Free Resources from the Net for (Special) Education

Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.

Here’s another powerful Firefox extension from Charles L. Chen, the developer who has also given us Fire Vox (see previous post). This extension is designed to make the web more accessible to sighted individuals who need assistance with reading.

CLiCk, Speak (downloadable Firefox extension) CLiCk, Speak reads aloud any web page that is open in Firefox. The interface is incredibly simple and straightforward. There are just three mouse-activated buttons–one to read selected text, one to begin reading wherever the cursor is placed, and another to stop reading. To facilitate tracking, CLiCk, Speak, highlights each sentence as it is read. I have downloaded and installed this extension, and have found it to work very smoothly indeed.

CLiCk, Speak adds a toolbar to the Firefox browser. Since there are only 3 buttons on the toolbar, these buttons can easily be added to any other Firefox toolbar by using Firefox’s customize toolbar option. This means it isn’t necessary to have the entire CLiCk, Speak toolbar open when you want to have CLiCk, Speak available.

Charles L. Chen, the developer of CLiCk, Speak, is doing a great job of supporting this extension. His website provides an installation guide and a user’s manual. Charles also offers helpful information on purchasing and downloading alternative voices–for reading in English as well as in several other languages.

The code for CLiCk, Speak is open source and made availble free of charge. CLiCk,Speak would not even be possible if Firefox itself were not open source. Open source code is tremendously helpful for those working to make the computer more accessible.