Training in eSpeak Marathi
Students learning on their laptops at the Training Programme
Atmadepam Society, Nagpur conducted a 1st of its kind workshop for the use of Espeak with Marathi at its campus from the 22nd to 23rd August 2015. This workshop was mostly attended by students pursuing higher studies in Marathi and Inn-Service Blind.
The workshop began with understanding the needs of the participants. Most of them expressed the need to learn Marathi typing to enhance their job prospects in the government sector.
This was followed by a session introducing different advantages of NVDA over other screen readers. Installation of NVDA was than demonstrated, followed by a hands-on session of the same for all the participants.
Post lunch the participants were guided for installing eSpeak for Indian Languages, which was followed by a detailed understanding of the Marathi keyboard layout.
Day 2 started with a revision of learnings from day 1, followed by extensive practice of the keyboard.
Post lunch, participants were given information about different sources of obtaining Accessible Reading materials. Bookshare and its benefits were introduced as a part of the reading solutions. This was followed by dissemination of information about the ADIP scheme of the Government of India.
The workshop ended with a session on feedback, where in students expressed their deep satisfaction after achieving their goal of Reading and writing in Marathi.
