Assistive tech as viewed from Geelong

00:08 S1

Hello everyone! Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from January the 14th, 2025. I'm Stephen Jolley. Great to have you with us - listening maybe through Vision Australia Radio, associated stations of the Radio Reading Network or the Community Radio Network. There is also the podcast - to catch that, all you need to do is search for the two words talking tech. And then it can come usually on a Tuesday afternoon just after it's been produced. Another option is to ask your Siri device or smart speaker to play Vision Australia radio talking tech podcast. Vision Australia radio talking tech podcast. 

While Damo McMorrow is on leave, I'm talking to some other interesting people. And by the way, if you haven't caught up with the conversation I had last week with Kimberly Kneen from Vision Australia up in Queensland, a participant in the graduate program of Vision Australia. You can catch that by going to the to the usual place where there are past editions of the program - VA Radio Talking Tech... VA Radio Talking Tech. Today I have a member of Damo's Access Technology team, one of the many people that are spread around the country. It's Kent Walsdorf from Geelong in Victoria. Kent, welcome.

01:26 S2

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

01:28 S1

You're an access technology person, talking to lots of people around the country, not just in Geelong. Tell us what your role takes you to.

01:39 S2

My role has a few hats. I still have the privilege of working with clients once every term, school term. I get to go over to Tasmania and I visit all the public schools there and work with students that have low vision or who may be blind and really work alongside them to make sure they've got the right equipment, and that the teachers are supported and helping that student to access the curriculum. So I still have a lot of contact time with clients. I guess the second part would be. I help to support our Access Technology specialists. 

So those are people that will go out daily and visit our client base. And I will train them on equipment or support them in assessments or just as a sounding board sometimes is all they need. You know, have a chat to me about something that they might want to talk through, a solution or a potential problem that they're coming up against. And I work with the New South Wales and Canberra team with that. And then I guess the the last hat that I have, which is relatively new for our team, is we do consulting. 

So we go into employment services, into businesses where they may have a team member that has a vision impairment, or they may have wished to employ people with vision impairment. And I'll go in there and test their systems with things like Jaws and Fusion and Zoomtext and sort of write a report and give them some advice on how to improve their system. So I'm very privileged that I have a role that has a lot of diversity and keeps me pretty interested in it.

03:03 S1

I'd like to ask you about the path that took you from your original involvement with technology to doing something, which I bet you didn't imagine on day one of your first job. And that's being involved in access technology.

03:17 S2

Yeah, I've had a pretty interesting career, I guess, in the nonprofit sector. That's how I kind of look at it. I started out actually as a musician, so from New Zealand, originally in Hamilton, and I went to, I guess, what you would call the equivalent of TAFE, and I studied music and I really got into computers there because that was when Apple computers were sort of really coming into the mainstream. They were certainly leading the charge with media. And our music department at the time had a whole bunch of Apple computers. So from there I gained a real interest, I guess. 

And being a studio engineer, I learned about signal flow. So how to connect leads and all kinds of bits and wonderful pieces of equipment and technology. So I was really fascinated about that area. And I guess fast forward after my degree, I came across to Melbourne and I landed a job with The Wiggles characters, so I was a production manager there. And part of that role was to sort of set up, you know, the stages for The Wiggles characters to come on and do their shows and shopping malls and things like that. 

So I wasn't quite involved yet in nonprofit, but my manager at the time, he brought me across because he left that job and I went across into Starlight Children's Foundation, where that was really my first taste of working with children with disability, working with children with severe sickness illness. And also, I was part of setting up some pretty complex technology systems there at the time. So it's been a wonderful change to come to Vision Australia. That was eight years ago now, where we moved from Melbourne to Geelong and that whole build up over my degree, over working with Starlight Children's Foundation really set me up well to be able to work as a technology specialist, combining two things that I love, which is technology and, you know, training and talking to people. So... yeah, very lucky to be in this role.

05:01 S1

On Talking Tech this week I'm speaking with Kent Walsdorf, who's an Access Technology Lead with Vision Australia based in Geelong. Let's talk more about your roles, particularly, I think the education one, as it's around the time of the year where people are getting organised for another year of learning.

05:19 S2

Absolutely. So if we sort of talk about people going into study and this can be a range of different people, you know, from, you know, children in primary school, high school, college, if you're in Tasmania, right into university, what we sort of talk about when we go to work with students is that there's a whole bunch of people involved in that conversation. So it's the student, sometimes it's the parents are involved in that conversation. If they're young, we will talk with the teachers, sometimes even with the universities. And really what we try and do is understand some of the challenges that those people may be facing, and that could be access to the curriculum, it could be access around the school. And we, you know, provide solutions. 

