Sheeeee’s Baaaaaack — And Wielding a Screwdriver!
I bet y’all had given up on me, hadn’t you? I’m afraid I took another holiday from blogging, and I’m sorry. But things have been quite busy at Carroll Tech. You see, we decided to tackle a major project: Figure out how to teach computer skills to people who are blind AND completely new to computers—and do so via distance education. My initial reaction when my director proposed this was to laugh. After all, if the student doesn’t know how to use a computer, how can you provide the instruction he or she needs through the computer that he or she doesn’t know how to use? Ya know? Even with the support of a local instructor, that simply was not going to work. I tossed out trite metaphors involving chickens, eggs, horses, and carriages, all to no avail. Brian made it clear to me that this was a non-negotiable proposition: We were going to have a distance-education based Beginner Series come Hades or high water.
Time for me to get creative. “DAISY files?” I proposed. “Nope.” He responded explaining his rationale. “Windows Media files?” I countered. This was acceptable. “But they have to be 100% 508 compliant,” he reminded me. Translation: “Sure you can create all of the audio files you want, but they must be closed captioned.” Yikes!
Enter tons and tons of research, writing, recording, editing, blood, sweat, and tears. The end result? We now have a 100% 508-compliant, 24-lesson-long Beginner Series that students can complete with a minimum amount of instructor supervision/assistance. To be honest, I’m quite pleased with it if I do say so myself. I’m even glad Brian didn’t budge in his requirements, because I do think the effort was well worth the resulting product. And my doctor assures me that the nervous tic I developed as a result of the experience will go away. Eventually. If I’m lucky. (grin) Anyway….
If you are a TVI wondering how to go about teaching computer skills to that new student on your caseload, you should definitely get in touch! Currently I’ve completed the JAWS version of the Beginner Series. Versions for users of Window-Eyes, ZoomText, and MAGic are on the list.
So what is with this screwdriver I’m wielding? Well, I’ve gone from the Beginner Series to an equally daunting task: Teaching the UMass Boston Technology for Students with Visual Impairments course. I do this every summer, and boy is it a lot of work—both for me and for the students. The feedback I get each year is that my course was fabulous, but it darned near killed them. Fortunately this year the university gave me twice as long to teach the course: 12 weeks instead of 6. It’s working out nicely. In fact, getting back to why I’m wielding a screwdriver, it means that I now have time to do the sorts of things I would like to do in that course, like teaching them how to take apart computers.
Why on earth should a TVI know how to take apart a computer? After all, that won’t be part of their job duties. Several reasons: For one thing, most TVIs do not fully understand the hardware they are teaching their students how to use. This can bite you: If you don’t know the difference between RAM and a hard disk, how are you supposed to know if you meet the system requirements for that AT product you’re recommending for your student? Beyond that, if you don’t really understand how computers work, and you are the primary instructor of computer skills for your student, how is your student supposed to gain this knowledge? Answer: He or she won’t, which means that he or she will likely not grow up to become a truly independent consumer of technology. When I taught kids in schools, I always got a dead computer and had my student take it apart. We went over all of the components. And not only was it fun, but it was educational. If you pull a hard drive out of your computer and open it up, you’ll have a much better appreciation of what a hard disk really is; it will no longer be rote information. You’ll also probably be less afraid of / intimidated by technology, which is the third reason I wanted to do this activity. Computers are not the scary, rocket sciency creatures that many TVIs I know make them out to be. Nothin’ like dismantling an object to show it (and yourself) who really is boss.
So this year, at the first face-to-face session of the course, we pulled apart computers and identified all of the parts. We also took all of the parts (along with a bunch more I got from the local computer recycling center), labeled them, and created kits of components. That way when their blind students ask what a hard disk is, these teachers can hand one to their students and show them. The feedback I got from the participants was quite positive. One of the participants happens to have a daughter who is blind. I asked her to show the kit to her daughter and let me know how it went. Apparently it went very well and was both fun and educational. So I’m doing this again next year.
If you’re a TVI who teaches computer skills, talk to the IT department in your school and/or your town’s public works department. Find out where you can get your hands on some dead computers and then try this out with one of your students. Of course, it’s handy to know what the parts are first. I’ll add that to my list of content to add to Carroll Tech: Hardware for TVIs. 
Well, that’s it for now, but keep checking back. My blogging holiday is over. Besides, I have some wonderful news about access to ODF documents and about the development of a new Linux screen reader. Sun Microsystems stopped by last week to demonstrate what they’ve been up to. It’s pretty exciting stuff which I’ll be blogging about very soon.