Division on Visual Impairments

DVI Quarterly Volume 59(1)

A quarterly newsletter from the Council for Exceptional Children's Division on Visual Impairments containing practitioner tips for Teachers of Students with Visual Impairments, Certified Orientation and Mobility Specialists, and other professionals.

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20 confident and learned to advocate for myself. While in high school, I attended the Delaware Area Career Center half of the school day during my junior and senior year. I specialized in the Cisco Networking Academy; I also studied computer programming and graphics design. When I applied to the career center one of my teachers said, "I'm not quite sure how to teach you." I said, "We can figure it out." And we figured it out quite well. I made friends in my class and did everything that my sighted peers did. My friends were [led] by my example. Blindness is nothing to fear; I can do something if I find a way. I worked with Cisco to help test a screen reader accessible online course so others who are blind can participate in Cisco online courses. Most of our work was computer based, so I did the same work, at the same time, in the same way, as my peers. I received five scholarships and pursued my first degree at DeVry University. I was part of [an] accelerated program with a full course load. DeVry had not had a blind student in over 10 years, so any accommodation I received was because I knew how to ask. Textbooks were difficult to obtain; we worked with many publishers and an inaccessible online textbook reader. I enjoyed the new academic challenge college presented. Other students weren't quite sure what to think of me. Some took my example of "[it's] not a big deal." Some seemed afraid of me; a few questioned my academic competency. A few times I heard, "You did that? How? You can't see!" Most

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