so super, super cool to keep reliving that moment with him. Yeah, thanks Belva, for thinking of that.

Well, and I’ll tell you what’s awesome about yours, Brian, is that you bring into the matter of how we have to often think outside of the box. There wasn’t something that you could just go down to the store and buy. You had to create that, and we’re often faced with situations where it may be something that’s very simple, but something that we have to basically develop to make things work for the individual the way that we need them to. All right, Josh, your time’s up.

Well, so it’s really hard to break it down. And I’ve had ones, like Brian said, some of my favorites are the ones where you make the custom thing and kind of do that, but one that always sticks out to me, and it’s not because it’s something super high tech, not because it’s something super cool or something I even got to build, but I had a gentleman, his diagnosis was a learning disability. He had a lower IQ, he couldn’t read, is essentially what it was. And he was a maintenance worker for we’ll say a government building. I think that’s probably vague enough that we can get away with that, but anyway, he had his basic things he had to do every day and he’d made his own accommodations to be able to tell which one was the window cleaner and that kind of stuff.

But the issue he had was that he worked nights and there was always extra things to do, and his boss’s only way to communicate with him was email. And he couldn’t read the email, nor could he kind of reply. And that was it. I went to do the evaluation and normally here we do an evaluation, we go and we learn what the individual needs, we write a report, we turn it into VR, they order equipment and everything’s perfect and happy if we all do it right. Well, as I’m sitting there with him, they’re using Gmail. So I just put a Chrome extension on called read aloud, so it’d read to him and enabled the dictation button for Gmail. I was there an hour and 45 minutes, and in the time I was there I trained him and his job coach on how to use it.

And the VR office was right down the road. I went down and just said, do you really need a report? Because that’s all he needed. And that was it. There was no report or anything. I did ask, hey, you authorized a few extra hours, can I go back and just check and make sure? And we found headphones that was lying around in the maintenance office so that everybody didn’t have to listen to it. Well, I came back and his boss was actually there and his boss used dictation in order to dictate the emails, and a few other guys there used it to read them to him because they weren’t always understanding what he was trying to say. So it was cool because everyone ended up using it. Probably that job coach has turned that on at least 10 more people’s computers by now.

So just little things like that. Again, it’s not world changing, I mean on the scope of building something amazing and new and stuff, but it made all the difference for that person and that was the only barrier they had. Other than that they were great at their job, their boss just needed to be able to do that little thing with them. And I think that’s cool about our jobs. And I guess the reason that we all keep coming back and Belva puts up with having a jerk as a boss and all these other things is just that it’s such an amazing job because people ask me and they’ll even start the conversation with something about someone’s disability and in AT, I don’t think disability is the most important thing. It’s the barrier. Where’s the-

The barrier.

… disconnect? Where’s that barrier? And then how can I… Easily sounds bad if you use it this way, but how can I make it easy for that person to overcome that barrier? And I think that’s what’s rewarding is that we get to solve problems every day and you might meet eight people with the same need, the same disability, and eight different accommodations. So you always get to think, you never know what today’s going to bring, and it’s really amazing.

I have tons of stories I could tell. That one just is one that always kind of sticks with me because I didn’t know what I was walking into and when I left I was done, and that just doesn’t always happen, but sometimes it’s the free and easiest stuff that that’s just those little pieces and I don’t know, little shows like this and other things that can really get the word out can hopefully help some folks find some of those on their own just as they need them with or without disability. So all right, there, I gave you a big long answer. I took a long time to think about it.

Brian, I think you had something else that you wanted to add to yours.

You mentioned the creativity part of what we do, and so since I have been in this job, it’s always hard to communicate to other people exactly what I do. And so I’ve come up with a new way to kind of explain that. And I basically tell folks that I leverage technology and creativity to help people be more independent in their everyday lives because it really is, it’s not all about technology. It is about how we creatively use that technology to help someone be independent. And so that’s my new way of explaining what I do. I leverage technology and creativity to help people be more independent. And so I don’t know if that’ll catch on with anybody, but I think that kind of accurately describes kind of what we do day in and day out because it isn’t just about technology, it is about creativity and how we apply that technology to help somebody, so. excellent.

Yep. Good answers everybody. And I think it’s great that we had that few moments there to kind of share with our listeners what it is that we do because as you said, Brian, people don’t really get what we do. They think, oh, you teach a person how to use a computer, big deal. I can do that. Well, yeah, but it’s so much more than that and I love that, Josh, you mentioned, what are the barriers? Because that is typically one of the first questions that I ask when I sit down with an individual for the first time if I’m doing an evaluation or an assessment with them. So I may know from the paperwork provided what their different abilities are, but I want them to tell me, what are your barriers? Because those are the things that become the most important and those are the things we want to work to overcome. So yeah, I’m glad everybody took a minute there to share that with us. And I hope our listeners enjoyed hearing some of the things that make us keep on ticking.

Excellent. Excellent. Well, hey, I want to open this up to our listeners. If you have any feedback regarding our wild card question today, please let us know. You can certainly send us your feedback through our listener line, which is (317) 721-7124, or send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. Love to hear from you. Want to thank our crew here today for the great answers. And so I’ll start with Belva. I just want to also give them a chance to say goodbye. But Belva, do you want to say goodbye to everybody?

Yeah, we’ll see you guys next time and everybody stay safe and happy.

Excellent. And then Josh.

Hey, thanks for listening to everybody. Can’t wait to see you here next time.

Excellent. And then Tracy.

Oh man, I hate to let you go, but I can’t wait to see you again or hear from you guys again. Bye.

Excellent, excellent. Well, hey, yeah, definitely let us know if you have any questions, get us your feedback. Without your questions or feedback, we really don’t have a show, so please, please tune in, let us know what you have for us and we’ll look forward to connecting with you in a couple weeks. Take care. Bye-bye.

And it seems like every week we have at least one blooper, so here you go.

Brian, my words [inaudible 01:03:50] get ahead of my thought process for a little over 43 years now.

Before we jump into the questions for today, we’ve got a good amount of good questions.

We also have a mediocre amount of mediocre questions and a really bad amount of bad questions.

Information provided on Assistive Technology FAQ does not constitute a product endorsement. Our comments are not intended as recommendations, nor is our show evaluative in nature. Assistive Technology FAQ is hosted and produced by Brian Norton, gets editorial help from Josh Anderson, Belva Smith and Tracy Castillo receives support from Easterseals Crossroads in the InData project. The show transcript is sponsored by InTRAC the Indiana Telephone Relay Access Corporation. To learn more about InTRAC, go to indianarelay.com. Assistive Technology FAQ is also a proud member of the Accessibility Channel. To find more of our shows, go to accessibilitychannel.com.