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

[redwing731 at gmail.com]

Hi Asia! 
Normally, I'd say that you could participate in this kind of activity, but giving what you said here, they stacked the cards against you in a way that's so unfair that they unwittingly blocked you completely out of reading aloud in class in this particular class. They also unwittingly pulled an illegal move against you because it's also against the American's with Disabilities Act. I wouldn't worry about the American's with Disabilities Act just yet because of the work that's going on to fix this problem. I'm wondering, does your grade require participation points with this activity? If so, you can talk to your professor and explain why you're currently not able to take part in this activity, especially since you can't realistically keep up with the requirements of the specific kind of word search and section search at this time with what you currently don't have available to you. You can also point out how unfair this activity has been slanted against you as the result of this particular resource that your professor requires you all to use in class and probably your class homework. Sure, it's also important to point out that your team is working on a solution to solve this problem, but until that happens, you'll need to argue your case in favor of alternative activities or assignments instead. No, it doesn't mean that you can't take notes on what the other students read aloud to you and the rest of the class. This does not mean you can't ask your professor for other ways of getting the same info or opportunities to actually work with your professor or other students outside of class since from what it sounds like, the info is required to pass the class, let alone the fact that there might be participation points involved. I would go so far as to bring up options on how to pass this class without being able to read aloud in class yourself, especially if participation points are on the line because those points can be a large enough amount to make a day and night difference on your ability to pass or fail the class. As an aside, you can inform your professor that it's illegal to make the course work inaccessible to disabled students, especially if your professor gets more of them in the future, and in less your professor retires next year, they will surely get more disabled students in the future. You'll need to let your professor know that you are also still willing to work with them to get around the problem before escalating it farther. This is the fair way to tackle it after all because bugs of this kind happen way to often, particularly because the gaps in the law also don't allow us to make the most of what's out there in the internet of things. Let's face it, your professor probably doesn't know about the American's with Disabilities Act which in my book, that should be a required part of any teaching degree, but I don't think it's included in the core education, which should be changed to include that info in my book. Until that happens, if it ever does, we have to deal with the result of teachers not getting that missing peace of education that should be there. I for one, believe that if this education was there, teachers would do a better job at working around these problems as they're building their courses, even when it's not their job to be the experts. I think they would build accessibility into their courses from the ground up instead of having to build it in later. I think they would benefit greatly from this education in general because it effects their whole entire career just as well as it benefits us because it also effects our own college career. In any case, I think you got a good and fair argument against being able to read aloud in class, giving the wall that's totally blocking your ability to actually carry it out in a functional way. I hope it doesn't take all term to fix the problem! 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: Tuesday, February 6, 2024 5:55 PM
To: 'National Association of Blind Students mailing list' <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Asia Quinones-Evans <aevans.nfb at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [NABS-L] Reading out loud in class with a text book

You provided a very helpful well thought out email. The organization that provides the book is called American Counsel of Exercise and you have to have admin access to get on their website. There are videos that I need to watch for the class and no one has access to them because only the professor has access to it due to having the correct certifications to teach the course. This is the same when I took my First aid and CPR class. My Mantis does not have a print screen on it. It is just the keyboard and the braille cells. I am working with accessibility to see if the ACE organization will give out a free accessible format of the book but I do not think this is possible. My professor does not always have a set of reading sections but goes off what she thinks we need to concentrate on that day. So what I tend to hear in class every few minutes while she is talking about where to find information is pages flipping to find it either in the glossary or in the chapter we are working on that day. I really do not think that I can participate in this activity but I am working on some items. 

Yours Truly,

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

-----Original Message-----
From: NABS-L <nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Kendra via NABS-L
Sent: Tuesday, February 6, 2024 12:56 AM
To: 'National Association of Blind Students mailing list' <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Cc: redwing731 at gmail.com
Subject: Re: [NABS-L] Reading out loud in class with a text book

Hi Asia! 
You didn't mention your professor, have you been able to ask them for workarounds? I know that your tech is buggy and I agree that they are strange bugs. I'm also glad you were able to talk to Human whare about them! Does your tech have any print screens on them? I know your Victor reader doesn't have one since I have a friend who also uses a victor reader. Does your braille display have a print screen on it? I was thinking that if it did, you could take your braille machine to your professor, show them your navigation and search problem to them and ask your professor for ideas or resources. You can also let them know that your school's disabilities office can't help you but that this is a major problem and that you'd like to be able to get around this one and participate in this activity. Your professor might have some helpful resources, like the website to your book seller, electronic copies that you can borrow for this kind of assignment, or they can help spot you with your page. Speaking of pages, even if you can't get much help with the formatting of your book or anything like that, have you thought about having a sighted person, even if it happens to be your professor locate the info you need to read aloud? Have you also been able to ask your professor to send you the info they want you to read aloud in class so you can find it outside of class? Have you thought of having them send that info ahead of class so you can find it? I know the pages don't line up, but for this task, I somehow don't think you can truly do it without sighted help if your book has a visual route. Since you got it on Bookshare, have you thought of putting a copy on your computer, taking it to a sighted person, have them spot the info, particularly if you know or have access to that info, let them look for it for you, but also either bookmark it for you or tell you what the Bookshare page it's on so you can bookmark it yourself? Once you can do something like this, you should be able to go directly to your bookmarked info and quickly navigate to that info. The trick is the navigation and the search, but if you can do all of that before you actually need it, then you can actually read aloud in class. 
Kendra 

-----Original Message-----
From: NABS-L <nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Asia Quinones-Evans via NABS-L
Sent: Monday, February 5, 2024 6:30 PM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Asia Quinones-Evans <aevans.nfb at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [NABS-L] Reading out loud in class with a text book

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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