Category: Learning Opportunities

This category is for specific events as well as menus of opportunities for community members to learn with and from LITS staff and one another. (Replaces “Workshops” categories as of 7/30/18)

Drupal New User Training

Starting in February 2024, Web Services will engage in a new approach to Drupal training for new users. Bryn Mawr community members who request access must first be approved by the section admin for the area of the website in which they are looking to author content. Upon approval, the requestor will be required to attend Drupal New User Training. These training sessions are offered on a monthly basis, on the third week of each month. Registration is required to attend the training. Access to author content in Drupal is granted at the time of the training session. Training sessions will be administered remotely via Zoom for ease of access.  Click here to see all upcoming Drupal New User Trainings.

In addition to Drupal New User Training, Web Services partners with Communications to offer a monthly Drupal Drop-In session which explores various tools that content authors can use to elevate important content on their pages. Click here to see all upcoming Drupal Drop-Ins.

As always, you can find our full suite of Drupal documentation and training videos in Ask Athena.

Please contact the Help Desk with any questions or concerns: help@brynmawr.edu or 610-526-7440.

LITS Welcome Back Newsletter 2023

Top Resources for Students

  • New and returning students: get started with FREE Microsoft Office for your personal computer. Learn how to access a variety of software from the library, your dorm, and off-campus – and get info about wireless, printing, Moodle, and more!
  • The Assistive Technology App Database is now up and running on the Assistive Technology: Features and Resources page. Use the database to find resources on accessibility, productivity, note taking, time management, writing, and more.
  • Check out LinkedIn Learning for online courses and quick tutorials in software, business, and creative skills.

LITS News Highlights

Welcome New LITS Colleagues!

Janelle Rebel, Seymour Adelman Director of Special Collections

Cameron Bucher, Educational and Scholarly Technology Assistant

Upcoming Exhibition

Art image from Cecilia Paredes exhibit

Cecilia Paredes: Not ~ At Home opens October 25th in Bryn Mawr’s main gallery space, the 1912 Gallery (formerly the Rare Book Room).

See our full calendar of events

Study Break!

Cozy up with a book in the newly named Nook! Visit the Students Shape the Shelves book display and other additions to the library collection in the Nook, located to your left just inside the front entrance of Canaday.

The Nook in Canaday Library with rows of books and posters on display

Librarians are always available for academic consultations…but sometimes you need something fun. This page collects some favorites. We also have access to many major newspapers!

Spotlight on Security

Reminders

Special Collections reading room entrance

  • The Special Collections Reading Room has new fall hours:

Mon-Fri: open 12pm – 4pm
and by appointment (SpecColl@brynmawr.edu)
Sat-Sun: closed

Week 7: Check out the Assistive Technology Database

Looking to learn more about assistive technology that can help you with your daily tasks? Check out the new Assistive Technology Database on the Assistive Technology: Features and Resources page of the Access Services website. 

In this database you can search for apps to help you with productivity, schoolwork, note-taking, accessibility, and more.   

Additionally, if you are interested in getting more personalized help with finding tools that fit your needs, schedule an appointment with Grace Cipressi, Bryn Mawr College’s assistive technology specialist. 

Contact the Help Desk with questions: help@brynmawr.edu or 610-526-7440.

Week 6: Document Converter

Have you ever come across an inaccessible document that you couldn’t use a text-to-speech program on? If you ever encounter this, the Document Converter is an excellent tool to help you make your document accessible so you can read it. 

Besides making files accessible, the document converter allows you to convert files from one file format to another. It also lets you apply Beeline Reader coloring onto your documents! 

To use the Document Converter, simply go to the Document Converter page on the Bryn Mawr College website. This Ask Athena article provides instructions on how to use the Document Converter. 

Contact the Help Desk with questions: help@brynmawr.edu or 610-526-7440.

Week 5: Grammarly

Grammarly is a tool that helps correct spelling and grammar mistakes in your writing. Unlike other spelling and grammar tools that are exclusive to the program they are built in, Grammarly works among a variety of social media, email, and document platforms.  

