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The Year That Was and the New Year Ahead Guest Beneblog by Betsy Beaumon, Benetech's VP and General Manager of the Literacy Program 2012 was a year of titanic shifts in the fields of consumer technology, education, and publishing, along with the requisite challenges brought about by such rapid change.
COVID-19 has caused libraries around the US to stay closed since mid-March. The Markup has written about the ways in which libraries are attempting to keep their patrons online. The library has left Wi-Fi on 24/7, and kids sit in the parking lot to use their phones. Photo by Paul Marotta/Getty Images. It’s well worth a read.
You see, several months later, the federal Department of Education challenged us to compete against a well-respected national nonprofit 60 times our size in a bid to provide accessible educational materials for US students who are blind, dyslexic, or otherwise print disabled. million contract to do just that. Fast-forward six years.
This year, the most innovative companies in the education sector are tackling a dizzying array of challenges facing students and schools alikenot to mention parents. As a teletherapy platform, Parallel Learning enables schools and special education providers to counsel students and track their progress.
Note from Beth: As a supporter of the work that the Sharing Foundation does for children in Cambodia, I’ve seen first hand the value of literacy programs in developing countries. This week, nearly a year after first beginning to work with Room to Read, we’re proud to be taking part in promoting Literacy Day.
I’m thrilled to share with you some of the recent amazing impact of Bookshare , a Benetech Global Literacy initiative and the largest accessible online library of copyrighted content for people with print disabilities. These milestones represent a giant leap forward in the number of students and individuals we serve.
I want to unveil several of these new initiatives, as well as sneaking in some of the incredible things happening in our core programs in literacy and human rights. We’re thrilled that students and other readers who have disabilities that keep them from reading standard print can now read the same books as their peers, using the same devices.
Bookshare, Benetech’s pioneering digital library for people with print disabilities, celebrated its 10th birthday last night with a terrific party that was attended by many of our long-time friends and supporters. As a result, we quickly became the largest online library for people with print disabilities. said Stevie. Thanks Stevie!
The great majority of social enterprises are nonprofit organizations dedicated to the social good through employing disadvantaged people, educating students, improving the environment, advancing health care, respect for human rights and so many other beneficial activities.
Of course, accessibility is right up Benetech’s alley and the focus of our Literacy program. In my Fall 2011 President's Update , I mentioned some of our incredible recent achievements in this core program, including the amazing milestones of our Bookshare library. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP).
The tools we develop for that purpose span a range of fields—from human rights , to global literacy , to the environment —but no matter what area we work in, we depend on an IP system that’s friendly to technological advances and to positive social impact. copyright law. In the U.S.,
For them, Bookshare —Benetech’s Global Literacy initiative and the world’s largest accessible digital library for people with print disabilities—opens up a lifeline to reading. For veterans with visual impairments, traumatic brain injuries or other disabilities, reading standard print is difficult, if not impossible.
The HathiTrust Digital Library (HDL) is a partnership of academic and research institutions that had created (with help from Google ) a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world. Consequently, it is reasonable for the Libraries to retain both the text and image copies. in addition to the text?only
Libraries, nonprofits, and schools are already working hard to teach digital skills and competency, but they need support of the entire community to help people thrive in the technology age. Defining Digital Literacy. But first, what exactly is digital literacy? " The Role of Libraries. The Role of Schools.
Benetech is hiring new Vice Presidents for our Global Literacy and Human Rights programs. We use technology today to help hundreds of thousands of students with disabilities succeed in school, as well as help human rights activists around the world document abuses and seek justice.
From people in Latin America who face severe water scarcity to at-risk human rights defenders and students with disabilities, our users and their families are the ones who best convey the impact of our work. Consider third grade student Brennan Draves. Brennan Draves and his mother, Lindsay Draves, at school. Martus Desktop 4.5
They hail from a wide array of institutions, including a food bank, city government, a refugee resettlement agency, multiple libraries, an adult literacy organization, and an organization that works with formerly incarcerated individuals.
The goal of this repository is to ensure that students with print disabilities have easy access to textbooks. The goal of this on-line library is to stop the scanning of textbooks for K-12 education - a job which is now done by parents, teachers and students. The second challenge we encountered took place in Washington D.C.
The nonprofit Benetech team built the revolutionary Bookshare library for this community, all online, and based on the powerfully flexible ebook. We named this library Bookshare because it was created with an army of crowdsourcing volunteers, many of them blind people themselves, who scan the books using optical character recognition.
She was teaching an engineering course, and her students were using simulation software to model turbines for jet engines. She’d laid out the assignment clearly, but student after student was calling her over for help. She asked each student where they’d saved their project. multiple students inquired.
Valerie Hill is an adjunct instructor at Texas Woman's University School of Library and Information Science and is also a librarian herself. She came to the Nonprofit Commons to share her areas of expertise in media literacy, human-computer interaction, and the impact of the digital revolution on education and libraries.
Although the members of our board were impressed with all three nominees, they awarded Carrie Karnos of Palo Alto, CA, the 2006 Veale Award for her work with an accessible online library called Bookshare. Notice that it is because of Carrie's work that almost 10 percent of Bookshare's library exists.
Those who envision what could be possible by having Benetech apply innovative technology to the areas of Literacy, Human Rights, and the Environment, and who enable us to explore new opportunities for creating social good. Department of Education that enables us to provide the Bookshare library services for free to all qualifying U.S.
