Aaron's Blog (Valiant8086.com)

Originally written around 2006 to 2008 for my earlier site, aarontech.randylaptop.com. The exact date wasn’t kept.

General tips for students’ benefit

Navigation in the building and classroom.

Find out if the student is sensitive to noise.

Individuals who are blind rely on sound for navigation and understanding the environment they are in. For example, walking into Brown hall, this is an audio map of what a blind person might hear.

Once you walk through the doors, you are assaulted by the sound of voices coming from your left. Straight in front of you, you can hear someone rehearsing in 129, but the sound appears louder from diagonally to the right, so you are aware that the door is open and that there is a wall in front of you.

As you take your first two steps, the sound opens up on your right, so you are aware of an opening off that way, realizing that it is a stairway going up as someone walks down.

Turning left, you wade into the sea of people, dodging bodies and backpacks and instrument cases. the sound of people talking bounces off the walls on your left and right, and when the echo changes you turn left.

The echo changes so you know you’re at the stairwell so you turn left again and enter it.

Logic states that the stairs going up, which you are looking for, would be on the right hand side, so you move that way narrowly avoiding a stream of people just leaving a class.

Walking up the stairs is easy because you find the railing, and follow it.

as you finish walking up the stairs, you hear the opening to the left so you are aware of the doorway, but as you step to the left to go through, you step in a bucket placed there to catch water from a leaky roof.

this can be difficult in music classes sometimes because there sometimes is a sound overload which will confuse the student. It will lead to frustration. If the student is more sensitive, getting ear plugs can help. Also, show them a way to get away from speakers, trumpet players, or whatever the source of the overload is.

Keep in mind that sensitivity to sound can vary, and the way people cope will be different.

Now, what was that about the bucket?

consistency within the classroom.

That bucket that I mentioned in the audio map above is one example of what can happen due to unexpected change. Almost as a rule, band rooms change configuration regularly, and obstacles are constantly shifting (especially in percussion). My suggestion is, don’t move things if at all possible, and if it is necessary, let the student know ahead of time.

This tendency towards consistency has sometimes lead people to believe that visual impairment is linked to autism.

However, think of it as though you drive the same way to work or school every day. For three years it’s the same, then one day, there’s a detour.

Now, after you get used to the detour you end up in some strange parallel universe and all the roads and directions are scrambled. Are you frustrated yet?

teaching tips

lecture time, or not playing time

When at the board, avoid the following phrases.

• Who can tell me what this is?
• It’s over there.
• Teacher: Could you go get that blue thing?
  
  Student: what blue thing?
  
  teacher: That one over there.

If you think about it, the reason why those are bad things to say are obvious, so let’s move on.

describing what you are writing

Say what you are writing on the board. Also, some students who are blind may be visual/tactual learners, so maybe give them a large print or Braille handout as the situation warrants.

playing time

In a general music setting, always either walk the student or have a student take them to their instrument if the layout has changed. Otherwise, after a few times, they should be able to get the hang of the route themselves.

If they are playing an orf instrument, during the younger years, take off the unused bars, but as they grow older and become familiar with the instrument, it’s my opinion that removing the bars is detrimental to performance enhancement, especially when it’s not necessary for the other students to do the same.

Model hand-over-hand for mallet grip, and model what they will play. Also, try and get resources to get Braille music as soon as possible so they can read along.

assignments

Don’t grade any differently because of visual impairment, but be flexible for certain situations. For example:

• At a young age, the student will probably be writing most of his/her assignments in Braille. Therefore, the student will need to get it ink printed, or translated by hand into print so that the teacher may read it.
• If the student does complete the assignment on a notetaker, they may not always have time to print it out right away that morning as most notetakers don’t have standard printer plugs and therefore they print things out at school.
• If the project requires research.

research

In a public school it isn’t as difficult, but it is still an issue that researching a topic takes a lot longer for a visually impaired student. There are two main reasons why this is the case.

1. the student takes longer to read Braille or large print (this is often the case).
2. If the student has a reader, the reader may not know enough about the subject matter and/or the assignment to adequately help the student.

sometimes the amount of time researching the subject is so much more involved than the teacher expects for the assignment, and perhaps that the point of the assignment could get done a different way, such as working with a partner, or if that’s not an option, as an alternative assignment that is less a lesson on research skills and more on the subject matter.

social behavior

A lot of social interaction is visual, and sometimes a student who is visually impaired may not pick up on a social cue. If an inappropriate behavior occurs, make sure to address it privately with the student.

interactions between students

Younger students will often make fun of things they don’t understand or things that are different, so the best way to avoid this is to inform the class, with the student’s permission, about the disability. Also, any adaptations or modifications that are made, try not to make so obviously to the rest of the class.

