Strategy: Microsoft Windows Magnifier for viewing Blackboard
7 Keywords: Blackboard, VLE, Virtual Learning Environment, Visual Acuity, Visual Impairment, Magnificaiton Zoomtext, Windows Magnifier
..."you can generally get hold of Windows magnifier if they haven’t locked down computers too much. But there is still a limit. It’s a work-around, but it works OK for me.... Knowing separate web addresses for sites, so I don’t have to use SUSSED [the university portal]., I mean things like “Blackboard is (said the web address), webmail is webmail……(gave web address) - we don’t want the extra frames."
The first screen grab shows the use of Microsoft Windows Magnifier in a Blackboard site using just the main frame and the second screen grab has Blackboard viewed with ZoomText using font smoothing and it is much clearer and easier to read. The final screengrab shows you how you can view Blackboard with the main contents without having to remember the website address! In Windows place the mouse over the main content - Right hand mouse button - Go to This frame and choose to view in the same window or a new one or tab to the frame and use the windows key to reach the same menu. 
Quote
"...say the Blackboard session that we had last week: we needed to be connected to the Internet.So, therefore, I couldn't use my laptop, because it has to be on a university computer...Obviously, there is limited access to the university desktops in terms of display, mouse speed and all that."- HannahTip
Microsoft Windows ClearType can be used to change the viewing of fonts in XP and Vista - it can be found under the desktop Personalisation - Appearance - Effects settings in Vista and tuned online. It is also possible to change the DPI (Dots per inch) in Windows XP and Vista to make items larger but not necessarily clearer and this can change web page layout.
