{"id":3116,"date":"2017-05-25T20:47:57","date_gmt":"2017-05-26T00:47:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/?p=3116"},"modified":"2017-06-28T10:55:07","modified_gmt":"2017-06-28T14:55:07","slug":"what-is-a-screen-reader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/2017\/05\/25\/what-is-a-screen-reader\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a screen reader?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A screen reader is a piece of software which reads web pages and documents out loud. Originally developed for persons who were visually impaired, it is now often used for a multitude of other reasons. Many who may have learning challenges, concussion syndrome, or those who simply want to listen to their email or a web page while they do something else use screen readers.<\/p>\n<p>All Apple products have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.apple.com\/accessibility\/mac\/vision\/\">VoiceOver<\/a> built in &#8211; from iPhones to Mac desktops. Some Android devices have <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/accessibility\/android\/answer\/6007100?hl=en\">TalkBack<\/a>. Windows users often use tools like JAWS (available on our public machines), and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nvaccess.org\/\">NVDA<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If you are curious about <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/92pM6hJG6Wo\">how a blind person uses a screen reader<\/a> feel free to watch &#8211; its pretty impressive.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/92pM6hJG6Wo\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In addition to screen readers, there are &#8220;hybrid&#8221; software available for those who do not need all the features of a screen reader but still need to listen to content. Here at Swarthmore, we have a campus wide license for Read, Write &amp; Gold. <a href=\"https:\/\/kb.swarthmore.edu:8443\/pages\/viewpage.action?pageId=26476921\">Read, Write &amp; Gold\u00a0can be downloaded from the ITS download page<\/a>, is free for all to use and can be used on a Mac or PC. This is the tool many of our students with learning disabilities also use. \u00a0The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texthelp.com\/Uploads\/MediaLibrary\/texthelp\/Training-documents\/Read-Write-for-Windows-11-5-Gold-Beginners-Guide-UK.pdf\">Beginners Guide for Window\u00a0Users<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texthelp.com\/Uploads\/MediaLibrary\/texthelp\/Training-documents\/Read-Write-6-Gold-For-Mac-Quick-Start-Guide.pdf\">Quick start\u00a0Guide for Mac Users<\/a> will be helpful if you want to play with this tool.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A screen reader is a piece of software which reads web pages and documents out loud. Originally developed for persons who were visually impaired, it is now often used for a multitude of other reasons. Many who may have learning challenges, concussion syndrome, or those who simply want to listen to their email or a web page while they do something else use screen readers. All Apple products have VoiceOver built in &#8211; from iPhones to Mac desktops. Some Android devices have TalkBack. Windows users often use tools like JAWS (available on our public machines), and NVDA. If you are &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/2017\/05\/25\/what-is-a-screen-reader\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">What is a screen reader?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[90],"class_list":["post-3116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accessibility","tag-featured"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/ph2nPL-Og","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3116"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4027,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3116\/revisions\/4027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}