[nfbcs] Best techniques for group computer science projects

Tue Oct 29 14:53:49 UTC 2013

I think most of the respondents to this question are missing the whole point of the question.  Answers such as ... "the work should be divided up and each person does his part, so you shouldn't be in this situation .. you just have to focus on your own work " ... doesn't help solve the problem.   The hard truth is that in this line of work, you WILL find yourself in this situation eventually in industry.  Colaborations do take place, and people sitting around the same PC discussing code ... well that just happens, and it WILL happen eventually.  So you better understand that situations like this are going to present themselves.  Despite all the accessibility laws out there, this is going to happen simply because sighted people can do it, and they WILL do it because they can.  And don't expect the sighted people to have a clue about what will help you.  They'll just say "do your best", or give you some platitude like that.  They don't know what you need.  You're going to have to figure out how to solve the problem, or talk to people (this is a good place to do that) who have already solved the problem, then tell the professor or the people in industry what you need.  That has worked for me.

Being a low vision person myself and a ZoomText and Jaws user also, I totally understand the problem.  If sighted people are colaborating and don't want to use ZoomText because it gets in their way, you (the low vision person) lose information and can't follow along.  I get it.  I can't tell you the number of times in years past, before all of this wonderful technology, that I had to sit in group meetings with a big monitor mounted on the wall, and someone is deomonstrating a system.  Of course with the monitor being up on the wall, there was NO WAY I could see anything that was going on.  I simply had to sit through it and it was a total waste of time.  I got nothing out of the presentation bcause I couldn't see what was happening.

One thing that has helped me ... which I'm not sure if it would help you here ... is for the presenter to be hooked up to a PC which is on a network.  Then, the network has some kind of SameTime software that allows you to take your PC, connect to the network and the SameTime session, so that you can see the same presentation on your own PC that the others are looking at on the other PC.  Now with it on your PC, you can activate ZoomText.  Now if you get lost, you just ask them to slow down for a second and tell you where they are on the screen, and it only takes you a second or two to catch up.  I have found this SameTime capability very helpful.  And when people know that you can keep up but just need a second to do it, they're OK with helping you out.

Hopefully you have access to something like that, because the sighted people I've worked with ... when I'm running ZoomText and they're trying to read my screen  ... can't deal with the loss of information due to magnification ... just as you can't can't deal with loss of information due to not being able to see what's going on. 

There's also another problem you face in industry if you're visually impaired.  That is ... you may not perform as fast as the sighted peer.  And that means you don't get the same reward at the end of the year when raises and promotions are being given out.  And boy is that a cold hard fact you have to deal with.   But that's another discussion topic for another time.

> Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2013 17:58:05 -0700
> From: sgermano at asu.edu
> To: nfbcs at nfbnet.org; nabs-l at nfbnet.org
> Subject: [nfbcs] Best techniques for group computer science projects
> 
> I have a group project in one of my computer science classes and several
> more to come before I finish the degree. Most sighted people sit around one
> computer and all look at the screen. I use ZoomText so no one likes to look
> at my screen since you lose so much view but obviously I can't see theirs.
> 
> What techniques do you find work best for situations like this. It is not a
> situation that we could run dual monitors and mirror them with one having
> zoom text enlarged. I am also not super fond of that since what I see
> depends on where they have the mouse which may not be the area we are
> talking about.
> 
> Thank you
> 
> Suzanne
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