Well, you do what you can as you may. I'm happy to say the experience
I've gotten in the last couple of years has put me in a good
position. I at least have the ability to make the system work for my
clients if I can get them early enough, and I have the ability to make
the equipment work any way even if it's not what I would have picked
for some one. I've even made recommendations and been completely
wrong on occasion. It happens, the less often the better.
Fortunately for me I am pretty well known around here now. I've done
training, helped with assessments and even reviewed equipment for
funding consideration. While people don't always agree with me, I at
least feel that people listen to and respect my opinion. They will
stop doing If I bring down the house of cards on their funding cash
cow. At the very least, clients and colleagues alike won't appreciate
me if I bale and call them out for working the system or scare them
from out in front of their computers. There's a time and a place and
a way of going about it that will get you where you want to go by
degrees. Venting and being angry isn't necessarily wrong, but it's
not productive either.
Best,
erik burggraaf
A+ certified technician and user support consultant.
Phone: 888-255-5194
Email: [email protected]
On 1-Aug-09, at 11:27 PM, David Tanner wrote:
Well, I won't say that these problems don't exist because they do.
However, as an assistive technology specialist for a state agency
for the blind I am proud to say that I recommend a lot of technology
and assistive technologies that the sighted folks in my department
won't recommend. Why don't they recommend them? Well, it is easier
to half way know a few of the most popular productsand forget the
rest. But, as a blind person myself I want the best, and (I want
those that I work with to have the best product for them too. That
makes a lot of people mad at me sometimes because I won't play the
party line and go along with the najority, but since I have more
experience in the field of assistive technology for the blind,
visually impaired and deaf-blind than anybody else in the department
and much more background and education in the computer field than
anybody else in the depaqrtment they don't dare question my
recommendations.
Sadly, I see a lot of blind folks that work in positions where they
could help change this practice, but they are afraid to rock the
boat, and don't want to chance being repromanded for thinking for
themselves.
----- Original Message -----
From: erik burggraaf
To: Sky Taylor
Cc: window eyes
Sent: Saturday, August 01, 2009 2:35 PM
Subject: Re: Agencies and governments that supply tech stuff for the
blind
Hello friend.
Systems that provide government funding for disability related
equipment and services are almost universally corupt and problematic
in other ways as well. When you talk to people about the structure
of the funding in a serious and considered way, you will be told
that the easiest way to fix the waste and coruption is to simply
pull the plug on the system. I think I know the company you are
talking about and if it's the one I'm thinking of, they sertainly do
provide window-eyes, the braille sense, and any other non freedom
scientific equipment you care to ask for. The trick is to know what
to ask for and make a case for something other than the universally
accepted norm. This takes research on the part of the user...
Research which many users are unwilling to do, or research which
users are discouraged from doing not only by funding providers, but
by friends and family who have said equipment and advise on their
experience there-by supposedly saving the new user time and
frustration trying different packages. That especially when
assessment sentres don't have equipment to demonstrate. In this
case, they will invariably recomend the most expensive, and most
popular solution for all ensundary. That's not to say that the
recomendation is always right, that the system is fair, or that it
shouldn't be changed.
Now I have to tell you something you are not going to want to hear,
but if you plan to be an assistive technology trainer, then you had
better reconsile yourself to this. The system is what it is. The
products are what they are. Your job as a trainer will not be to
crusade and wage war against the funding providers, much as their
approach is obviously and completely rong.
Your job as a trainer will be to take some person. That person has
most likely recently lost their site. They will not necessarily but
most likely be old and impatient. If they are young they will more
than likely be angry at the loss of their site and all the things
they used to have along with sight that they now don't. Now they
have been thrust through a whirlwind of funding, doctor visits,,
assessments, paperwork, and opinions from who knows how many people,
only to have a huge ammount of new equipment dumped on them. You
will have a set number of hours in which to teach this person what
they need to know. You will have to do your best to incourage and
inspire this person. You will have to assess their needs. There's
no point thrusting them into internet searches when all they want to
do is get email from the grand kids. You'll have to listen to them,
hear about their gripes and anxieties, find out what they want to
get out of life, and do your best to make the computer they have
been given fit their life style.
None of this will be possible if you allow yourself to be angry at
the funding system for providing over-priced and under performing
products to people who live in the dark ages and don't bother to
question for themselves. You're young, and you're putting yourself
through the schooling and doing all your own thing now. That's
great, but you won't meet many people like you in your chosen
profession. You'll be responsible for putting your own thoughts,
feelings, opinions and such asside and making the equipment some one
has work for them. Eventually, maybe you will be in a position to
advise people before they go for funding to ask for things that meet
their needs better than the standard fair, but not if you round on
the system like a bull in a china shop.
I'm doing this training gig now, working in Ontario where things are
happless in the extreme. I know a lot of people aren't getting the
equipment that best sutes their needs, but if I discourage them in
the slightest, then they won't get any use out of it at all, which
is just an even bigger waste. Between us, it's OK to think things
are wrong, corupt, half-baked, and screwey, but it's not OK to
represent that to your training clients in any way.
So, I hope you come to terms with this, and if there's anything I
can do to help you out, go ahead and give me a call.
Best,
erik burggraaf
A+ sertified technician and user support consultant.
Phone: 888-255-5194
Email: [email protected]
On 31-Jul-09, at 6:52 PM, Sky Taylor wrote:
Hello List, I was thinking about something early. You know how some
governments and agencies provide just one choice and that is Jaws?
The reason they do this is because they're neither interested nor
do they want to here about Window-Eyes, and I doubt that if Doug or
anyone from GW Micro tries to market we to the powers to be in any
governments, it wouldn't even work. For example, I am in BC,
Canada, and I am still in high school, i am starting transition
year next year. The company from Vancouver supplies all the tech
stuff to the schooldistricts , these include: Jaws. Magic, PacMate,
and Kurzweil1000. However, I must tell you guys that when I was at
a tech camp on an island, one of the ladies from the company went
to CSum, and she tried Window-Eyes, and she found it to be very
very responceive, and in her oppinion, better. I was shocked to
find somebody from the company that supplied Jaws give that
comments. Furthermore, i'm going to be an assistive technology
instructor but i'm primary going to be teaching Jaws, and I don't
want to teach We, as the company that asked me to teach just wants
me to teach jaws, and nothing else, maybe the PacMate, but no gw
Micro products. I might be able to teach Window-Eyes on the
internet, but not in person.
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