Difficulty: Blindness
7 Keywords: Scanning, Text To Speech, Reading, Screen Reading, Blind, Visual Acutiy, Visual Impairment
"A person who is blind has a high degree of vision loss. Only about 18 per cent of blind people are totally blind - most can distinguish between light and dark." (BBC Health).� The RNIB offer advice about Post Compulsory Education and Training (PCET) with links to other sites including the Open University Inclusive Teaching website which has a video of Alan explaining the impact it has on his life and how people can help. As the web page indicates "It is difficult to convey an impression of what a blind or partially sighted student can see but the WebAim Vision Simulator may give you an idea of how some eye conditions can affect vision over time."
The RNIB student site has more information and for staff SCIPS offers a Detailed description of Visual Impairments Impacting on Learning and Teaching
It may be important to understand the impact of the use of Braille, notetaking, scanning and screen reading technologies when supporting blind students.
Tasks
- Task: Note Taking
- Issue: Documents are not available in electronic format
- Task: Collaboration online
- Issue: Web page creation from Microsoft Word
- Issue: Captcha log-ins are inaccessible
- Task: Virtual Learning Environment Usage
- Issue: Note taking independently
- Task: Academic writing
- Issue: Note making and writing
- Task: Presentations
- Issue: Tables and presentation layout.
- Task: Generating ideas and planning
- Issue: Using MSN rather than Forums for planning
- Task: Reading items on the screen
- Issue: Reading edit boxes in Hot Potatoes
