[nabs-l] Textbooks on using screen readers and Microsoft programs from Access Technology Institute

[Jason Polansky]

Hello all,
I wanted to inform you of an excellent resource for learning technology as a blind student or individual that many of you most likely have never heard of. The web site is www.blind.training, and it's managed by CathyAnne Murtha. She has written textbooks on Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Internet explorer, Outlook, and using JAWS and Window Eyes in general. The textbooks go into more advanced features that we often times have not been taught and ones often believed to be inaccessible, and they're explained in a way that is simple to understand. I'm pretty sure each textbook runs for $90, but I think it's worth the investment, at least the Excel one was for me. When you purchase it, you receive a link to a zip file that can be downloaded. It includes an mp3 version, a text file, a docx file, and other useful files and worksheets. I just learned about it yesterday after posting to the computer science list. I can tell that she spent a lot of time compiling these resources, and this definitely needs to be promoted far and wide through the NFB and to blind persons and professionals in the blindness field. It's a resource the most do not know about, but I believe that it's crucial that we share it, especially in this technologically advday society in which many blind people are not keeping up with.