Congratulations to the winners of the Scottish Book Awards for 2012, which were announced today in Dundee. The winners were:

• 3 - 7 years - John Fardell for The Day Louis Got Eaten
• 8 - 11 years - Jonathan Meres for The World of Norm: May Contain Nuts
• 12 - 16 years - Barry Hutchison for The 13th Horseman

Over 30,000 children in schools throughout Scotland voted for their favourite new book to decide the winner of each category.

CALL Scotland's Books for All project provided copies of the books in electronic accessible formats for 55 pupils with a print disability in schools throughout Scotland to allow them to join their friends in voting for their favourite book.

I got myself a Kindle Fire HD earlier this week as it is hard to respond to inquiries about a piece of equipment that we haven't seen. Interestingly, Amazon could not deliver until the middle of February so I got one from our local branch of Argos for the same price - sometimes it pays to shop local!

The Kindle Fire (bottom left in the photo), with a 7" screen is roughly the same size as the old keyboard Kindle (bottom right), just a fraction wider), but it is nearly twice as heavy. It is significantly smaller and lighter than the iPad (top). The display has a very decent resolution (1,280 x 800 pixels) and is clear and sharp.

The onscreen keyboard is as good as most others and works in either portrait or landscape orientation, with white lettering on black keys. There is built-in word rediction, with predicted words appearing in a row above the keyboard.

Reading eBooks on the Kindle Fire

The Kindle Fire can access the same Kindle library as other Kindle devices, but the colour screen makes children's picture books much more inviting. Some picture books have been provided with 'popups', enlarging small passages of text in a box with a cream background, using a standard, slightly enlarged, serif font to replace the various more graphical fonts used in picture books. Unfortunately, in the book I tried ('Twas the Night Before Christmas') it was not possible to further enlarge this text, or have it read out loud by the Kindle. I could not find any books in the Picture Book section of the Amazon Shop which claimed to be 'speech enabled'.

Books made up primarily of text can be read the same way as in earlier Kindles, with options to change line spacing, style and size of the text. Six fonts are available. Given that that the more 'traditional' Kindles available from Amazon (basic Kindle and Paperwhite) no longer provide text to speech support for reading eBooks, I was particularly keen to see how this performed on the Kindle Fire. To turn speech on, simply tap on the screen to bring up the Menu and choose Settings, then turn Text-to-Speech on. Tap again and press the Play icon at the bottom left of the screen to listen to the speech. Speech quality is better than on the earlier Kindles, but still isn't great.

I was disappointed to find that Immersion Reading is not yet available in the UK. This has been introduced for Kindle readers in the USA, allowing people to link their Kindle eBook to an audio book downloaded from Audible.com. Books can be read with a human voice (generally the author, or an actor), with text highlighted on screen as the words are spoken. When I tried to find out whether this would become available for the UK, the response from Amazon Support was somewhat cryptic: "We've made no announcement about implementing Immersion Reading in the UK, so unfortunately I can't answer your question."

What else does the Kindle Fire have?

The Kindle Fire HD has a dual-band Wi-Fi connection, which I have found to be pretty fast. The web browser is OK, but pretty basic, without any facilities for improving accessibility. You can connect to email, Facebook and Twitter accounts

Though the Kindle Fire uses the Android operating system, you are restricted to using apps available from the Amazon App Store. There's a good selection of mainstream apps available, many of which are free, but there's a shortage of the more specialist apps. Anybody looking for a budget communication aid will be disappointed.

The Kindle Fire has a built-in front facing HD video camera, aimed primarily at people using video chat - it can be used to take photographs, but it is awkward as you cannot see what you are taking a picture of.

Although it isn't documented, it is possible to take a screenshot of the Kindle screen by simultaneously pressing the Lower Volume and Power buttons. This can be tricky as it is easy to get it slightly wrong and just get the Volume Bar, or the Shut Down menu on screen.

The Fire can be connected to an external display, e.g. a data projector, by means of a micro HDMI cable (not supplied, but very cheap)

Overall Impressions

Basically, I like the Fire - screen quality is good, it is portable and has access to a wide range of facilities. Some tasks are pretty fiddly (like taking a screenshot) and I was a bit disappointed with the text-to-speech quality - and the absence of Immersion Reading, but overall I was pretty impressed, especially as it only cost £159.

