Making Books for All CPD at Stirling Management Centre, 29 and 30 September

Posted by Paul Nisbet on the 27th October, 2009

Paul Nisbet and Stuart Aitken have developed a comprehensive 4 day course that attempts to cover techniques for making learning resources in accessible formats. The course is split into two sections and the first half was held on 29/30 September, at Stirling Management Centre. It was attended by colleagues from across the country - from Shetland to Dumfries and Galloway, and was very successful. It was great to have a meeting of minds both geographically and also in terms of remit - there were people who make Large print, Braille and audio books for pupils with visual impairments and also staff who make digital books for pupils with other print disabilities due to physical impairments or dyslexia. This mix made the two days very stimulating (and hard work).

Over these first two days we covered:

• where to find and source accessible formats;
• accessibility of different formats for different groups of print-disabled pupils;
• how to add structure to digital books and make 'Intermediate Files' using Microsoft Word;
• how to convert these Intermediate Files to different audio, print and digital formats;
• adapting digital files from publishers.

The second part of the course will be on 19/20 November and will cover scanning and OCR, making interactive resources, uploading accessible books to the Books for All Database, and copyright issues.

We hope to repeat the four day course in February/March 2010 initially, and also in summer 2010 and/or the 2010/2011 session.

These courses are funded and organised by Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS): attendence was FREE for participants. If you would like to find out more, contact Gayle Monteith at LTS (G.Monteith@LTScotland.org.uk).