[Trainer-Talk] Helping iDEVICE-using students get organized

[Deborah Armstrong]

So another discussion question for the list. More and more of my BVI students are using iDEVICES exclusively, and I've noticed they are a lot less organized than students who used computers in the past. I work preparing alternate media at a community college but because I am blind I am often an informal trainer for new students.

I love my iPHONE but when I take classes,I do serious work on my laptop. I might read the textbook on my phone, or take a few rough notes, but I keep a separate folder for each class on my laptop and back it up regularly to cloud storage. In to that folder I dump all sorts of stuff, the textbook, the instructor's syllabus, slides and handouts, login credentials for online courseware, saved snippets from online research and of course my own notes. I also keep a text file with the instructor's contact info, office hours, office location, textbook information, names of friendly classmates and their contact info and other general info about the course. My system of organization resembles how I used to stay organized before computers with reel tapes and Braille!

But to be relevant to today's young people, I need to have tips for being this orderly with an iDEVICE. Students tell me their rehab counselor won't buy them a laptop; they want to buy iPADS instead. Or they tell me their uncle bought them an iPAD and now rehab feels they don't need a computer. For them, using a computer is old-fashioned and most of them simply won't push to purchase or qualify for one.

But just because you know VoiceOver doesn't mean you know how to study with the iDEVICE. For one example, my students get most material, class handouts and syllabai emailed to them by me or the instructor. So now it's all in their inbox, and they have to hunt through thousands of emails to find something.

If I get an email from an instructor I save it to a text file, save the attachments separately and put all of that in to the relevant class folder. At work, I use Outlook rules and folders intensively. At home, Thunderbird's folders also keep my email from course discussion boards organized.

But,   For my students, Outlook and Thunderbird are foreign concepts; they've always done everything with email using just their iPAD or iPHONE!

Anyway, I'm really feeling for these young people who get so overwhelmed coping with their courses mainly because they seem to have absolutely no idea how to organize and easily locate information inside their materials.

What are your thoughts?

--Debee