The majority of my teaching experience comes from my time as a directed field student at the Seattle Public Library's (SPL) Library Equal Access Program (LEAP). LEAP provides special services to SPL patrons in the form of adaptive technology that allow people with disablities and impairments to fully use library resources. As part of my fieldwork, I taught SPL patrons with disabilities how to use computer resources, frequently through the use of adaptive technology. Specifically, I taught keyboarding, word processing, search engine, e-mail, and a variety of other basic computer skills to patrons with a number of disabilities, including people with vision impairments, hearing impairments, and learning disabilities. Most of the patrons were also taught how to use the computer through the use of adaptive technology, primarily ZoomText screen magnifying software and JAWS screen reading software. SPL has a specific computer class that I loosely followed, mostly because I was only allowed to teach certain programs, such as internet browsers and word processors. I worked closely with about half a dozen patrons on a scheduled basis over a period of weeks, and assisted numerous other patrons with a more smaller scale of computer education. Patrons were scheduled by SPL employees for two hour blocks based on when I worked. In my LIS 560 class that I took concurrently with my service, I developed an adaptive technology instructional plan for the implementation of a structured training session to teach people how to use basic computer and keyboard skills via ZoomText and JAWS, which will be useful if I am in a position to create a computer course for people who are blind or low-vision.
This page was last updated on Saturday, 19-Apr-2008 17:28:25 PDT.
Created and maintained by Timothy Shockley