Grammarly goes beyond a typical spell checker by also checking your writing for tone of voice and misused words. 

Visit the Grammarly website to start enhancing your writing today! 

Contact the Help Desk with questions: help@brynmawr.edu or 610-526-7440.

Week 4: Beeline Reader

Beeline Reader is a unique tool that transforms the appearance of your text so it has an ombre color gradient. The gradual blending of colors sweeps your eye across the text, making the task of reading less taxing. Because your brain doesn’t have to focus as much on the task of reading, it frees up focus to be spent on comprehending what you are reading. 

There are a variety of color themes you can choose from.  You can also use Beeline Reader to change the size and line spacing of text as well as apply the Dyslexie font to your text. Beeline Reader offers a focus mode that allows you to blur out distracting advertisements and links on the page you are reading. 

Beeline Reader can be used on websites as well as PDFs. If you want to use Beeline Reader for PDF, you must also download the Beeline Reader PDF Viewer. 

Beeline Reader is available for free to members of the Bryn Mawr College community. Follow the instructions in this Ask Athena article to get started with using Beeline Reader today. 

Contact the Help Desk with questions: help@brynmawr.edu or 610-526-7440.

Week 3: Immersive Reader

Immersive Reader is a fantastic reading tool that Microsoft has implemented into many of its products. Check out this link to see the updated list of which Microsoft products have Immersive Reader. 

Immersive Reader allows you to modify the way text appears as well as provides tools to help increase understanding. You can choose the font, size, and spacing of text, as well as what background color you would like the text to be on. You can also change the text so that you can see the words broken up by syllables or labeled by parts of speech. Additionally, Immersive Reader has a feature that allows you to only see one or three lines of text at a time to help you focus. 

If you are having trouble comprehending the text, Immersive Reader has some tools to help. Using the picture dictionary feature you can click on a word and an image of what the word means will appear. You can also use the translation feature to translate words one by one or to translate the entire text into a different language.  All of the grammar features of Immersive Reader are still available when you translate text to a different language. 

Lastly, Immersive Reader will read text aloud to you in a natural sounding voice. Depending on what language your text is in, you will have an option of either or both a male and female voice. You can adjust the speed of the voice as necessary.  

Use this Ask Athena article to learn more about using Immersive Reader. 

Contact the Help Desk with questions: help@brynmawr.edu or 610-526-7440.

Week 2: Natural Reader

Natural Reader is a tool you can use to have content on your computer read aloud to you.  As the name implies, Natural Reader provides natural sounding voices, compared to the robotic sounding voices which are sometimes found in text-to-speech programs. You can select a voice from a variety of free and paid options, as well as voices that can read in different accents and languages. Additionally, you can choose how fast or slow the voice reads aloud. 

Natural Reader Google Chrome extension: This extension allows you to listen to web pages and emails aloud. Simply open the extension and click the play button to begin listening. If you would like to start at a particular place in the text, highlight that sentence and then click play so it will read from that point forward. 

Natural Reader Online Reader: This tool allows you to upload files, including .doc, .pdf, and .ppt, and have the content of those files read aloud. You can also increase the font size and convert the text into Dyslexie font so that it is easier to read.  

Lastly, both the extension and online reader allow you to download an MP3 recording of the text being read aloud in the voice of your choice so that you can listen to your reading on the go. 

Contact the Help Desk with questions: help@brynmawr.edu or 610-526-7440.

Week 1: Welcome to Keep Calm and Use Assistive Technology!

What is assistive technology? Assistive technology is any tool that helps you do what you want to do. There are many different categories of assistive technology, but for this semester we will focus on tools that help in educational and professional settings. 

This November we will host a digital escape room where participants will use assistive technology to solve clues. To get ready for this challenge (and shave some minutes off your escape room time), follow these blog posts each week to learn about the assistive technology tools you will have to use in the escape room. 

For this first week we will focus on Helperbird, which is an academic support tool available for free to all Bryn Mawr College community members.  

