Blind Students Demand Access to Online Course Materials - Technology - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Photographs by David Wallace for The Chronicle

Readers,

This semester has been a wonderful challenge because I have had to learn various modifications for several students with visual and hearing abilities. As a result, challenge enabled me to learn new teaching methods in my face-to-face class (which I am VERY happy about).

However, the online classroom presents college faculty with another challenge. I do not think that I am equipped or trained to teach visually-impaired students online. Moreover, I wonder how disability services offices will provide modifications for students with various levels of visual and hearing abilities.

Here's an article from the Chronicle of Higher Education (released last night) focused on blind students in the online higher education classroom - Blind Students Demand Access to Online Course Materials - Technology - The Chronicle of Higher Education

In addition to the article listed above, the Chronicle of Higher Education also published an article titled - The Best and Worst Web Sites for Blind Students.

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

College Students with Learning Disabilities

One of my favorite people on campus is the Director of Disability Services. Through her position, she helps students with physical, psychological, or learning disabilities. This position is vital on our campus, because it seems that more of the students from the millennial generation arrive in the college environment with learning disabilities that were diagnosed from high school.

Every year, I remind the students in my classes to tell disability services if they had a diagnosed learning disability from high school. However, some students choose not to have their learning disability on file with the university.

This is unfortunate, because disability services can make slight or significant accomodations for students with a diagnosed learning disability (i.e. - a text to voice reader, more test time. In fact, on September 17th, NPR Education wrote an article titled "10 Tips for College Students with Disabilities". This article focuses on a book by clinical psychologist and author Kathleen G. Nadeau entitled "Survival Guide for College Students". In her book, she reported that college students with learning disabilities should develop learning and organization strategies as a coping mechanism.

Please read the article here - 10 Tips for College Students with Disabilities.

Sincerely,

Millennial Professor/Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards