[Athen] Question about Computer Science accessibility software

[Deborah Armstrong]

Agree that Notepad is the way to go when writing code. JAWS reads tabs, spaces and now it also can read line endings in Notepad fine as long as that feature is enabled and you've maximized the window.

If the rest of the class is working with an integrated development environment the instructor might need to provide special instructions for importing notepad text in to the environment.

Make sure too, that your student has access to the code samples that are usually a free download with purchase of the textbook. Because an integrated development environment can often help with syntax, he'll be missing out on that using Notepad, so code samples are crucial.

If code from the instructor's book isn't available, download some of the similar beginning books from Bookshare. To my knowledge the "head first" series is the only computer science book on Bookshare that is publisher quality  where the code samples are all images and thus not readable by a screen reader - Bookshare is aware of this problem and so is the publisher.

--Debee

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> On Behalf Of John Gardner
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2019 2:40 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Question about Computer Science accessibility software

I use NotePad and NotePad++ for writing Python code. NVDA has a setting permitting one to hear spaces or tab indents which is the only magic for Python. Jaws probably does also. Fancy editors have other nice things like colors etc, but for blind people, notepad works just fine.

John



From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu>> On Behalf Of Tamara Mariotti
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2019 10:44 AM
To: 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Subject: [Athen] Question about Computer Science accessibility software

Good day all,
I am working with a student who is completely blind and trying to locate a software program that will work with Jaws or Voice over. A large focus of the course that he is taking is writing python programming code. The default IDLE (text editor) that comes with the Python Windows installation is not accessible. Do you have any resources that might be able to tell us a good programming editor that supports Python for the blind?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Tamara Mariotti
Coordinator of the Office of Accessibility Resources (OAR)
Co-Chair NYSED Advisory Council for SWD in Post-Secondary Education

Mohawk Valley Community College
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