Open Eye: Raising funds for a Dream project
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Your support makes all the difference.EVERY STUDENT has a dream - but achieving it can be harder for students with disabilities.
Imagine having to flip through every page in a book in order to find just one reference. Similar problems faces sight-impaired students who rely on cassettes of courses for study - what should take 20 minutes may take them a hour or more.
The OU's DREAM (Digitally Recorded Educational Course Materials) project is now harnessing new technology to make materials more accessible for students who cannot use printed material. Using digital recording, the OU is experimenting in producing CD-ROMs that are easier to navigate.
A student explained: "With a CD, you can find what you want, when you want it. With cassettes you keep forward winding, fast forward and re- winding until you find what you want. My course is on two boxes of 27 cassettes, maybe 5 or 6 for each book. If you lose your place it can take half an hour to find it again."
Digital CDs don't deteriorate like audiotapes. But digital also combines course text and 'enabling technologies', says OU Professor Tom Vincent who is working on DREAM.
"This is where the computer comes in and has an important role, allowing text to be searched and bookmarked."
The DREAM project needs around pounds 6,000 to digitise each course, he added. To make a donation to the DREAM project, phone 01908 654808.
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