go to my grab bag site, or to Jamal's site, mine is noted below my name. there are jaws scripts for 2005 that work in 2008 toward the bottom of the home page, there are tutorials for the same that will assist in starting, and there are setup instructions and hot key lists all applyable to your endeavor. the main thing to talk to the instructor about are: 1. they need to remember to describe any graphical displays to you 2. if they are willing, giving you a copy of there notes, in a text format that your comp can handle (power point isn't very useful, and I have had a couple that did indeed use that, and had to convert and append there notes to make them useable)will be helpful, since that gives you notes on what they see as important without your having to try to keep up with them using alternative note taking methods. 3. depending on where you live, recording the class is your best option, though slow for review, this again gives you notes on what is important to the instructor (you can also offer to help students that miss a class by allowing them to hear the class, and 98% of my instructors had no problem with this, and it can make the other students friendlier toward you, and willing to at least try to assist you in return if you have a need for such), and at least in the US, it is allowable to record the class Whether or not the instructor likes it! 3. if you have a good disabled student center at your school, you will probably need out of class interpretation of graphical data, so copies of any overhead or screen projected images should be provided to the DSC folks. 4. it is also (and you should and probably already do know) that your tests should... depending on the school be either given in the DSC, or at a point outside the class so someone can read the tests to you without disturbing the rest of the class, and again, in the united states, you are allowed both that boon and additional time to take the test since having it read to you takes longer than reading it yourself would. 5. any handouts that they would pass to the class needs to be given to the DSC or someone who can assist you with reading it prior to it being handed out in class, since you will need to take it somewhere and get it turned into adapted format before you can use it, so handing something out and expecting you to be able to use the information in a test at the end of class is a huge "not happening" that's about all I can think of right now about the additionals of classes in programming, oops, and the two of you need to make sure any assistive tools you need are accessible to a screen reader, some use teaching aids that are not screen reader friendly out of the box and this can really bog things down. HTH, inthane proprietor, The Grab Bag, for blind computer users and programmers http://grabbag.alacorncomputer.com Owner: Alacorn Computer Enterprises "own the might and majesty of a Alacorn!" www.alacorncomputer.com Owner: Agemtree "merchants in fine facetted and cabochon gemstones" www.agemtree.com ----- Original Message ----- From: Haden Pike To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Monday, June 08, 2009 5:18 PM Subject: questions about visual basic 2008 Hi list. When my next school year starts, I will be taking a programming class, using visual basic 2008. For now, I am trying to do what little I can to get started, as my teacher has never worked with a blind person before and has no idea how screen readers work or how to navigate with the keyboard. So, I have a few questions. 1. Are there scripts for vb2008? 2. Is there some place where I can find a simple program to look at? I generally learn best by taking an already written program and studying the code and in this case, figuring out where controls are, and changing things and see what happens. Thanks in advance for any help. Haden Pike Email: haden.pike@xxxxxxxxx