[blindkid] Elementary School iPad Experience

Tue Jan 29 03:53:15 UTC 2013

Thanks Pat.  
Great idea. 
Did you ever get any feedback in return?
Do you know if the feedback made a difference at the time?
Eric 

On 1/28/13 7:31 PM, "Pat Renfranz" <dblair2525 at msn.com> wrote:

>Hi everyone,
>About three years ago, the U.S. Dept of Education requested feedback on
>its
>"National Education Technology Plan." I diligently sent in my comments,
>based on my daughter's experience with technology in the classroom. I sent
>my letter to Karen Cator, who still holds the position of Director of the
>Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education.
>Perhaps it would be worthwhile for parents to contact her again, with "on
>the ground" feedback about how technology in schools affects our blind
>children. 
>
>She can be reached at <Karen.Cator at ed.gov>.
>
>Pat
>
>
>On 1/28/13 6:40 PM, "Eric Vasiliauskas" <icdx at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> We have also run into all sorts of accessibility issues & it seems like
>>we
>> are constantly trying to find ©øwork-arounds©÷.
>> 
>> California©ös idea of an electronic textbook for a BrailleNote is
>> functional enough that we still want access to it, but it is a huge
>> stretch to call it accessible, is FAR from an equivalent experience of
>> sighted peers, & is certainly not an adequate replacement for a hard
>>copy
>> embossed textbook or workbook.
>> 
>> I am certainly a proponent of technology & am a firm believer in its
>> potential benefits.
>> 
>> That being said, as a parent it is frustrating to hear educators nearly
>> always proclaim accolades & what amounts to flowery rosy one-sided
>> presentations of the wonders of iPads & such, with virtually no
>> acknowledgement of the real problems vi & braille-reading users,
>> especially the younger students, & those with no functional vision
>>face. I
>> realize things are getting better, but the true reality is that at this
>> point there are still significant shortcomings related to the software
>> (including VoiceOver), pairing of hardware, & the lack of training that
>> most of the teachers (vi & gen ed) have in blindness technologies, not
>>to
>> mention the lack of training of our kids that many parents share.
>> 
>> There exists a huge gap between what should be & what isŠ
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>--
>> ----
>> On 1/28/13 10:43 AM, "Richard Holloway" <rholloway at gopbc.org> wrote:
>> 
>>> Interesting link. That plan mentions iPads (and similar tablets) as
>>>well
>>> as laptops, or some combination of the two as potential solutions.
>>> 
>>> I would like to think that they would plan ahead enough to use
>>>accessible
>>> source material, but I'm inclined to mention that here in Georgia, our
>>> county has gone to a number of web-based text books for at least a
>>>couple
>>> of years now. We have not been overly impressed with the result.
>>> 
>>> The school sounded sort of excited for Kendra at first because it would
>>> offer her access. Turns out that really isn't the case. Sure, the web
>>> site reads aloud, but JAWS cannot manage the site content, and her Apex
>>> is entirely useless to access the sites. They did load at least one
>>> electronic text book onto her Apex last semester. Turns out they
>>>managed
>>> not to provide any page numbers at all in the book-- a rather important
>>> oversight. All Kendra could so was search for a unique passage to jump
>>>to
>>> the right section. It was really frustrating, and use of this text was
>>> quickly abandoned.
>>> 
>>> Back to the web access for text books-- there's no way for Kendra to
>>> access the buttons to select playback. We can start playback for her,
>>>but
>>> the reading stops at fairly random locations and needs sighted
>>>assistance
>>> to restart. Reality is she shouldn't even need our help to start
>>>reading
>>> at all. Any typical, sighted 10-year-old can open a text or go to a web
>>> page and click start with no help at all. Most importantly (at least in
>>> our case) is the fact that JAWS doesn't see the content as accessible
>>> text, so there is no braille access on a braille display.
>>> 
>>> Reading and listening are two different kinds of learning. Sighted kids
>>> with electronic access to these materials have access to read or listen
>>> in many cases. They also have full access to photos and illustrations.
>>> With present technology, tactile access to graphics and photos is
>>>pretty
>>> much nonexistent for a web site. Even worse. many of the web sites go
>>>out
>>> of their way to limit ways to capture and adapt graphics. Best case,
>>> there is some sort of caption or alternative description to say, "This
>>>is
>>> a photo of a statue of President Lincoln", or the like. Then again,
>>>with
>>> conventional texts, we often find non-text content to be ignored or at
>>> best, very minimally described.
>>> 
>>> I have also tried to capture text and move that to a more accessible
>>> situation for Kendra from these web textbooks. The sites have generally
>>> disabled that option, presumably to guard their copyright? Apart from
>>> some absurd workaround like screen capture to OCR, I see no solution,
>>>and
>>> we're not going to deal with hundreds or thousands of screen captures
>>>of
>>> multi-columned text and try to convert e-books to the text which should
>>> already be accessible to begin with.
>>> 
>>> In our case, we make a point of getting copies of the texts in both
>>> braille and print whenever possible, though sometimes they are (we are
>>> told) simply not available. My assumption is they will become less and
>>> less available in the future as well. If you're working with braille
>>>and
>>> print copies at the same time, you're already in a confusing situation
>>> with page numbers. Electronic breaks with web-based materials, combined
>>> with trying to be in a physical location by a computer, and a
>>>braillenote
>>> (etc,.) plus print and braille books, and sometimes a brailler and an
>>> abacus or two, (etc.) seems to make this transitional state between the
>>> print/braille materials and the electronic realm an interesting
>>> logistical challenge.
>>> 
>>> Does anyone know who or what regulates, or at least guides
>>>accessibility
>>> in terms of electronic text books?
>>> 
>>> On Jan 28, 2013, at 12:44 PM, DrV wrote:
>>> 
>>>> One of the topics I heard on the way in to work today was that LAUSD
>>>>is
>>>> thinking about providing tablet devices to all 650,000 students in the
>>>> district. I googled & here is the link to an article on the subject:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>www.dailynews.com/news/ci_22437047/plan-supply-lausd-students-apple-ipa
>>>>ds
>>>> -o
>>>> r-other 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>><http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_22437047/plan-supply-lausd-students-a
>>>>pp
>>>> le
>>>> -ipads-or-other>.
>>>> Needless to say, this will affect blind & vi students too.
>>>> EricV
>>> 
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