[Trainer-Talk] Friday Night Tech Workshop: JAWS, Just Because. Providing Help for JAWS-specific Questions. March 20, 8:00 PM, Eastern Time

[David Goldfield]

David Goldfield,
Blindness Assistive Technology Specialist
JAWS Certified, 2019

WWW.DavidGoldfield.org

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced many of us to spend more time at home. 
Some of us are now working from home. Some of us may be staying home to 
stay safe. Others may be at home in order to self-isolate or quarantine. 
Even before all of this began there have been many opportunities for 
online training using meeting platforms such as Zoom. Now that more of 
us are forced to stay in our homes the opportunities for remote training 
and assistance will likely increase.

A couple of weeks ago I attended my first Ibug 
<https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ibugtoday.com%2F&data=02%7C01%7C%7Cb082631755174c68119208d7cb282cd7%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637201245717698466&sdata=hEfEFkOgnDSm42Zw9%2FuKSAtwRGl9uCIAVGkIyuRm%2Bs8%3D&reserved=0> 
conference where participants are encouraged to ask questions and to 
provide support for one another with their iOS devices. I really liked 
the format of the conference but I wanted to see a similar opportunity 
covering topics from a Windows perspective.

I decided that I’d like to host such a conference and this will likely 
be the first in a series of free, online tech workshops, assuming there 
is enough interest in such a project.

The first of these workshops is titled, “JAWS, Just Because” and is 
scheduled for Friday, March 20 at 8:00 PM Eastern time. This conference 
will allow users of the JAWS screen reader to both ask questions as well 
as to provide answers to those who use the JAWS screen reader. No 
question is too basic or too esoteric and it should be stressed that 
there is no such thing as a stupid question.

For this conference I’m looking for two types of participants. First, 
anyone with a question regarding JAWS is, of course, welcome. Second, 
I’m hoping that those who are knowledgeable in the use of JAWS will also 
consider participating to share knowledge. Due to time constraints we 
won’t have time to provide lengthy support or to tandem into a user’s 
machine. Questions which require this type of intervention would best be 
addressed by Vispero’s technical support.

In order to keep the conference running smoothly I am going to adopt a 
similar policy which has been successfully used by iBug. Users who wish 
to ask a question or to provide a response should say their name, as in, 
“This is John.” At that point please wait to be acknowledged by the 
host, as in, “Go ahead, John.”

I have some other ideas for similar workshops but would like to hear 
some of yours so that I can determine the needs that you have as well as 
the level of interest. With many of us working from home are there 
specific applications or programs that you might want some assistance 
with? Programs that come to mind are Slack, Teams, etc. Would there be 
interest in similar workshops for NVDA users?

I would also like to invite other assistive technology trainers to write 
to me privately if you’re interested in assisting with any of these 
workshops. Many of you may have some ideas which I haven’t thought of 
and you surely have expertise with topics which I do not. I am unable to 
provide any type of compensation for any assistance you may choose to 
provide but the point of these workshops is to provide free assistance 
to those who may be spending more time at home doing work or completing 
other tasks. This can be a stressful time for many of us. Many kind and 
patient people assisted me when I was first learning about assistive 
technology and I just want to pay it forward and give something back to 
the blindness community, particularly during this time when the need for 
some tech help may be even greater

Here is the relevant information about the upcoming conference.

Topic: JAWS, Just Because

Join our Zoom Meeting via the following link.

https://zoom.us/j/3565857579 
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Meeting ID: 356 585 7579

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