How kids can make pictures

It is not as difficult as you may think, and I sure wish that when I was a kid growing up this was available to me. I am talking about those kids who do not have enough vision to draw using their sight.

I discovered this little gem a few months ago and here is what it is. It is an 8 by 11 inch board with an indent. The kid puts their ball point pen on a piece of paper that they have placed on the board and away they go. They can feel what they have drawn. Easy as punch and even I, as a big child, simply love it.

I use this little gem to help me remember the days when I had enough vision to see what I was drawing. I do not really know now if what I draw in any way closely resembles what I was able to see but that's just fine. I have lots of fun with it and my memory keeps ticking along. Fun! So much fun for me!

I'm Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day and inviting you to go out there and share my words with others. Visit www.rnib.org to learn more about the world of blind kids.

Educating others about inaccessible PDF content

This is probably going to be an ongoing process as I strive to do my part with regard to helping others to understand that blind persons are unable to read PDF content that is not appropriately tagged so that we can read it.

The one thing to remember is this, PDF content is an image of what we wish to portray and screen reading technology is unable to read images. There is nothing that we can do about this. So we need to have a work around, so to speak.

There are tools out there that can be used to tag the PDF content so that it can be read by screen reading technology. These tools are, for the most part, free and Adobe has done its part to promote this process. The major barrier here is an unawareness of how to do this and why it is necessary. Just bear in mind that by making PDF content more accessible to blind persons it also helps others such as those with older technology.

I'm Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day and urging you to go out there and help spread my message. Visit me at www.sterlingcreations.ca whenever you have a free moment.

Those troublesome track changes and comments

This is one challenge that I am constantly having to deal with: when anyone sends me documents with changes and track changes. Some access technology may be better able to read it than others but no matter what, it is extremely painful for me.

Sometimes I miss out on finding the comments and track changes and at other times I am fine with it. It all depends on which access technology or screen reading technology I am using. I am not going to mention specific names of screen reading technology here but suffice it to say that some pieces of software are better than others.

I am not sure if there is any other way to deal with these, short of coming up with some sort of editor to do it. Maybe I am dreaming but this is the way that the rest of the world is going so I have to find a way to deal with this.
This has become more important for me now as I move forward with my law studies. Especially so when my professors send me their comments and track changes in Word documents. Wish me luck.

I'm Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day and inviting you to go out there and tell others about my challenge with track changes and comments in Word documents. Come by and visit me anytime at www.donnajodhan.com and there you will find exciting audio mysteries written and produced by me.

Describing nature to the blind

I can still remember those nature lessons as a child, as my teachers referred to them, and boy did we learn so much. I thank my grade school teachers for having had the foresight to teach us all about insects, flowers, and so much more.

I learned by touch as my vision at that time was not enough to see detail. I learned what a bird's nest felt like as somehow my teachers procured a deserted one for us. I felt a beetle's back, the back of a crab, and then the fun stuff! Those beautiful sweet smelling flowers, the elegant butter cups, and the roses. We got to hold delicate butterflies in our little hands; they were not alive of course and we even felt caterpillars and moths.

We learned to identify fruits by touch. We felt plants with their leaves and stems. We felt branches and trunks of trees and then we were taken to the river where we felt stones, walked in the water, and were shown how to make boats out of leaves and then float them down the river.

We were taken on hikes and outings in the valley. We felt the grass, sat on tree stumps, and listened to the birds. Our teachers taught us to identify birds by the sound of their voices. We visited with the cows and goats and even got the chance to touch them as they stood quietly. Heck, we even got the chance to ride a donkey.

Oh how I loved those times as a child and shall forever remember them. I thank my teachers for having given me these wonderful lessons and memories.

I'm Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day and inviting you to go out there and share my thoughts with others. Visit www.nfb.org to learn more about the world of blind persons.

Describing color to the blind

As someone who has had good functional vision, I have had the pleasure and privilege of having been able to identify color. But how could I describe color to someone who has never been able to see at all? This is the question that I posed to my late music teacher, Morris Connor, and I remember asking him if he had any preconceived notions about what colors looked like.

Without hesitation he told me no and that everything was just very black to him. I am not sure if this could be a general statement when it comes to how someone who has never had vision views things. I am not sure then how I could describe color to a totally blind person who has never seen.

