EATT
Equal Access to Technology Training
A project aimed at increasing computer literacy among people with vision impairments.
EATT is part funded under the
EU Leonardo da Vinci Programme
Download PDF version for printing (136KB)
A Braille printer version is available on request from your local EATT partner.
Download MP3 audio file for student (sKB)
Teachers can give this MP3 audio file or transfer it to CD for the student to listen to at home. For students who do not have access to a CD player or MP3 player, an audio cassette version is also available. Contact your local EATT partner.
Summer 2003 - In the year 2000, five organizations working with blind and partially sighted people in Europe began a project partly funded by the European Union's Leonardo da Vinci programme. The project was called Equal Access to Technology Training (EATT).
The use of computer technology has been increasing in everyday life for many people in the sighted community, both at home and at work. Now with the development of assistive software, such as screen-readers and magnifiers, Windows-based PCs and the most popular applications are becoming increasingly available to people with vision impairments.
Research has established the need to promote computer literacy among people with vision impairments, especially among those aged 35 and over. EATT aims to help meet that need.
The EATT project set a number of goals. One of them was to develop and pilot an Introductory IT Course for people with vision impairments. This Teacher's Book is part of the course material for use with the JAWS screen-reader.
While well-structured books, audio material and discussion web sites are all useful training tools, they are not enough to train people with vision impairment. The most effect way is through face-to-face interaction between motivated students and teachers who are experienced in working with the vision impaired and who can operate assistive software.
Consider this material as an agenda for a series of meetings between students and teachers. The items listed in the agendas constitute what we think are minimum skills for a user to be able to communicate using a PC and assistive software.
We hope that in time many other vision impaired students in different countries will benefit from this course.
The overall aim of the EATT project is to make it possible for participating students to become computer literate, even if they have little or no vision and even if they have never worked with computers before.
One of the aims of this project is to produce an IT course for people with vision impairments aged over 35, motivating and enabling them to use a PC at a basic level using assistive software. The content and structure of the course is based on the experience gained from a pilot project which was run in autumn 2002.
People with vision impairments in Ireland, the UK, Italy, France and Denmark took part in piloting the first edition of this course. After attending the course, students were asked what they thought of it. Replies to this survey showed that the participants
One of the students was happy that she could help with her child's schoolwork again. Another student wrote: "I never thought it was possible to learn - but it was".
We recommend you form small classes of two or three people. Students with the same assistive software - JAWS or ZoomText - should work together.
Being part of a class stimulates and motivates the participants and it's possible to create real communication among the group by having students send each other letters and e-mails.
The course is comprised of eight sessions. Each session is planned as follows:
The class should meet once a week. It's important that students can revise between sessions either at home or at the training centre. For those students who have access to PCs at home, the software and the PC configuration should be as close to the one used in class as possible.
The course is divided into two parts, each consisting of four sessions.
This is the motivating part, the "see what you can do" part. The aim is to show the students that they can communicate using a PC with assistive software despite vision impairment. Part 1 deals with the following items:
The students are not expected to be able to master specific topics after each session. Success and motivation are keywords in this part of the course.
The experience of people with vision impairments who have taken part in other IT courses sometimes shows that teachers tend to rush through the material. This can leave the students more or less helpless after the course finishes.
Teaching people with vision impairments involves
This is a more thorough investigation of the assistive software and the PC in general. The aim of Part 2 is to get the students to a point where they can use JAWS to work on their own and to qualify them for further IT training.
Students are required to master the keyboard before taking Part 2 of the course.
There are two different ways of passing user instructions to a PC without the aid of a mouse:
In this course we want the students to be able to carry out some basic tasks on the computer as soon as possible. Therefore, Part 1 introduces a few keyboard shortcuts for opening and closing programs, printing documents and so on.
In Part 2, however, it's important for students to be able to perform tasks using menus. This gives them an understanding of Windows applications as a set of choices that they can make. It also allows them to investigate the program even if they have forgotten the shortcut.
The use of shortcuts is a compromise in order not to scare people from the very start. Once they have the motivation and the courage - which in the pilot project happened during Part 1 - the understanding part can be introduced
In deciding the level of this course we have borne in mind the findings of the pilot project.
The course explains what it takes to manage a PC as a minimum. It deals with the basic skills needed to communicate using a word processor and e-mail and to seek information on a PC. It also outlines the basics of the JAWS screen-reader.
Although software is constantly evolving, we believe this course will prove useful, no matter what new software versions emerge in the future.
The overall aims of the course are to
Touch typing is a great advantage for all people with vision impairments wanting to use a PC. For people who are blind or have low-vision is essential.
Since JAWS requires all user actions to be done via the keyboard, mastering the keyboard is an essential item in this course.
If a student has not mastered the keyboard after Part 1, we recommend that they take a touch typing course before proceeding to Part 2.
The Introductory IT Course comprises one set of materials for ZoomText users and another for JAWS users.
Each set is divided into teacher's book and student's book.
This is a description of expected aims and outcomes for the students for each session. In addition, we make some suggestions for methods and materials that you can use. You may choose to change the sequence of the sessions according to the needs of your class.
This describes the content of each session from a student's point of view. It describes the topics to be covered in each session and includes an exercises section where the students can practise their newly acquired skills on their own. Each session ends with a frequently asked questions (FAQs) section on the material just covered.
The book is available for printing for the same reason as a blind person still uses a PC monitor.
