[nobe-l] searching for a scanner and VoiceStick

Wed Sep 7 10:00:43 UTC 2016

A scanner not allowed in the States.

On 9/7/16, Jasmine Kotsay via NOBE-L <nobe-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Hello,
> What is a voice stick?
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>> On Aug 31, 2016, at 12:15 AM, Kayla James via NOBE-L <nobe-l at nfbnet.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hello, my name is Kayla James. I'm a college student.
>> I'm looking for a scanner. I need it to scan textbooks from the print
>> copies to the computer. It also has to hook up to MacBook.
>>
>>
>>> On 8/30/16, Geogie via NOBE-L <nobe-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>> Hey there,
>>> I have some experience with Google tools that I can share. I just
>>> finished
>>> working at a Public Charter School as a literacy tutor/teacher for sixth
>>> grade. I'm also blind and have been all my life, and I was the only
>>> blind
>>> person working there. We used Google Drive, Docs, Forms and Sheets all
>>> the
>>> time. I struggled for the first few months, because I honestly couldn't
>>> find
>>> any blind folks who used Google stuff extensively who I could discuss it
>>> with. But here is some of what I picked up from trial and error.
>>> On my PC I used the latest version of JAWS at the time with FireFox.
>>> There
>>> is an accessibility mode in the different Google tools that you should
>>> turn
>>> on right away. And you'll want to keep it on, because it doesn't work
>>> well
>>> at all without it. Google Drive is accessible, but you'll need to tab
>>> around
>>> a whole lot. Same situation with Google Docs. I also found that the
>>> speech
>>> will lag a bit, especially inside of a Doc or Sheet. It's not much of a
>>> lag,
>>> but it's enough that it drove me crazy. But you can use the same
>>> commands
>>> from Word when in a Doc, and the same ones from Excel when in a Sheet,
>>> so
>>> aside from the lag it's not bad. Google Forms is very accessible most of
>>> the
>>> time, but if you run into trouble with something in a Form, one great
>>> work-around is to have the form sent to you in the body of an email.
>>> This
>>> is
>>> one of the options when you make and send a Form, but it's not the
>>> default
>>> I
>>> don't think. I never had any trouble with Google Forms once I had them
>>> sent
>>> this way, and I received four or five every week.
>>> I would definitely recommend using the iPhone aps. I found them very
>>> navigable with VoiceOver. I liked the Docs and Drive apps, but did not
>>> find
>>> Sheets to be accessible. If you open a Google Sheet in Safari, then it's
>>> pretty easy to navigate by moving by rows. For some reason I can't get
>>> the
>>> roter to give me the rows option when in the Sheets app, and that was a
>>> big
>>> drawback. Also, one very important feature for me as a tutor was the
>>> comments feature. Unfortunately, after a recent update, the comments
>>> feature
>>> is not accessible at all in the Docs app. It's a shame, because it used
>>> to
>>> work very well, and I would type comments to my students about there
>>> work
>>> using a Bluetooth Keyboard. Another useful feature when teaching that is
>>> missing in the Docs app is the extended time breakdown of recent edits.
>>> On
>>> a
>>> computer, a teacher can pull up a list of when all of the changes were
>>> made
>>> to a document. Great way to keep an eye on a student's progress on an
>>> assignment. The app doesn't allow for this detailed time log, but it
>>> will
>>> tell you what time the most recent edit occurred.
>>> Sorry if this is too much Google info! I just want to make sure you
>>> don't
>>> have to figure it out from scratch like I did!
>>> Georgie
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: NOBE-L [mailto:nobe-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of David
>>> Andrews
>>> via NOBE-L
>>> Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2016 10:30 PM
>>> To: National Organization of Blind Educators Mailing List
>>> <nobe-l at nfbnet.org>
>>> Cc: David Andrews <dandrews at visi.com>
>>> Subject: Re: [nobe-l] accessibility of Google products
>>>
>>> Google has been doing a great deal of work on the accessibility of these
>>> products. While not perfect, they have improved a lot.  Use Google (LOL)
>>> and
>>> search for accessibility topics with the products, there is stuff out
>>> there.
>>>
>>> Dave
>>>
>>> At 08:38 PM 8/30/2016, you wrote:
>>>> Thank you for asking this. Whoever answers, please share wisdom as far
>>>> as both jaws and window eyes. We are heavily into google this year too,
>>>> and I am struggling a bit.
>>>>
>>>> Kathy Nimmer
>>>> Even in the valleys, keep believing in the mountains.
>>>>
>>>>>> On Aug 30, 2016, at 9:01 PM, Craig Cooper via NOBE-L
>>>>> <nobe-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Greetings,
>>>>> Today, during our teacher meetings, we had an extensive discussion
>>>>> on using various Google products, including Google Docs, Google
>>>>> Sheets, Google Forms, and Google Apps.  These products are widely
>>>>> used in schools, as they allow teachers to be able to do a number of
>>>>> creative and interactive lessons, along with making it easy for
>>>>> teachers to collaborate on documents.
>>>>> It can be a bit overwhelming, learning the products and determining
>>>>> whether they are accessible with screen readers.
>>>>> I would love to hear your experiences with these various Google
>>>>> products.  Do you use them in your teaching practice?  Are the
>>>>> iPhone apps or PC Google products more accessible?
>>>>> Thank you so much.
>>>>> Craig Cooper
>>>>> Teacher: U.S. History, World History, and English III Brookings
>>>>> Harbor High School
>>>
>>>
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>>
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