Microsft Accessibility: Guide for Individuals with Vision Impairments

I'm asked about the accessibility features at schools all the time. Here's the link that explains the features built in to Windows 7:
http://www.microsoft.com/enable/guides/vision.aspx

Microsoft Narrator is OK for temporary use. I , my students and friends prefer JAWS, but when you are borrowing someones computer MS Narrator is fine.

All y students with stargard's and albinism who need contrast adjustments should know how to change the contrast at school. Their teachers should know that they need to adjust the view and/or contrast for low vision at school.

Intellitools Classroom Suites Activity for Black History Month

Of course Black history should be taught as part of American history so that some day we will not have to have a special month. But until then, I have created two Intellitools lessons on the activities exchange for Intellitools Classroom Suites entitled Famous Black Americans and Famous Black Americans 2.

To download them you will need to open a free account and have the Classroom suites program already installed on your computer. There is a free trial CD/download for Classroom Suites 4 (http://www.intellitools.com/CS4_request_trial.aspx?site=itc)that will run the activities although they were authored with CRS3.

I hope you and your students enjoy them!

More Educational Finds

I found these little workbooks in a Walgreen's drugstore. I have since seen them in other places. I know they've been around for a while because I used to stop and pick up a few and enlarge the pages for whatever a student of mine was working on in their classrooms or to help a teacher get a concept across to a child. Mind you, I only like worksheets for practice or enhancement. I truly despise the use of them for busy work.

These, however, are different because for about $6 a CD-ROM is included. I have opened these and found them to be cool for elementary kids with low vision. Some of the characters in the books are seen again in the computer program. The use of a computer is often motivation for our kids.

There is one activity in which children are asked to find hidden object which may be confusing for a child with low vision. With some of the menu items a child with low vision may need assistance. The Dot-to-Dot one has little movies in the menu. They're really cute. My daughter says she remembers seeing some of them on old (1980's) children's TV shows. Some of the little movies had no dialogue for the totally blind child to follow.

I did not try them with any speech/screen reader programs as I was most certain most of the stuff was not accessible for the totally blind child.

Don't expect a lot of fancy bells and whistles. For only $6 it's not a bad deal.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

I started out the day at the center school where I installed a program for a student who is paraplegic as well as visually impaired. This kid is a charmer. I wanted to make sure I was out there as early as possible because the kids go to work at a nearby WalMart and I wanted to make sure I had time to go over the program with the teacher. She stays busy with her kids and wants to get as much done with them as possible. I like that. I have run across teachers who don't want to do anything with kids they consider too low functioning so they have a lot of down time in the class.

The program takes a while to install and I added some activities based on what she works on with the kids by downloading some activities from on line. While the kids were working I took pictures of each of them and added their photos to the program. Each student can sign in to their own activities by clicking on their pictures. Mr. Charmer uses a switch to access the computer and had asked for more age appropriate activities on the computer.

I was able to have lunch at my home school. When I checked my email a coworker needed help at the high school. My former student who is now her student, has a large TV monitor for his CCTV which he uses for writing. His homeroom teacher wanted to know if the projection could be in color. I seem to remember that the TV was a color one but it had not been showing up in color. The teacher wants him to see traffic signs on it in color like the other kids. I recalled color on the TV when it was at the middle school. But the O&M teacher set it up. We'd worked on it together when it was transported to the high school.

I believe it was also connected to her DVD and the picture was in color. I'm thinking the camera is black & white which is the problem. Anyway, the original remote had the batteries left in it over the summer when Matt was in 9th grade.

At the start of 10th grade, he had a teacher who really wasn't into too much work with the kids. Rather the opposite of the one I described above. She really didn't want to make accommodations with anything electronic because she felt I could pull him out and teach him "V.I." To get any purposeful teaching done, that is exactly what I had t do. She wanted to use the TV for the kids to watch DVDs. I finally ran up to the WalMart and bought a new remote to see if that would help. She and her favorite para promptly asked me if I'd brought any batteries to go with it! Finally after several months the CCTV was being used in the class but she wanted to be able to give him worksheets and set him in the corner with his CCTV to work on them independently and with little or no instruction.

Matt's new teacher has been actually working with him AND his class. I've heard good things about him. When I got their the kids were on work patrol. They visit classes with cleaning supplies and they get to work doing realistic work. I introduced myself and we discussed the CCTV problem. He told me that there was no remote to the TV when he got it! The teacher from last year obviously took it with her.

Anyway, I got to talk to Matt and some of his classmates. Matt's buddy Arness told me he missed me and "EVERYBODY miss you! You know that? That's the truth! EVERYBODY miss you!"

Right after school I had a three-hour workshop about technology for diverse learners. It was interesting. I have some more links and info to share with the other V.I. teachers and specialists.

My plan was to go to Beverly's wake right after and just show up late. I was so tired i forgot where it was so I called my mother and my sister. But they, of course, were at the services and didn't have their phones on. I'm thinking I'm too far across town and still in work clothes. I called my daughter to see if they'd mentioned to what funeral home they were going. It was after 7:00 PM by then and the wake and Omega services started at 6:00PM. I will just have to make the funeral tomorrow instead of trying to make both.