Users get one lesson per day for free, but if they want access to more lessons and the full library of songs (or if they want to learn multiple instruments), they need to sign up for a Premium or Premium+ subscription, with pricing starting at $19.99 “We want to make musicality to be as common as literacy,” Thür said.
Stopping fund raising and subscription revenue for Bookshare, the largest online library for people who have print disabilities. Bookshare is an online library for people who can’t read standard print books. We provide accessible ebooks that can be spoken aloud, turned into Braille or large print.
TechSoup has partnered with goQ Software to make their writing assistance and speech recognition software, WordQ + SpeakQ , available to eligible nonprofits and libraries. The National Commission on writing stated that 80 percent of grade school students are not proficient at writing. roundup on building a culture of accessibility.
Last month, the radio show This American Life ran a fascinating episode called " Kid Politics ," which starts with a long segment about the Air Force One Discovery Center immersive experience at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Starlee follows the group of students who portray Reagan and his advisors in the Oval Office.
For nonprofits, libraries, and their constituents, education is essential to keep knowledge and skills up to date. The National Commission on writing stated that 80 percent of grade school students are not proficient at writing. Hear what other nonprofits and libraries are saying in our Community Forums. September's here.
A call went out over a combination of listservs and social media channels asking local nonprofits and libraries to share their most pressing needs and dirtiest jobs with TechSoup via video or text. " While at SF Brightworks, TechSoup volunteers worked one-on-one with the young students, who were busy completing their annual portfolios.
Symantec gives a lot back to the nonprofit and library community through their donation program here at TechSoup — See what organizations like yours are saying about their donated Symantec products. Symantec also has an abundance of other corporate social responsibility efforts going on as well.
What do libraries look like in the future? Solicitation on the streets for programs at the k-12 level to train students to use cyber tools for science. Emphasis is on digital literacy. Funded a project to work with state of Michigan - requirement for high school graduation is that all students have an online learning experience.
Over the past year, we've been doing TechSoup Impact stories about nonprofits, churches, and libraries doing great work with TechSoup product donations. " Waukesha Public Library. An increasing number of public libraries are discovering TechSoup donations, but few are maxing them out like Waukesha Public Library in Wisconsin.
Students can raise money by selling products from a selected catalog that they can hand out to potential buyers. Reading challenge Issue a community-wide reading challenge this spring to encourage literacy in your community. Encourage participants to take advantage of your local public library and get reading!
For the past five years, the Mercantile Library in Cincinnati has honored Harriet Beecher Stowe's birthday by asking a writer to give the annual Harriet Beecher Stowe Lecture about, "Writing to Change the World." The idea is that students get to put social justice-ee ideas into practice. See how theory actually works. That whole bit.
" In this spirit, New Heights provides everything from tutoring services to curriculums, a library with more than 3,000 books, field trips, and online classes. New Heights, by promoting literacy through a wide range of programs, has produced radical results. Not every student can be reached in person.
TechSoup sends out a few newsletters, including two written by me ( By the Cup and TechSoup for Libraries ). Cultural Vistas is a nonprofit cultural exchange organization that gives young professionals and students the opportunity to work in another country and develop their skills. Nonprofit Example #1: Cultural Vistas.
Scholastic Fundraising Ideas Scholastic events can be held for K-12 students or for major alumni associations. This may actually be completed as a peer-to-peer-style fundraiser, where a group of students holds a car wash on behalf of the organization without direct oversight.
Technology currently serves privileged groups through tools that provide access to education, literacy, health, and justice. Global Literacy Sixth Grader and Bookshare member Kevin Leong with Jim Fruchterman at Benetech''s offices. Our Bookshare online library is continuing to multiply its impact. But what about everybody else?
Guest Beneblog by Betsy Beaumon, VP and General Manager, Benetech’s Global Literacy Program. Betsy Beaumon I recently had the honor to speak at the first-ever Braille Summit , hosted on June 19-21, 2013 by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) and Perkins School for the Blind. Accordingly, U.S.
[Cover Images: Little Brown Ink, First Second/Macmillan] Graphic novelsa term interchangeably used with comic booksare particularly popular among young children still building their literacy skills. Comics as an art form regressed, says Eva Volin, supervising children’s librarian at the Alameda Free Library in California.
Their priorities range from facilitating book donation drives to supporting arts education to funding playground construction and family literacy programs. . The Lisa Libraries. They focus funding on organizations that work on financial literacy for elementary and high school students (established programs only).
Literacy and access to knowledge underpins just about every social good, from education, to economic development, to health, to women’s empowerment, democracy and respect for human rights. By this, I am not just talking about the publishing business, but also the nonprofit libraries committed to universal accessibility.
A library in Oregon had similar concerns about the accessibility of technology during the pandemic: In order to volunteer with us right now, you basically have to have access to a device and the internet…which is not how it was in the past. School districts scrambled to get Chromebooks to students. The Big Theme and Conclusion.
Bookshare Hits 100,000 Members Boy reading at a computer with teacher in the background.Since the beginning of 2009, we’ve tripled the number of people with disabilities Bookshare is serving with our accessible library of ebooks. The amazing thing about serving 100,000 students right now is that our commitment to the U.S.
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