[nabs-l] waver

Sun Jan 9 21:05:53 UTC 2011

Hi Josh and all,

I can think of very few cases in which getting a course waived because
of blindness is justifiable. I know this has been mentioned already,
but in my experience almost any course can be completed with the help
of a good human reader, regardless of the accessibility of necessary
software. A reader will be much, much less expensive than SuperNova or
other software.

I think one of the biggest misconceptions, held by blind and sighted
people alike, is that if a blind person can't do a task independently,
they can't do the task at all. But decades of blind students who were
educated prior to the computer era have proven that true success is
possible through appropriate collaborations with readers and other
assistants. Many state agencies for the blind have provisions in their
statutes requiring them to pay for reader services. If not, it is
possible to hire readers on a volunteer basis, offering to provide a
service such as food, babysitting, etc. as compensation or working
with volunteers from an organization that requires them to complete
service hours. Many college clubs, such as fraternities and sororities
or service organizations, or even groups at a church or other
religious organizations require their members to perform volunteer
service.

For example, I have been successful thus far in my doctoral program in
psychology despite not being able to independently enter data or make
poster presentations. I work with research assistants who enter the
data and help me with formatting my posters and graphical
presentations of my research. I also cannot independently grade
handwritten tests for my teaching assistant jobs, but I can do so by
working with a reader who reads the tests to me. It would be a real
shame if I, or someone in my graduate program, thought I couldn't
participate in the program because I can't do these tasks all by
myself. Similarly, some people think a blind person cannot teach
elementary school because they cannot watch all the kids at once and
ascertain whether they are fooling around silently during class. Yet
many blind elementary school teachers work with assistants who help
with visual classroom monitoring so they are free to instruct the
class. In both of these cases, the blind person is still performing
the important work. I still independently develop the content for my
data presentations and I decide what grades students will get on their
tests after the reader has told me what the students wrote. The blind
teacher is still the one in charge of the classroom and the one who
decides how mischievous students will be disciplined after they are
identified by the teacher's aide. It is also important to remember
that in many of these professions, sighted people also work with
similar kinds of assistants. Some sighted teachers have
paraprofessionals (teacher's aides). Although my sighted classmates
don't use their RA's to help them with presentations, they do often
work with RA's who provide data entry assistance.

My point is that I would caution against saying something is
impossible just because it can't be done without assistance. Of
course, the ideal is to have software designed to be accessible out of
the box so we can do everything independently. But until that day
comes, I would not give up on a class or an activity until all
options, including use of human readers, have been exhausted.

Good luck!
Arielle

On 1/9/11, Ashley  Bramlett <bookwormahb at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Josh,
> Sorry to be blunt but your ideas seem like dreams.  Do you think your voc
> rehab agency will buy you a different screen reader for one class?  I highly
> doubt it because budgets are tight and its not cost effective to buy
> something you'll use three months.  Any adaptive technology purchase has to
> be justifiable and related to your employment goal.
> Next for the companies to script their screen readers and make them
> accessible its a large undertaking and will not happen in the time you need
> it to.  Even if you take a semester off as you said you would, do you think
> the companies will be ready?  Did you ask them the time frame of the
> scripting process?
> If MS project is graphical it may not be something that is rendered
> accessible; some software is just not.
> Also there needs to be a large demand for this.  Are many blind people
> needing Ms project and made the request? I have no idea.
>
> Rather than getting a waver, I suggest some things.  Hire a reader to help
> you; get a course substitution for the class.  Could you use another program
> to accomplish the same goals of the class?
>
> Anyway, good luck figuring this out but I don't think asking companies to
> script their software, and expecting it to be ready soon is a realistic
> idea.
>
> Ashley
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Josh Kennedy" <jkenn337 at gmail.com>
> To: <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2011 2:13 PM
> Subject: [nabs-l] waver
>
>
>> Hi
>>
>> I used to think I would need a waver for this project management class.
>> You see if I can get gwmicro or serotek or both to make their readers
>> accessible, great. if not, I will get voc rehab to get me supernova.
>> supernova is the only screen reader which makes ms-project2007 and 2010
>> accessible.
>>
>> Josh
>>
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-- 
Arielle Silverman
President, National Association of Blind Students
Phone:  602-502-2255
Email:
nabs.president at gmail.com
Website:
www.nabslink.org