Free Resources from the Net for EVERY Learner » Firefox

Improve Writing with ‘After the Deadline’

Paul Hamilton — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 00:40:06 +0000

Far too many learners experience painful and debilitating failure in school because of challenges with written expression. It isn’t because the writer does not have plenty to say, or because he or she is not a creative or analytical thinker, or because of limited vocabulary. It may be simply because the conventions of spelling and grammar are exceedingly difficult or impossible to learn.

I have met too many 6th graders who refused to write because they had learned in first grade that they “couldn’t write”. Physical coordination challenges had hindered them from using a pencil effectively The painful lesson that they couldn’t write had been re-enforced repeatedly by the red ink that had messed up their efforts, and by the hurtful comments of their teachers. As 6th graders, they avoided writing at almost any cost, including consequences for not completing assignments or for acting out their frustration in disruptive behaviors.

For a wide variety of valid reasons, in every classroom there are learners who struggle with written output. That’s why I’m delighted to share another digital tool with helpful potential for all writers. This tool offers help for learners and writers of all ages, not just for those who are enrolled in schools!

After the Deadline is an application that provides contextual spell checking, along with powerful grammar and style checking. It provides helpful explanations for the grammar and style errors that it finds. The user can personalize the rules of the application by setting it to always ignore specific errors. There are settings to personalize in other ways as well.

Although this writing tool is available as an extension that you can download to use off-line with OpenOffice Writer, it is probably most valuable as an aid to online writing. After the Deadline comes as an add-on for Firefox (version 3.613 or earlier), as an extension for Google Chrome, or as a plug-in for WordPress blogs. This is a tool that supports online writing almost everywhere, including Facebook, Twitter, GMail, etc.

Here’s a video that shows how After the Deadline works as a Firefox add-on.

NOTE: After the Deadline was helpful in writing this blog post. It didn’t result in a perfect post, but it did result in a better post.

Accessible Add-On Collections for Firefox

Paul Hamilton — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 17:01:00 +0000

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the challenges of add-on compatibility when upgrading to new versions of Firefox. My post elicited an extremely helpful response from Ira Socol about a resource he has facilitated with MITS (Michigan Integrated Technology Supports).

For anyone looking for add-ons that make web browsing more accessible with Firefox, most of the hard work has been done by Ira and MITS. Add-ons have been located and helpfully placed on a single page from which they can be downloaded and installed. All of the listed add-ons work with Firefox 3.613, and most work with the beta version of Firefox 4.

There are separate pages for the Mac and PC versions of Firefox. Clicking on the appropriate symbol below will take you to the option you want.

The collections include 21 options for the PC and 22 for the Mac. These add-ons support a wide range of needs, and I believe anyone who supports learners should check them out. All learners deserve to be given the opportunity to try as many supports as possible. Each individual learns uniquely, so it is dangerous and wrong to assume that any learner does not face learning challenges of some sort.

Among the listed add-ons, there are supports to help with physical and vision challenges, supports for reading, supports for doing maths, and much more. As time permits, I hope to highlight some of the specific add-ons. The images below offer at least a glimpse of what is available.

When Size Matters — Use Theme Font & Size Changer

Paul Hamilton — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 21:01:37 +0000

It’s easy to adjust the size of what you see on a web page. Text and accompanying graphics can be enlarged or reduced by tapping the + or – key while holding down the Control/Command key. This works in every browser I’ve tried (Firefox, Safari, IE, Chrome) and it works on Windows, Mac or Linux.

BUT Control/Command with +/- has no effect on the browser itself–on the menu bar and menu items, the address bar, toolbars, tabs etc. That’s where Theme & Font Size Changer, the Firefox add-on by Baris Derin, can be extremely handy. This is yet another reason that Firefox is more accessible than other popular browsers.

Theme Font & Size Changer offers an extremely convenient way of changing the font and adjusting the size of the text in the Firefox browser itself. The add-on installs an icon on the menu bar.

Clicking the icon brings up the dialogue box shown below, with drop-down menus for adjusting the font and/or the size of the font.

It takes only a few seconds to make the changes demonstrated below–from the normal font to Verdana, and from the normal size to 18. If needed, the size can go as high as 80.

NOTE: This is an add-on that works with Firefox 4.0

Split Browser (Downloadable Firefox Add-on)

Paul Hamilton — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 13:23:32 +0000

It is encouraging to see an increasing number of schools making Firefox available as a web browser for learners. Here’s another add-on to make it even more worthwhile. This one takes tabbed browsing to the logical next step.