Many students will have sighted friends or family members who may be able to help them at home if they get into difficulties. They'll be more likely to help if they can see the course in printed format.
The JAWS Student Book Part 1 is available in audio format at http://www.eatt.org. It can be downloaded and copied to CDs for the students. We expect the audio material to be the students' most useful tool when working alone.
Invite the students for a chat before the course starts. During the pilot course, teachers took time to meet with each student a few days before the course started. Details gleaned from those conversations helped make the course as personal as possible.
A pre-course interview allows you to estimate the participant's
The interview also allows you to tell the student about the course and to help demystify the PC.
The following is a list of topics that you should try to touch on during the interview. Don't ask each question as if you were ticking off items on a list. Try to keep the atmosphere informal and relaxed.
The more recent versions of Microsoft Windows and Office allow for "personalized" menus that only display basic and frequently used options. This can be an advantage for sighted users, but for people with vision impairments it can be confusing. We suggest that you configure Windows and Office to display complete menus all the time.
Session 1 focuses on the basic components of the computer and how to turn it on and off.
It's an opportunity for the students to become familiar with their machines. Some may even be a little of afraid of them. Remember, students' backgrounds can vary a lot. Some may have seen computer screens earlier in their lives; others may be completely unfamiliar with a Windows interface. Even getting used to the JAWS synthesized speech can take time.
You should also allow lots of time for practising keystrokes and keyboard shortcuts.
If you are a sighted person teaching JAWS try switching off the monitor and using the screen-reader alone. This is an excellent way of preparing lessons.
The objectives of session 1 are as follows:
To introduce
To explain
To show how to
To show how to
Here are some suggestions for how you can teach this session.
In this session we show how to reboot the machine. All users get confused when their PC crashes or hangs, so it's important to give the students the tools to solve this problem should it occur at home. Spending time in recognising the sounds from the machine is useful when the students are doing a restart.
Session 2 also covers
The objectives of session 2 are as follows:
To explain
To enable the students to find the position of the following keys and remember their names:
To show the students how to
Here are some suggestions for how you can teach this session.
Let the students try a regular reboot from the start menu. Also, try to provoke a crash. Teach the students to escape the Scandisk program if it starts running.
Have the students select Start - Programs - Accessories - Notepad.
The important thing is for the students to start the program. You can close it for them if necessary.
Work with JAWS Keyboard Help as in session 1.
Consider whether games might be useful to the students.
We leave it up to you to decide which e-mail program to use. You might use web mail or an e-mail application such as Microsoft Outlook. Choose the one you find easiest to work with. We suggest Outlook Express as you can simplify its layout.
Here's one way of teaching the e-mail topic:
10) Analyse an e-mail address, for example somebody@somewhere.com
Start with reading by means of the arrow keys. Later you can progress to the numeric keypad.
Create a Word document, such as a short letter to the students.
Open it in Word and let the students read it.
This session introduces word processing and explains how to use JAWS to read the title and menu bars in a program.
Give the students lots of time and lots of help. Don't expect them to be able to master any of the skills in this session.
In most cases, you will probably have to close and save documents for the students, but if they are interested in doing it themselves, show them the appropriate keyboard shortcuts and leave the menu selections to Part 2.
The objectives of session 3 are as follows:
To explain
To explain
To show how to
To show how to
Here are some suggestions for how you can teach this session.
Ensure that that there is keyboard shortcut to Word - Ctrl + Alt + W - before the session.
Being able to find the title bar in different windows is essential for all JAWS users. This tells them what application is in focus at a given time.
Have the students try to read the title bars in Word and other programs such as Notepad.
Have the students shift focus to the Word menu bar using the Alt key. Let them move from menu to menu using the left and right arrows and down through each menu using the up and down arrows.
Let the students play around with Word. For new JAWS users, the idea of the text cursor can seem rather abstract. Give them time to move the cursor one letter at a time.
Allow them to practise deleting and inserting new text. Using magnetic letters on a metal board can help understand how corrections really occur on the screen.
The aim of this session is to demonstrate the possibilities of the Internet. The detailed knowledge needed to actually use the Internet will be provided in Part 2.
Part 1 will deal with how to open and read a web page. Doing a web search is more complicated and is best suited for demonstration only.
The objectives of session 4 are as follows:
To focus on useful web browser keyboard shortcuts, such as:
To show how to
It is difficult to specify an exact plan for this session, as the personalities and interests in the group will dictate a lot of what you cover. Here are a few ideas.
The following is a list of the most important keystrokes and keyboard shortcuts in some of the main programs that the student will be using.
A complete list of keyboard shortcuts is available in the Help for the various programs.
Display the Start Menu: Windows logo key or Ctrl + Esc
Close the Start menu: Esc
Close a program: Alt + F4
Focus on the menu bar in a program: Alt
Exit the menu bar: Esc
Create a new paragraph in a document: Enter
Insert space between letters and words: Spacebar
Move cursor in document: Arrow keys
Delete text: Backspace
Print document: Ctrl + P
Go to the address field: F6 or Alt + D
Go to the previous page: Alt + left arrow
Go to the next page: Alt + right arrow
Start JAWS: Ctrl + Alt + J
Stop JAWS: Insert + F4
Interrupt JAWS: Ctrl
Launch JAWS Keyboard Help: Insert + 1
Read the title bar of a program: Insert + T
