Author: Sue Watling

Training my dragon…

Sue Watling / / visual impairment

The latest released version is 11 and this is 8. I don’t know how much things have changed but I suspect some of these issues are still valid. Firstly you need an Internet Connection to activate the software and the only reference to this is on the box in very small print, not on the top, the front the back or the side but underneath! Secondly, a product sold to ‘replace slow and painful typing’ and enable you to ‘control your PC’ still requires manual dexterity with the mouse to turn the microphone on.

I’d heard voice training was problematic but although it insisted my sound system quality was unacceptable, it got to know me very quickly. The activities were a visual challenge. I’ve enlarged everything scalable on my screen but the training windows remained small – an example of the single fixed format syndrome. Accuracy is not brilliant; you have to speak clearly and precisely so it’s not conducive to an open plan office or any degree of privacy. There will always be issues with some words and while you can train it to recognise specific vocabulary specific it still struggles with Hull; a bit like the Nintendo Brain Trainer which has similar problems with blue.

Overall, the biggest issue is remembering the commands. Like any new skill, there’s a lot to remember and not all of it intuitive. Backspace makes sense but ‘Scratch that’ for delete? I found accuracy decreased when I used it for real and it assumed punctuation rather than waiting to be asked. The need to use the Dragon Pad rather than the Word window is another limitation; I can’t find how to enlarge this without the mouse and keyboard commands respond to what ever else is open rather than Dragon Pad itself.

I’m being critical and it’s early days, but the setting up has been tough on my eyes and the need to use the mouse seems to defeat the hands-free element or have I misunderstood the marketing? It doesn’t appear conducive to free thinking or creative writing although it could be good for poetry where you are looking to create the maximum impact with the fewest words; minimalism may be key to good dragoning.

I think it could be a powerful piece of software but like all assistive technology it comes with its own training and support needs and these in themselves can be formidable barriers. Unless you follow the Mouse, Eyes and Ears MEE-Model of computer use (or have capable and willing sighted assistance) then you’re going to have to work twice as hard to have the same ease of use and take twice as long to get where you’re going to. Nevertheless, with 20-20 vision or without it – I’m not defeated yet…

Microsoft sucks!

Sue Watling / / visual impairment

Access to digital environments remains problematic. Because I’m also photophobic the contrast of black on white is too harsh. In Word I can change the background colour. On the Internet I’ve used my browser controls to ignore specified colours in favour of my own choice with mixed results. Graphics are either not transparent or too transparent!

  

 

The inflexibility of Windows is a major obstacle. I’m working at 220% in Word which is comfortable; a bit like sunglasses on a sunny day, but the contrast between this and the unchanged size of the toolbars and menus is a continual strain. Windows is a discriminatory digital environment. I don’t know how Microsoft have got away with it for so long and the magnifier in their accessibility tools is useless.

The power of digital data is its flexibility meaning it can be customised to suit individual preference. I want to adapt my computer use to suit my own requirements. I want the same experience and ease with vision impairment that I get when my vision is not impaired but it isn’t happening. The digital connection to the internet I rely on as my primary source of communication and access to information is increasingly problematic and I’m being denied an equivalent experience.

Next, I’m going to try Dragon Naturally Speaking but in the mean time, and I never thought I’d say this, it’s a relief to turn off my laptop and do something less stressful instead!

Have a good weekend 🙂

testing testing live writer (1 out of 10)

Sue Watling / / Uncategorized

First impressions are that Live Writer isn’t going to be very helpful,

There’s no zoom facility that I can see, the browser size controls make no difference and the ctrl
+ mouse-wheel combi doesn’t work. The menu options are tiny and the only font size choices are headings 1-6 or paragraph. Most annoyingly the text wraps about half way across the screen where you don’t expect it too.

I was disappointed to see the alt-text option hidden behind the Advanced image tab; it should be a basic requirement not an added extra!

 the inside of a giant white poppy  inside of a red poppy

All in all I’m not impressed. At least WordPress responds to enlargement although not without creating different problems. I do like the watermark facility on the images though 🙂

blog posted via Windows Live Writer

blurry hell…

Sue Watling / / digital divide, digital exclusion 2010

I’ve got restricted vision again and ‘seeing’ the Internet differently. Tokenism, surface allegiance to accessibility legislation, is common. My pet hates include those little ‘A’s increasing in size but not to any useful extent; clicking them isn’t as easy as you might think; they are small, and where they only increase the text frame navigation and other peripheral content remains the same.

I can change my Browser settings to Largest and increase everything that’s scalable but this highlights the amount of content that isn’t. More frustration as text gets cut off or wraps on top of itself.

magnified text cut off magnified text over wrapping

I need to re-set to Largest when I change sites and incidently, Largest isn’t Large enough. I know there’s the Ctrl and mouse wheel trick that zooms in and that’s how I’m operating but it takes two hands and a degree of manual dexterity, not to mention a mouse with a wheel and knowing about it in the first place! Without screen magnifying software, nothing affects the size of the menu bars and buttons. The brain tries to adjust but the combination of large and original text is difficult to interpret especially with menus such as Save and its  drop down lists of options. The contrast is marked and the original text size appears even more tiny. Headaches and additional eye strain is never far away.