Split Browser is a Firefox add-on that enables you to view multiple open tabs (websites) on the same screen. In practical terms, this works just the same as tiling multiple open programs into “windows” so that they can be seen at the same time.

There are many ways that splitting the browser can be helpful. It makes most sense if a learner needs to make comparisons when doing research. To illustrate, let’s say that I want to compare the specs on two cameras that I’m considering. It helps me greatly to see the specs for both side by side, as shown below. The image is too small to see the actual specs, but I’m sure you get the idea.

Once Split Browser is installed, you can split the browser with context menu options that appear with a right mouse click. These options are shown below. A ‘Split’ menu is also installed on the menu bar, and that can be activated with a keyboard command. It seems that you have to use the Split menu to close split browsers. Finally, it seems that you can split the screen into as many “windows” as you wish, and these can be sized and shaped in almost any way imaginable.

Access Firefox (Online Resource)

Paul Hamilton — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:55:32 +0000

Last week, Google released the shiny new web browser that they’ve aptly named “Chrome“. After taking it for a test drive, I have to admit that I rather like it. It’s incredibly fast, and I love the way it gives me almost my entire laptop screen for viewing web pages. Still, Chrome reminds me of just how very much more I appreciate Firefox.

I believe that Firefox should be available to every learner in every school. That’s because of the accessibility features that are built into Firefox and because of the available Firefox add-ons that further facilitate access for individuals with diverse learning needs.

In a blog post entitled “Learning to give up…“, Ira Socol convincingly makes the point that text-to-peech software is an essental tool that should be available to all learners, not just to those with designated “special” needs. I think every classroom teacher would do well to read Ira’s post!

With Firefox, text-to-speech software can indeed be available to all learners when reading online. That’s because there is a free Firefox add-on called CLiCk,Speak that conveniently offers text-to-speech. This is but one example of the countless add-ons for Firefox that enhance accessibility and that help to make learning possible for many who might otherwise give up.

Access Firefox is a website that I’ve written about before, but I believe it’s well worth another mention. Access Firefox is a tremendous resource for anyone interested in making the internet accessible to all learners. Access Firefox details the built-in accessibility features of Firefox. It also describes and links to numerous add-ons. The site is well organized and uncluttered. It has been designed with accessibility in mind, and demonstrates what an accessible website can look like.

If you are in a position to exert any influence at all, please advocate for the use of Firefox on the computers that are being used in schools. Alternative browsers available today don’t come close in terms of helping to meet the diverse range learning styles and learning needs that exist in every classroom.

Wikilook (Firefox add-on)

Paul Hamilton — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:46:31 +0000

It’s hard not to love Firefox! As a web browser, it just keeps getting better; and I’ve written here frequently about Firefox’s value in terms of helping make the web accessible for users with a wide variety of access challenges. Today I’m writing a quick “holiday” post about another Firefox add-on that you may find worth a look.

Wikilook is a Firefox add-on that provides instant definitions of words that are on screen in Firefox. With Wikilook, you simply hold the space-bar down and hover your cursor over any word to get its meaning. Wikilook brings the definition from Wiktionary. Definitions provide hyperlinks to relevant Wikipedia articles. The screenshot below shows the definition brought up for ‘environment’ by Wikilook.

Wikilook is an alternative to the Firefox add-on from Answers.com that I wrote about here. I think I prefer what Answers.com has to offer, but you may not share my preference.

CLiCk,Speak for Firefox 3 (Firefox Add-on)

Paul Hamilton — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:38:51 +0000

CLiCk,Speak is now available for Firefox 3.

CLiCk,Speak is a FREE tool that I believe needs to be available to ALL learners who have any reason to go online. It is a powerful tool, and one that is extremely easy to use for anyone who can use a mouse. The CLiCk,Speak toolbar installs with three buttons, as shown here.

In order to have text from a web page read aloud, simply place the cursor where you want to begin reading and click the green button. To stop reading aloud, click the red button. If you wish to read a selection of text, click the white button after selecting the desired text.

Under the Firefox ‘Tools’ Menu is an item called ‘CliCk,Speak Options’. You are able to adjust the reading rate and the pitch of the voice here.

As I repeat frequently, if schools are truly interested in supporting all learners, there is no excuse for continuing to insist on using Internet Explorer. If schools are really interested in trying to facilitate universal access, Firefox is a far superior browser because it is so much more accessible for countless learners. There is absolutely no monetary cost for using Firefox, but the potential to help learners with reading challenges is priceless!

