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eStoryMaker
You must read the disclaimer before downloading.
eStoryMaker is a simple program for assembling an e-story that affords multiple access methods. eStoryMaker can be used to e-book versions of your student's favorite children's books, to recap field trips or special events, to create multimedia social scripts, or to provide a multimedia accounting of each step in a task. eStoryMaker is also designed to work well with Launcher6. In spite of its name, you construct an e-story by placing text, picture and/or sound files in a folder along with the eStoryMaker.exe file. When you open eStoryMaker.exe, it loads page1.txt, page1.jpg and page1.wav (for example.) When your user asks for the next page, eStoryMaker loads the next set of files in the page sequence, if they exist. So, you have to name your picture files, record and name sound files, and create text files. You can use a clipboard text-to-speech program to read your story, if you don't want to bother with recording sound files.
There are many freeware tools you can use to help create e-stories. To make e-books from children's books you can use a flatbed scanner, but I often just use a digital camera for quicker results. I take the books outside and shoot the pages in the shade to have good light, but no glare. For picture editing and renaming I recommend using the excellent and free IrfanView program easily obtained from the Internet. To record sound files I most often use the Sound Recorder accessory that comes with Windows. For more precise sound editing, and for converting wav to mp3 files I use the terrific free Audacity program. There are many better free, Internet available alternatives for creating text files than the default Windows Notepad. I have been using a program called EditPad that most importantly supports multiple files being open simultaneously (unlike Notepad.) Finally, I can recommend 2 freeware text-to-speech programs, Deskbot and SayzMe. Both are easily obtained on the Internet and use the freeware Microsoft Agent technology. I prefer Deskbot, and set its options to read the clipboard text only without any extra, distracting animations.