Onto my blog. With Browser set to Largest I find my posted text isn’t responding and I need the mouse trick. The main Dashboard then becomes a touch problematic as it appears very wide. I have to scroll or arrow backawards and forwards from left to right to see it all. The drop down menus have become separated horizontally from each other. I can’t seem to get into them with keyboard commands, making it quite a fun game to try and jump across the gap to hit the Dashboard for my blog.

blog dashboard

Adding images is a bit of a nightmare; zoomed to a workable size the menu gets stuck and becomes unusable for example the image below shows how I can’t scroll down any further.

insert graphic menu on zoom

As you can see I made it but the whole process has taken much longer and is more complex and instead of enjoying working online it’s frustrating. I’ve achieved far less than I normally would have done in the hour and doing less  causes additional problems.  I’m currently looking at Dragon Naturally Speaking for times like this; I think it would be useful on lots of different levels so watch this space – if you can.

For want of a horseshoe nail a battle was lost…

Sue Watling / / digital exclusion 2010

Here’s a question – if you’re not digitally active then how do you know you’re being digitally excluded? The irony (or deliberate discrimination) of the government’s Race Online 2012 Manifesto is its invisibility. If you don’t do technology you’re probably unaware of the extent of government plans to move to online-only services. Their focus on broadband access as the answer to digital exclusion is not enough; it’ll do nothing to tackle existing structural inequalities; if anything it will exacerbate them.

I’m not a fan of diary blogs but this weekend I’ve revisited digital exclusion. A couple living with multiple health issues were donated a computer by a local organisation but the power lead for the monitor was missing. It needed POWER:12VDC 3A and the small print on the back of the monitor said  ‘Only use with adaptor: see user’s manual’ which they didn’t have. They had no idea what lead was required, the organisation couldn’t help, the shops they’d tried all said ‘no’ and initial excitement was turning to frustration. I’ve never claimed to be adept with hardware but have the advantage of digital inclusion plus a son who told me ‘use the technology Mum’ so between us we did. I texted him photos of the back of the monitor; he went online, made some phone calls and sent me the location of a shop plus a picture of the transformer required. I found the second hand games shop, doubling as an electrical workshop, and operating a ‘cash only’ policy. It looked unlikely but on the back of a shelf covered in dust was the magic lead.

Currys, Comet and PC World 0 – Local Independent Retailer 100.

The computer was an ASUS52X, loaded with Office 2003, it was fast with a new keyboard and mouse. There was no Internet connection but the computer had capacity and the town has good reception. Sourcing the lead took a couple of hours but for this couple, even when they get their Internet connection, it’s just the beginning. Not everyone has the manual dexterity to manage a keyboard and a mouse and there are going to be access issues there. Then there’s the learning curve which incrementally increases; I began ICT training in Adult and Community Education in the 1990s, pre-Internet, and it was a challenge then, particularly with groups the government now define as socially excluded – in reality having been denied opportunities for participation. To operate with confidence and competence in digital environments today requires multiple skills and knowledge; to stay safe is to know about viruses, scams and phishing, about good online practice regarding payment transactions and being able to judge the authenticity of digital information  – as well as the basics like naming and saving and file management.    

The government’s focus on providing access is technological determinism – believing if you have the means the rest will follow. Those writing digital policy and procedure have the pre-requisite digital requirements and too little experience of being on the wrong side of the divide. As digital divisions are increasingly reconfigured as having complex multi-structural dynamics I worry the real issues will get lost; the reality of digital technology meeting analogue user, where the importance of the correct plugs and wires is only the starting point and after that comes the need for effective long-term training and support. These issues are not going to go away.

Suicide Machine

Sue Watling / / Uncategorized

Blogs must be like buses – wait for ages then two come at once. A BBC report publicises the Suicide Machine – a service to help people disconnect from social networks. Founder Gordan Savicic says he’s had 90,000 requests and rising from individuals keen to opt out of the Internet and experience the real world instead. It had to happen. Our digital lifestyles have taken on a life of their own. Self-deletion is no longer an option. Who you gonna call? DataBusters! I’m not entirely comfortable with the suicide analogy, and a visit to the website doesn’t make it seem anymore appropriate. But maybe even the human experience of bereavement is reduced through digitisation. Like Kindle takes away the human element of book reading while still offering the same end result.  The report includes a link to Daniel Sieberg’s Declaration of Disconnection in the Huffington Post  where he refers to himself as a recovering social network addict. Suicide AND Addiction?  Scratching on the surface of the reality of the dark side of the Internet. When did you last experience digital disconnection and how was it for you?

reflection

Sue Watling / / Uncategorized

For me, blogging is about reflection. This relationship becomes strained when time is in short supply. The act of blogging then becomes a measure of the time available for thought. You know when blogging gets neglected, the processes of reflection are slipping too.

