since 2002 an international consortium of university and industry partners has worked to refine and further research this Liberated Learning concept .......

we had to increase technology performance .......

make it easy-to-use .......

flexible and adaptable for new educational environments .......

since our research portfolio is vast and time is limited .......

I'll only highlight a few projects

notice that I used specially designed voice commands to navigate PowerPoint providing hands free access for teachers


our primary research and development focus is on the core technology IBM ViaScribe which we just saw demonstrated .......

the consortium provides a living lab for developing new features and applications .......

one area we've investigated is e learning .......

in this example .......

the professor uses ViaScribe to make of video fully accessible notice as I launch the the presentation how ViaScribe adds captions .......

and synchronizes the video and PowerPoint slides seamlessly .......

the student can easily navigate this accessible multimedia file


we're also working on intelligence search and retrieval tools .......

this note finder tool lets you search for key words or phrases .......

and automatically generates a list of key words from the SR generated transcript


students can then see exactly which lecture contained a key word and go immediately to the exact instance when it was spoken .......

because the audio and text synchronizes the student can listen to the professor and read the text simultaneously .......

so this example you can see I've circled .......

an automatically generated key word .......

in this course its Africa .......

and the software tells us that Africa is inextricably linked with Asia and South .......

allowing you to search for phrases as well as individual terms


we then see that this word was spoken in combination in lectures on March third January 28 February fourth and so on .......

and as mentioned students can then go into the specific transcripts to see .......

when the words were spoken but also to have that context .......

of how it was spoken


another important effort is extension and although we began in university classrooms we've initiated information accessibility projects in the public and corporate worlds .......

we develop an application in the Canadian Museum where tourists receive a real time text transcript of a tour guide speech .......

on a personal device .......

here is the image of that personal device


you can imagine how this could improve access not only for people with hearing disabilities .......

but also for visitors to the museum whose first language is not English .......

or French in the case of Canada who is bilingual


an other key initiative is to expand the Liberated Learning concept on a global scale


we now have partnerships in eight countries where ViaScribe is being used in six different languages .......

here in China .......

a dedicated team .......

from the special education College of Beijing Union University .......

and pioneering IBM China accessibility Center are the lead partners .......

they have initiated important research and leadership to make information more accessible for Chinese students with disabilities


the technical and creative advancements in accessible information are spearheaded by an impressive partnership .......

the Liberated Learning consortium


this truly collaborative research team has not only created information accessibility technologies to help people with disabilities .......

it has more importantly created a model that we think can potentially move educational organizations .......

into a fourth phase of information accessibility


Liberated Learning provides a nexus for accessibility research advancements .......

this nexus has led to an ever expanding accessibility ecosystem that unites .......

the universities you saw on the previous page .......

but also government .......

organization's charitable foundations and actual disability organizations


to date the consortium's has created partnerships with the U.S. Canadian Japanese British and Australian governments who provide necessary research investments


we've also forged important linkages with corporate partners .......

who share our core values and believe that accessibility is not only a social imperative .......

but also a source of competitive advantage and differentiation


finally we've actively engaged the disability stakeholders themselves .......

ensuring they participate in a meaningful and tangible way .......

so that technologies like ViaScribe evolve to meet actual consumer needs .......

this ecosystem is the ultimate engine that fuels a steady improvement in educational accessibility .......

if you'd like to learn more about Liberated Learning and IBM ViaScribe .......

please talk to myself the team from Beijing Union University who are here today .......

or our friends from IBM


thank you .......

I like to now demonstrate how ViaScribe has captured all the information I' ve just presented .......

and prepared everything as a multimedia file available for immediate dissemination .......

so in closing once again thank you for the opportunity to be here to day and enjoy the rest of the forum