Meet one of my Tech Savvy Vision Impaired Students!

I want to introduce you to one of my students who has a severe vision impairment. To the right is a video which showcases the technology he uses in the classroom.

Technology on display are
1) A VNC connection to the smartboard so Chris can use zoom to view

2)  My student uses JAWS for Windows to navigate a word document using audio.

3) I have set up my students school email to work with microsoft outlook so that he can use jaws to easily send and recieve emails to the teacher.

4) My student also uses a digital braille display paired with an ipad to read an ebook. He can also use this digital braille display with Jaws for windows to read and write in braille if he chooses and the teacher of course will always be dealing with print! You can see in the video that i'm able to use the digital print copy display on the students ipad to see exactly what my student is reading at any time- this means even a non-braille literate teacher can assist in braille correction!

 Hooray!

The procedures for all of these adjustments are on my blog!

procedure for smartboard access for low vision students

A couple of years ago i developed a procedure to give my students smartboard access via the iPad. This means that students can sit anywhere in the class and have comfortable access to board demonstrations.  I had to develop a particular procedure that ensured that teachers were aware when the student was looking at their screen and a procedure that used software that was free/low cost and could be used with appropriate permissions.

I came up with a VNC procedure that is ready to be integrated into most school networks for free- across any operating system- please let me know if you have trouble setting this up as over the last couple of years i've done a lot of problem solving and i'm happy to amend the procedure depending on the issues other people come across when using this procedure.

I'm happy to report that this procedure was a little complex at first but now takes me about 5 minutes to set up a computer and iPad, and it offers our students that still use their vision to access content unprecedented access to the board.

Id be interested in any comments, questions or suggestions about this procedure! Happy teaching!

https://docs.google.com/file/d/1TwtdQ8Ck20bWXellKR3gkMYDIa3JpZ5ZIpnpc__Qr8KT0K5Rsa4xUvNLkM5q/edit?usp=sharing