Category: Geeks r Us
Hi all,
Has anyone had experience tutoring a sighted student in i t? I've been asked to teach basic / intermediat ofice functionality in a semi professional setting and whilst I'm comfortable with office applications, I've never taught a stranger before. I'm looking for issues that people have encountered / thought of that might not be obvious streight away so that I can prepair myself a bit.
The only thing that I can think of myself is that the student will have less confidence in me than a sighted tutor, but hopefully I'll be good enough that this will become less of a problem over time as they realize that I'm more than capable of teaching them.
Any experiences would be great.
Cheers.
I don't think is as much of a blind or sighted thing as a teacher thing.
My wife and her family are all teacher types and they can about teach anything. Me? I am one of those guys will say "Scoot over, I'll fix it for ya," which she says means they won't learn anything.
Anyway the only thing you'll want to be able to communicate besides being a teacher is that information they use. I started my software careeer as a tech weenie, so I do know this: You need to know what they see on the screen and how to help them interact with it. Fortunately, it's 2013 so most people now know how to point and shoot with the mouse. But readers say things like button or edit that are just control descriptions for us to know what it is. So you have to understand where things are and what the sighted person does to interact with them.
But your main problem with this is whether or not you are able to teach people, whether you know the skills and things for that. My wife even knew a blind woman who taught preschoolers like she does and did social service things like she does. I could never do any of that: More than a couple of squeal-baits and I'm about lost. But that would probably be the same if I could see.
I'd say if you know how to educate people you will be fine, plus it seems there's lots of educators on here. Sighted people trust me to do things for them all the time. But in terms of teaching? Not so much, And I don't think it's because I'm blind.