[bcab] Re: software for students

Hello Mark
Unfortunately, she does not qualify for the usual grants that you mention, as the local authority expect the church to pick up the tab, and they are not being very forthcoming so far. So she will be limited to using her own funds unless the bishops etc come up with some package, - by the way she wants to become a Lady Vicar, or whatever the correct term is. 

cheers
Alan Michael Rayner
----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Faben" <mark.faben@xxxxxxxxx> 
To: <bcab@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2008 11:44 PM
Subject: [bcab] Re: software for students



HI,

What kind of course is this, and is it in the UK?: If its a education
authority type funded course, either furhter education or Higher
(university) education, then as a disabled student they should be
eligible for an assessment under the Disabled Student's allowance
(DSA) scheme. This would not only provide the money for buying any
specialist equipment (hardware and software), such as JAWS, or
scanner/OCR, Braille notetaker/embosser etc., But the person who
performs the assessment will or at least should take into account the
particular demands of the course being undertaken, in light of the
student's previous experiance with equipment, and make recommendations
on software/hardware specifically for that given student on their
specific course of study. The college should have a disability
advisor, or simular who will be able to get thigns rolling to make
arrangements for assessment etc. If there isn't any particular need
for Vista (I.E., if the course will work equally well using other
opperating systems), then they might be better off with XP Pro, as its
still seemingly more solidly supported with screen readers than Vista,
and Vista looks increasingly like its goign to be lost in history as a
opperating system once the next Microsoft opperating system comes out.
XP is still supported by microsoft, and due to demand its still pretty
easy to get laptops and desktops machiens with it pre-installed, and
its still availible to buy on CD/DVD to then be installed on a given
machine.


Personally I use JAWS, but as a result of my work I have recently been
using a lot of free or inexpensive screenreaders such as Thunder,
system access NVDA etc., as well as using HAL in order to assess
performance of various bits of software and web-applications with
screen readers, and from this I'd still say JAWS seems to outperform
the competition in most tasks, and without necessarily an awful lot of
need to customise it or make adjustments to the 'out of the box'
settings. Of course, though, I may be somewhat biased as I'm still
more famuliar with using JAWS than I am with the other screen readers
taht I only really use for testing purposes and not in my day-to-day
computer usage...

Having said which, I've been very impressed of late by NVDA and System
Access in particular; I could quite easily imagine that for many
computer users, who maybe only want to do a bit of web surfing, read
and write E-Mail, and write a few simple word-processed documents this
would meet their needs; I can't see though that either will anytime
soon be able to work in less common software, E./G., multitrack
recording software, bispoke web-aplication design software etc. Of
course, most of us luckily don't want let alone need to use such
software...


Goodluck.

Mark

2008/8/23 Vicki Manley <vlmanley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

Hello Allan,
I might be able to help.
I've never used any screen readers with vister however, I have heard one in particular screen reader that is Jaws, being demonstrated at Sight Village which is an annual exhibition for blind and partially sighted people held in 
Birmingham.
Jaws sounded as if it works very well with vister, however remember Jaws was 
made for Windows hense it's name Jaws For Windows!!!!
I've never heard Hal being demonstrated with Vister.
I am a Jaws user and have used Supernova which is another screen reader
myself in the past which is similar I think to Hal!!!!
Jaws normally works well with most applications such as E-mail, Microsoft
Word, Internet and you can also use it with Microsoft XL too.
I hope this is of some help to you and your friend.
I wish your friend good luck and you might like to tell us all which screen 
reader your friend chooses to go with, as I know I'd be interested.
If I can be of anymore help then please send me an E-mail via the list.
Best wishes,
Vicki.
On 23 Aug 2008, at 23:08, alan rayner wrote:

Hello folks
A friend is going on a theological studies course, and does not know which speech software works best with vista and word for students and home. She will be able to ask for the latest version of either jaws or hal, but is not an experienced user. I have not used vista myself, and so cannot comment on 
the relative merits of various screen readers with it.  I know that some
have preferences for one over the other, but I am looking for a balanced
view.  Perhaps someone who has used several screen readers with vista can
help with some feedback. I do not want a full assessment, but just want to find out which works overall easier and/or if there are particular problems 
with any of them.  Thanking you in anticipation.

cheers
Alan Michael Rayner





--
Mark Faben
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