Virtual Teaching using Remote Access

When one of my students is having difficulties with their Jaws or needs help installing it, I need to connect to their computer a different way than through Jaws TANDEM. There are many ways to do remote access, but I chose to connect yesterday through SKYPE. For those new to the idea, remote access is where someone can help you resolve computer problems, no matter where you or they are in the world. You just need a phone line, but better is a wireless connection...anything works though.

The student called and then I gave her directions on the key commands so I could call up her computer.

Within minutes her Jaws was fixed. I then gave her the JAWS commands to pull up her computer using JAWS TANDEM and continued her lesson.

When you connect remotely using anything else other than JAWS TANDEM, you will not be able to hear JAWS unless the person turns him way up, which I have done also depending on the issue, but you miss too much information. To truly check to make sure JAWS is working correctly you must pull the students' computer up using TANDEM. I had her and SKYPE on one of my monitors, still connected remotely and then pulled her computer up using TANDEM on the other monitor. I could easily watch the interaction on both screens, tweaking as I needed. Well actually having her tweak. In general, I will not touch my keyboard to control their machine, as this is a great chance for the student to learn how to fix their own problems.

The point is giving them applicable skills that will work for a lifetime, so when they are on their own, they can fix their own issues as they come up. My older students who have long since graduated, can just email me now with a problem and I can give them the answer back through email. Rarely do I have to pull their machines up. Watch video: Virtual teaching

Give someone a fish and they eat for a day.
Teach them how to fish and they eat for a lifetime!