Kurzweil Bubble Notes

Bubble notes is a great feature in Kurzweil 3000. Bubble notes allows teachers to easily assess students. Bubble notes also helps students easily complete tests and quizzes. To insert a bubble note go to tools, then notes, and then bubble notes. When a student reads up to a bubble note it will automatically open and be read aloud. Bubble notes can have multiple choice, true or false, matching and open ended questions Once a student completes the assessment the teacher can extract the student's answers to easily grade the student's answer. Bubble notes can make tests and quizzes easier for students and teachers. Watch the video above for more information. For more Kurzweil tips and tricks click here, here and here.

YourTube is Accessible Youtube

YourTube is a site made by PoVidi that makes YouTube more accessible to people who use screen readers. Navigating YouTube with a screen reader is difficult because the control buttons are within the video player. This makes them impossible to use with a screen reader. YourTube is the solution for people who want to watch or listen to to YouTube and use a screen reader. YourTube takes the control buttons (play, pause, forward, backward and mute) out of the video player and into the webpage. Because the control buttons are in the webpage people who use screen readers can access the controls. YourTube allows you to search by video or channel. YourTube allows people that use screen readers to access YouTube.sers' feedback and comments on videos.

Edit Underlying Text in Kurzweil 3000

This video shows how to edit the underlying text of a scanned document in Kurzweil 3000. If a word is being read incorrectly you can correct the mistake using the edit underlying text feature. Additionally this video explains how to use zone editor to improve your scanned document. With zone editor you can change the order that the document is read and what text is read.

VizWiz App Helps Visually Impaired People Distinguish Similarly Shaped Objects

VizWiz is a free app for iOS devices that can help visually impaired people. The app can help visually impaired people distinguish two objects that feel similar. For example if you had two soup cans and did not know which was the chicken soup and which is the vegetable soup. To use the app take a picture of both objects and then record and question with your voice. Your picture will be sent to a real person and they will answer your question. You could ask "is the chicken on the right or on the left." In about a minute you will get a response. The response is no instant because the answers are coming from real people. VizWiz requires an iOS device with a camera.

VizWiz.org describes the app as:

"VizWiz is an iPhone app that allows blind users to receive quick answers to questions about their surroundings. VizWiz combines automatic image processing, anonymous web workers, and members of the user's social network in order to collect fast and accurate answers to their questions."

Kurzweil 3000 Tips and Tricks (Worksheets)

Watch this quick video about tips and trick for Kurzweil 3000. This video focuses on tools for completing worksheets in Kurzweil. Keep your eyes open for more tips and tricks regarding Kurzweil and other assistive technology.

Kurzweil 3000 Overview

Watch this 52 minute video to learn all about Kurzweil 3000, or read the summary below:

Kurzweil 3000 is writing and reading software that has many great features. Kurzweil is available for both Mac and PC, but the PC version has more features then the Mac version.  Kurzweil has optical character recognition. (OCR) What this means is that a document that is scanned can be read back to you.  As the words are read aloud, they are highlighted.You can turn off the sound if you just need help with tracking and not decoding.  There is an option to speed up or slow down the voice, and the pace of highlighting according to your preference. Kurzweil comes with a few computerized voices, but more can be added.


Once the document is scanned it can also be annotated with text boxes, highlights and circles. This allows you to do anything you could do with hard copy print material. Kurzweil is great for completing worksheets, tests and quizzes. If a document contains many blank spaces Kurzweil has a feature to add a text box on each blank. This feature can be found under tools and then fill in the blanks.

 Kurzweil is also great for writing. It has spell check, word prediction and web layouts. One of the best parts of writing with Kurzweil is that the text is read back to you, which is a great editing tool. Kurzweil has a built in dictionary for quick reference. Another handy feature is "read the web" this feature allows a web page to be read aloud with out copying and pasting the text in to Kurzweil. With read the web a toolbar appears with a read button a the bottom of your browser. To read the web simply select the desired text and press the read button. Kurzweil is a great tool for reading and writing. To learn more about Kurzweil, click here visit the Kurzweil webpage. For a video about Kurzweil's virtual print click here. Stay tuned for more Kurzweil tips, tricks and videos.