[nabs-l] unaccommodating professors
Sophie Trist
sweetpeareader at gmail.com
Sat Jan 12 16:41:48 UTC 2013
Ashley, if you have a braillenote apex with Keysoft 9.1 or
higher, it can read PDFs. So you can save the PDF to a flash
drive and read it on your braillenote!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ashley Bramlett" <bookwormahb at earthlink.net
To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list"
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Sat, 12 Jan 2013 01:20:20 -0500
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] unaccommodating professors
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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