With older students, they tend to ignore what they don’t understand or what is different. This can result in deeper problems as the student becomes a teenager, studies, which I was unable to see completely, showed that teenagers who were blind had a higher risk of emotional disorders. Take this scenario for example.

It’s Friday night. Adam is blind and has very few sighted friends. As he leaves school on the special bus that drives him home, which is outside the district and 30 miles away, he thinks about what he’s going to do tonight.

Adam is a Junior in high school and all the people he knows have their license, so he figures he might try asking someone to do something.

He looks up his acquaintance John Smith in the school directory, and dials the number.

“Hey, John, want to hang out?”

“Yo, hey Adam, Sure, can you meet me up by school?”

“Umm, no, my parents are gone and I don’t have a ride, can you pick me up?”

“Uhh… You live far away, right?”

“Not that far, just half an hour.”

“Ahh, sorry dude, it’s too far.”

Now after it is repeated several times, Adam will feel awkward about asking people to do things, and eventually, he will just stop.

So, as an educator, how can you enter into the students’ social lives and try and correct this?

well, the thing that comes to mind is to really just work a lot on group projects. After all, an ensemble is a team and to work well together we should all know each other, right?

Just put the students in a situation where they need to interact in the classroom and they will transfer it out of the classroom, hopefully.

materials a visually impaired student might have

a student who is totally blind or has no usable vision

A person who is completely blind will often have the following materials/aids in the classroom.

• a cane.
• Notetaker, Braille writer, or a computer
• Braille books

the cane

the cane is what most students who are blind will use for navigation. DO NOT move or tamper with it without the student’s permission. And no, it’s not called a stick or rod.

Notetaker, braillewriter, or computer

The notetaker is basically a word processor and nothing more. The student will either use speech or a Braille display to read and edit work. A good way to compare it to something familiar is to a palm pilot.

The braillewriter is what most younger students will use. It is basically a typewriter, and It uses special heavy paper. It’s also not very quiet.

With the new technology of this era, it’s most likely that students will just bring a laptop that has a screen reader on it to take notes and do in-class assignments.

Braille books

Braille books are huge, especially textbooks. One of two things will happen. either the book will be stored in the resource room, or they will be stored in the classroom.

Personally, I preferred my books in the classroom because when I needed to switch volumes I didn’t have to go back to another room to go find it. Just to put it in perspective, the average textbook will have anywhere from five to forty volumes, and the Braille to print ratio is about three to one, so three Braille pages is approximately one page of print.

A partial, or a student who has some usable vision

They may use the following within the classroom depending on level of vision.

• large print textbooks
• Monocular
• CC-TV

large print books

These books are not as cumbersome as Braille books, but they are larger and often will come in several volumes. It is beneficial to keep the book in the classroom as well.

Monocular

This is a device that is basically a binocular cut in half. they use it to focus on things more clearly, however it is recommended that they sit near the front so they can see the board.

CC-TV

This is basically a TV monitor with a magnifying glass attached. the student will use this to read handouts, books, or whatever they can put under it that needs reading. It allows them to change contrast, magnify, and focus on what they need to focus on.

Frequently asked questions

1. How many fingers am I holding up?
2. What can you see?
3. Do you dream?
4. Do you dream in color?
5. Do you know sign language?
6. How do you do that when you’re blind?

other resources

Here are some links that will take you to some places that will help you find out more.

www.menvi.org: Music Education Network for the Visually impaired homepage
dancingdots.com: where you can find out more about Braille music.
www.nfb.org: National Federation for the blind

note: NFB material I personally don’t find the best, but some people think that the NFB way is the only way. Some stuff is good, some isn’t, so just close your eyes and see if it’s something you would like.
www.acb.org: American council of the blind
www.freedomscientific.com: Freedom Scientifics’ homepage
www.humanware.com: Homepage of Human ware, another technology site.

Hopefully that got you started. I found a lot by just googling as well, but those are the main sites that you may want to visit. also feel free to email me if you have any questions.

This document was completed on Sonday, April 15, 2007 at 11:00 PM by Michael Grunze
Edited slightly by Aaron T. Spears on April 16, 2007 at 10:46 PM
You can visit us on the web at http://aarontech.randylaptop.com

Originally written around 2006 to 2008 for my earlier site, aarontech.randylaptop.com. The exact date wasn’t kept.

  Often people find themselves with a computer that’s locked up. Usually that person is busy trying to get some work done, and on a roll. At least until the computer suddenly grinds to a hault. Keystrokes usually don’t work, usually on Windows XP computers the mouse and other programs will still work, but the one you’re in is all messed up. In addition, you’re unable to get the program to close. I’m about to explain the windows task manager. The windows task manager gives you a friendly environment in which you have control over what programs run and what programs don’t. There are three ways to launch the task manager. The first way is to press [ctrl+alt+delete]. An alternative is to press [ctrl+shift+escape]. Still another choice is to type [windows key+r] then type in taskmgr before pressing [enter]. The windows task manager presents a multipaged dialogue. Across the top of the screen, just below the menu bar, are five different tabs. They say:

Applications, Processes, Performance, Networking, and Users.

