Overview

Welcome to lesson 1 of 8 in the EasyReader Premium for Educators Course.

In this lesson, you will be introduced to EasyReader Premium. You'll learn about the key features of this service and the benefits it offers to students, schools, colleges and universities.

Lesson Objectives

After studying this lesson, you will be able to:

• Correctly explain the key features available with the EasyReader App.
• Accurately describe the platforms and minimum system requirements to which you can install and run the EasyReader App.
• Correctly explain the key features of the EasyReader Premium service and describe the benefits for educators and their students.

This lesson should take no more than twenty minutes to complete.

Background

In 2010, Dolphin took part in a research project called the Accessible Resources Pilot Project. In this research, Dolphin provided one hundred core texts in an accessible format and the assistive technology the participating students needed to read and learn. The project comprised twenty students with dyslexia and twenty students with a vision impairment.

The university of Southampton evaluated the research, and when they conducted their interviews with teachers and students, they found the following insights as the direct result of the project:

• Over fifty percent of students with a vision impairment improved their reading.
• Over seventy percent of students with dyslexia improved their reading.
• Over sixty percent of the students improved their confidence.
• Over forty percent of the students improved their homework completion.
• Five percent of the students improved their attendance.
• One hundred percent of the teachers reported that access to the accessible texts saved them time as it negated the need to rush to the photocopier, or scan in a text book, or contact publisher, ever time they needed to provide an accommodation for their students.

This research highlighted the need for a central, accessible, repository of curriculum resources. Which brings us nicely onto where we are today.

Today we have everything we need to make reading accessible. We have fantastic library services such as Bookshare USA, Bookshare Ireland, CELA Library Canada, and RNIB Bookshare UK.

Each of these libraries offer more than one million accessible curriculum titles, which you can share with eligible students. Eligibility includes any student with a print-based disability including dyslexia, dyspraxia, autism, ADHD, and vision impairment.

More recently, schools are beginning to use virtual learning environments and services like Google Classroom and Microsoft education to distribute learning resources to all students.

To bring all these elements together, Dolphin is happy to introduce you to EasyReader Premium and the Education Plan.

EasyReader Premium - The App!

The EasyReader App is free to download and install from the Apple App Store, the Google Play Store and the Amazon Kindle App Store. You can download EasyReader App onto Chromebook by enabling Google Play Store for that device.

You can also get EasyReader App for Windows from the Dolphin website. It supports Windows 10 and later. A Mac edition is also available. To run the Mac edition requires Mac 10.15 or later and requires a Premium Plan.

Key EasyReader App offers

Key Features of the EasyReader App

• Students can browse, download, and read books from supported libraries directly within the EasyReader App.
• Students can change the font type, size, spacing, and colours in the Reader to ensure a comfortable reading experience.
• Students can change the reading voice (dependent on device) and the reading speed to ensure a comfortable listening experience.
• Students can navigate content including by time intervals, chapters, headings, pages and search for text.
• Students can add bookmarks and include text notes.
• Students can import up to ten files including DAISY, EPUB, Word documents, and Text files.
• Students can save and read content they copy to the Clipboard up to a maximum of ten entries.
• Students can access Talking Newspaper Services. Note that this service usually requires a subscription and is not available in all regions.

What EasyReader Premium offers

Key EasyReader Premium features with an Education Plan

EasyReader Premium enables students to:

• Synchronise settings across devices including library books, book position, bookmarks, pronunciation dictionaries, key audio settings, key text settings, and much more.
• Access compatible files stored on Google Classroom and Microsoft Education.
• Access compatible files stored on a Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive folder.
• Access additional high-quality voices.
• Unlimited importing of files including accessible PDF files.
• Unlimited saving and reading of Clipboard entries.

In addition, the Education Plan offer Educators:

• Management of student logins through the EasyReader Premium Portal.
• Insights into student engagement through the EasyReader Premium Portal. Metrics include when the App was last used, all titles that have been read, the current reading position for each title, and the amount of time the student has spent reading each title.
• Access to Library mode for Windows. Designed for public forums where computers are share, Library Mode enables students to use the App without the need to sign in or out. When a student closes the Appl, all content is removed, ensuring the next student to use the App has a clean system. To learn more see How do I enable Library Mode in EasyReader.

Summary

In this opening lesson you learnt about the key features available with EasyReader Premium, the platforms compatible with the EasyReader App, and the additional benefits an Education Plan offer schools, colleges, and universities.

In the next lesson you will learn how you can access the EasyReader Premium Portal, how to manage student logins, and discover what type of information you can extract from the EasyReader Premium Dashboard.

Quiz

Below are three sample quiz questions based on this lesson. Please spend no more than five minutes considering the answers to these questions.

1. EasyReader App does not support the Windows 11 operating system. Is this statement true?
2. Membership to libraries providing accessible curriculum material is usually free. Is this statement true?
3. EasyReader Premium synchronises the library books you download across all your devices. Is this statement true?

End of lesson

Thank you for completing this introductory lesson. Please select the 'Next Lesson' option below to continue to the next part of this course.

To revisit a previous lesson, please scroll to the top of this page, visit the Course Outline menu and select the lesson you wish to revisit.

But before you move on, here are the answers to the quiz questions:

1. False.
2. True.
3. True.