[nabs-l] Hand-outs in class

[Bridgit Pollpeter]

Ashley,

I always asked professors to send me any material we'd discuss in class
ahead of time. For the most part, this worked very well, and I received
necessary material beforehand, or right before class.

I had a NetBook laptop so reading electronic copies in class wasn't a
problem. And I've never found it challenging to take notes during class
with the exception of spelling words correctly. For example, I took an
Irish history class, and later an Irish lit class. Gaelic names and
terms were often used, and Gaelic spellings don't follow any rules found
in English. Since so many Gaelic words were used during lectures, I
spelled things phoenetically then found the correct spellings later;
either by finding it in my reading, or asking the proff or classmate.
Other than this, though, taking notes was easy.

I kept current with assignments, and I was aware of what we'd be doing
in class by following each syllabi, and of course, many profs. Remind at
the end of class or state what will happen in the next class. This helps
you stay on top of things. I would email my request to the instructor,
and would keep doing so until I received the material.

At my university, Blackboard was used a lot, and many proffs. Posted
material on Blackboard. This worked great, although I did run into a
couple situations where the material I needed was an inaccessible PDF on
Blackboard. When this happened, I did one of two things: 1. If the
document wasn't very long, I simply printed it off and rescanned it. 2.
If necessary, I sent the PDF to my disability services office on campus
and they formatted it properly for me. Often, I had to remind the proff
to post it early, or send it to me early so the DSO had plenty of time
to format it, but this wasn't a huge problem. A few times, a proff sent
material directly to the DSO.

Electronic copies are great for class because I could do the find
command to find pages numbers quickly and follow along with the class. I
could also make notes in the text, or highlight (in some way JAWS would
read like asterisks or parentheses).

Very few of my books were available through RFBD, but when they were, I
could use my Victor Reader Stream. You can either download a book
directly from, what is now The Learning Ally, or with the CD's, you can
put it on your computer then transfer it to your Victor. I could quickly
access sections and page numbers, following along with the class, and of
course, I had ear buds! The Victor has a "find page" button, and the
books are usually formatted to be searched heading to heading, page to
page, chapter to chapter, it depends on how they format it, but
accessing RFBD books this way was nice and efficient.

If books were available on BARD or BookShare, I'd use these too. BARD
was a great resource when my books were available except there was not
way to search for page numbers, and some BARD books are formatted to
skip chapter to chapter, but not all. Since many of my textbooks were
literature books, BARD often had them, which was nice for personal
reading, but when in class, not so much.

BookShare books are great too, but I had to use my Victor with a text
file, which I adjusted too, but don't prefer. Of course, we now have a
Braille display at home, but I'm no longer in school. That's irony for
you! LOL

At the beginning of the semester, I spoke with all my proffs, making it
clear I'd need material before class in order to participate. If
separate material was going to be discussed, and it was going to be
distributed during class, I'd need it electronically so I could access
it via my laptop in class. This was also one of my official
accommodations listed with the DSO, and distributed to each proff each
semester. All hand-outs and supplemental material had to be sent
electronically before a given date, or sent to the DSO to be formatted.
I also nagged and nagged until I received it! *smile*

To be truthful, I didn't find it terribly difficult to handle this
situation in school. And in the rare circumstances where I couldn't
access the material along with classmates, it wasn't a huge challenge to
follow along. As someone else mentioned, with material handed out and
discussed in class, it's not necessarily crucial that you access it
independently in class as long as you have the material for studying
purposes.

What I found to be a vital element in this equation was to stay on top
of assignments, and be aware of what the next class schedule was like.
Most proffs have a syllabus with a schedule for the semester, so if you
check the syllabus frequently, you know what is happening. This way, you
can contact a proff in plenty of time, ensuring you have material in
class.


Sincerely,
Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter
Read my blog for Live Well Nebraska.com at
http://blogs.livewellnebraska.com/author/bpollpeter/
"History is not what happened; history is what was written down."
The Expected One- Kathleen McGowan

Message: 2
Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2011 00:31:51 -0400
From: "Ashley Bramlett" <bookwormahb at earthlink.net>
To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list"
	<nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Subject: [nabs-l] handouts in class
Message-ID: <EAF7033500404635A8596BF433A0CADE at OwnerPC>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="utf-8"

Hi all,

Although college has mostly lectures, in some subjects such as english,
we have more interaction in class and assignments in class. We might be
given a short essay to read and comment on either orally or in writing.
Sometimes we?d read it and discuss as a class afterward. Other times,
students access their books via skimming during discussions. How do you
deal with these assignments? I have asked a classmate to read to me or
sometimes the professor themselves helps out. I remember in english when
we had to write argument essays that we had an example that we discussed
as a class. For general discussions about homework reading, I read it
outside class and referenced my notes in class. I had no access to the
material in class. So when the professor said, ?look on page 22 at
paragraph titled Toads" and notice how Joe Smith used metaphor? or says
?look at page 12, third paragraph,? I can?t access this. If it?s a long
pause, sometimes a classmate tells me what it says, but other times I
just listen. I thought about bringing my rfb book in if I had it via
RFB, but figured by the time I set up the player and got to the page,
the students would have found and skimmed the section. After all, its
usually only a few minutes that I hear the rustling of pagesor frantic
flipping of pages to find that passage so they can answer the
professor?s questions.

I always like to participate, but this is an area where I couldn?t do it
as much. I wondered if you all felt in the same boat? Ashley