Clicking applications will give you a list of currently running applications. These applications are usually in the alt+tab loop, which means they are currently running and are in the background somewhere, ready to be called to the foreground. The alt tab loop term refers to the fact that you can press and hold down [alt] then tap [tab] to flip amung the currently open applications. Next to each application’s name in the list is  displayed whether the application is “running” or “not responding” or some other type of status. Even if the application is locked up on you, but the task manager informs you that it’s running, the application could be processing some kind of code over and over or otherwise be stuck but still functioning. Obviously, the application manager wouldn’t realise that the application wasn’t functioning properly in that case.

  There are several different things you can do with the applications that show up in the list on the applications tab of the windows task manager. The most used command is the “end task” button. It’s placed near the bottom of the screen. Pressing this button will terminate the currently selected application in the “applications” list view. Having said that, to terminate a faulty application, select it, then pres the “end task” button. The easiest way for a blind person to do this is to arrow to the screwy application in the “application” list, then press [alt+e]. Remember, nothing says a sighted person can’t use these methods as well. To bring the selected task into the foreground so you can make use of it, activate the “switch to” button, which is located to the right of the “end task” button. Clicking the “new task” button, which is located to the right of the “switch to” button will pull up the run dialogue for you to type in the name of an application to launch.

  Another option you can use to do some interesting things to the applications in the “applications” list is to right click an application in the list. You get a menu of options that are similar to the below.

Switch To – (This closes the task manager, then brings the application you just right clicked to the foreground).

Bring To Front – (This brings the application you just right clicked to the foreground).

Minimize

Maximize

Cascade

Tile Horizontally

Tile Vertically

End Task  – (This terminates the application you just right clicked).

Go To Process – (This switches you to the processes tab in the windows task manager and selects the main executable for the application you just right clicked. For example, the main executable for Microsoft Office Word would be WINWORD.exe).

  The only other thing I want to mention before moving onto the “processes” tab is the status bar. At the bottom of the screen you’ll see something like this:

Processes: 35 CPU Usage: 100% Commit Charge: 283M / 1717M.

This is a handy dandy way to see how loaded down with work your computer is at the moment. As you can see, my 1.8 ghz processor was running at it’s maximum when I grabbed a screen shot at my status bar. The “Processes: 35” part of the status bar tells you how many processes my computer is running. It counts the ones that are running in the foreground and in my alt+tab loop, as well as programs that are running in my system tray and processes that are just running in the background. A good example of a background process is wltray.exe which is the windows program that worries about wireless networking for you. As you can tell, I have 35 processes running. It’s common to have about 40 or so. I’d say anywhere from 16 to 50. Now you know, if you didn’t already, that even though there may seam only to be three programs running, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office Word, and Microsoft Office Outlook, there are other smaller programs running in the background at the same time. The “CPU Usage: 100%” part informs you how much of your processor is being used at the moment. The “Commit Charge: 283M / 1717M” part tells you how many mhz (Megaherts) are being used compared to how many you have available. For some people the second number that takes the place of my “/1717m” will change, because some processors change their top speed to match the current needs, in an attempt to save battery life.

  Ok, now let’s explore the “processes” tab. Click the tab at the top of your screen while in the task manager or press ctrl+tab to flip to it. Every currently running process will pop up on screen. Some of them may look similar to the names of programs with which you are familiar. For example, iexplor.exe is Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Msnsgs.exe represents windows messenger, msim.exe represents outlook express, WINWORD.exe represents Microsoft Office Word. For the multiple listings of svchost.exe, that is a program that loads programs and runs them for windows. In general, svchost.exe needs to be left alone. If you want to know what a process listing stands for, point your browser at
http://processlibrary.com
and type in the name of the process into the edit field. Processlibrary will tell you what the process does, and what it does it for. In addition, it’ll tell you whether it’s malicious and whether it’s a good idea to terminate that particular process or not. I’ve never had processlibrary not be able to tell me what the processes I specified were for, it’s pretty good. Your options of things you can perform on processes is pretty much exactly the same as those that we mentioned earlier. We do have some more options, however. Right click a process, or arrow to it, and press applications key.

End Process – (This terminates the process).

End Process Tree

Debug

Set Priority – (This allows you to specify how much of it’s power the CPU allows the process you just right clicked).

/Clicking set priority presents you with the following menu.

  Realtime – (application gets as much as is available unless it doesn’t need it)

  High (Application gets a lot of priority).

  AboveNormal (You get the point).