We've been distributing CDs with accessible versions of the shortlisted titles for this year's Scottish Book Trust's Scottish Children's Book Awards for the last couple of weeks. (See previous Blog for details of the Awards and the shortlisted titles.)

Children in schools throughout Scotland are asked to choose their favourite from their age category:

• Bookbug Readers (3 - 7 years)
• Younger Readers (8 - 11 years)
• Older Readers (12 - 16 years)

Pupils with a print disability (e.g. visual impairment, dyslexia, some physical disabilities) who are not able to use standard books can benefit from having the books in an accessible electronic format available from CALL Scotland. This year, we have made the books available in the following formats:

BookBug Readers - PowerPoint and PDF. The PowerPoint files have recorded narration, i.e. children will hear a human voice reading the text on a page when they turn it. There are PowerPoint files specially set up for children using a switch. The PDF files have been set up so that the text can be read out loud by computer using either Adobe Reader and Read OutLoud, or Nook Study. Instructions for both are provided. We recommend using either of the Scottish Voices, Stuart or Heather, available for schools and parents from the Scottish Voice web site.

Younger Readers - Standard and Large Print (18 point) PDF and Daisy. Again, there are instructions for reading the PDFs using Adobe Reader or Nook Study. AMIS Daisy Reader software is provided for reading the Daisy versions.

Older Readers - Standard and Large Print (18 point) PDF and Daisy. Full instructions are provided.

Getting Accessible Copies of the Shortlisted Books

If you need an accessible copy of the books for a particular pupil, go to the CALL Scotland Books for All web site and fill in the form giving your name, the pupil name and letting us know which set of books is required. We'll send you the books on a CD.

Taking Part

Schools wanting to take part in deciding the winners in each category have to register with the Scottish Book Trust by 31st December and pupils can vote for their favourite book until 8th February.

Nearly 50 parents of children with additional support needs came to CALL on Saturday for our Parent Information Day on iPads.During the course of the day there was a series of presentations by CALL staff on different aspects of the use of the iPad to support learning and communication, along with exhibition space with various stands where visitors could have more in-depth discussions with CALL staff and browse through some of the extensive information downloadable from the internet on the use of iPads to support learning.Stuart and Paul provided an overview of the use of the iPad to read books available in different electronic formats (primarily ePub and PDF), using apps including iBooks, iWordQ and VoiceDream Reader.

In a parallel session, Sally demonstrated a number of picture-based apps that could be used to support communication, including BitsBoard, Book Creator, Sounding Board and GoTalk Now.

The morning finished with a presentation by Craig highlighting basic functions of the iPad, such as file management and the creation of folders, and the accessibility features of the iPad.After lunch there was time for people to browse through a vast array of information resources (listed in a handout) and to ask questions. Many people took the opportunity to buy CALL's book on the iPad, iPads for Communication, Access, Literacy and Learning, available as a free download, or to purchase in paper format from CALL.

What people thought of the Information Day

Here are some comments made by people attending the Information Day:

• "CALL is a brilliant discovery for us, and I feel it should be promoted to EVERY dyslexic kid as a matter of course - by law!"
• " I liked the depth & breadth of experience and approachability of presenters."

The British Dyslexia Association have recently published some new books covering different aspects of dyslexia. The full list is available from the store on their web site. We have purchased six of the new titles for the CALL Library:

• Dyslexia and Useful Technology, edited by EA Draffen
• Dyslexia in Education: A Guide for Teachers and Teaching Assistants, by Sue Thurtle
• Dyslexia and Parents, by Margaret Malpas
• Dyslexia: Early Intervention by Judith Stansfield
• Maths Learning Difficulties, Dyslexia and Dyscalculia, by Steve Chinn
• Dyslexia Friendly Schools: Good Practice Guide, edited by Katrina Cochrane and Kate Saunders

CALL Scotland has a reference library, generally open between 9am and 5pm, available to teachers, therapists, students and anyone else with an interest in augmentative communication, assistive technology and education. It is best to phone beforehand to make sure that the Information Officer will be available to give you any help you need. Tel 0131 651 6235.

