[Trainer-Talk] Need help with addressing a teacher's concerns with facilitating online language courses for a blind student

[Dr Denise M Robinson]

Hi Michael,
Yes, Mac is accessible with all that is needed. However I want to pose another idea to think about. The majority of businesses use windows. If she can get the training she needs to get through her classes now with Mac I would pose the idea about her learning the Windows platform so she has dual knowledge on both. When trying to get a job which requires use of a Windows computer the person  cannot say I want to use a Mac. When people know both platforms their options are much more vast. 

Sent from Dr Denise M Robinson 

> On Jan 6, 2021, at 4:11 PM, Michael Evers via Trainer-Talk <trainer-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Good afternoon,
> 
> 
> 
>              I hope everyone is doing well and staying safe in the new
> year.  I work for a University as an Assistive Technology Specialist and
> trainer, mostly working with blind and visually impaired students.  This
> afternoon I received an email from a Spanish instructor who brought up some
> concerns they had with how to facilitate teaching an online Spanish course
> to their blind student remotely.  The blind student is a Spanish major and
> they will have to participate in Zoom meetings, read, write and submit their
> written assignments and online quizzes through the Canvas Learning
> Management System.  The student will also be receiving written handouts in
> PDF form that they will have to read over and respond to.
> 
>              I think that this student may be a Mac user, using Voiceover
> and my experience with the Mac is very limited.  Last semester I also had a
> blind student using a Mac with a similar experience and I was not able to
> properly advise this person on how to troubleshoot their accessibility
> concerns with using Voiceover on the Mac for the same reasons.  They were
> using Safari with Voiceover and they were having problems with getting
> Voiceover to recognize the required form fields and controls in Canvas along
> with getting Voiceover to toggle from English to Spanish.  They were also
> having some problems with writing the Spanish accents and symbols and
> applying them to their written assignments.  Since I do not have a Mac, I
> cannot advise them.  I use a Windows computer with JAWS and NVDA.
> 
>              Last semester I advised the student to consider using Google
> Chrome on the Mac with Canvas and running Voiceover, because the Canvas
> Management Team here at our college said that Safari is not supported in
> Canvas.  The student said they could get Google Chrome to work better with
> Canvas, but that they could not get Voiceover to automatically switch
> between English and Spanish the way we can with JAWS.  The student still has
> trouble with writing the proper Spanish symbols and accents on the Mac and
> of course, I still cannot properly advise this student on how to
> troubleshoot this because I do not have access to a Mac.  
> 
>              I told the Student that I could only offer assistance with
> trouble-shooting Windows accessibility concerns and that they would be much
> better off investing in a cheep Windows Computer, running NVDA just so they
> could interact with Canvas and more easily read and write in Spanish.  The
> student refused and said they would stick with the Mac.  So, the only option
> that I had left was to provide the student with the telephone number to the
> Apple Accessibility Hotline for additional assistance.  That's all I could
> do for them and now I may possibly end up having to do the same thing again.
> I am also willing to bet that this student may be the same student who had
> this problem last semester.  
> 
>              Is there anyone out here on this list who may be able to
> better advise me on how to help this Spanish instructor and their blind
> student?  I want to help them, but I am running out of ideas.  It is my job
> to trouble-shoot accessibility concerns and to also provide students with
> additional training and resources in order for them to be successful.  So
> far, I have been successful with helping my students with everything else
> they have encountered and I want to find a solution to help my student solve
> this problem as well.  
> 
>              I know what it is like to be a blind student who is taking a
> foreign language course.  I took several Spanish courses both in high school
> and as an undergraduate in college and did very well.  I read and wrote
> Spanish in Braille and I also read and wrote some Spanish on my Windows PC
> and my iOS Devices, but the Mac is an entirely different animal.  Thank you
> in advance for any help you can offer.  
> 
> 
> 
> Best,
> 
> Michael Evers
> 
> <mailto:Mevers421 at gmail.com> Mevers421 at gmail.com
> 
> 
> 
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