[nabs-l] Consultation regarding an Academic Mission Needed

Chris Nusbaum dotkid.nusbaum at gmail.com
Sun Jun 3 20:39:13 UTC 2012


Were you the opera performance major who won an NFB scholarship 
this year?

Chris Nusbaum

"For we walk by faith, not by sight."
2 Corinthians 5:7

Sent from my BrailleNote

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Brandon Keith Biggs" <brandonkeithbiggs at gmail.com
To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list" 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org
 sent: Sun, 3 Jun 2012 00:30:52 -0700
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Consultation regarding an Academic Mission 
Needed

Hello,
I'm training to be an Opera singer, but I do all kinds of 
stuff...
Thanks,

Brandon Keith Biggs
-----Original Message-----
From: Ashley Bramlett
Sent: Saturday, June 02, 2012 10:04 PM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Consultation regarding an Academic Mission 
Needed

Brandon,
What is your major? Haven't seen you here til recently.

-----Original Message-----
From: Brandon Keith Biggs
Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2012 12:43 AM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Consultation regarding an Academic Mission 
Needed

Hello,
If you're a computer programmer, you may not like mainstream 
products.
For example I can't stand the victor readers and I'm only getting 
an Apex
because it's the smallest 32 celled PDA out there.
But for programming, getting your hands on a Braille+ would be 
heaven as it
runs on a Linux operating system and it uses Python in its sours 
code.  They
opened up a developer package, so one is able to develop their 
own apps for
the BP and the commands are very programmer friendly.
The only thing that I've heard is hard in a computer engineer 
class is
soldering the small wires to the different hardware pieces 
without touching
anything.
Other than that, programming blind is just as fast if not faster 
than
programming sighted.
But really join the program list.
Thanks,

Brandon Keith Biggs
-----Original Message-----
From: Joshua Lester
Sent: Saturday, June 02, 2012 9:01 PM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Consultation regarding an Academic Mission 
Needed

What about contacting these guys, to get your books in Braille, 
if
that's what you prefer?
http://www.mbvol.org
Just wondering!
Joshua

On 6/2/12, Ashley Bramlett <bookwormahb at earthlink.net> wrote:
 Hamid,
 I'll start by saying  that I graduated from Marymount 
university, a
 private
 liberal arts school, a few years ago.  I combined studies for a 
degree as I
 did not feel I could handle a full degree in psychology.  At the 
time the
 stats software, SPSS, was not accessible and I would have faced 
other
 barriers.  My degree was in liberal studies with focus in 
communication and
 psychology.
 School is challenging at the post secondary level because you do 
not have
 access to braille.  In public school my Teacher of the vision 
impaired,
 TVI,
 obtained my books in accessible format either audio, braille or 
large
 print
 or a combo of those as well as brailled any handouts the class 
received.
 Therefore when my sighted classmates got a worksheet, so did I 
and I did
 not
 have to wait for alternative forms of texts as I did in college.  
I did
 despite requesting electronic formats way in advance of my 
classes!
 I'm also not too active in NFB so my opinion may differ from 
others.  I
 know
 we want to present a positive image, but IMO we may have to take 
it slowly
 at the beginning while adjusting to a new school, new major, and 
new ways
 of
 doing things.

 Anyway, that said, I wish you success in your
 computer science studies.  You might want to do two classes your 
first
 semester.  Where will you be studying? What country do you
 come
 from and were you educated there in a mainstream class or school 
for the
 blind? Do you mind sharing what your vision impairment is? Its 
obvious
 your
 vision loss is new and I'm guessing probably a gradual loss.  
Maybe you
 have
 RP, retinitinis pigmentosa.  I'm visually impaired too, so I  
know the
 benefits of seeing things where spatial relationships are 
involved.
 However,
 I also was taught braille and use that as my primary medium and 
print my
 secondary one for reading.
 I think by seeing something like say geometry figures or a 
diagram of the
 heart, I can better picture it than if I learned it just by a 
description.
 So, for some of us vision impaired people, using it is effective 
and we do
 not have to use all nonvisual ways.  Because you cannot read 
braille
 effectively, I think using your vision may help a lot provided 
you can see
 large print well without fatigue.
 BTW, you might be able to use jumbo braille a little bit even 
though you
 have hand trimmers.

