How the Internet Helps Blind Students Become Good Writers

It was exactly 7:00 am when I began the class with seven E students, who were eagerly waiting for the lesson to begin. I had prepared my lesson and one of the areas I wanted to cover was email, so that those students’ who are not able to compose, read and confirm the sent mails could have a chance to review it before we moved onto another topic.

The lesson began quite well and the students seemed to be excited, though some issues began to arise that the students seemed hesitant to share. What could this be?

In the meantime, my attention was briefly taken outside of class. When I returned to the class, I found the students crowding at Faith Kavutha’s workstation. I rushed over to see what was taking place, because we are dealing with kids who are very inquisitive. What I found was that the students had found a new resource that helped them email at http://www.mwanasimba.online.fr/E_methali_01.htm.

This link was the solution to Faith and friends’ problem writing good email composition and isha. The site contains over 90 proverbs translated into Swahili (Methali) that students are expected to include in their insha and composition in order to pass the class.

When I asked Faith - who is a totally blind student - how she found this valuable learning website. She boldly told me that just Googled to seek this information. Of course she did, with computer assistive technology she has the same online research abilities as the rest of the connected world..

The lesson I learned out of this scenario was that, given time and access our blind or visually impaired students can fully utilize the vast educational tools available on the internet, just like their sighted peers. Thanks to Access Kenya Group and other stakeholders.