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The Braille

Monitor

May, 2002

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How

to Select a Suitable Adaptive Technology

Training Program

by Robert Leblond

Robert

Leblond

From

the Editor: Bob Leblond's wife Connie and his two children, Hope and Seth, are

all blind, so he has long firsthand experience with the struggle to obtain efficient

access technology. Bob served as the Treasurer of the NFB of Maine for several

years and the President of the New England Parents Division for several more.

He and Connie recently moved to Colorado, where he is in the technology department

at Beyond Sight and developed and directs the online distance learning program

for the company. Bob is a Microsoft-certified professional in Internet technologies.

This is what he says:

Over the years several individuals

and organizations have written articles about choosing appropriate adaptive

technology and reviewing competing technologies. As adaptive technology continues

to evolve and proliferate, the need for proper training has become the subject

of an increasingly important national discussion: namely, what constitutes appropriate

training, and how can you find it?

The field of adaptive technology training

is more varied than most in that this type of instruction spans age groups ranging

from six to eighty-six and various user environments, including schools, jobsites,

home offices, and personal recreational use. Before selecting a trainer or training

facility, take a moment to evaluate your needs. What will you use the computer

for? Training techniques for seniors wishing to exchange e-mail messages with

family and friends vary greatly from the needs of an office employee creating

databases and interpreting spreadsheets or a laboratory worker conducting research

online.

The most important criterion is also

the one most overlooked: can the person teaching you teach? Several people nationwide

have vast stores of knowledge relating to technology of various types but cannot

convey the information to their students. Ask whether or not your instructor

has a current teaching certificate or has ever held a teaching certificate.

The subject taught is not particularly important. My degree, for example, is

in music education. What you are trying to establish at this point is whether

or not the individual who will be teaching you has ever been a teacher. If the

answer is yes, then the first hurdle has been cleared.

The next question to be asked is what

experience the potential trainer has in the subject matter to be taught. What

adaptive software will you be using, and does your prospective teacher know

about it? Most adaptive technology instructors I have met know everything there

is to know about one of the two major screen readers and almost nothing about

the other. The same applies to OCR and magnification products. It is not unusual

to find a person who knows JAWS, Open Book, and Zoomtext well, but nothing about

Window Eyes, Kurzweil, or Magic. The reverse might also be true. Will you be

using a notetaker like a BrailleNote or a Braille Lite? Perhaps you will be

using Dragon software to dictate documents or control your computer. The possible

combinations of hardware and software are virtually unlimited. Know what adaptive

devices and applications you will be using, and make sure the instructor knows

the technology well.

Now that you have found an instructor

who can teach and is well versed in several adaptive technologies, we come to

the next question: how much does the instructor know about mainstream technology?

The fact of the matter is that nobody wants to use adaptive technology by itself

because alone it is worthless. Nobody spends the day using JAWS or Zoomtext

or Window Eyes; what you want it to do is to run the way you want it to and

then get out of your way so that you can use Internet Explorer, an e-mail client,

a word processor, a spreadsheet or database, or another application.

Therefore a very important question

is whether or not your prospective instructor can show you how to use JAWS with

Microsoft Word, or Excel, or on the Web. Ask if your teacher has any technical

certifications. Has he or she graduated from a computer science course at a

college or university? Other valuable professional certifications include various

Microsoft certifications: MCP, MCSE, etc., or certifications available from

several online sources. If your instructor holds any of these, that is a good

indicator that he or she is familiar with mainstream applications.

If

you find an individual or a formal training program that fulfills all of the

requirements above, you have found a rare phenomenon. In the absence of a reliable

accreditation process in the world of adaptive technology, the only way to be

reasonably assured that you are learning from a suitable individual is to know

what questions to ask, then to go ahead and ask them. Don't be shy. Your training

is at stake. Know your teacher and be certain his or her qualifications match

your needs. Anyone who has any of the skills or certifications above will be

more than happy to provide that information to you.

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