[NABS-L] Reading out loud in class with a text book

Mon Feb 5 18:41:49 UTC 2024

Hi all! 
I have experienced having to read text aloud in class before. Luckily in my
case, I already had my stuff in a format I could use with my braille display
at the time. I was able to read that text in braille without accessibility
problems. The last teacher I had who required me to do this was a wealth of
resources and I'd work with her again if I could. I can't help you with the
technology itself because I don't have a Victor Reader Stream or the kind of
braille display that you're using. I can give you work arounds regarding
your school's resources because often times, they can help with work arounds
that no one else can assist you with. Ok, sure, community colleges are
better with resources than universities in general, but there are some
common resources that you might want to take advantage of if you haven't
done so yet. 

Your school's disabilities department
 If you haven't done so yet, go to whoever works your case at your school's
disabilities services, whatever they are called for you because their job is
to help sort out issues like this one. I know that everyone has a different
viewpoint about accessible course paperwork, websites, ECT, but I believe
that to make something fully accessible, it also has to be functional to the
user. Since you're running into bugs of this kind, let these people know
about your problems and what your teacher is also requiring you to do with
your textbook. Hopefully, they'll be able to help come up with a better
workaround for this particular book. OK, working with your school's
disabilities department has some drawbacks, but they're still worth giving a
try. For one thing, The laws are in favor of making your school's
disabilities department do all of the work when it comes to education and
advocating, but there are still some drawbacks with these laws in place. I
think the laws are best for the trickiest cases, and sometimes, the law will
totally come in handy, but the people at your school's disabilities
department are not experts in the field of things like braille and blindness
tech. They specialize in making it accessible and to work out bugs that you
run into like this one. From my experience, your school's disabilities
department is also not a room or office that's full of a bunch of experts in
what's actually accessible and what's claiming to be accessible and actually
isn't accessible after all. Even so, they still might be able to have a
workaround that you don't have access to especially in working around the
bugs. Even if they don't, they can still help you if you have tried to
contact your professor and your professor either doesn't help you or that
he, she, or they ghosts you and doesn't contact you back. Keep in mind that
even they don't always or often know what works for you and what doesn't.

Your professor 
 If I were you, I'd contact your professor as well and let them know about
your problem because they might come up with an alternative workaround that
even your disabilities department might not come up with. I believe in using
all or as many of my resources as I can including but not limited to the
professor when finding workarounds because your professor might have extra
resources, documents, or access to info that can really help you such as
someone in the library who can get you a good electronic copy for you to
borrow for term. Even if your professor doesn't have resources, someone else
might have some good ones. I'm not saying this will happen to you, but it's
worth a shot. 

Other book places 

Sometimes, but not always, you can get your required book from other places.
Have you tried looking for it on Bookshare, Audible.com, BARD, Learning
Alley, Kindle, ECT? It can't hurt because sometimes, you can find your book
on one of these other places. From my experience, I have only found my books
on these other places a few times, but my school also had its own publishing
house that's specific to my school. It even went so far as to offer most of
my school's textbooks to its student body instead of outsourcing in less it
wasn't possible for a particular book or resource. If your school doesn't
have such a publishing house, I think you'll have a better shot at finding
your textbook on one of these other resources. Ok, the risk for not finding
it is rather high, but because it does happen, it's still worth a shot
because you won't know without performing searches there. Unfortunently, you
might be stuck with buying an electronic copy just to work around these
bugs. I'm giving you ideas that you can try first before having to buy that
copy because if you don't have to buy it and you manage to come up with a
good workaround, then awesome! I hope this will happen to you! I also hope
this helps!  

Kendra 

-----Original Message-----
From: NABS-L <nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Asia Quinones-Evans
via NABS-L
Sent: Sunday, February 4, 2024 2:24 PM
To: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Cc: Asia Quinones-Evans <aevans.nfb at gmail.com>
Subject: [NABS-L] Reading out loud in class with a text book

I was hoping anyone can tell me if you have had experiences in class where
you may have to read certain passages from your text book. I know this is
usually done in elementary school but my college professor is wanting us to
read definitions out of the Glossary and sections of the text book during
class. I have a copy of my text book on my Victor Reader 3 but for some
reason it will not let me skip back to the chapter after I go to the
Glossary . Or if it does I have to press rewind then skip back chapters. I
have called Humanware about this and they are working on it. I also have the
braille copy of the book on my Mantis but again it is hard to search
sections when the BRF does not line up with the actual text book. I have
bookmarked the start of the Glossary but I do not know how to search for a
term just in the Glossary not the entire book. An example would be that the
professor tells us the page number the text is on that we will read out loud
and review. 

Is this something I just can not participate with or will I just have to try
pushing through it to participate? This book is from American Counsel of
Exercise so they do not give out free copies of the publishers pdf to get an
electronic copy for my computer. Has any other student delt with this
situation and how did you get through it?

Yours Truly,

Asia Quinones-Evans

Phone: (440) 670-6509

Email: aevans.nfb at gmail.com <mailto:aevans.nfb at gmail.com> 

Live the life you want; Blindness is not what holds you back

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