DIAGRAM OF BRAILLE CELL
DIAGRAM OF BRAILLE CELL
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The initial part of this assignment was to produce a statement of intent, this was used as a template and will be entered into my appendices.
My mission was to create an interactive resource base -learning package for a specific target audience, who happened to be two female blind students.
One of the powers of interactive electronic instruction is the capability to engage by providing rapid, compelling interaction and feedback to the student
(Malone, 1981:333-369).
The package was produced on compact disk and cassette enabling the students the ability to use the resource at home. The package is a Microsoft Excel tutorial guide integrating the Jaws screen reader, the package was produced in Microsoft PowerPoint. It can be self- teaching, although I acted as a facilitator the first time the package was used.
The whole multimedia experience was designed for audio and tactile methods incorporating the Jaws programme. This screen reading programme allows blind and visually impaired people the ability to access information on their computer screen via a speech synthesiser.
The 2 female students I chose to create this package for are both registered blind and over 60 years of age. The definition of a person who is registered blind according to the RNIB covers a broad spectrum of visual impairments. The extent of visual disability depends upon the physical sensory impairment of the student's eyes, the age of the student at the onset of vision impairment, and the way in which that impairment occurred. Vision may fluctuate, or may be influenced by factors such as inappropriate lighting, light glare, or fatigue”.
Although the students come from different cultures, there are similarities. They are both over 60 years of age white and middle class. There is MRS X who is German, who moved to England in 1948. She spoke broken English, to use her terminology. The way in which she developed her English was through a night class and her husband who is English. She arrived in the country with hair dressing qualifications and retook them in English. It seems that MRS X enjoys studying attending horticultural college and gaining a certificate. It was only last year she gained a GCSE in maths in order to help her grandson in his homework. There is MRS Ywho is English, who was registered partially sighted from birth. She attended Lickey Grange a school for the blind. When she left school she entered the nursing profession and qualified as a nursery nurse and state enrolled nurse. Approximately 12 months ago MRS X and MRS Ypurchased computers with Microsoft office 2000, I assume student’s who do this are financially secure and well motivated. They also purchased a single user license of the Jaws software, this specialist soft ware is expensive at the time £550.00. Although the student’s do not hold any professional qualifications in computers they have both completed a Microsoft Word 2000 tutorial. They are given a lesson once a week for 1 hour together. They have both used Microsoft Excel but have not studied it in great detail. Since losing their eyesight they feel that they have been denied access to ordinary community facilities, so this has made them feel isolated.
The lack of eyesight that they have got in my opinion is not the major problem, the real problem is the misunderstanding and lack of information, which exist. (E.g. it is not well known that blind people are able to access printed material through specialist equipment. This equipment could be made available at low cost in libraries etc.
When the student’s have been properly trained and had better opportunity, blindness will only be a physical nuisance.
The 2 students were consulted about the package and what they wanted out of it. They both agreed it should be produced in English. It is possible for Jaws to speak German, but according to MRS X the pronunciation is poor. This was a humanistic approach according to Paulo Freire. “That teachers and students who are engaged in training which empowers people, need to focus on communicating with each other in an honest and open way.” Freire, P. (1973) p119.
When I asked the student’s “what do you use Excel for?” MRS Yreplied “I run a talking book service” MRS X’s reply was “I keep telephone numbers”. They were unaware that Jaws could read the row and column headings automatically. In my opinion they were not using the Jaws program to its full potential. My goal was to enlighten the students about this valuable feature. It is my belief that blind people should be free from restrictions. The humanistic educator Paulo Freire shared this philosophy. He asserted that” people with disabilities should be free from restrictions, which limit their potential.”
Freire, P. (1973) p119.
The students are taught by audible and tactile methods, so the ability to listen was a key factor. Curzon, L.B (1990) P189tells us, “about 12 per cent of what we learn, we acquire through listening.”
I would argue that these figures have not taken into account those of us who are visually impaired.
The student’s were encouraged to use their Dictaphones. This enables them to retrieve information long after the learning package is used. I would have to agree with Reece, I and Walker, S. (1997) p46 that, “one of the easiest methods of collecting data is to audio-record”.
The fact my learners are over 60years of age, contributed to how I designed the package. Curzon, L.B (1990) p263. argues that older students are likely to experience some deterioration in short-term memory. To accommodate my learner's specific needs, the package was designed to give regular revision tasks to aid the recall of previous learning. The design had to be accessible using text and sound. I would have to agree with Wald’s assertion that “The extensive use of graphics, Charts, diagrams, animations and video in place of text may appear to provide a stimulating exciting learning environment, but without thoughtful design may create barriers to its accessible use”.
Accessibility was the main issue so I had to use a true type font and experiment with the point size. Becta learning recommends crafting the content.
The screen reader relies heavily on the video card and will only read certain text. The jaws program works better when the view is set to 75% and the display to 256 colours. This problem has been going on for 5 years, my theory is that the founder, Ted Henter who was totally blind tested the program with these settings. So when the program was finally produced the reader worked better in the view mentioned in the previous sentence, if the user changes the settings it often skips text or does not read it at all. The timing and pace was important so when the information appeared on screen it was timed. The way the text appeared on screen was set to box out, so Jaws could interpret what appeared on screen and read it. This design was discovered by trial and error, also listening to the tutorial for PowerPoint on audio tape from Freedom Scientific.
http://www.freedomscientific.com.
Punctuation was left out in order not to over load the students. The reason being, blind students use the keyboard to access everything on screen, these keystrokes often contain punctuation. So omitting the punctuation assists in not confusing the students.
