In some of the discussions on accessibility and eLearning for students with disabilities we have had so far, one issue that has come up is training and experience on the part of the students, especially on the use of some of the more sophisticated adaptive software and hardware, along with mainstream applications.
Consider the following two scenarios.
1. A PowerPoint presentation has been created to be completely accessible; however, the student does not know the commands in their adaptive software or hardware to access it. Compound this with the student possibly having little to no training in the basic functionality of PowerPoint.
2. A web-based piece of eLearning has been developed to be fully accessible. Again here, picture the student who does not know how to use the browser and/or the adaptive hardware or software.
Have any folks here encountered this type of situation where it was uncovered that the problem was actually either a lack of necessary training or experience on the part of the end-user and not necessarily an issue of something being inaccessible?
How are learners with disabilities being trained in the use of adaptive software and hardware where you are?
I raise this, because I have seen a couple of cases where students have declared something as not being accessible. However the issue ended up being that they just did not know how to use their adaptive technology in combination with the application.
Jennison