  Normal

  BelowNormal

  and Low

Note to be careful with priority, setting  too many applications at too much priority may cause the CPU to get extra warm, or  may cause other processes to malfunction.

  Some final notes are advisable. First, if you minimise the task manager, it’ll follow you around as you do other things with the computer, staying visible. This allows a sighted person to watch how much effect the application they are using has on the CPU, but it prevents screen readers from functioning properly. If a blind person is reading this, they may wish to disable this feature. To do so, go to the options menu from within the task manager, and press enter on or click always on top to toggle it. Another useful note is the ability to change the speed at which the task manager updates the status that’s on screen. To change this, I recommend that you have it set to high, go to the view menu from within the task manager, click or press enter on update speed, and click or press enter on the speed you want. Note that some blind users may find themselves with a screen reader that insists on reading the status every time it changes, which will make it difficult to read the information they are looking for. For jaws users, this can be avoided, if you are effected by it, by pressing [insert+s] repeatedly if necessary until jaws says something like ‘none’. Another interesting feature of the task manager  is that if you close it by minimizing it or pressing escape while it is in focus, it will continue to run, but show it’s information in the system tray near the clock on your desktop. Jaws users should note that when the task manager shows itself in the system tray, the status doesn’t update when it changes when the system tray is brought up by jaws when you use the insert+f11 keystroke.

  The next tab, the performance tab, gives you detailed information about average usage of your pc’s resources over time. A blind user will need to use their jaws cursor or any other form of mouse navigation available to them if they wish to read this information manually.

  The next tab, the networking tab, contains information about the current networks which your pc has the ability to connect to. You can find out whether you are connectedd, what the speed is, and how much of the bandwidth is being utalised at this moment.

  The last tab is the users tab. Here, you can look at all the people logged on to your computer, and if you are an administrater, you can do things with those accounts. Right click a user account to be presented with a menu similar to this one.

Send Message… – (if available, this allows you to send a text message prompt to that user).

Connect – (If available, this allows you to connect to that user account and log on to it).

Disconnect – (If available, this allows you to disconnect from that account, but not to log off it).

Log Off – (If available, this allows you to log off the account).

Remote Control – (If available, this allows you to remotely control that account).

My favorite feature is the send message. I can send a message warning that user that I’m about ready to restart the computer, therefore, they must save all data and log off immediately.

This about wraps up my overview of the task manager. While probably not the best review of the task manager, I do hope it comes in useful to someone. I know for a fact that there is another review on the task manager done by The Smart Computing Magazine. Se http://www.smartcomputing.com

This document was completed on Tuesday, March 27, 2007 at 10:55 AM by Aaron T. Spears

You can visit us on the web at http://aarontech.randylaptop.com

Originally written around 2006 to 2008 for my earlier site, aarontech.randylaptop.com. The exact date wasn’t kept.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to type something like [ctrl+alt+w] to launch your favorite word processor, Microsoft Office Word, for instance. Sure, most keyboards have a few buttons that already do this, but how about making keystrokes for different programs. It’s pretty easy. Locate the icon you usually click to launch the program. Right click the icon and choose properties from the menu. Move over to the shortcut key field and press the keystroke you want to use to activate the program. Most [ctrl+alt], [ctrl+alt+shift], and [alt+shift] keystrokes work. Keep in mind that if a keystroke is already assigned to another program’s shortcut, it will launch that program when you type the keystroke, rather than place the keystroke into the shortcut key field. To enter a keystroke, [ctrl+alt+i] is my example, hold down ctrl and alt together, press the letter i, then release all 3 keys. You can assign a shortcut key to just about any shortcut. You could even create a new shortcut to your homepage and create a keystroke for that. To create a new shortcut, go to my computer. Go to the file menu, locate and choose new, then locate and choose shortcut. Type the location the shortcut refers to in the first field. If you want a website, just type it in the way you always have.

http://aarontech.randylaptop.com

For a folder on your hard drive, just type the path. For example,

c:documents and settingsyour user namemy documentsmy music.

If you specify a file at the end of your path, like this

c:documents and settingsyour user namemy documentsmy musicintro.mp3

the shortcut will actually launch that file. Once you get the shortcut doing what you want by clicking on it, then you’ll be able to right click it, go to properties, and enter a hotkey for it as I described above.

With the use of keystrokes, we can speed up our computing experience, make life easier, and reduce the strain on our mice. Of course if we don’t use mice in the first place that last one isn’t valid. I’m sure you got my point anyway. You’ll be able to amaze your coworkers and friends. You’ll be entering commands and getting things to happen so fast they’ll be like

  “How’d you do that?”

  “It’s a secret, of course.”

This document was completed on Thursday, March 08, 2007 at 07:59 AM by Aaron T. Spears

You can visit us on the web at http://aarontech.randylaptop.com