The shortlisted titles for this year's Scottish Book Awards were announced last week by the Scottish Book Trust. There are three categories for the awards: Bookbug Readers (3 - 7 years); Younger Readers (8 - 11 years) and Older Readers (12 - 16 years). The shortlisted books in each category are:

Bookbug Readers

• Solomon Crocodile by Catherine Rayner
• The Day Louis got Eaten by John Fardell
• Jack and the Flumflum Tree by Julia Donaldson

Younger Readers

• Out of the Depths by Cathy MacPhail
• Soldier's Game by James Killgore
• The World of Norm: May Contain Nuts by Jonathan Meres

Older Readers

• The 13th Horseman by Barry Hutchison
• Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
• The Prince who Walked with Lions by Elizabeth Laird

Accessible Versions of the Books

For the fourth year in a row, CALL will be producing accessible versions of the books in a variety of formats for pupils with a print disability who are unable to access traditional book formats. We plan to make the books available in the following formats:

Bookbug Readers

• Digital files with human narration for Powerpoint and Clicker

Younger Readers and Older Readers

• Accessible PDF
• Microsoft Word files, allowing people to convert them to Large Print or Braille
• Daisy (full text and audio) for iPad
• Daisy (text only for PC with Amis)

We are currently getting copies of electronic files from the publishers of the books and hope to have the accessible format files ready by the end of the summer.

Taking Part in the Awards Scheme

Pupils in schools throughout Scotland are encouraged to take part in the Awards scheme by voting for their favourite book in their age category. Last year more than 23,000 pupils from throughout Scotland voted for their favourite book. Schools are invited to register to take part by 31st December 2012, with the deadline for voting set as 8th February 2013. Further information is available from the Scottish Book Trust.

Most people who use a Kindle simply download the books they want from the Amazon web site. But what can you do if you want to read something else on your Kindle? The Kindle recognises Kindle (.azw), Text (.txt) and Mobi (.mobi) files and can also view (but not read out) PDFs. It cannot currently handle E-Pub files, so if the book or resource you are looking for is only available in E-Pub format, you need to convert it, using a program such as Calibre.

Calibre is a free eBook management program that you can download from the Calibre web site. It is a very comprehensive program that allows you to search for and download eBooks from the internet, view them and manage your collection. It also allows you to convert between the various file formats used by different eBook readers, so that you can read your eBook on, for example, a Kindle. Calibre also allows you to download online editions of newspapers and magazines from all around the world.

Some aspects of Calibre are a little quirky and it does not have built-in text-to-speech, though it links well with free TTS programs, such as NaturalReader and Ivona Minireader. Nevertheless, it is a very useful program for anybody using digital books.

CALL have now produced a Quick Guide to Using Calibre to Read E-Books and Convert E-Pub Files for the Kindle, which can be downloaded from the Quick Guide section of the CALL web site, under Books for All.

More 'Books for All' Quick Guides

More than 30 further Quick Guides are available in this section covering many different aspects of finding and adapting books for learners with a print disability. Titles include:

- Accessible Formats from Local Authority Library Services

- Accessing Books for All Scotland Database via Scran

- Copyright and Books for All

- Creating interactive digital resources with Adobe Acrobat Professional

- Free eBooks-eTexts and audio files from the Internet

- How to navigate to the Books for All Scotland database from within Glow

- Kindle for PC Accessibility Plugin

- Making Accessible Digital Reading Books

- Making Maths Resources

- Scanning into Word with FineReader 10

We were recently asked how to slow down the reading of text on an audio book by a teacher some of whose pupils have reading difficulties. She was using Barrington Stokes books, accompanied by audio on CD as her pupils found it easier to follow the printed text if they could listen to the audio recording at the same time. Unfortunately, the text was read too quickly for some of her pupils to follow easily.

If you are using Windows Media Player to play the audio recording of the book, it is possible to slow down the play back speed. 

1. Begin playing a file.
2. Click the arrow below the 'Now Playing' tab, at the top of the screen, point to Enhancements, and then click Play Speed Settings. (see image, right)
3. Move the Play Speed slider to the speed at which you want to play the content, or click the Slow, Normal, or Fast link.