When I recorded my voice into the presentation it created a problem, when I plugged in the microphone Jaws stopped speaking. The only way around this was to switch to an external synthesiser. The package was very large so putting it onto compact disk made sense and made it portable. The tape to be used with the compact disk was recorded in the Beacon studio, making the package sound professional. The tape recorder has revolutionised the techniques and processes of sound recording. The tapes can be erased, so can be used repeatedly at a low cost. This format is very accessible for the blind.
The students were briefed and given a tape to work with. They experience using a spreadsheet while listening to the tape. Experiential learning theory is based on the premise that people - children and adults - learn most effectively through experience.
The theory is commonly credited to David A Kolb, who believed that having had an actual experience, the individual subsequently reflected upon it, came to a general conclusion, and decided upon how to act in similar situations in the future.
Curzon, L.B. 1991) p102.
The instructional methods that I used on tape were to integrate new keystrokes with previously learned keystrokes. E.g. the students were told the same keystroke in word that reads a character, reads a cell in Excel. This is comparing and cross-referencing new and old keystrokes. The cognitive psychologist Ausubel stated that ” Prior experience with related problems is necessary for a learner to deal fully with novel situations.”
Child, D. (1981) p88.
Using the Psychomotor Domain-The initial experiences are designed for practise so that the learner’s skill is improved. They will then move to assimilate knowledge within the Cognitive domain I would hope to see some progress to analysis. Here as Dewey points out it is important for the instruction to “be organized so as to pace development (but not outstrip it)” Curzon, L.B (1991) p84.
The students were told how to control the rate of speech produced by the computer and were left to do so. This was done because I believe that adults are self-directed. Knowles emphasizes that adults are self-directed and expect to take responsibility for decisions.
Knowles, M. (1984) p34.
The tape gave regular positive reinforcement and when the students got to a certain slide it cheered. Skinner referred to this as conditioning and believed that you could alter people’s behaviour to positive affect.
PowerPoint was chosen because of the ability it has of using different types of media, although it is not an authoring package it is extremely versatile.
Jaws was used to read the screen, it works with, but does not replace most computer applications. It offers comprehensive screen reading capability that includes extended product customisation through powerful utility managers. This means you can bring up certain managers e.g. a dictionary manager and teach the reader to pronounce a word properly.
Producer of Jaws, Freedom Scientific. Inc.
There is a track from the new features disk used to reinforce the learning. The laptop was used to deliver the package and to produce it. The reason was the capability of putting the package onto compact disk.
The Beacon studio was used to create the tape to be used with the package.
The package was mainly produced at the Beacon Centre taking me 22.5 hours, at £6.00 an hour at an over all cost of £135.00. This was completed in the time used for plan and preparation, I will enter my timetable into my appendices. The cost in materials was nominal about £5.00. There was a risk that I would spend most of my free time designing this package, but took the advice of Petty, G and decided to designate certain times towards completion. “A word of warning. In designing your own material for computers you must be careful not to get carried away, especially if you are a computer enthusiast.”
The handout advising to enlist the help of a student, proved to be beneficial. “Get your students to help you make the materials better.” Karl Royal (Handout) 01.
The fact the package was linked to a spreadsheet enabled me to teach a student while completing the package. This was extremely time efficient.
In my experience evaluation should rely less on participant self-reported attitudes, and more on observations of participants actions within learning contexts. So I have entered the recording of the package being used with the students. When asked how it could be improved MRS Ysaid “I would need to know MRS X’s questions” I agreed and said you can swap next week. MRS X said that “she didn’t realise at first the (:) put after the multiple choice was not part of the answers. This justified my omission of punctuation. In my opinion the older students seem cautious when giving answers. The same package was taped and used with younger students who answered questions without delay, this tape will be entered into my appendices. The methods Curzon uses for evaluation would be to establish and maintain quality. He suggests diagnosing student learning needs and problems. It should be based on the learning process. Curzon, L.B. (1990) p321.
Since the students used the package they have progressed to creating a calendar and used the keystrokes learned. A colleague evaluated the calendar and I will enter the evaluation into my appendices. The male student who helped with the package, who is also over 60 years of age has shown the most progress. He said that he could use it as a revision tool. The package will not date because these features are always going to be prevalent.
The aim of the learning package was to provide computer experience in a non-threatening environment, and I believe this was achieved. The overall outcome was that the student’s have gained a range of useful keystrokes to be used with Microsoft Excel along with their screen readers. This was achieved due to the fact they were able to answer all the test questions correctly. This was accomplished by providing the students with a demonstration on cassette, while they worked with a compact disk. “The computer students will benefit from seeing demonstrations of practical uses of the application they are learning, or learning some general background to the equipment they are using.”
Petty, G 1990 p141
They worked together, one at the computer, while one controlled the tape recorder, exchanging at an appropriate point in time.
The student’s chose the form of assessment method, as I believe teachers should be unbiased. The student’s needs were taken into consideration including cultural, linguistic, socio-economic and educational, this was established through dialogue. During the design and delivery I took into consideration a wide range of learning theories. The student’s who used the package evaluated the package . The final part of the assignment dealt with production issues along with financial cost in time as well has material.
We need to take a more formative approach to the evaluation of technology because of the rate of change in technologies. It is important that the students I teach receive information in a way that is accessible to them. We all know information helps all of us to make decisions and lead independent lives. According to the R.N.I.B it is the law. We now have a legal obligation, following the implementation of section 21 of the Disability Discrimination Act. To make reasonable adjustments to ensure blind and partially sighted people can access services. The contacts below will provide information on resources for people who are visually impaired in the Wolverhampton area. In addition you can visit the web site for a comprehensive list of resources click the link to visit Lenny McHugh.
| www.lennymchugh.com |
| smithg17@sky.com |