Tech Camp

From PDA to PC

By Kylee Maloney

It’s an ordinary-looking small classroom: PC’s ranged on either side of the room with industrious students bent over screens and keyboards. The incessant clicking of the keys is punctuated by a burst of laughter as conversation is exchanged in an online chat, by the occasional sigh of exasperation or boredom or by a query directed at the nearest tutor.

Look closely, though, and the differences become gradually noticeable. Each student sports a headset, and white canes keep company with the ubiquitous backpack and bag, discarded on the floor.

It’s an increasingly less common sight, but for tutors and students alike it was a time of discovery.

The project was undertaken by Wellington web Solutions company, Squiz New Zealand, as part of a Wellington City Council initiative to strengthen community ties by linking schools online. Using the city’s high-speed, fibre-optic network, schools would more easily be able to share information, and students could widen their learning horizons and their networks.

Within this expanded online community, smaller groups are encouraged; and the Visually Impaired Youth group was formed as a seedling for future development of these smaller initiatives. Tomas, Kyal, Mary, Aine and Dylan will form the nucleus of this group and, as such, spent three days of there holiday time expanding their online horizons, using similar tools to their sighted peers rather than the specialist blindness-related tools to which they are accustomed. They were joined by Tutor, Brendan Vercoelen, with Squiz Access advisor Kylee Maloney, Tomas’s father Ronan and W3A Founder Bruce Aylward in support roles. All the above organisations: Squiz NZ and W3A, together with the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind have formed a consortium to facilitate greater accessibility to IT for disabled people

Day One: Monday 16 April

The first order of business was to familiarise the students with the Jaws for Windows screen reader manufactured in the United States of America by Freedom scientific. This is the larges selling screen reader on the market and was chosen by the Access Consortium for its power, features and flexibility. Introduction to the Windows operating system was also necessary, as the specialist note takers to which the students are accustomed use their own proprietary software which operates separate from the Windows environment.

The task of familiarisation – indeed the entire project – was made somewhat more challenging due to the fact that students only had access to demonstration copies of the software, which necessitated their having to restart their PC’s every 40 minutes.

Many adjustments were also required to be made to the PC’s to avoid log-in screens so that the students could perform their restarts independently. Consequently, the beginning was slow and cautious, while the students showed admirable patience with these teething problems.

The afternoon was spent mostly in consolidating the students’ knowledge of Jaws and ensuring that they could move easily around web pages. Indeed, much of the time was spent on Google, because it was felt this would be an effective way of introducing many different web pages over a short period of time.

It was not until late in the day when the first real gratification for the students was in sight when they were introduced to Windows Live Messenger, the latest in a long line of popular chat clients.

Day Two: Tuesday 17 April

The morning saw the online chat begin in earnest, and it was then that something of a transformation occurred. The students suddenly came alive, with quips and jibes being exchanged both on and offline as students quickly realised the benefits of this type of communication.

From then on, the pace of the knowledge uptake increased dramatically. RNZFB . Adaptive Technology trainer, Anthony Horvath, called in that afternoon, in time to witness the birth of the students’ own forum, which it is hoped will be a continuing outlet for a wide range of discussion topics for those involved.

Day Three: Thursday 19 April

The morning saw an introduction to the popular internet telephony programme, Skype, and featured a conference call to a woman in New Hampshire, USA. Skype is a highly complex application, with many useful supplemental features which would be impossible to teach in the time provided. The Access Consortim would like to thank Jonathan Mosen for providing free access to his comprehensive tutorial, in the hope that students will continue to explore the benefits of internet telephony at home.

The afternoon and final session featured a visit from Raewyn Baldwin of Wellington City Council, and Laura Somer of the State Services Commission. Raewyn spent some time filming camp participants, while the students continued their online chat and forum discussions. The camp ended with all involved very satisfied with the time spent and the knowledge acquired. IT is fervently hoped that this will only be the beginning of the journey for these students.

Summary

This technology camp was the result of work between the access Consortium and the Wellington City Council, and will form a seedling for future micro-communities within the Council’s fledgling Loop Project. It was also a first for tutors and support people, and much can be learned from the experience.