The full instructions are available online at:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows-vista/Change-playback-speed-in-Windows-Media-Player.

The winners of the Scottish Book Trust's Royal Mail Awards for Scottish Children's books were announced on 23rd February at a ceremony at the Tramway Theatre in Glasgow. The winners in each of the three categories were as follows:

1. Early Years (Bookbug) Category (0 - 7 years): What the Ladybird Heard by Julia Donaldson
2. Young Readers Category (8 - 11 years): Invisible Fiends - Mr Mumbles by Barry Hutchison
3. Older Readers Category (12 - 16 years): Grass by Catherine MacPhail

Record numbers of children took part in the awards this year, with over 16,000 children from all over Scotland voting for their favourite books - 1000 more than last year - and almost a quarter of all Scottish schools registering to take part.

CALL Scotland worked with the Scottish Book Trust, the authors and publishers so that children with print disabilities who find it hard to read a standard book could get accessible digital copies of the shortlisted books on CD. CALL received requests for CDs from 57 schools and local authorities, allowing many more children to read the books and vote for their favourite. It is still possible to request a CD with electronic copies of the books in a particular category from the CALL Scotland Books for All web site.

Further information about the Royal Mail Book Awards is available from Creative Scotland and the Scottish Book Trust.

Towards the end of last year we heard about the Franklin Anybook Reader, an interesting new device to support reading, and we managed to borrow one from Seiko, with help from Bert Brooks at Scottish Learning Products.

Great for Parents...

The Anybook Reader is a pen-shaped device measuring roughly 16cm x 3-4cm, which allows the user to make and play back a recording of somebody reading the text on a page of a book. This is done by associating a recording of the text, stored in the pen, with a small white sticker that can be attached to a page in the book. The recording is played back by touching the sticker with the tip of the pen. (The sticker can be removed and re-used without damaging the book.) The obvious application of the device would be to allow parents to make a recording of a favourite story book so that a child can listen to the recording of the parent whenever they want as they interact with the book with the pen. Could be useful if a favourite parent is away on a trip!

... and in Schools!

The pen could also be very useful in a school to allow a pupil with a reading difficulty to follow a story in a book. A teacher or classroom assistant would have to read the text on a page out loud into the pen and attach the sticker to the page. Pupils would then be able to listen to the recording whenever they want by just touching each sticker with the pen. Making a recording can seem a bit fiddly at first, but it becomes easy with practice and recording quality is very good. Rather than just use the pen to record the text on a page, the pen could be used to read text describing different objects in a visual scene. The Anybook Reader could also be used to create a simple, low cost communication aid for a pupil who has no speech, provided that they have sufficient manual dexterity to use the pen. Unfortunately, it is not possible to print or draw on the stickers, but a page of symbols could be set up and printed with Boardmaker, or similar software and stickers with appropriate messages attached to the sheet.

The Anybook Reader comes with a set of printed stickers, with pre-recorded sounds (vehicle noises, animal noises, baby crying, etc.). These illustrate what the device can do, but are of limited use. There are 256 blank stickers that can be used for recording and it is possible to buy extra sets, if required.

There are two models, which will both be available from Scottish Learning Products: The DRP-3000, costing £39.99 (+ p & p, + VAT), which gives 15 hours of recording time and the DRP-4000 (£52.50 (+ p & p, + VAT), which has 60 hours available.

We have a DRP-3000, which will be available for loan, though it is often required for demonstrations.

We are often asked if there is an Apple Macintosh version of WordTalk, the free text-to-speech add-on for Microsoft Word. Unfortunately, there isn't, and, due to differences in the way that PCs and Macs handle sound, there is unlikely to be a Mac version.