Helperbird is a Google Chrome extension that offers support for reading, comprehension, researching, and writing. In particular, Helperbird can help you as you read PDFs and websites for school and work.   

To get access to Helperbird and to learn all about the features available, read this Ask Athena article about getting started with Helperbird. 

Contact the Help Desk with questions: help@brynmawr.edu or 610-526-7440.

New Accessibility Resources and Learning Opportunities

Check out the new Accessibility Best Practices guide. This step-by-step guide helps you vet the materials and practices you use for accessibility.

Have questions about accessibility or assistive technology?

      • Stop by during Accessibility Office Hours every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday from 12-1 pm to have your questions answered.
      • Check out Assistive Technology Talk on Fridays at 2pm for workshops all about tools and tips to reach your goals this year!
      • Faculty and staff are invited to our Lunch and Learn program for bite-size tips on how to make your class more accessible: every other Monday from 12-12:30.
      • Watch the Daily Digest for details and zoom links!

Last but not least, the escape room is back! This semester’s game is called Keep Calm and Use Assistive Technology. Keep an on the LITS blog posts starting next week to learn ways to shave minutes off your team’s time this November.  Are you up for the challenge?

Keep Calm and Check Accessibility Week 7: Accessible Tables

When using a table in your document, it’s important to create an accessible one. To create an accessible table, you must use the in-built table tool for it to be accessible. Do not draw a table!

Screen reader users do not see the entire table at once, but instead navigate tables cell by cell. For this reason, the table must be programmed correctly so that the headings are read out when someone enters a cell. In the example table “Dogs’ Age and Weight” when a user navigates to the cell that reads “30 lbs.” the screen reader will announce “Fluffy, weight, 30lbs,” so the person will understand the data in context.

Table 1 Dogs’ Age and Weight

Dog’s Name Age Weight
Fluffy 4 30 lbs.
Spot 2 10 lbs.

 

If a table is not programmed correctly, a screen reader user will just hear “30lbs” and will not know what it is in reference to.

Similarly, tables should be simple and logical.

Simple: Don’t use split cells or merged cells or merge two tables together. An accessible table should have one header row across (Dog’s Name, Age, Weight) and one header row vertically (Fluffy, Spot) and a simple grid layout. Anything beyond this will be difficult to make accessible to a screen reader.

Logical: Sometimes people use tables to create a specific look or layout to their document rather than to display data. Here is an example:

Grades

A + = 100-95 B = 84-80
A= 95-90 C+ = 79-75
B + = 89-85 C= 74-70

 

This table is “illogical” because it is not a true table. This table is used to layout information, but not to display data. A screen reader would read the cell that says “C= 74-70″ as “B =84-80, B+=89-85, C =74-70.” In short, it would not make sense to the user. In a case liike this, it is best to list these grades out using a list.

To learn how to make an accessible table, follow these instructions.

Please go to the Keep Calm and Check Accessibility Moodle page and complete the Week 7 activity to get this week’s clue!

Keep Calm and Check Accessibility Week 6: Descriptive Hyperlinks

Just as people who use screen readers can skim pages by navigating via headings, so too can they navigate through a document just by links. This picture shows someone using the router feature in VoiceOver (a screen reader). On this webpage the user has used the router to isolate all the links, so then they can use their up and down arrows to go through the list of links to see which link they would like to navigate to.

VoiceOver roter listing the links for a webpage.

If links have vague titles like “click here” or “link” then the screen reader user does not know what the link means, because they cannot see the link in context. Similarly, if links are non-descriptive, long URLs that can be confusing to listen to also.

To sidestep these issues, create descriptive links. For example, instead of https://www.brynmawr.edu/ create a hyperlink that says Bryn Mawr College Homepage.

To create a hyperlink, write the descriptive name for the hyperlink. Then right click on it, click link, and copy and paste the URL in the appropriate box.

Check out this page for more guidance on creating hyperlinks.

To get this week’s clue, complete the activity listed under Week 6 in the Keep Calm and Check Accessibility Moodle page.