From: amilabs (amilabs@optonline.net)
Date: Mon Nov 10 2003 - 18:49:12 GMT-3
It should not be too difficult. The blind person will probably be an
excellent touch typist so no problem there, if not an advantage. The lab
workbook can be in brail(diagrams) so no problem there also. It is only
what is on the screen that would be an issue. Unless he/she uses a brail
keyboard with feedback. Kind of like the one shown in the movie
Sneakers. Maybe the blind person will take the lab in a closed room with
a Procter to read the screen output.
Interesting question though.
-----Original Message-----
From: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of
Jay Hennigan
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 4:40 PM
To: John Smith
Cc: Enrico Asproni; ccielab@groupstudy.com
Subject: Re: Any Blind CCIE's?
On Mon, 10 Nov 2003, John Smith wrote:
> Just wondering if anyone knows of any Blind CCIE'S?
No, but I have a close friend who is blind and highly clued.
> So what does Cisco do for the Lab? Does anyone know if any facilities
> support Blind people and then have any blind people sat for the exams,
> and then have any passed and where are they now?
>
> I'm not blind, but I do know someone who is, who does It stuff now,
> and is interested in broadening his horizons.
The blind typically use a speech synthesizer to "read" the screen text,
and type using a regular keyboard. Cisco CLI and UNIX/Linux are far
more blind-friendly than Windows and other GUI apps, although the speech
units work after a fashion with many Windows apps.
The main problem I can see with the CCIE lab would be time, as the
speech box is considerably slower than reading text, especially when it
comes to reading strings of numbers like IP addresses and access lists.
The other consideration would be the lab integrity and allowing the
accommodation for the speech hardware, as external electronics of any
type are typically forbidden in the lab. The scenario booklet could be
printed in braille. The blind candidate could use headphones on the
speech box, but taking notes on a braille writer could be somewhat
noisy, so I would suspect that if such were to be allowed it would have
to be in a separate area from the other candidates.
I would think that Cisco would have some blind employees within their
organization who might be able to assist should your friend pass the
written exam and want to attempt it, or at least lobby the CCIE program
people to allow the lab attempt.
By the way, my blind friend is extremely talented in terms of analytical
thinking and could probably pass the CCIE if given an opportunity,
although his interests presently are elsewhere. He explains it in a way
that makes sense... "Think how much faster and more efficient your PC
would be if it didn't have to deal with all of that graphics processing.
I don't have to deal with any graphics."
-- Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Administration - jay@west.net WestNet: Connecting you to the planet. 805 884-6323 WB6RDV NetLojix Communications, Inc. - http://www.netlojix.com/
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