[Trainer-Talk] Advice for a young student

[Kavulak, Elaine]

Hi Kerryann,
All of the suggestions below are great!

I want to reiterate short lessons, a 7 year old's attention span is about 3-5 minutes.  

I like TypeAbility for teaching keyboarding.  However, if it doesn't keep his interest then I certainly would change to Talking Typing Teacher.

Make sure he has a keyboard that fit's his hands.  I can't say it enough A Keyboard That Fit's His Hands.  The mistake that is being made in some schools today is they are giving a standard adult keyboard to grade school kids who don't have the hand stretch that an adult has.  Consequently, they tend to fish for the keys until they find the one they want and it skews the results in typing programs and encourages hunt and peck even in a blind person.

Also a slate and stylus.   It's lightweight and easy to throw into a backpack for short notes.  The adult blind people I'm familiar with say they wouldn't do without it because technology is expensive and sometimes it fails.  

Elaine Kavulak
402-290-6461 voice or text
elaine.kavulak at nebraska.gov
  




-----Original Message-----
From: Trainer-Talk <trainer-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Nimer Jaber via Trainer-Talk
Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2018 4:08 PM
To: List for teachers and trainers of adaptive technology <trainer-talk at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Nimer Jaber <nimerjaber1 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Trainer-Talk] Advice for a young student

Hello Kerryann,

Learning to type, and learning to use a Windows computer, in my mind, are very important lessons. it is important to make it fun, and keep the lessons short if the individual is getting frustrated... turn as many things as you can into games, or include time for play during your sessions. Battleship is pretty good, especially if you can have the student play it in Excel. If you can work with your student on concepts, those are much more important than keyboard shortcuts in my mind. Also, if you can get them working with something like Accessible Blockly from Google <https://blockly-demo.appspot.com/static/demos/accessible/index.html> or Swift Playgrounds by Apple <https://www.apple.com/everyone-can-code/> they will get a huge head start, and have fun while learning coding concepts and computer concepts.

If you have additional questions, please let me know.

On Thu, Oct 4, 2018 at 3:55 PM Marianne Denning via Trainer-Talk < trainer-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> First, I would begin teaching the student touch typing. I like either 
> Typability or Talking Typing Teacher. Both have levels for young children.
> Typability uses JAWS for speech and teaches some basic JAWS commands.
>
> I use a Braille display connected to the computer. This allows my 
> students to create documents in Word, Excel and PPT, edit them and 
> turn them in using Google Classroom or e-mail.
>
> Teaching children is very different from teaching adults. The 
> techniques are different. Good luck.
>
> On Wed, Oct 3, 2018 at 9:36 PM Kerryann Ifill via Trainer-Talk < 
> trainer-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>
> > Dear all,
> >
> > Iwillshortly be asked to teach a 7 year old totally blind boy. I 
> > have a number of questions as I want to offer this youngster the right start.
> > 1. What assistive devices/support would be recommended for this child?
> > i.e. technology or aids.
> > 2. Which typing programme is best suited for teaching someone one so
> young?
> > 3. Would you recommend that he should use a laptop or a tablet with 
> > keyboard?
> > 4. Are there any programmes that could translate electronic Braille 
> > in to print? In  other words, could he type his lessons in braille 
> > on a
> computer
> > and have them translated in to regular print for his mainstream teachers?
> >
> > I look forward to hearing any and all suggestions.
> >
> > Regards
> > Kerryann Ifill
> > _______________________________________________
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> enningweb.com
> >
>
>
> --
> Marianne Denning, TVI, MA
> Teacher of students who are blind or visually impaired
> (513) 607-6053
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--
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