Summary of course taken

I took a BSC in Psychology at University of York finishing in 2006 and now I am taking a one year post graduate MSc Audiology course at University of Southampton. I have moderate hearing loss in one ear and a severe to profound loss in the other which has an impact on the way I cope in teaching and learning situations however, if you met me you would not know that I had any difficulties. You cannot see my hearing aid and I lip read so that people do not realise there are any problems. It is very easy for people to forget that I cannot hear because it is an invisible difficulty and in fact people in my school (ISVR) are brilliant as I did not realise the problems that can arise until I did my Inter- Professional Learning and no matter how often I told them not to talk all at the same time otherwise I could not cope in meetings, but they never really understood and I felt totally left out.

Description of strategies used.

I use technology all the time on my course, but I prefer to use e-mail, text messaging and the web rather than the mobile phone. I have to have a phone with a really strong vibration to warn me someone is calling or a disgustingly loud ring tone – low pitched and long which may sound awful to others but at least I can hear it! I am happy talking to friends but I would much rather e-mail tutors and other members of staff.

I use Mozilla Firefox for surfing the web and I have set up all these tabs across the top to make life easier. I very rarely have to type in a web address with my bank address, e-mail, journals and department page, Facebook along the top of the screen

I have found that my eyesight has changed and I am sure it is using the computer so much. When I did data input for 15 months there was never time to look away from the screen to rest the eyes but I know I should have looked away from the screen. It is important to take breaks and I have noticed that if I have been on the computer all day and then I have to use sub-titles on the TV I will need to use my glasses.

I also use my glasses in lecturers so that I can lip read, but if the lecturer turns away from me I might as well give up! It bugs me not to be able to see clearly but it makes me even crosser when they forget that I depend on seeing their face not the back of their head! It was a much bigger issue with the larger groups up in York and ISVR has smaller groups so I can cope. But it would help if lecturers could remember to face the audience rather than talk to the board!

As I said before if people also talk all at the same time I cannot cope so when we are doing group work I have found more recently that using the forums has been a good way of collaborating. They are also useful for making appointments and posting the sections of writing that needed to share. But it is really important that the threads keep to the topic and people do not keep adding new threads willy nilly! If every time you go on people add say 20 new threads it is so hard to keep organised if only they would keep to topic.