[Trainer-Talk] unique situation working in higher-education

[Kevin Andrews]

Hi all,

Please excuse the length, but it is necessary so I can explain my situation
fully.
I write with a bit of a unique situation.
I work at a university here in California. I am blind myself, but we do not
have any blind students currently. I am the Accessible Technology
Coordinator for our Disability Resource Center.
I could really use some advice here.

For background, a lot of what we do is Kurzweil 3000. It is a great program
for people who have learning disabilities, dyslexia, tracking issues,
prefer audio, etc. It is an extremely visual program by nature
(highlighting, text/highlight extraction, dragging text around, different
kinds of notations in your document, etc). A student gets referred to me
and we provide them with a demonstration to see if they think this will
meet their needs, part of the interactive process for providing
disability-related accommodations. I digress. I have a tremendous amount of
bandwidth, with six student workers, called technology assistants, who
report directly to me.
For programs like this, as well as things like Smartpens, which facilitate
notetaking in conjunction with an audio component, which we also provide, I
am essentially relying on my techs to provide these demos. I have been in
this role for not quite a year. In the excitement of learning a new job, I
did not think much about this, but it has been nagging at me more and more
lately--how to be more independent in my job.
Part of the role of the techs is to conduct demos of software and other
devices, so it's not like they were hired specifically for me. In any case,
I am concerned I am relying on them too much, but as I've said, these
programs are very visual.

Am I overthinking this too much? Any advice, thoughts, wisdom, etc is
sincerely appreciated. Thanks so much!

-- 
Best,

Kevin Andrews
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Accessible Technology Coordinator,
Scribes and Readers Coordinator
Disability Resource Center
University of California, Santa Cruz
Website: drc.ucsc.edu


Direct Line: 831 459-1262 <(831)%20459-1262>

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