Tech-savvy blind students see their way through e-classes Times of India 19-09-2020
Nitasha Natu & Vinamrata Borwankar TNN Mumbai: At 10am every day, 13-yearold Savit Sodani turns on his laptop, plugs in his earphones and navigates to his online classroom on Zoom. He runs his fingers across a tactile map of Asia and marks out countries during geography class and uses a software to solve equations when the teacher teaches math. At the end of the week, he submits his weekly assessments on Google Forms before helping his mother, Sheetal, with household chores. Visually challenged since birth, tech-savvy Savit has managed the transition from a physical classroom to a virtual one with very few hiccups. Technology training has helped several visually challenged students ace online learning during the coronavirus-induced lockdown. Many of these students had long been using laptops or smartphones equipped with screen-reading softwares. Schools and colleges too have chipped in wholeheartedly during the lockdown—from ferrying gadgets to students stranded in their hometowns to offering tips to teachers on making online classrooms more friendly for such students. “Despite challenges of online learning if institutes take the onus and all stakeholders get involved, inclusion is possible. In fact, there are examples that it benefits students with disabilities as well,” said Neha Trivedi, project consultant at the Xavier’s Resource Centre for Visually Challenged (XRCVC). Besides providing e-books, audio files and tactile graphics to students, the institute has coached teachers from mainstream schools outside their campus. So, if a video presentation is being made in an online classroom, the teacher describes the content out loud so that visually challenged students can hear and understand. Roshni Patra, a class X student from a Kalyan school whose teachers were coached by XRCVC, aims to give her SSC exams on her laptop. The teenager believes that visually challenged students who aren’t well-versed in technology would not be able to make a smooth switch from offline to online learning. “Students with disabilities want to be independent,” said Anna Nikalje, principal of Wilson College, which has 27 visually impaired students. “We started training students on how to use Google classrooms and Zoom platforms as early as April. When lectures started in August, students were not caught unawares.” The college had given guidelines to teachers on developing accessible e-content for visually challenged students. “Basic modification is required while designing content like avoiding images as screen-reading softwares can’t read them. If inserting an image is a must, then there has to be a detailed caption along with it,” said Dr Biraj Mehta, convenor, Andrew’s Vision Centre at Wilson College. The college’s student volunteer programme has been a huge help for students like Shravani Pawar, who is stranded in her hometown in Sangli with electricity disruption issues. Whenever the FYBA student has missed an online class, a student volunteer has coached her over the phone. Visually challenged students have also been exploring the internet for apps that can offer assistance. “Previously, I would buy textbooks and get them audio recorded. That wasn’t possible in the lockdown. We have been using screen-reading apps on our phones to read PDF versions of textbooks. But the automated voice in the app pronounces words differently and we are still getting used to it,” said Umer Khan, a TYBCom student of RA Podar College, who is attending online classes from his hometown in Jalgaon. Jitendra Gupta, a final-year student of Bachelor in Social Work at Nirmala Niketan College, said, “Even before the lockdown, we used technology to help us read and write. So, the transition to online classes has been easy.” Visually challenged Roshni Patra attends an online class of her Kalyan school -- Disclaimer: 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent through this mailing list.. Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/accessindia@accessindia.org.in/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "AccessIndia" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to accessindia+unsubscr...@accessindia.org.in. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/accessindia.org.in/d/msgid/accessindia/CADetga_cRqV71utUz6ezmNxETtutKqXTWA1mREUn36YFH%2Bg1oA%40mail.gmail.com.