There are a number of free text-to-speech options for Mac users:

• The Mac operating system has a reasonable text-to-speech system built in. To use it, go to System Preferences - Speech - Text to Speech. Choose a voice and a key combination to speak selected text. Then just highlight text in any program and press the key combination. It doesn't highlight text word by word as it is read out, or do anything fancy, but it works pretty well and Mac voices are generally quite good.
• TypeItReadIt is a free program, aimed primarily at people with a visual impairment, but it can be used more generally by people who want to hear text read out. Unlike the Mac's built-in system, TypeIt ReadIt does not read text directly from an application on the screen. Instead, you have to copy text from your application and paste it into the TypeIt ReadIt window. You can also Open a plain text file and have the contents read out. Note that if you are using a Word file, you will have to save it as plain text to open and read the file. TypeIt ReadIt has options to change the colour scheme and the size of text displayed. Unfortunately, the actual font it uses cannot be changed from Times, which will not suit many of the people who may want to use the program. Earlier versions of the program highlighted words as they were spoken, but this feature has been removed from Version 1.5 as it slowed the program down. This makes little difference for people with a visual impairment, but can make it more difficult for people with reading difficulties to see where they are in a document. There is a reasonable spell checker, but, surprisingly, this does not allow the possible word choices to be read out. One very useful feature is the facility to create sound files (in AIFF format), which can be played in iTunes.
• NaturalReader has a free version for the Mac, which will read text directly from almost any application, including Word, web browsers and PDF files. Simply select the text you want to read and it will be transferred to the NaturalReader MiniBoard for reading. Words are highlighted as they are read and the colour of the text is then changed, making it easy to see where you are in your text. Unlike many 'demo' versions of programs, the free version of NaturalReader can be used for as long as you want, but there are a few restrictions, compared with the full program. Firstly, it does not come with a 'voice'. This is not a great problem as there are perfectly satisfactory voices within the Mac operating system. Schools in Scotland can also make free use of the Mac version of The Scottish Voice, Heather. There is also a restriction of 5,000 characters on the length of any document to be read by NaturalReader. Most importantly, the facility to make sound files has been disabled in the free version. If this is an important feature for you, either use TypeIt ReadIt, or get the Personal Version, costing $49.50.

If you require more features than are provided in the free programs, you will have to pay for the extra facilities provided by programs such as the Personal Version of NaturalReader or GhostReader.

Book Awards

The Royal Mail Awards for Scottish Children’s Books is an innovative nationwide reading project in which children and young people from every corner of Scotland read and vote for their favourite Scottish children's books of the year. Last year:

• Over 18,000 children were involved and an amazing 9,541 votes were cast;
• Over 350 schools and libraries in every corner of Scotland, from Aberdeen to Dumfries; Shetland to Arran, took part;
• The 2008 awards ceremony brought 550 young judges from across Scotland together to see their peers act out the winning books.

The Awards were originally set up by the Scottish Arts Council in 1999 and are now run by Scottish Book Trust. More information is on the Scottish Book Trust web site.

The shortlist

Children can vote for their favourite book from a shortlist in each of three categories:

Early Years (0 - 7 years)

• Manfred the Baddie by John Fardell;
• Pink by Lynne Rickards and Barbara Chamberlain;
• Stick Man by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.

Younger Readers (8 - 11 years)

• Dino Egg by Charlie James;
• The Eleventh Orphan by Joan Lingard;
• First Aid for Fairies and Other Fabled Beasts by Lari Don.

Older Readers (11 - 16 years)

• Crash by J A Henderson;
• Ostrich Boys by Keith Gray;
• The Reckoning by James Jauncey.

But what about disabled children who can’t read the books?

CALL Scotland has worked with the Scottish Book Trust and the authors and publishers to create accessible digital versions of the nine shortlisted books. The idea is that children and young people with physical, visual and reading or dyslexic difficulties, who can’t read the paper books, can read the digital books instead and take part in the awards.

Children with spinal injury, cerebral palsy or other physical impairments can click a switch or press a key on a computer, to turn pages and read the books by themselves. Dyslexic readers or children with visual impairments can change the font size and/or colours on screen, or use text-to-speech software to read the books.

The books can be read out by the computer using "Heather", the high quality Scottish computer voice that is available free for schools and pupils from CALL Scotland’s web site at http://www.thescottishvoice.org.uk/. Accessible digital versions of the shortlisted books are available free of charge from CALL Scotland by completing the 'Request Digital Copy' online form' via the Books for All website or phoning 0131 651 6236.

In a related initiative, RNIB Scotland have produced Large Print, Braille and audio copies of the books.