DIGITAL CONTENT: Revolution and Evolution
Over the last 5 years, we have seen the true dawning of the age of digital content. Less than 10 years ago, the primary vehicle for delivery of "content and knowledge" was still the printed word in hardcopy form?..traditional books as well as a plethora of hardcopy periodicals. The first several iterations of "digital content creation" were just the means of preparing information for the ultimate delivery in hardcopy.
Now, in 2007, it is a MUCH different world. There is now more information in the world in electronic digital form than in hardcopy form AND THAT TREND IS ACCELERATING!!! What this evolution effectively means is that, increasingly, new information will NEVER APPEAR IN HARDCOPY PRINT!! We will only be able to find new information in electronic form. A fast-moving and increasingly impatient world has little time to wait for a traditional book or magazine to be printed by institutional publishing behemoths. Fueled by the ubiquity of the Internet, facilities and tools such as MY SPACE and YOU TUBE (and a wealth of others that did not exist even 3 years ago) now make it very straightforward for almost anyone TO PUBLISH INFORMATION THEMSELVES FOR THE ENTIRE WORLD TO SEE?.thereby transcending geographic, linguistic and cultural boundaries. Can you even imagine the world now WITHOUT GOOGLE? We are all witnessing nothing less than a "sea ch ange" in how we as humans interact, communicate and educate. Where traditional information has historically been delivered "top down" from educators, we are rapidly finding that access to information is becoming more collaborative in form??peers and colleagues more easily and openly creating and sharing information like never before. Students are no longer constrained by a hierarchy of educators and administrators as their sole channel for access to information.
So what does this mean? Comprehensive, robust literacy tools are quickly becoming a matter of competitive edge, efficiency and, dare we say, even "digital survival". Why "digital survival"???? Because in order to cope with the onslaught of digital content without drowning, all of us as "knowledge seekers" must adapt and adopt much more effective strategies for employing tools and techniques that enable us to sift through information in organized, efficient and meaningful ways. Said another way, digital content without digital literacy tools will quickly become a disarray of unfulfilled opportunity. This isn?t needed in 5 years, because in our 21st century global economy, 5 years from now will be too late. EVERYONE NEEDS TO BE LEARNING AND USING THESE TECHNOLOGIES NOW!!!
Tools for electronic reading AND writing technologies are becoming essential. Capabilities such as digital content reading and writing, focused text searching, language model summarization, user-driven content selection / extraction, and even creation of digital audio and video will all play important roles in our ability to optimize our digestion and absorption of information. As we speak, we see our jobs changing in front of us in response to the digital revolution.
In keeping with our ongoing commitment to growing circles of individuals who can benefit from our technologies, Premier Assistive is continually creating new ways to tackle tough issues in response to needs that we see in the marketplace, often the very needs that you have identified to us. Over the last several years, you have seen us bring many new approaches and improvements to assistive technology such as:
- Key to Access, VPOD and Premier To Go devices that are the gold standard for portability of assistive reading / writing technologies combined with audio and video technologies.
- PDF Equalizer ML that enables users to digitally read PDF files from a variety of sources, including many publishers.
- Multi-lingual interfaces for a growing number of our applications that allow users to easily change the language interface.
- Real-time translation based on conceptual translation methodologies.
And these are only some of the new technologies we are exploring. Our imaginations never sleep and our track record serves as evidence that we WILL deliver on our promises. The future of our customers, our students, our children depends on it.
Respectfully,
Ken Grisham, President / CEO
Steve Timmer, Chairman
PRODUCT SHOWCASE
Key To Access VPod
The Ultimate in Portable Accessibility!!!
The Key to Access VPod not only has all the great features of our Key to Access MP3 player, but also has advanced capabilities that allow you to utilize both AUDIO and VIDEO podcasts to further enhance the learning experience. A device not much larger than a cell phone contains a comprehensive collection of digital literacy tools.
- The Talking Calculator
- Universal Reader Plus
- E-Text Reader
- Ultimate Talking Dictionary
- PDF Magic
- Talking Word Processor
- Scan and Read Pro
- Text To Audio
- Premier Predictor Pro
- PDF Equalizer
Simply connect the MP4 Player to any USB Port and launch the floating tool bar which will give you access to any of the 10 powerful tools:
Since the tools are pre-loaded into the MP4 Player, the software NEVER needs to be installed on your computer. All your personal settings are saved on your Key to Access VPod which insures that no matter which computer you use, your access will be the same.
You'll also have a built-in digital voice recorder that allows the user to dictate notes or record lectures for later listening. With an external expansion slot that accepts Mini SD smart media cards for additional storage capacity, the Key to Access VPod offers tremendous expandability.
Each Key to Access VPod even comes with its own personal set of earphones and carrying case.
PDF Equalizer ML
Many of you are familiar with PDF files and the limited ability to access PDF formatted content smoothly and easily. The PDF format has become one of the most common methods used by publishers, businesses and libraries to distribute and store electronic versions of printed documents.
One of the problems with PDF files is that you can often only look at them on the screen, just like looking at a printed page. PDF Equalizer ML lets users access documents in their native PDF form without special conversions.
With PDF Equalizer ML, some of the things you can do are:
- Read a book in its original PDF format straight from the publisher.
- Convert text to audio files (like MP3) for later use.
- Take notes, bookmark and even copy images, charts, equations and tables into your notes.
- Extract and print or save notes in a MS Word document.
- Highlight and save important information for focused studying.
- Include hyperlinks for navigation to the Internet.
- Translate books on the fly to 5 languages.
- Quickly summarize a book, a range of pages or a selection of information
From the Good news File
A university freshman with dyslexia and dysgraphia uses Universal Reader every single day and says it?s been a lifesaver. Along with other tools in Premier?s Accessibility Suite, he has been able to use the technology to read content that would previously have been inaccessible.
One child who loves to find out details about a variety of topics from hurricanes to snakes had difficulty reading. He was shown by his teacher how to use Universal Reader and in less than five minutes, he was off and running on his own. The teacher later found that the student was secretly showing other students the ?cool technology?, as though it were a new gadget he wasn?t supposed to share.
One teacher loaded Premier?s Accessibility Suite of software on her computer at home so her husband, who had some reading challenges, could read news on the Internet. Now he regularly accesses information online.
Another teacher who is taking graduate classes found the Language Model Summarization feature in several of the Premier products to be a huge help as she was studying for exams. It took her highlighted text from several articles and extracted them into a separate document for review prior to the test.
Doing homework that involves reading assignments from a textbook is time-consuming for virtually all students. One student who has access the Premier Suite of tools took the textbook reading assignment and scanned it using Scan and Read, then and used Text-To-Audio to convert the document to audio (MP3 format. Then he copied it to his MP3 player and listened to his audio book while he was outside shooting baskets!
If you have a Good News! story about how Premier's software is being used or how it has helped you or someone you know, please send your story to us at Rhonda@readingmadeeasy.com. We'd love to include it in a future newsletter.
Premier Assistive Technology
Executive Offices
1309 N. William St.
Joliet, IL 60435
Phone: 815-927-7390
Fax: 815-722-8802
www.readingmadeeasy.com
Premier Assistive Technology – Canada
PO Box 875, STN A
Sydney, NS
B1P 6J4
Phone: 902-482-4680
Fax: 902-270-5224
www.readingmadeeasy.ca