Last week, I enjoyed the superexclusive megaprivilege of teaching blind kids HTML. Yes!
My esteemed colleague Bryce Johnson, whose company has done some development work for the CNIB, canvassed for volunteers to teach advanced HTML to a group of 19 teens attending the SCORE camp. And by gar, I was the only one who volunteered (and could make it).
Bryce and I underwent mild cardiac arrest at the existing lesson plan, which teaches the kids 1997-era tag-soup HTML. Since I know Bryce from my Webstandards.TO social club, which, to this day, has no real Web site, clearly we weren’t about to teach the kids font and bgcolor.
CNIB staff were politely annoyed when we announced early on that we’d be teaching correct methods – and deprogramming the kids of every other method. The class, which included two youths each from Trinidad and Australia, were totally flummoxed when we informed them that, yes indeed, every HTML document starts with html, then a head that includes a title, and then, after you close those two, only then do you get to put everything you want people to read inside body. And when you’re done you have to close body and html.
The truth hurts, babies! We gotta teach youse the correct code if you want to make accessible pages. But after the first ten minutes, the kids all caught on. We enjoyed two two-hour sessions, teaching the kids only one new HTML concept ([un]ordered lists) and getting their feet wet with CSS.
Curious factoids
- We had the full range of visual impairment, from none to total.
- Two kids with guide dogs (one of them a senior from a previous camp). It was great watching the low-vision kids with canes guide the blind kids!
- Experience was not an indicator of HTML success. Some of the total newbies caught on immediately. One lad had taken HTML before and forgotten it. (Then again, he complained he had to telnet into his Linux box from his Windows box because the former didn’t have enough power to compile speech output, and he had a whole stack of vintage computers that I insisted he safeguard at any cost.)
- There was no difference in aptitude between girls and boys, which is what you expect when you provide equal opportunity.
- When exploring CSS, it was the totally-blind kids who insisted on learning how to make words in different colours. Only one of the low-vision kids seemed to care.
Unexpected factoids
- Chat works just fine in screen readers
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We keep being told, over and over again, that chat programs are inaccessible to screen-reader users because they cannot control the unpredictable flow of text. (In fairness, researchers tend to consider all kinds of chat when they make that assumption, not just instant-messenger programs.)
Well, that’s crapola. MSN Messenger (used by all the kids and one of the instructors!) works perfectly with Jaws. (So, apparently, does AIM.)
In fact, we had to tell the kids “Log out of messenger!” before every instructional segment. And the minute our backs were turned, the kids suddenly transformed from plodding hunt-and-peck HTML coders to rat-a-tat-tat touch-typists. Whatever could they be doing?
- Image-editing programs have to be accessible
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I have assumed, but not been able to prove, that digicams are a great invention for visually-impaired people because they can go around taking photo after photo (kaching-kaching-kaching), then look at the pictures nice and big on computer. (We’re aware of blind photographers using film, but the cost of mistakes is somewhat high there, don’t you think? And tiny printed photos aren’t much good.) Since low-vision people are taking pictures, the software they use to edit the photos has to be accessible. Right?
Definitely. This isn’t theoretical anymore. We had at least three kids in camp who brandished digicams and used spare moments (when not busy with messenger?) fiddling with photos.
In fact, one of the teens and I engaged in mutual digicamatio. (The photo he took of me on my camera is terrible. SUPPRESSED.)
Looking forward to next year. We’ll have a better lesson plan, and, hopefully, so will CNIB.