IT Initiative - Information Technology and the blind or visually impaired logo.
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National Federation of the Blind Chapter Home Page.

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Initiative Home

Students

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Teachers

Workshop Modules

  1. Information Technology Career Opportunities
  2. “Hands On” Beginner Programming
  3. Introduction to the Internet
  4. Email and Mailing Lists
  5. Information Resources of the Internet
  6. Computer Tools (Word, Excel)

 

Information Technology Initiative

 

A great article on why this initiative is so important "7 in 10 blind Americans unemployed, but technology opens workplace"

14.01.2008 Credit Suisse aims to become the most accessible bank in Switzerland. Therefore the bank is clearing obstacles: Steps are being removed from branch entrances, ATMs are getting a voice, and applications and web portals are being reprogrammed. Full article

Blind and visually impaired students need to be competitive for job and career opportunities. The technology in the past five years now allows the blind/VI student to be competitive. Yet, as the article above states, "7 of 10 of the blind and visually impaired persons are not employed". There needs to be an increased emphasis in the school systems to ensure that these students are thoroughly trained in the use of the latest assistive technology and with the programs and applications available on the PC and Internet. This includes:

  • Word processors and spreadsheets
  • Email and collaborative applications
  • Search engines and mailing list for research
  • Assisting students in deciding career options by supporting this effort with training in the needed assistive hardware/software that will be needed for the professions.

The Information Technology Initiative is an effort by the East Hillsborough Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind of Florida to encourage and promote an emphasis on training the blind and visually impaired students in Information Technology.

The goal of the initiative are for each student to Increase the college or technical school entrance and employment of the blind and visually impaired.

This website will document the efforts of the initiative to be used as a template for other chapters and school systems. All the resources that were reference and used are either documented in this site or have links to them. The "workshop Modules" are classroom scripts used at each of the sessions.

Background material for the "Information Technology Accessibility and Training of the Blind/VI Student" presentation to the Hillsborough County School District.

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