You can tell them that red is like a rose and they can then feel the rose and make the relationship. Or that grass is green and they could touch a blade of grass and relate to the color green. The same for things like snow, dried leaves, and so on. However, there is more than this to the description of color.

I'm Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day and inviting you to go out there and share my blogs with others. Stop by and visit me at www.sterlingcreations.ca.

Remembering the aquarium

I can still see those gorgeous and colorful fishes in my mind's eye! Bright yellow, blue, red, and orange! They are swimming around, some swimming lazily and others doing sprightly back strokes. Some of them are racing each other to the glass walls of the aquarium while others are chasing each other.

I stand there with my friends, simply staring at these marvelous little sea creatures. I just love it all and this memory is one that I plucked from my memory bank. This particular memory is over 25 years old but it is in perfect condition. I don't even have to dust it off and now that I have precious little vision, I depend on such memories to keep me going.

This is a memory that I snapped and carefully placed into my memory bank and it is one of an aquarium that my friends and I visited in Boston over 25 years ago. It was a warm summer's day and there we were, as visiting Canadians! Taking in all of those wondrous scenes of Boston.

I barely noticed anyone around me, choosing instead to concentrate fully on those marvelous little swimmers moving along in front of my eyes. They danced, they glided, and they rushed past me not even knowing that I was their attentive and intent admirer. Ah yes! Memories of an aquarium!

I'm Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day and inviting you to go out there and share my memories with others. Come by any time and listen to my detective stories at www.donnajodhan.com.

Remembering the soap bubbles

When I was a kid and my vision was still intact, I used to love to play in our bathtub with the bar of soap. I would spend lots of time making soap bubbles and then I would sit among them just watching the white foam gather all around me. It was so pretty, so exciting, and so interesting.

For the most part, Mom never gave me a hard time. Maybe she knew what I was up to but on the other hand maybe she did not. Nevertheless, it was one of my favorite pastimes. Sometimes I would also make those bubbles in our wash basin but I always made sure that I did not make a mess.

Looking back at it now, it was so much fun and each time we went to the beach those foamy white waves breaking against the shore sure reminded me of my favorite soap bubbles. I have not had much time to enjoy those wondrous bubbles for such a long time and now that my vision has diminished to almost nothing, I'll have to find another way to enjoy them. I can always use my sense of touch to retrieve those happy memories. I can certainly remember the white foam and take my memory back to those fabulous times as a child.

I'm Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day and inviting you to go out there and share my blogs with others. Visit www.acb.org to learn more about the world of blind persons.

The pencils and paper

This memory still puts a smile on my face every time I think about it. I still clearly remember taking my pencils and paper with me on the first day of school. The night before, I packed them in my little school bag and when I got to school and after the teacher had introduced me to my classmates, I took out my stuff and sat waiting to be told what to do.

Not sure how long it took before the teacher realized what I had in front of me but she came over and with all of the patience in the world told me that at a school for blind kids, they did not use pencils and paper. Instead, they used styluses and guides to form letters.

At first I was extremely upset and disappointed, but slowly and surely I found myself adapting to this new way of writing. I found myself starting to enjoy working with styluses and guides and then when I went home I would tell my mom and granny all about it. They were quite fascinated and even tried to learn to read Braille.

Such wonderful memories for me and I still smile and giggle to myself each time I think about this particular memory.

I'm Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day and inviting you to go out there and tell others about my memories. Come by and visit me any time at www.sterlingcreations.ca.

Remembering the drawing

What a very treasured memory for me, the first time that I started to draw. Yes, I had enough vision then and oh how I loved it all. I can actually reach out and touch this memory. So real, so close to me, and so dear to me.

I thank my friend, Doug, for having introduced me to the world of drawing. He did this by introducing me to such things as the edge sketcher, paints, crayons, and color and putting all of this together in one memorable time. I shall always be grateful to Doug for this.

Doug taught me about paints and how to use them. Then I continued on my own by experimenting with color, texture, and lines. So wonderful!

I am no longer able to do this because of my lack of sight but I am constantly looking for ways to continue my drawing. I even bought a raised line drawing board and plan to use it lots in the coming months.

I'm Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day and inviting you to go out there and share my blogs with others. Come by and share my detective stories written by me at www.donnajodhan.com.