[blindkid] computers as school credit

Pat Renfranz dblair2525 at msn.com
Sun Sep 16 01:29:11 UTC 2012


I regret falling to temptation, but I am indeed offended, Mr. Donohue. You
have no right to imply that I have not taught my blind child.

Do you and Ms. Silverman think our utilizing the IEP to achieve special
education goals is inappropriate? What do you know about my child? Believe
me, we did pull in blind tech users to help with training and there's been a
computer at home with JAWS, and all the other bells and whistles, that she
was not interested in using. And perhaps you don't realize that there are
families that don't have computers with JAWS at home and have poorly-trained
TVIs who have no idea how to get that blind child on the computer, so our
pushing the system a bit might help with another child.

This thread was starting by a parent whose very bright child is failing a
tech course. Something needs to be done now, and, in my opinion, not by
throwing him in a pool and telling him to swim.

Sometimes, I think the NFB has a very bad attitude towards parents. Sorry,
but that's my 2.
pat




On 9/15/12 5:02 PM, "Peter Donahue" <pdonahue2 at satx.rr.com> wrote:

> Hello everyone,
> 
> For Arielle Silverman amen, amen, and amen. Parents are a sighted child's
> first teacher. it needs to be the same way for blind children.
> 
> Peter Donahue
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Traci Wilkerson" <traci.renee27 at gmail.com>
> To: "Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)"
> <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2012 4:37 PM
> Subject: Re: [blindkid] computers as school credit
> 
> 
> I understand your question Arielle, but I know my kids are young and we
> already experience time crunch now at 5 and 7 after school, by the time we
> get home, let the kids chill and play for a bit, do homework (which can
> take sometimes an hour if its a battle), make dinner and its then bedtime.
> I'm sure older kids may have some more time but I'm sure homework also
> takes longer.  I would love to do more tech with my kids but I also want
> them to enjoy being kids.  They have computer lab time at school, so in my
> eyes the school needs to be teaching them the skills they need at that
> time.  They shouldn't be sitting there letting someone click through
> screens "pretending" my child is doing something on their own.  Yes, we
> have already had this.  So if they are in the class, yes! the school should
> be teaching it in a way relevant to what they need.  No excuses for them
> not too.
> 
> Traci
> On Sep 15, 2012 5:26 PM, "Arielle Silverman" <arielle71 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Hi all,
>> Forgive me for beating a dead horse, but I  just don't understand why
>> we are waiting on school personnel who aren't very tech-savvy to teach
>> blind kids JAWS when the JAWS program has excellent user
>> documentation, enabling any blind student to learn JAWS on their own?
>> Why are blind kids having to do a boring tech tutorial at school when
>> they could be playing online games, using Facebook or looking up cool
>> things on the Internet at home, like their sighted peers are?
>> I believe that the way a sighted child first learns to use the
>> computer is by sitting down in front of it and looking around the
>> screen, eventually learning to identify the different icons, the start
>> menu, programs on the desktop, etc. A blind child can learn the exact
>> same way. Turn on JAWS, have them sit down and press the tab key, or
>> arrow around the desktop, so they can hear all the different programs
>> that are available to them. Have them open up a program like Word,
>> tell them to press the Alt key and they will be able to hear all the
>> different options located in the menus or ribbons.
>> JAWS is not much more complicated than using Windows as a sighted
>> person. If a sighted person wants to move around the screen, they use
>> the mouse; the JAWS user presses Tab or the arrow keys. If the sighted
>> person wants to click something, they click the mouse; the blind
>> person presses the Enter key. There are more advanced keyboard
>> commands that a blind computer user can eventually memorize so they
>> don't have to go looking all around the screen, but these more
>> advanced commands aren't necessary for basic computer use. A blind
>> student who has basic computer knowledge, gained from exploration,
>> should be able to learn the more advanced commands independently from
>> a tutorial.
>> I learned JAWS twenty years ago when computers still used command
>> prompts and were much less user-friendly than they are today. Plus,
>> there wasn't much funn stuff to be done on the computer then, like
>> there is today. With all  the free screen reader options out nowadays,
>> I just don't understand why any blind child is not
>> technology-literate. Why wait for a student to fail a computer course
>> when so many self-teaching opportunities exist at home?
>> Perhaps there are some kids who don't have the motivation or attention
>> span to self-teach technology, but I suspect that will be a minority
>> of students. Why not have them start on their own, and then ask the
>> school to help if they get stuck?
>> If there is something I am missing please let me know. I do not intend
>> to offend anyone, but I really just want to better understand what the
>> issue is and why parents aren't able to address it on their own.
>> Best,
>> Arielle
>> 
>> On 9/15/12, Pat Renfranz <dblair2525 at msn.com> wrote:
>>> Hi Rosina,
>>> My daughter was in a similar boat: sluggish tech training, required
>>> computer
>>> tech class, etc. One thing we did to force the issue was to use the
>> course
>>> requirements to lay out what had to be done by the TVI during the year,
>> and
>>> put those as goals in the IEP. The goals were very specific. The tech
>>> teacher was great at making sure the TVI knew the material and knew what
>>> needed to be taught. The district, knowing the TVI did not have the
>> skills,
>>> purchased training materials to lead the TVI step by step; the materials
>>> were from a company called DeWitt and Associates. I have no idea if this
>> is
>>> the best stuff out there (probably not!) and it was boring as heck for
>>> my
>>> daughter, but it got her through the class. Because working through this
>>> took some time (why should anything be worked out before the school year
>>> start?), the teacher allowed my daughter to work on the class into the
>> next
>>> semester.
>>> pat
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 9/13/12 3:56 PM, "Rosina Solano" <colemangirly at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Okay, so I just got a notice that my 9th grader is failing computer
>>>> applications and it is a required course.  WOW, possibly because they
>>>> haven't
>>>> taught him ANY computer or tech skills at all.  And here is the
>> clincher,
>>>> if
>>>> he does fail it, he has to repeat it next year.  Gee, if they don't
>>>> give
>>>> him
>>>> the education to use JAWS and such I don't think it will matter how
>>>> many
>>>> times
>>>> he repeats it.
>>>> 
>>>> Maybe this will be the sign that I am not the only one who knows that
>>>> they
>>>> should be teaching him technology. Sigh
>>>> 
>>>> Rosina Foster
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
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