Hi Jean, I totally disagree. You can’t understand everything that your screen reader is doing for you unless you know how a sighted person uses the computer and all of their jargon. Also, sighted people are the majority, like it or not. You should want to relate to sighted people as well as you do with blind people and have your best friends be both. There are not two camps. I am blind, but I consider myself the same as a sighted person except I complete a task a different way. I enjoy the same hobbies as sighted people and I want to be as sighted as I can so I can have a great life in this world and to be able to witness to the sighted. Like it or not, the blind need to consider the sighted as the same people as a blind person. We just do things a little differently to get to the same task. Have a great one.
From: Jean Menzies Sent: Thursday, February 4, 2016 4:34 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Improving my teaching approach and/or sensitivity Hello Brian, You said: The point I was trying to get across, and it seems what I've said has had limited success in that department, is that any user of a computer had better understand how the general jargon of computer use relates to their actual technique of accomplishing a given action. My response: But why should I struggle to learn the intricacies of “sighted world jargon” such as mouse click vernacular when I don’t need to? Yes, I know how to use the Jaws left and right click simulations, and when and how I use them. But does it really matter that I understand the relationship to a real mouse? E.g., that left click is select, for instance? It sounds like an effort not toward computer literacy, but toward making the blind user fall more squarely into the sighted user camp. Yes, I understand computerese instructions I find on the Internet, and have no trouble using them. (except for when it tells me to click on things JAWS can’t find.) But that’s another story. I agree with the poster that a more appropriate use of language here would be to “select” something, etc. In other words, name the action/result, rather than referencing it through sighted jargon. Jean From: Brian Vogel Sent: Thursday, February 4, 2016 1:13 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Improving my teaching approach and/or sensitivity On Thu, Feb 4, 2016 at 12:10 pm, Soronel Haetir <[email protected]> wrote: Her blindness stemmed from an unformed visual cortex rather than anything actually wrong with her eyes. It turns out those same brain circuits are involved in picture development whether something is seen or not. So even the assumption that someone can relate to that sort of description is not necessarily well founded. Soronel, Which circles right back around to ground zero. I have definitely been trying to describe my "general client" without getting too bogged down in the idiosyncracies that can and do pop up as a direct result of an individual's sensory history. I actually do what you've mentioned as far as giving directions and, for instance, have never used the phrase, "swipe over that text to select it," because that method of selection means nothing, or virtually nothing, to anyone who has never been capable of using it and is of no help even to those who did and could, but aren't able to now. The point I was trying to get across, and it seems what I've said has had limited success in that department, is that any user of a computer had better understand how the general jargon of computer use relates to their actual technique of accomplishing a given action. I actively teach both, tying the two together. As far as my personal attempts to customize my instruction to a given client, I don't think I could make it any more clear than I have that I do, indeed, do this as a standard practice. It just goes with the territory. If ever, "one size fits all," were blatantly false it's in the case of one-on-one instruction for assistive technology of any variety. Brian
