Load2Learn newsletter, February 2014
Welcome to the seventh issue of our newsletter, keeping you up-to-date with
news from the Load2Learn team.
In this edition learn how to get your complimentary site licence for Dolphin
SaySo and sign up for a place on Dolphin’s free “Make it Accessible” training
course. Watch our videos of learners using various technologies to access
the curriculum. Learn about the benefits of audio books and get some
listening tips.
Please take 15 minutes to complete our feedback questionnaire and help
shape the future of Load2Learn.
Contents
1.
It’s your Load2Learn – tell us how it helps you and your learners .......... 2
2.
3.
Free reading and writing toolbar for students with dyslexia ................... 2
Why and how you should read books with your ears ............................. 4
4.
Learners using technology .................................................................... 5
5.
Load2Learn volunteers .......................................................................... 6
6.
Accessible images for textbooks ........................................................... 6
7.
Love is in the air .................................................................................... 7
8.
January’s figures ................................................................................... 7
2
1. It’s your Load2Learn – tell us how it helps
you and your learners
We value your input to Load2Learn. Help shape the
service by taking 15 minutes to complete our
questionnaire.
This is a great opportunity to voice your feedback.
Whether you support learners, are a parent or a
learner, we want to know about your experience of
the service. We don’t ask your name and all the
responses we use in our reports will be
anonymous. The results will help us to continue
supporting you.
You can choose from one of three questionnaires:
 for Educators and Support Services to complete
 for Parents to complete
 for Learners to complete.
If you have difficulties accessing the questionnaire, please contact
Kate.Flynn@rnib.org.uk to receive it as a Word document.
It’s your Load2Learn - please complete a questionnaire by Friday, 14
February to make sure your views are included. We look forward to hearing
your comments.
2. Free reading and writing toolbar for
students with dyslexia
Last month, Dolphin challenged readers to make
producing accessible formats your new year’s
resolution. We have been delighted with your
response. Anyone who hasn’t signed up, a couple
of places remain on Dolphin’s free Make it
Accessible training at the end of February.
3
This month, Dolphin is pleased to announce that Primary and Secondary
Schools in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are now eligible
for a complimentary site licence of Dolphin SaySo until the end of the
2014 summer term.
SaySo
SaySo is the reading and writing toolbar for people
with dyslexia. SaySo supports learners with reading
by speaking and highlighting text from web pages
and documents. For reading on the move, SaySo
includes options to save text to an MP3 player.
SaySo can also improve confidence with writing by speaking words as they
are typed, offering advanced phonetic spell checking, and identifying tricky
Soundalike words.
 Find out more about SaySo on the Dolphin website
 See SaySo in action by watching the SaySo videos, including how to
download and read Load2learn books with SaySo’s Bookshelf.
Get your school’s free SaySo site license by signing up
to a SaySo webinar
For your school to qualify for a free SaySo site licence, which includes UKbased telephone and email product support, simply sign up to and attend a
free SaySo webinar from Dolphin before the end of the 2013-2014 academic
year. Dolphin will provide your school with a SaySo site licence that will last
until the end of the 2014 summer term.
Dolphin’s next SaySo webinars are scheduled for Tuesday, 18 February and
Friday, 21 February 2014. Sign up for your free SaySo webinar on the
Dolphin website.
4
3. Why and how you should read books with
your ears
Audio books are a great gift, especially for those
who struggle with reading.
Dyslexia Action’s Education and Technology
Specialist has shared his knowledge in this area
and explains why they can really help improve
reading skills.
Below is a summary of a longer article. To read the
full “Why and how you should read books with your
ears” article visit the Dyslexia Action website.
What are the benefits of audio books








Increase time spent reading.
Get over bad associations with reading.
Increase understanding of what you read.
Promote love of reading.
Read in more places.
Read more.
Increase your vocabulary.
Improve your traditional reading (more time spent listening to books will
make it easier when you have to read with your eyes).
 Improve your spelling (yes, just listening more has been shown to improve
spelling).
Is listening to books the same as reading them?
Mostly. But, there are some differences to be aware of. These things are
difficult to do with audiobooks:






skimming through text to get the gist quickly
scanning a page for a bit of information
retracing your steps if you lose focus
looking things up in what you've read
quickly navigating through the book
accessing an audiobook without technology.
5
But none of these turn out to be much of a problem, if you adopt a few
strategies …
How to listen to audio books
If you want to get the most benefit out of audiobooks, you should try some of
the following:
 listen while doing chores, exercising or moving about: you will find
you do more because you want to keep listening and before you know it,
you will have read more books than you thought possible
 listen at higher speed: this will help you read more and for some it will
also improve focus. It is easy to learn to listen at twice the speed
 use bookmarks to organise and review: when you hear something you
want to come back to, bookmark it
 jump back on resume: if possible, set a setting to resume your listening
15 seconds before the moment you paused. It makes returning back to
what you're reading much easier
 cut up long files for MP3 players: ff your player doesn't support
bookmarking, cut up your long files into two minute segments with
Audiobook Cutter
 listen while reading the same text to improve skills: When you listen
for school, listening to the book while reading it will increase
comprehension and also improve your literacy skills.
4. Learners using technology
New on Load2Learn this month are some videos of
blind and partially sighted learners using
technology. Learners tell us how they are using
technology to assist them with their learning in the
classroom and at home.
More information on using technology for
independent learning can be found on the
education pages of RNIB’s website.
6
5. Load2Learn volunteers
We have been recruiting RNIB volunteers to
support us. In January, we have trained four new
volunteers in Birmingham and Peterborough who
will be improving some of the book resources on
Load2Learn; formatting currently unformatted
books, tidying browse categories and also adding
books not currently available on the site.
Bringing our total to six volunteers, who kindly gave
us 78 hours of their time in January. 19 previously
unformatted books are now available on the site as structured Word, PDF,
Epub and Kindle files.
We are really pleased to receive this additional support on Load2Learn and
value their role. If you are interested in being a volunteer, have a look at
RNIB’s volunteer information and find out more about volunteering with
Load2Learn.
6. Accessible images for textbooks
We have been busy developing complete sets of
images that support the images provided in some
of Load2Learn’s popular textbooks. This means
that the whole book is accessible for learners and
available on Load2Learn.
Now available:
 Exploring Science: How Science Works 8
(9781405895439)
 New Key Geography Connections
(9780748797028)
 Collins Revision GCSE Maths (9780007302505)
Coming soon:
 AQA Science Physics (9781408508329)
Of course these images do not have to be used with the books; there are
many images that will be useful for general use in the classroom and at
home. Browse the images available on Load2Learn.
7
7. Love is in the air
We’ve pulled together a selection of romance and
love themed books and images to help you
celebrate Valentine’s day this year.
They include “Love Lessons” by Jacqueline Wilson,
some Shakespeare plays and “The Kiss” sculpture
by Auguste Rodin.
8. January’s figures
January’s figures can be viewed on Load2Learn, they include the number of
new members, number of downloads and the most popular resources
downloaded during the month.
We received 145 book requests and added over 140 new images in January.
For details of new books and images added to the site, visit our news pages.
Unsubscribe
If you no longer wish to receive the newsletter, please let us know and we will
remove you from the circulation list.
Contact us
Apologies if you have had difficulty reaching us on the phone recently. The
phone is currently only manned by one member of the team, while the email
is monitored by several people. The good news is that the phone will soon be
picked up by more team members. Please bear with us, we will respond to
messages left on the answerphone. Thank you.
Telephone: 0300 303 8313
Email: info@load2learn.org.uk
Website: load2learn.org.uk
Twitter: @Load2Learn
Issue date: 6 February 2014
[End of document]