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 (117KB)
A Braille printer version is available on request from your local EATT partner.
Download mini web site for Session 4 (7KB)
The second half of the Introductory IT Course is aimed at enabling the students to use the PC and a number of standard Windows applications with the help of JAWS.
It is important that the students understand that they can control the Windows interface using menus and not just with keyboard shortcuts. Once they understand menus, they will be able to transfer this knowledge from one program to another. In Part 2, you should teach the students how to use menus for executing commands in all programs before giving them the corresponding shortcuts.
This part of the course also introduces Online Help for Windows, standard applications and JAWS.
The goal of Part 2 is for the students to have mastered the skills being taught. After this, they're on their own.
We recommend that you use the following programs in Part 2:
The main theme of this session is using the Start menu, with particular emphasis on
The session also goes deeper into the following Windows interface elements:
After this session the students should be able to
Here are some suggestions for how you can teach this session.
Making things concrete is very important when teaching blind people. Think about how you can explain what a menu is and what it looks like on-screen.
The students need to realise that a menu is a list of options that they can choose from. They should also know what the different menu options actually mean.
Let the students check the title bar of the windows as often as possible. This will help them understand where they are working and what they are doing.
Give the students time to listen to what JAWS tells them when a program launches. Translate the information for them if they don't understand.
Clarify the difference between menus and shortcuts.
We recommend working with menus for the following reasons:
Allow time for working with the menu bar in Notepad and Word until the students fully understand what is happening. Make sure they know what the Alt + F4 shortcut does.
Place a short note to the students in the My Documents folder and demonstrate how to open it from the Start - Documents - My Documents submenu.
Explain what a list view is and show how to use it.
Explain how to find the start and end of the list using the Home and End buttons.
Again tactile models of the interface elements can be useful.
Start off by demonstrating a simple "Do you want to save changes" dialog box by trying to close an open document without saving it.
Have the students spend time navigating backwards and forwards between options in the dialog box using Shift + Tab and Tab. Have them find the title of the dialog.
Graduate to a more complicated dialog box, such as the Save As dialog in Word or Notepad. Explain the meaning of the different options.
Having JAWS repeat the content of a dialog box is important, especially for new users. Practise the Insert + B command regularly throughout Part 2.
During Part 2 the students should become familiar with the Online Help in different programs. Teach them how to navigate the Help interface.
The interface may vary according to your version of Windows. Prepare your lesson according to the version you and your students are using.
We suggest using the Index for searching the Help. Teach the students how to switch between the Contents and Index tabs
To switch between the navigation pane and the content pane in the Help window, press F6.
Mastering Windows Help takes some practice, so we suggest you return to it in each session.
E-mail is fast becoming the most common method of written communication, so it is important that the students know how to write, send and receive e-mails. They should also be able to open e-mail attachments.
Before you start teaching e-mail think about whether it would be easier for your students to use
For JAWS users we suggest using Outlook Express with the following simple configuration:
After this session the students should be able to
It is important to make sure that the students understand what's going on in the e-mail program. Go over the inbox and outbox system again if you need to.
You can e-mail the program for this session to the students. Send more than one mail. Attach files in some of the mails.
Show the students how to launch Outlook Express from the Start menu. Explain what JAWS is reading to the student as the program launches.
Let the students
Let the students open and close the program and practise switching between the folders list and the message list until they understand the layout of the window.
Let the students start reading the mails using the arrow keys.
Have the students practise moving between the header fields - To, CC, etc - using Tab and Shift + Tab.
Make sure they know the meaning of
Have the students create a message from the File menu and e-mail it to you via your local area network. Reply to the e-mails.
Let the students e-mail each other.
When the students feel comfortable with sending and opening mail, you can move to another room. Conduct an e-mail conversation with them while you are in separate locations.
Give a concrete example of an e-mail attachment, such as someone e-mailing a meeting notification and attaching the agenda.
Note how JAWS informs you that a message includes an attachment.
The aim in this session is for the students to be able to use Word and save and open files.
The Save As and Open dialog boxes can be confusing for blind people, so we advise you to
After this session the students should be able to
Here are some suggestions for how you can teach this session.
Try to keep things simple at the start. Recommend that the students have only one document open at a time.
Have the students study the different information they receive from JAWS when Word has a document open and when it doesn't.
The Save As dialog box is important. Have the students listen carefully to what JAWS tells them about it.
Define the following interface elements:
If the students have never seen a Windows interface, books with tactile models are available at http://www.rnib.org.uk/pubcat/section5.htm#P904_31443
You could also make your own model of the Save As dialog box using tactile materials.
The process is described in details in the Student Book. Create a number of documents and ask the students to save them. They should check the title bar in Word before and after saving documents.
The Open dialog box contains many of the same interface elements as the Save As dialog.
Since the students will be using the list view for the first time, we recommend that the files are displayed as a simple list - as opposed to thumbnails, details or properties
Create some files and add them to the students' My Documents folders before the session. This way the students will have a number of files to choose from.
Have the students practise the Ctrl Home and Ctrl End commands in a number of different documents.
Many experienced JAWS users find the numeric keypad the most efficient way to read and navigate documents.
Be sure to tell your students to turn off the Num Lock key.
Have them start JAWS Keyboard Help and practise the following key strokes:
Being able to use the Online Help is a useful skill when working alone. Revise how to use the Help for Word and JAWS.
Demonstrate how you can use a scanner and optical character recognition (OCR) software to scan a printed document and import the text into Word.
In Part 1 of this course we explained the basics of the Internet. Now we want the students to get some hands-on experience of actually working with web pages.
Most of the student material for this session is in the form of a mini web site, which we provide on the course CD and on the www.eatt.org web site.
The site consists of a home page, a contents page, and a series of pages each dealing with a different aspect of the Web.
The aim of providing the instructional material in HTML format is to enable the students to practise using a browser on a local web site without them getting lost on the Web.
You can copy the HTML files to the students' machines before the session starts or you can put them on a floppy disk and have them copy the files over themselves. Using a floppy will allow the students to practise at home, although you will need to show them how to copy the files across. Judge the most appropriate method of delivering the files for your class.
The home page of the web site is index.htm.
After this session the students should be able to
You can edit the HTML pages to make them more specific to your group, for example
