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

Tue Feb 6 02:29:35 UTC 2024

I appreciate all of this information. I keep in very close contact with my
Accessibility department and my professor. The biggest issue I am coming
across is that the pages in my BRF file from Book Share does not line up
with the actual textbook pages. I do get a lot of my books off of Bookshare
for my classes. If they do not have it I like to send in a book request and
majority of the time they  get it. since this book is from American Council
of exercise there are very few ways to get an electronic format of the
book. The two devices that I mentioned in my earlier email I have
downloaded the BRF of the textbook onto both of those devices. I have
contacted Humanware about the strange issue with the Victor and I know my
accessibility department cannot do anything about it.  I was just wondering
if anyone has any advice on how to complete this kind of activity in class.
When the professor request us to read a certain passage from the textbook
it is literally on a specific page in the middle of the page. So of course
a sided individual can find it very easily with scanning but it is a bit
more difficult for a blind person to find it.  I thought I could
participate with finding some of the words in the glossary but I'm having
difficulty searching the word that I want just in the glossary not
throughout the entire book.

Yours truely,

Asia Quinones-Evans

Phone: 440-670-6509
Email: aevans.nfb at gmail.com

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

On Mon, Feb 5, 2024 at 1:43 PM Kendra via NABS-L <nabs-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> 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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