[nabs-l] unaccommodating professors

Ashley Bramlett bookwormahb at earthlink.net
Sat Jan 12 06:20:20 UTC 2013


well, I've tried that in other classes. I'm not dumb.
The computer either froze or the pdf would not allow me to save it as text. 
I think the publisher protected it somehow so you cannot change it.

Also, as I've said before, the disability office has not and never  will 
give me a doc file.
Of course I asked for this. I wanted to put the doc file on a flash drive to 
read on my braillenote  in class.
They always tell me the publisher only can send pdfs; they have not invested 
the time to attempt to convert it themselves. Also, they could fight with 
the publisher if they wanted to for a more accessible format such as rtf or 
doc files.
But they don't.

This community college does not go out of its way to help and accommodate 
students.
I often work out issues myself with professors and order my own books. I try 
and leave dss out of it. but when the professor wants you to take another 
class and goes to your dss counselor without your  knowledge, there is 
nothing you can do.
If he were going to work with me he would not have stepped behind me. The 
only reason
I know he went to dss was since the dss counselor called me and stated she 
spoke to him and wanted to discuss with me.

I don't know what so called accomodations she was going to discuss and I 
never will know. We are not! discussing this bad situation. I should find an 
instructor willing to work with me. I
have never found this counselor helpful and I'm not talking to her. I think 
all she'll say is the challenges involved and when I ask for videos to be 
described by the professor or someone, she'll say the college isn't required 
to do it. I've asked for a braille test before, and she told me they don't 
have to provide my prefered format; I had to take i t auditorily.

Given her relunctance to do much but the bare minimum of things, I think 
discussing it is fruitless and I'll simply look for other options and email 
her that.

It’s a bad situation. Its shaken my trust somewhat. When you email 
professors it should remain between you and them period.
I expect to keep conversations between us since  all other students have 
this right.
No third party should be involved without your consent or knowledge. I am 
tempted to place in subsequent corespondence when I inquire about classes, 
that this communication is confidential. Heck, if anyone does this again, I 
will do that.

Then, if they violate my right to privacy and confidentiality, I have 
written proof of it.

Anyway, I'll see what happens next week when I go to class.

Ashley
-----Original Message----- 
From: Brandon Keith Biggs
Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2013 1:01 AM
To: Misty Dawn Bradley ; National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] unaccommodating professors

Hello,
There is a pretty simple way of converting PDF to TXT:
when you open the PDF go to
"save as other"
hit text
Enter the name and location and there you go.
Also, ask the disability center for a .doc and they should be accommodating,
I've never heard of one that wasn't for that.
There are a million other ways to get a PDF to TXT, but that is first.
Thanks,

Brandon Keith Biggs
-----Original Message----- 
From: Misty Dawn Bradley
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 9:45 PM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] unaccommodating professors

Hi,
If you are able to get the book from Learning Ally, the books are set up to
where you can set them to go page by page, by chapter, by heading, or by
sentence, so this may help with at least finding the page number, and then
if you go by sentence or if there is a paragraph setting then you may be
able to find the paragraph easier.
Hth,
Misty

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ashley Bramlett" <bookwormahb at earthlink.net>
To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list"
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2013 12:34 AM
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] unaccommodating professors


> Brandon,
> Yes professors are set inttheir ways. This is one of them. Students in 
> that class have to for instance, see paragraph 2 on page 14.
> I usually use audio formats so cannot use text to search.
> I have tried to get the electronic copy, but as I said before, they give 
> me pdfs which jaws has trouble reading.
> Even if jaws reads it, I don't have page numbers since the book is broken 
> down by chapters or parts.
> Each part or chapter is a large file.
> So its impossible to look at a book as others do.
>
> I'm glad it worked for you, but I know with videos coupled with the 
> reliance of books, it is a tough teaching style to follow.
>
> I just hate when professors are not willing to talk to you and go to the 
> dss office.
>
> Ashley
>
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: Brandon Keith Biggs
> Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2013 12:17 AM
> To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] unaccommodating professors
>
> Hello,
> I had a superstar professor who did this. He was an older guy and he was
> very set in his ways. He had about 2000 students on his Corse load and he
> was also an international star. He said I would probably fail his class
> because he used lots of pictures and he wrote lots on the board. He also
> said that I would not benefit from the top notch pictures he both 
> presented
> in front of the class and had in the textbook he wrote. He told my
> Disability counselor he was not sure how I would deal with the pop 
> quizzes.
> On top of that, I was an honors student who had a steeper grading scale 
> than
> the normal students.
> I told him not to worry, if he was willing to listen to me, we could work
> something out. I took the head of the Accessibility department to one of 
> his
> office hours and we hammered him with every problem a week after class
> started and we gave solutions. We also presented alternatives for him to
> choose from. He then gave us his opinions and what he was willing to do.
> I talked to the professor every week and just made sure things were going
> well on his part. I ended up getting an easy A in that class and that was
> one of my favorite classes I have ever taken.
> May I ask why you can't read paragraphs other students are reading? I just
> do a search for words in my word document.
> Teacher tells us to look at page 45, paragraph 7 that starts "He looked to
> where her boots lay in the mud..."
> I search for that and it only takes a second to search through the whole
> book.
> Thanks,
> Brandon Keith Biggs
>
>
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