e-Learning Entrance – Freedom Scientific Webinar Schedule and Registration Page

Webinar Training Room Orientation
Date: December 10

• Time: 3:00 PM Eastern Time (20:00 GMT)
• Webinar: Beginning to intermediate concepts
• Cost: No charge
• Level: Beginner to intermediate
• Length: One hour

This is a core concept Webinar. It should be taken by anyone who is interested in learning to use JAWS screen reading software or MAGic screen magnification software in the Freedom Scientific online Webinar training room.

Learn how to do the following:

• Move from one part of the Webinar room to the other parts of the room
• Enter text in the chat area
• Read chat history
• Change the talk key and other user options
• Use a microphone to talk to other participants or the instructor
• Get JAWS help for the Webinar room
• Use the JAWS list of headings, links, and navigation quick keys in the browser window
• Make recordings of Webinars for later review
• Open practice files or other browser windows outside of the Webinar room
• Switch between practice files and the Webinar room

PowerPoint 2007 Part One, Introduction
DATE: November 23

NOTE: This workshop assumes familiarity with using JAWS or MAGic in the Webinar training room. Before taking this workshop, participants should complete the free Webinar Training Room Orientation.

• Time: 3:00 PM Eastern Time (20:00 GMT)
• Webinar: Medium to advanced concepts
• Cost: $75 USD
• Level: Intermediate to advanced
• Length: One and one-half hours
• Exam given: Yes
• Continuing Education Units (CEU) awarded: 0.15

By the end of this workshop you will understand, be able to discuss, and/or perform the following tasks as they relate to Office 2007 from the keyboard with JAWS and MAGic:

• Introduction to PowerPoint
• Create, open, and save presentations
• Add new slides, delete or rearrange slides
• Move between object placeholders, different types of placeholders
• Add text to placeholders
• Add images to placeholders
• Add alternative text to images
• Add background color to a series of slides
• Add a sound to the presentation

PowerPoint 2007 Part Three
DATE: December 8

• Time: 3:00 PM Eastern Time (20:00 GMT)
• Webinar: Medium to advanced concepts
• Cost: $75 USD
• Level: Intermediate to advanced
• Length: One and one-half hours
• Exam given: Yes
• Continuing Education Units (CEU) awarded: 0.15

By the end of this workshop you will understand, be able to discuss, and/or perform the following tasks as they relate to Office 2007 from the keyboard with JAWS and MAGic:

• Present the slide show
• Add speaker's notes to slides
• Outline view
• Thumbnail view
• Handouts for the audience using export to Microsoft Word
• Use JAWS to hear speaker's notes during presentation (Tips for JAWS users on how to present)

Excel 2007 Part Two
DATE: December 17

• Time: 3:00 PM Eastern Time (20:00 GMT)
• Webinar: Medium to advanced concepts
• Cost: $75 USD
• Level: Intermediate to advanced
• Length: One and one-half hours
• Exam given: Yes
• Continuing Education Units (CEU) awarded: 0.15

By the end of this workshop you will understand, be able to discuss, and/or perform the following tasks as they relate to Office 2007 from the keyboard with JAWS and MAGic:

• Create a chart
• Move a chart
• Change chart types
• Insert hyperlinks for navigation within worksheet or workbook
• Create monitored cells (JAWS users)
• JAWS-specific Excel features

JAWS Training for Teachers and AT Trainers (Equivalent to Our Two-Day Workshop)
Date: February 2 - 25, 2010 (individual lesson dates are listed below)

Are you an assistive technology (AT) teacher or a trainer? Do you need to be able to assist or help students who use JAWS? Are you a help desk support person who needs to support JAWS users in the field? If the answer to any of the questions above is "yes," this paid Webinar is for you.

• Time: 3:00 PM Eastern Time (20:00 GMT)
• Webinar: Medium to advanced concepts
• Cost: $600 USD
• Level: Intermediate to advanced
• Length: Twelve one-hour sessions, see dates below
• Exams given: Yes
• Continuing Education Units (CEU) awarded: 1.2

TIP:  Did you know that if you miss a Webinar, a link to the archive of the Webinar will be sent to you if you register? That way, you can make up the Webinar at a later date. Would you like to join a series of Webinars already in progress? You can register at any time, review the archives for any lessons you missed, and join a series of Webinars already in progress.

