Facility at Ventura College produces alternate-text...
Rated • 2 reviews • disabilities, music, blindness, braille • venturacountystar.com
Facility at Ventura College produces alternate-text materials
Products open up world to blind
By Kevin Clerici
Thursday, August 14, 2008
In a few weeks, Rachel Flowers, 14, will enter Hueneme High School. Blind virtually since she was born three months prematurely, the diminutive teen and music prodigy from Oxnard will face challenges finding her locker and classrooms.
But once in class, she will have the same opportunities to learn as her classmates, now that an alternative-text production center in Ventura has transcribed her books and materials into Braille and tactile graphics.
"I'm interested in all kinds of topics," said Rachel, whose early school years often were marked by uncomfortable trips to segregated classrooms and instructors who told her to not be a distraction. "Some of my earlier years were tough. But I'm curious to learn now. I think I'm ready."
Like dozens of students around California, her schoolbooks and materials were produced by the Alternative Text Production Center at Ventura College. The center is the only publicly funded facility among California's 110 community colleges dedicated to serving the alternate-text needs of visually impaired students.
The small but bustling production facility recently expanded to handle special orders, like the one for Rachel, and contract jobs from dozens of learning institutions across the nation. It's even launched a program to teach prison inmates to transcribe Braille.
Products open up world to blind
By Kevin Clerici
Thursday, August 14, 2008
In a few weeks, Rachel Flowers, 14, will enter Hueneme High School. Blind virtually since she was born three months prematurely, the diminutive teen and music prodigy from Oxnard will face challenges finding her locker and classrooms.
But once in class, she will have the same opportunities to learn as her classmates, now that an alternative-text production center in Ventura has transcribed her books and materials into Braille and tactile graphics.
"I'm interested in all kinds of topics," said Rachel, whose early school years often were marked by uncomfortable trips to segregated classrooms and instructors who told her to not be a distraction. "Some of my earlier years were tough. But I'm curious to learn now. I think I'm ready."
Like dozens of students around California, her schoolbooks and materials were produced by the Alternative Text Production Center at Ventura College. The center is the only publicly funded facility among California's 110 community colleges dedicated to serving the alternate-text needs of visually impaired students.
The small but bustling production facility recently expanded to handle special orders, like the one for Rachel, and contract jobs from dozens of learning institutions across the nation. It's even launched a program to teach prison inmates to transcribe Braille.
