>>>>

Books on tape?

If I never got another book or article on tape, I wouldn't be upset in the
least. I am totally blind and currently working on my Dissertation, so I've
had a lot of experience with textbooks on tape. I think, given today's
available technology, books on tape only serve to keep blind persons
nonliterate. Not only do blind students lose out on learning spelling of
names and terminology of their particular field of interest and other
academic areas to which they are exposed; they miss out on the opportunity
to fully understand format, layout, punctuation and other critical written
communication skills. I feel this is probably one of the biggest barriers
that prevent this population from obtaining an appropriate level of
employment or employment at all. I think a student is better off scanning
their own books rather than relying solely on tapes.


I will mostly agree with you, but there are certain circumstances where
subtle (or not so subtle) semantics are conveyed only by tone and
inflection that is far beyond what current speech synthesizers are capable
of.  Granted, this is mostly something that appears in literary works as
opposed to technical ones, but those situations really need a human reader,
and hopefully one who understands the material she is reading.

Even if the synthesizers were up to the task, there is the question of
markup of the original text, and I don't see that one being solved for a
very long time.

-- Jim

------------------------------
James A. Rebman

Cognitive Levers Project
Center for Life-Long Learning and Design
Department of Computer Science
University of Colorado, Boulder

"In times of change, the learners will inherit the earth while the learned
will find themselves beautifully equipped for a world that no longer exists."

- Eric Hoffer