 I do not know computer science or math majors so my advice may 
be more
 general and I'm imagining what might be useful to you
 in this program of study based on the little I know of CS.

 You are right that getting special equipment will help your 
studies a lot.
 I use adaptive equipment all the time.  For instance, I love my 
braille
 note,
 a portable PDA from humanware.  In the US, we have a service 
that records
 books on CD and digital form.  It
 is Learning Ally www.learningally.org.
 I do not know if they provide service to study abroad students, 
but you
 might check on that.  Learning ally may have your textbooks in 
their
 library.
 If you choose to use them, you might want to buy a VR Stream and 
you can
 use
 an sd card to play their books.  You could also buy a vr stratus 
which
 plays
 daisy cds.  Both are available from humanware.

 These are some other ideas here.  I know you will need a way to 
draw things
 in your CS studies.  They use a lot of flow charts and also if 
you study
 computer programming that has a lot of visual stuff too.
 You already know about freedom scientific because you use jaws 
and
 openbook.
 If you tell us how you plan to read your books and take notes I 
might have
 more suggestions.

 Let me know if you need or want to know where to purchase these.  
The first
 four items are available from APH, American printing house for 
the blind.
 Click on products and then low vision reading and writing to 
find these.

 1.  bold line paper or bold line notebook; these lines are 
easier to see
 than
 standard loose leaf paper.
 2.  writing guides; these are templates which you slide a paper 
into and
 write between the boxes of the template; good for writing 
straight if you
 do
 not have lined paper.
 3.  large print ruler
 4.  bold lined graph paper; might help as you draw concepts or 
if you take
 math classes
 5.  a CCTV, it’s a magnifier that you put a paper or book 
underneath it and
 it magnifies print on the screen
 6.  a digital recorder

 Other tools for writing or drawing diagrams you can get at 
general stores.
 You could use Mr.  Sketch markers some.  They are multi clored 
and good for
 drawing contrasting lines.  You might also use graphic art tape, 
which is
 in
 red and black, so you could see and touch the lines if you used 
both
 colors.
 Crayola also makes some thick markers you might also be able to 
see well
 and
 find useful.

 Good luck.

 Ashley


 -----Original Message-----
 From: Hamid Hamraz
 Sent: Saturday, June 02, 2012 5:54 AM
 To: Blind Math ; National Association of Blind Students mailing 
list
 Subject: [nabs-l] Consultation regarding an Academic Mission 
Needed

 Dear all,

 I am going to start a computer science graduate program in US in 
the
 upcoming fall.  However, this is my first academic mission after 
I got
 visually impaired.  The standard load for a semester would be 3 
graduate
 courses.  On the other hand, as you know, we blinds and VI folks 
are
 remarkably slower in CS-related assignments like math, 
programming, etc.

 Now, I greatly appreciate it if experienced people in the list 
offer me
 suggestions regarding the course load, etc.  Besides, I should 
order
 VI-related equipment for my workplace well in advance.  So far 
I've thought
 about these:

 1.  A large LCD (+25 inch)
 2.  Headphone
 3.  Scanner
 4.  Printer
 5.  Whiteboard (on which I can read single letters and digits or 
very large
 figures/diagrams)
 6.  Software (JAWS and Open Book to which I am very well 
accustomed)
 7.  An ergonomic keyboard with many extra function keys

 Please note that I can not read Braille effectively (mostly 
because of
 some
 very little tremor in my hands and fingers).

 If anybody has some other things to add to the list, I'd be glad 
to hear.

 Look forward to hearing back both your academic and non-academic 
advices.

 Many thanks,

 Hamid
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