Thanks all. So, to narrow the focus a bit, is it worth upgrading specifically for working with Pages, Finder, and Safari? She is about twelve years old now, and I have no idea if her vision will remain constant, or what she will focus on as far as computers growing up. Given that, I have to restrict my advice to her TVI to just the current situation, namely a 2009 or 2010 Macbook whose most-used apps are Safari, Pages, and Finder.
I see your points about learning the latest OS for future use, and i totally agree. If this were my client, I'd upgrade immediately and start teaching as much VO as she'd let me, but the only thing I can do is advice her TVI. It's a bit of a complicated situation, and I wish I had more say in it, but there it is. On Mar 28, 2014, at 3:08 PM, Eugenia Firth <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi there > I occasionally teach adults computers. I did it as one of those "duties as > assigned" before I retired and started my current business. I also do some on > a voluntary basis, having started a VoiceOver special interest group with the > Apple Corps of Dallas. > > I can't tell you the number of totally blind adults I have met who started > out as partially sighted. That statement applies to my best childhood friend > and several others I know now. > > I try to encourage any low vision person I help with computers to learn the > speech use so that they know it if and when they need it. I found that some > people accept that suggestion, and some don't. Recently, I was having a > conversation with some adults who learned their blindness skills back in the > days when many partially sighted children learned braille etc. when nowadays > they would be taught to rely on their eyes. One of the ladies has kept her > vision, and the other is now totally blind and using braille all the time. > Both ladies said they were glad they learned like that as children. > > To get back on the topic at hand, I gather from what you are saying that this > is a child. If so, you may be able to convince her to learn this, if for no > other reason than she can show it off to the other kids. > As for upgrading, I don't think there are enough differences to cause her a > lot of grief unless the computer is barely able to be upgraded because of its > age or memory. It's not like Apple rewrote the whole system. Besides, like it > was said before, should her family get her a Mac, it will be under the newest > version of the software. Then she can learn the new Pages. > > Regards, > Gigi > > On Mar 28, 2014, at 12:56 PM, Alex Hall <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I know. Unfortunately, it is a school Macbook, and even if it supports 10.9, >> the upgrade is controlled by the school. I could tell the TVI to suggest an >> upgrade, but the student is low-vision and only just getting used to using >> Voiceover. I'd hate to change the interface she is just starting to become >> familiar with and have her move backward. She will never need to be a VO >> power user; she uses it more as a crutch when print is too small or she >> loses the mouse. She could be more efficient with it than she can with the >> vision she has, but making her see that isn't my job. :D So unless there are >> big advantages to upgrading in terms of low vision/VO (and there may well be >> - I only really started using a Mac with 10.8) upgrading might hurt at this >> point. Then again, it might be a great idea which should really help, I >> really don't know. Any thoughts on this? >> On Mar 28, 2014, at 1:40 PM, Anne Robertson <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Why is the student using 10.6.8? Snow Leopard really is going back a bit in >>> terms of accessibility. >>> >>> Cheers, >>> >>> Anne >>> >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >>> "MacVisionaries" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >>> email to [email protected]. >>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> >> >> -- >> Have a great day, >> Alex Hall >> [email protected] >> >> >> >> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "MacVisionaries" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- Have a great day, Alex Hall [email protected] -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
