[nfbcs] online education

[Alexandra]

Hello,

thanks for approving my membership to this group.

I'm a psychologist from Germany with a strong interest in accessibility, human-computer interaction and of course computer science in general. I'd like to get acquainted with the basics of computer science, preferrably by using massive open online courses. 

I already subscribed to a course on Udacity but couldn't use it properly with Jaws 10 or NVDA and Firefox 21. At Udacity, you are presented with short, educational video sequences and can answer a multiple choice question before watching the next video. After having answered a question, I wasn't able to navigate to the next question. I could only skip back and re-answer the question. So there is actually no way of gradually taking the course. I wrote to Udacity but didn't get a valuable reply. They don't seem to care for accessibility that much, especially as I found an entry in the forum by another Jaws user that wasn't able to use the site properly.

I also tried Coursera but couldn't even enroll into a course.


The combination of watching videos and answering questions is a way of communicating knowledge I consider to be rather useful, as you have a mixture of activity and passivity which makes learning not as "boring" as just reading a book.

iTunesU also sounds pretty exciting, but the lectures I found so far only allowed you to watch videos. There was no section to test your knowledge. This is a real pity, as I'd definitely enjoy an educational app for studying on the go. 

Any information on MOOCs accessible with Jaws (10) / NVDA or educational apps for the iPhone would be appreciated.

Looking forward to your replies.

Best wishes,

Alexandra