Lesson One, Introduction, Starting JAWS and Defining Hot Keys, February 2

Begin with a discussion of the workshop objectives and agenda. Learn to start JAWS from the desktop, start menu, and run dialog box. Set up a hot key to launch JAWS.

Lesson Two, JAWS Training Materials and FSReader Demo, February 3

"How do I get started with JAWS?" The answer is there are three main JAWS training resources available to you and your students. Learn how to use FSReader Demo, the free DAISY reader that is included with JAWS, to read and get the most out of our training materials.

Lesson Three, JAWS Startup Wizard and Changing Settings Temporarily, February 4

Use the JAWS Startup Wizard to adjust settings quickly. Have you ever wished you could slow down (or speed up) the voice rate of JAWS on a computer so you could understand it more easily? Many settings in JAWS can be adjusted temporarily, without having to go into different managers or configuration dialog boxes. Learn the quick and easy way to change settings without making the changes permanent.

Lesson Four, Braille and JAWS Utilities Menu Overview, February 9

Learn how to install a braille display and make changes to braille settings. Like many other JAWS settings, braille settings can be made permanently or on a temporary basis. Look at a couple of items in the JAWS Utilities menu that end-users may want to change.

Lesson Five, JAWS Help Menu, Help System, Screen Sensitive Help, Application Help, and More, February 10

Learn how to use the resources in the JAWS Help menu, including the JAWS Help system. JAWS has a wealth of help information built into it. Learn how and where to access the information you need quickly and easily.

Lesson Six, JAWS Program Group, Including Braille Viewer, and HJPad, February 11

Learn about the resources available in the JAWS Program Group. HJPad is a free word processor complete with a spell checker that ships with JAWS. It has several practice dialog boxes and tools that are useful for teaching Windows concepts, as well as physical and functional descriptions of many common Windows controls. Braille Viewer is great for interpreting what is on a refreshable braille display, whether a physical braille display is attached or not. Other items of discussion include exploring where user and shared settings are maintained, and other tools such as Internet License Manager authorization viewer, using PAC Mate desktop to allow a PAC Mate user to control a computer, settings packager to share user settings among students, and more.

Lesson Seven, Basic JAWS Screen Reading Keys and Cursors Used with JAWS, February 16

Reading the screen is done by pressing keys on the numeric keypad, or NUM PAD, sometimes in combination with other keys on the keyboard. Discussion includes using three primary cursors with JAWS: the PC cursor, the JAWS cursor, and the virtual cursor. There may be times when a JAWS user can only access something on the screen with a mouse by pointing and clicking. The JAWS cursor is the answer. On Web pages and in PDF documents, the virtual cursor is used for reading, but the PC cursor is used when filling in forms.

Lesson Eight, Cut, Copy, and Paste from the Keyboard and In Different Environments, February 17

Practice using Windows keyboard commands as well as JAWS commands used for manipulating text. Be able to copy and paste text from not only word processing programs, but from a virtual environment where no visible cursor exists, and in some cases, where no visible text exists.

Lesson Nine, JAWS Dictionary Manager, February 18

The JAWS Dictionary Manager is useful for pronouncing words or phrases that a speech synthesizer may not pronounce correctly. New in JAWS 10 is the ability to create rules applying to specific languages, synthesizers, or voices.

Lesson Ten, JAWS and HTML, including PlaceMarkers and Navigation Quick Keys, February 23

Learn about navigation quick keys, the list of links, the list of headings, and PlaceMarkers. General navigation in Internet Explorer is discussed.

Lesson Eleven, Tables and Forms with JAWS on the Web, February 24

Information is often entered using forms, and output is often presented in tabular format dynamically on the Web. Learn how to use the new JAWS 10 auto forms mode, and be able to interact with forms in Web pages or PDF documents. Learn JAWS table reading keystrokes, and learn how JAWS reads row and column headers and more.

Lesson Twelve, Custom Labels on the Web and Prompt Creator, February 25

JAWS allows you to assign custom text labels to almost any HTML element that you can move to by pressing the TAB key in Internet Explorer and Web-based documents. These elements include text links, graphic links, form fields, and buttons. You can also label images on Web pages. Learn to use this feature to customize the elements of any Web page to help you navigate the page, reduce verbosity, compensate for incomplete or poorly labeled elements, and similar functions. Prompt Creator is used to label form fields or other controls and can provide tutor messages in a non-HTML program environment.

