Week Commencing 25th November
This week saw U Can Do I.T sign it"s contract with London Central Learning and Skills Council which will see us training up to 100 disabled students over the next 18 months.The funding covers the seven boroughs in central London, namely; Camden, Islington, Kensington & Chelsea, Lambeth, Southwark, Wandsworth, Westminster. Student recruitment is already well underway in those areas, and the enquiries are coming in steadily.
We also have funding to teach 20 children and young adults (13-19) in the same area through the Connexions fund and once again outreach is well underway.
Tutor David Somerset attended the recent special needs exhibition, and here is his report:
Of most value to tutors/visually impaired students, the Special Needs exhibition featured 1. Displays and demonstrations from Sight and Sound. 2. Displays and demonstrations from Dolphin/ Supernova, the main competitor to JAWS. 3. Display stand and seminars from Ability Net.
For most of our VI students, the recommended programme is JAWS and the one that is predominantly used. This provides VI/unsighted students with considerable access to MS programmes as well as the Internet. Since training VI students using JAWS I have watched as they gain expertise in accessing standard computer programmes to read e-mail and write documents. The wider function of the Internet, the WWW has also been accessible though with limited success. To date there is little adherence to the law regarding access and many sites still use formatting and language that is inaccessible. Part of my keeness to attend the displays from Sight and Sound, the main outlet for JAWS is that they were demonstrating the new JAWS 4.5. I was told that this would be using a live Internet link, though sadly on the day, they were unable to do this.
I was interested to encounter the staff from Dolphin/Supernova since for most of us these programmes have been difficult and no comparison to JAWS. However, the staff provided a very impressive demo and told me that once students upgrade to the new version, they will have even more access to functionality than JAWS users. Not having any students using Supernova, I am unable to judge the accuracy of this claim, but will certainly in future feel much more reluctant to judge it on the basis of experience of early versions.
Ability Net provided an excellent workshop in which they discussed all the problems that JAWS tutors have to explain apologetically to their students, such as the use of tables that cannot be read cell by cell, the lack of any tagging on pictures that are used as hotspot links. This was a breath of fresh air, though it made me aware of the sophistication of the whole field of blind internet use and of our responsibility as tutors to stay abreast of the technological basics (a challenge in itself) it did provide info as to where we could access further details.
All in all a worthwhile event and confirming the belief that if we are to attempt the precarious job of teaching VI students, especially those who are completely unsighted, we will need to continually renew and update our knowledge
The following students have completed their tuition this month and we would like to offer our sincere congratulations:
Ursula C, Brian L, Joanna M, Sylvie A and Michelle T