Without reflection we function automatically. Reflection is the means by which we make sense of the present and move meaningfully into the future. But sometimes events are too much. That’s when avoiding reflective practice becomes a way of coping. Workload exceeding its allocated time is an example. How to prioritise? What to cut? Where to say no?

Then it gets more complex. What is my role? Like the words on the bridge over the Brayford – where have I come from and where am I going?

Blogging is an opportunity to take time out for reflection – we should value that. However we choose to engage, we need reflection. Somehow we must find a way to make it happen.

So what do I say no to in order to have time to think?

blood on the stones…

Sue Watling / / Uncategorized

September always feels more like  a ‘new year’ than January does. There’s a sense of anticipated difference – in the levels of noise, people, activity, queues and above all start of semester work-loads. Only this year I haven’t  actually stopped working. I don’t know where the summer’s gone, only that I havent gone anywhere with the exception of last week when I visited the University of Kent; home of the Creative Campus Initiative. Creativity appeals; imagination, dance, poetry, music and above all reflective writing – I knew I’d feel at home there 🙂

Brayford is an attractive campus but it misses the landscaped gardens of the ‘Cottingham Road – Hull’ campus. Kent campus is built on a hill surrounded by trees and bushes full of rabbits and squirrels; a highspot is the Canterbury Labyrinth – more about this at http://labyrinth.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk – looking even better for real than it does in the pictures.

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The labyrinth overlooks Canterbury Cathedral;  creating appropriate parallels between a workshop on reflective journeying and Chaucer’s pilgrims travelling to the shrine of Thomas A Beckett, murdered in the cathedral in 1170. The cathedral itself is permanent memorial to the craft of the medieval stonemasons but there’s less on the death of Thomas himself and the candle marking the long gone shrine is nowhere near the alleged place of the murder. For years I believed there were bloodstains on the stone; more likely a natural colour change but a powerful memory and I wanted to investigate. The pillar itself is no longer there; instead there are headstones in the floor and one has a circular plaque which a guide told me is where the pillar was. Coincidence or design? Either way it sounded speculative and most people, myself included, will have walked over that spot without even realising it’s there. The rest of the cathedral is well worth a visit but there is no blood on the stones.

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labels r not us

Sue Watling / / equality and diversity

I hate labels and the label I hate the most is ‘disabled people’.  I hate it because people with impairments are disabled by society’s failure to recognise categories of difference and reduce subsequent barriers to participation.  This is the social model of disability. It’s society that disables individuals; you don’t disable yourself.

Today the BBC and the Guardian have reported on a poll commissioned by Scope from ComRes, where 91% of people stated they believed disabled people should have the same opportunities as everyone else (it doesn’t say what the other 9% thought). It then goes on to tell us how ‘disabled people are largely hidden’ away and socially excluded.  Richard Hawkes, Chief Executive of Scope, said: “This is shocking evidence that shows that disabled people are still relatively invisible in day-to-day life. We are deeply concerned that the Government’s spending cuts will end up pushing disabled people even closer to the fringes of society.”

Note the label’ disabled people’ throughout. When problem with labels is they’re seen first and accompanied with all the stereotypical images and cultural attributions associated with them.  If these are predominantly negative then the reader or listener experiences them first.  Labels reinforce and reiterate. When you see the label disabled people, add socially in front of every occurrence of disabled and see how the radically the meaning changes.

Putting the C in IT

Sue Watling / / Uncategorized

Who put the C in ICT? When did the word Communication(s) slip in? According to Dyer Witherford in Cyber Marx, communication(s) could well stand for capitalism. Following in the tradition of Negri  and Autonomist Marxism, DW claims technology has become the major site of class struggle and conflict in 21st century. Techno-science is portrayed as an ‘instrument of capitalist domination’ with control of communication channels in the hands of multi-national organisations. Flows of information and digital data are less easily managed which is creating space for ‘invention’ power to re-appropriate and subvert and use information for alternative purposes. It’s the tension between these contesting interests which provides society with the nucleus for revolution.

Information theorists  suggest our current ‘information society’ represents a ‘third age’, one that follows the ‘agrarian’ and ‘industrial’ ones. They argue industry has been succeeded by information and techno-scientific knowledge has become the main wealth-producing resource (but wouldn’t rain forests and natural treasures like gold have valid claims?) Evidence of a knowledge economy is all around and critical to the dissemination and management of these new ways of working have been the developments in Information Technology (IT). We now generally use the acronym ICT but when did the additional letter slip in? Pondering like you do (long car journey – monotonous roads) the parallels between the Autonomist’s view of the I and the C as representing conflict between citizen and state makes a potential duality of meaning an appropriate one.