AFB Encourages You to Learn NVDA with Free, Online Video Tutorials
The American Foundation for the Blind recently announced the availability of Learn NVDA, a series of free, online video tutorials designed to help people who are blind or visually impaired learn how to use the computer and improve their computer skills.
The Learn NVDA tutorials feature the use of NVDA (Non Visual Desktop Access), a free and fully featured screen reader. The Learn NVDA tutorials allow a person who is blind or visually impaired and entirely new to NVDA to independently install the program and learn how to use it. Learn NVDA teaches:
- How to install NVDA on a computer
- How to navigate Microsoft Windows with NVDA
- How to use NVDA Hotkeys
- How to install and use the Firefox internet browser
- How to use Microsoft Word and Excel with NVDA
Each tutorial contains step-by step instructions with audio of a presenter using NVDA and video of the computer screen. Additional tutorials from AFB will be available soon.
To learn more or to share information about Learn NVDA with people who may be interested in using the tutorials, visit the AFB Learn NVDA website.
Learn NVDA was made possible with support from the Consumer Technology Association Foundation. AFB is also pleased to partner with Lion's Club International Foundation to support technology literacy. Together, we are working to create a more accessible, inclusive world for people with vision loss.
American Foundation for the Blind Accepting Nominations for the AFB Access Award
The annual American Foundation for the Blind Access Awards honor individuals, organizations, or companies who have improved the lives of people with vision loss by enhancing access to information, the environment, technology, education, or employment, including making mainstream products and services accessible. If you would like to submit a nomination, we encourage you to do so.
All AFB Access Award nominations should be submitted online for review by the AFB Access Awards Committee. Please follow the nomination guidelines. All nominations are due by September 30, 2016.
Please be sure to look at the list of past winners to see if your nominee has already received an Access Award.
Applicable supporting materials, such as articles, brochures, and press releases are welcome. E-mail material to Ike Presley. Letters of support for nominations are welcome and should also be sent to Ike Presley.
Please mail any materials that cannot be easily converted to accessible electronic format to:
Ike Presley, National Project Manager
American Foundation for the Blind
739 W. Peachtree St. N.W., Suite 250
Atlanta, GA 30308
NYU ABILITY Project Honored by NYC Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities
Mayor Bill de Blasio and the New York City Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities recently presented the NYU ABILITY Project with the ADA Sapolin Award in a ceremony at Gracie Mansion.
Each year, the Mayor and Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities present four ADA Sapolin Awards, named after Matthew Sapolin, the late commissioner of the Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities. The awards recognize individuals and organizations that have made significant contributions to increasing accessibility for people with disabilities under the titles of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The NYU ABILITY Project is an interdisciplinary research center dedicated to the development of adaptive and assistive technologies for people with disabilities. It fosters collaboration between engineers, designers, educators, speech and occupational therapists, and individuals with disabilities to create opportunities for teaching, learning, and research. For example, through the ABILITY Project, NYU offered a course this spring on vision-related assistive technologies that was co-taught by two assistive technology specialists, one of whom is blind.
In 2015, the ABILITY Project partnered with AT&T to lead the ConnectAbility Challenge, a three-month technology challenge designed to spur innovation for people with physical, social, emotional, and cognitive disabilities. The competition, which coincided with the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, resulted in the submission of 63 software, wearable, and other technology solutions from developers in 16 states and 15 countries aimed at enhancing the lives of people with disabilities.
2nd Annual Research Proposal Competition Open to Multidisciplinary Teams at 2016 Envision Conference
Recently, Envision announced the return of the Research Proposal Competition to the 2016 Envision Conference, September 7–10, 2016 at the Grand Hyatt in Denver. It is sponsored by the Envision Research Institute (ERI). As part of the competition, an intensive workshop will be offered to assist attendees with developing successful research proposals. One team of workshop participants will receive up to $10,000 in seed funding and access to ERI resources to launch the proposed study.
The Envision Conference gives professionals who work with individuals with low vision in a variety of fields — optometrists, rehabilitation therapists, occupational therapists, special education teachers, researchers — the chance to receive updates and collaborate with each other on the latest ideas and advancements in vision rehabilitation, research, practice and technology.
This year's Research Proposal Competition workshop has been divided into three sessions:
In the first session, Dr. Walker will discuss "Forming a Translational Research Team."
In the second session, "Statistics Boot Camp for Clinicians," Aaron Johnson, Ph.D., will discuss the meaning of current statistics used in studying low vision as well as the best methods for calculating them. Topics to be covered include traditional statistics analysis as well as the new statistics that are becoming requirements in most scientific and medical journals.
In the third session, "Research Study Design & Proposal Writing," Dr. Walker will walk participants through how to design a study and draft a research proposal, following which each team will be invited to submit a letter of intent (LOI) to participate in the Research Proposal Competition. The ERI will provide specific feedback on each LOI to guide development of full research proposals.
The sessions are staggered throughout the Envision Conference agenda to allow time for contest participants to process earlier lessons and get them thinking about new opportunities for research as they attend other sessions.
Earlier this year, Envision announced the winner of its 2015 Research Proposal Competition, and awarded a research prize of $10,000 to a multidisciplinary team led by Ava Bittner, O.D., Ph.D., FAAO (Dipl.) of Nova Southeastern University (NSU). The prize funded a one-year investigation into the preliminary efficacy of telerehabilitation, i.e., using HIPAA-secure videoconferencing to deliver follow-up low vision services to visually impaired individuals who live in remote areas or have difficulty getting to a specialist's office. Dr. Bittner will present her project at the 2016 Envision Conference.
The complete Envision Conference program is available at the Envision Conference 2016 website.
FCC Announces Test of Emergency Alert System and Seeks your Feedback
When the FCC last conducted a nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System in 2011, it determined that the system fell well short of meeting the needs of Americans who are deaf, hard of hearing, deafblind, blind, or low-vision.
In the intervening time, the FCC has implemented a new set of technical rules intended to ensure that all Americans receive the information they need to seek shelter and safety in the face of an imminent emergency, such as a tornado. In order to assess the implementation of these improvements, the FCC and FEMA will conduct a new test over television and radio on September 28 at 2:20 pm ET.
However, the FCC cannot, by itself, effectively assess the nationwide implementation of the test for all Americans who are blind or have low vision. Thus, the FCC wants to hear from you about your experience with the test. They are putting together a simple form on their website that will ask for your contact information (to determine geographical region), the source to which you were listening (broadcast TV, cable, radio, satellite), any complications you may have experienced, and specific feedback on your experience.
The FCC particularly hopes to learn whether the audio is clear, distinct, and informative. The FCC also needs to know whether the text crawl is broadcast with sufficient contrast, whether the text is large enough to see, and whether the crawl moves at an effective and understandable speed for viewers with low vision. For those with both usable vision and hearing, the FCC is further interested in whether the text and audio have parity. The FCC also wants to know whether Spanish-language channels broadcast a Spanish-language alert.
For a day or two after the test on September 28, you can provide your feedback on the FCC Consumer Help Center website under the Emergency Communications heading.