Accessible Tables Part Two: PDF and HTML Documents, Archive

Part two in a series on how to create accessible tables. In this webinar you will learn how to create accessible tables for HTML pages, and convert tables from Word documents or Web pages into accessible PDF. The final documents will have the information (attributes and tags) built-in for screen reader users. This enables them to read and gather information presented in tables without difficulty, and without making changes to any settings on their side.

Learn some easily applied principles that increase the accessibility of documents you create. In addition, learn how users can more easily access information by knowing helpful features in their adaptive technology.

Archive of the Accessible Tables Part Two Webinar
MP3 of the Accessible Tables Part Two Webinar
HTML files of the Accessible Tables Part Two Webinar

Keyboard Manager, Basics of Scripting
Use the links below to access the archive, MP3, or HTML lessons of this Webinar

This is a core concept Webinar for anyone who is interested in learning how to customize the JAWS screen reader through the use of the powerful scripting language. What is the Keyboard manager in JAWS and how is it used?

You use the Keyboard Manager to control the assignment of keystrokes to JAWS screen reading activities. The Keyboard Manager stores keystroke assignments in key map files with the extension of JKM. There are two types of key map files:

• Default
• Application-specific

In this Webinar you will learn the difference between default and application specific key maps, how and when keystrokes are assigned to scripts, how to change, add, and delete keystroke assignments. You will also learn about the Keyboard Manager interface, script documentation, and more.

Archive of the prior Keyboard Manager, Basics of Scripting Webinar
MP3 of the prior Keyboard Manager, Basics of Scripting Webinar
HTML files of the prior Keyboard Manager, Basics of Scripting Webinar

Script Manager, Basics of Scripting
Use the links below to access the archive, MP3, or HTML lessons of this Webinar

This is a core concept Webinar for anyone who is interested in learning how to customize the JAWS screen reader through the use of the powerful scripting language. What is the Script manager in JAWS and how is it used?

You use the Script manager to create new and modify existing scripts and user-defined functions. It is a full-featured text editor that provides built-in capabilities that you will not find in other text editors and word processors. In addition, the Script manager provides hot keys you can use to read through the scripts in your script file more efficiently.

After you have completed creating your new script or function, you save your script file just as you would when using another text editor or word processor. However the Script manager automatically performs an additional step not found in those applications. It compiles your script file. Compiling a script converts the file from text to machine-readable information. The Script manager saves the original text file with a JSS (JAWS Script Source) file extension, and the compiled or binary version (machine-readable language) is saved with a JSB (JAWS Script Binary) file extension.

In this one and one half hour Webinar, you will learn the file types used by the Script manager, the commands used to navigate through existing script files and how to view the documentation for existing scripts and user-defined functions. You will also learn how to create new scripts using the New Script dialog box, how to insert functions into scripts, check for errors that violate the rules of correct script writing, save and compile your script files, and more.

Archive of the prior Script Manager Webinar
MP3 of the prior Script Manager Webinar
HTML files of the prior Script Manager Webinar

Glen Gordon's May 26, 2009 Webinar on ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications)

Archive of Glen Gordon's May 26, 2009 Webinar on ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications)
MP3 of Glen Gordon's May 26, 2009 Webinar on ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications)
HTML Files from Glen Gordon's May 26, 2009 Webinar on ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications)

Glen Gordon from Freedom Scientific gave a free Webinar on ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications), hosted by EASI (Equal Access to Software and Information).

Webinar description: What is ARIA and why is it important? Why is ARIA necessary? What challenges do ARIA and Web 2.0 sites present to screen reader developers and users? Listen to the archive of this Webinar to hear Glen Gordon describe how Freedom Scientific is preparing JAWS for this new wave of the future. Learn about ARIA features and how JAWS users will interact with these dynamic Web-based applications.

JAWS and MAGic Reading Commands and Cursors Used by JAWS Archives

Archive of the prior JAWS and MAGic Reading Commands and Cursors Used by JAWS Webinar
MP3 of the prior JAWS and MAGic Reading Commands and Cursors Used by JAWS Webinar
HTML files of the prior JAWS and MAGic Reading Commands and Cursors Used by JAWS Webinar