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Computer Technology Center
Intermediate Course
Once blind or visually impaired people complete our evaluation and beginner courses, they have the option of immersing themselves even further into computers by taking our five-week Intermediate Course. Here is what we cover.
Reading the Printed Page
So far, we have spent time teaching students how to read the print that is on their monitor screen by using either speech output or screen magnification. However, many blind people want to learn not only how to read the screen but they also want to be able to read material on the printed page. We'll start this intermediate course by spending a considerable amount of time using a scanner, which takes print words on a page and converts them into speech. This will allow blind people to independently read their mail, the latest bestseller or printed documents they may receive at the workplace. We'll talk about how a scanner actually works and how to read printed material using freedom Scientific's OpenBook scanning and reading software.
OpenBook can not only speak printed text that you have scanned; it can also enlarge the text for people who have low vision and the spacing between words and lines can be adjusted. We'll teach the student how to take a document that has been scanned and how to save that document to the computer's disk drive, making it available to read anytime. We'll show the student how to handle documents which might be printed in either a light or dark background and even how to spell check the document. Words can easily be looked up with OpenBook's built-in dictionary and thesaurus.
Exploring your Computer with Windows Explorer
Computers have lots of files and documents stored on them, and these files are all stored in folders and even in sub-folders. We'll take the mystery out of how this is done by explaining how to navigate your various folders by using the windows Explorer program. Then, we will spend time on how to move a file from one folder to another and how to delete files you no longer need.
Clean Up the Trash!!
Just because you erase a document doesn't mean it's really gone for good. It's probably just sitting in the windows Recycle Bin. We'll explain how this feature works and how to "undelete" files you may have accidentally tossed in this electronic wastebasket.
Find it Fast!
As you use a computer more and more, your disk drive is going to keep adding more and more documents. It's one thing to store all of your valuable files into folders, but it's another thing to actually find the exact document you're looking for. We'll teach students how to use the windows Find Dialog to search for a specific document. We'll also show them how to search for specific documents with specific keywords.
I Need Help!
The best teachers certainly can't explain everything there is to know about how to use a computer. Even if we could make such a guarantee, sometimes a computer user might run into some trouble that they need assistance solving. We'll spend time on how to use the Windows Help system to get more information about Microsoft Windows. Next, we'll explore the help system for the screen reader or magnifier being used. It's important to know how to read help topics and how to perform searches on specific phrases. Knowing how to do this can make it easier for students to learn more about using the computer on their own.
What is a Spreadsheet?
We'll explain the concept of a spreadsheet and how they can be useful. We will give the students a quick tour through Microsoft Excel, a popular program for managing spreadsheets.
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