Accessibar (Firefox Add-on)

Paul Hamilton — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 03:51:38 +0000

I wish classroom educators were not so stuck on using Internet Explorer. Firefox is a superior web browser in almost every respect, and this is especially true for individuals with special needs. Kate Ahern recently mentioned another add-on for Firefox that offers a set of convenient tools to enhance accessibility.

Accessibar is a toolbar that can be installed as an add-on for the Firefox browser with a set of tools to make the internet more accessible for people with special needs. Accessibar is especially useful for those with low vision. As with all toolbar icons in Firefox, the toolbar shown below can include text that names the function of the icon. All of the Accessibar functions can also be activated with keyboard shortcuts that can be configured by the user.

In the words of the toolbar’s developers, here’s what the Accessibar tools will do for you.

Web page fonts and background colors can be changed from a selecton of 70 colors on current session
Icons with configurable shortcut keys to increase and decrease Font size.
Line spacing can be increased or decreased to five different spacing settings incrementally.
All images (including Flash) displayed on a web page can be selected as being hiden or shown.
All changes made to web page display can be restored to original page settings by pressing “Restore Page“.
Changes made to the currently displayed web page persist until “Restore Page“ is selected.
Integrated Text To Speech reader. Reads out strings hovered over as well as focused elements.
Reader settings can be configured allowing the selection of the voice, volume, speaking rate, pitch, and voice range.
Toolbar functions have configurable Hotkeys (keyboard shortcuts).

I tested Accessibar’s text-to-speech function, and I found it to work reasonably well. It does an especially good job of reading links and buttons. As a sighted reader, however,I much prefer to use CLiCk,Speak for reading passages of text. I wonder if it might be the same for individuals with low vision if they are able to use Accessibar’s tools to enable them to see the web page effectively. I added the CLiCk,Speak buttons to the Accessibar toolbar. The only drawback is that there are no keyboard commands for the CLiCk,Speak buttons.

Visual Dictionary (online resource)

Paul Hamilton — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 15:52:04 +0000

Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff!

FREE online resources and downloadable programs for learners.

I’m following up my last post about an excellent online reference site with a post today about another great online reference. This one is especially valuable for individuals who are primarily visual learners. Amanda, at Thinking Past the Square, wrote a helpful review of Visual Dictionary last month. I’d like to add my observations, and ensure that this resource is archived here.

Visual Dictionary by Miriam Webster is exactly what its name says it is. While this is a terrific option for individuals who are primarily visual learners, there is growing evidence to suggest that this sort of alternative is also helpful for everyone. For learners with reading challenges, I was pleased to discover that CLiCk,Speak will read entries aloud when the site is open in Firefox. Visual Dictionary provides audio files that pronounce the terms it defines.

Information is organized under 15 major headings, each represented by a symbol–Astronomy, Plants and Gardening, Human Being, etc. Clicking on an image leads to more visual images to choose from. I’ve illustrated the progression with the five screenshots below that wind up at the entry for Saturn.

Main Heading

Sub-Heading

Sub-Sub-Heading

Detailed Options

Entry

Access Firefox (online resource)

Paul Hamilton — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 17:41:46 +0000

Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff!

FREE online resources and downloadable programs for learners.

About 3 years ago, my son told me I should get with the program and switch to Firefox. Since then, I’ve become a diehard fan and promoter of the browser. Because I work in the field of assistive technology, I especially appreciate the add-ons that have been written for Firefox to make the internet more accessible for people with special challenges. I’ve written here about CLiCkSpeak, FireVox, and Mouse Gestures. Today I’m highlighting a website whose sole focus is the accessiblity features of Firefox.

Access Firefox The raison d’etre for this site is clearly stated in its tagline: “Because the Internet is for everyone.” That resonates with me. The internet has created gateways to the world and facilitated connections that simply had not been available to many people with special needs before.

Access Firefox has catologued a significant list of Firefox extensions and themes that enhance Firefox accessiblity. The site offers assistance for anyone who needs to figure out how to download and install these add-ons. Access Firefox is also doing its bit to promote ongoing development of add-ons that facilitae access.

Ken Saunders, the site’s creator, is legally blind; and the majority of resources listed on Access Firefox are for individuals who are either blind or who have low vision. CLiCkSpeak, however, is an example of an add-on for sighted individuals with reading challenges. Mouse Gestures is an add-on that makes the internet accessible to individuals with physical challenges that keep them from using a typical hand-operated mouse.

The accessibility features that are being written for Firefox illustrate the power of open source software and of communities that form in response to specific needs.