[Pibe-division] us. deppt of Justice us. Dept Education accessible guidelines

[Riccobono, Mark]

Dear Sara and others,

I appreciate your raising the question about the accessibility of the IEP system to you as a blind teacher. In fact this is an area that the NFB is extremely interested in helping to improve. You could help us do that by filling out the form at the below link (I have included the introductory text for the page on our Web site). This link is applicable to anyone on this list and to your students so please help raise awareness about this so we can continue to track accessibility issues across the country and know which districts/universities/software vendors to begin dialoguing with.

National Federation of the Blind
Digital Technology and Accessibility in Schools Questionnaire

The NFB is seeking information about accessibility barriers in the digital technology used by all students, teachers, and administrators in K-12 schools, universities, and colleges in the United States.

http://www.nfb.org/nfb/directTechAccess_193.asp



Sincerely,
Mark Riccobono
 Mark A. Riccobono, MSEd

Executive Director, Jernigan Institute

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

200 East Wells Street at Jernigan Place

Baltimore, Maryland 21230

Phone: (410) 659-9314 ext. 2357

Fax: (410) 659-5129

Email: mriccobono at nfb.org

Web: www.nfb.org<file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/mark/Application%20Data/Microsoft/Signatures/www.nfb.org>



________________________________
From: pibe-division-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:pibe-division-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Sara Rooz
Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2011 2:35 PM
To: pibe-division at nfbnet.org
Subject: [Pibe-division] us. deppt of Justice us. Dept Education accessible guidelines

Dear ERic,
 I am blind and am a certified teacher of the blind and visually impaired in my state.  I cannot comment if School districts nationally  are aware of the guidelines written by the U.S. department  of Justice and the U..s.  Deptartment of Education. Interestingly, these documents focus on making accessible websites to blind and visually impaired students. A new system for inputting student's information to write Ieps goals and objectives, in New York City, the SESIs system, is difficult for sighted certified teachers of the blind as well as blind and visually impaired certified teachers of the blind to use with thscreen readers such as Jaws for Windows. I wonder how accessibility in this area can be addressed.
Secondly, while attending Dominican College in New York, to become a certified teacher of the blind, the website, course assignments, quizzes and discussions for students to participate in were accessible to me using the blackboard system when I used my screen reader, Jaws for Windows and a Braille display. The only documents that blind people find hard to read are PDF documents, particularly when the documents are downloaded from the internet. When I encountered such a document, I emailed my instructor about the accessibility issue and was told what to do. Email was also accessible between professors and students. I had a terrific learning experience at my college, although it used the online method. I attended this university from 2006-2007.
Sara Rooz
Certified teacher of the blind and visually impaired in New York
Independent Related Service Provider Vision Education Services in New York City

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