So I think one of the big takeaways that I've come away with over the years is that there's not one tool that that sort of works for everything. It's really about building a toolkit. And we talk about that a lot in our assessments, is that you might have one particular piece of equipment that might do one thing really well, but you need something else along the way as well. And... nowadays, I think in a lot of the schools that I visit, you know, iPads are a really popular product because of the, I guess, their ease of use, they very rarely break down. But also the built in accessibility is pretty important for for some of the students that I work with. 

So yeah, gearing up for school, I think it's really about understanding the curriculum, understanding who's teaching, and really working with both educators, parents and students to make sure that they do have the right tools because I have seen it when it doesn't work. I have seen it when a student doesn't have the right piece of equipment that they need, and it really sets them up to a challenging time to get through their course or get through the the year. So I find it really important to make sure that, you know, conversations are had with the right people, that the technology is trialled and that they do get the right piece of equipment or multiple pieces of equipment to make sure they are successful in their courses.

07:11 S1

Tell us about your work consulting with the corporate world.

07:15 S2

The work that I've done previously is that we might have someone who may have a vision impairment that's been deteriorating over a short period of time. And really, what's happening there is that the employer is keen on making sure that the right adjustments are made for that employee. So I'll go in there and I'll fire up jaws. And if they're a screen reader user, I would start testing that system. Really, my work involved with companies and businesses is that I will actually go and fire up jaws on their computer and actually test their system from start to finish, and it can be quite thorough. We... really look at the entire workflow of what a person might have to go through on a daily basis, and from that we'll present a pretty in depth report about that again. 

There might be things that they haven't thought of. And again, it could be things as simple as, you know, equipment that they need to be able to access their work. It's not necessarily always a change in their system or change in their software. It can be other things as well. So that one is something that's really interesting because every workplace is different. Every person that's trying to access their platform or their work has a different set of challenges. So I quite enjoy that part of the job because... yeah, there's a lot of things to think about, and I love it when we do actually make change and help people to, you know, get on with their work, because often that's just what they want to be able to do.

08:31 S1

Tell me about what for you must have been a real effort to go from being a person who uses technology in what we might describe as the usual or the majority way, and putting yourself into the headspace of somebody who's not looking at the screen or not looking at it very much. They might be a low vision person. That must have been quite a quite a transition for you.

08:56 S2

It was. So I don't have a vision impairment myself. I think when I started the role, there were certain things that I could do that were not. Not easy, but easier than being able to fire up a screen reader. So if it was something to do with, you know, working a magnifier or if it was something to do with working, you know, some of the other tools that we have, the wearable technology, I could understand that and I could teach that quite easily. When you throw yourself into the world of screen reading, that can be quite challenging for someone that's visual because you rely on your vision so much. 

And I actually found that quite difficult to start with, and it got to a point where I would go out and I would be working with some Jaws power user, you know, someone that's been using it for years. And I found myself feeling that I wasn't able to really hone my skills and to help that person. Basically, what I was still doing is relying on my vision at the time. So what I had to learn was to first of all use and learn all the keyboard shortcuts. So Jaws, for example. And I did that by using them daily. So I would go into work and I would be firing up outlook, firing up my computer, and just trying to remember the amount of keyboard shortcuts that I needed to deliver that. 

And the second part of that was I would use jaws daily. It's something that I've been working pretty hard at over the last 3 or 4 years, and I actually use it now for things like proofreading. I'll listen to my own documentation and my own reports with audio, because I find I actually pick up a lot more things with audio than what I do visually, in particular grammar and spelling mistakes. So for me, I found that actually using these tools daily gave me a lot more comfort in teaching the technology. 

But also every now and then I'll turn off the screen, and that really puts you into a position of you've only got your audio to rely on, you can only listen to jaws, and all of a sudden you're in the same position as the clients that you're trying to service. And service. And I find that that is really, really important is to understand exactly what they're going through and then tailor how you present the information or how you train accordingly.

11:02 S1

As a person who's been blind all their life... and so I haven't had to go through the transition that most users have to go through from the visual world to the speech or Braille world, even as a low vision or blind person. What do you talk to people about? Who you're working with, who are going through that transition? And I reckon we'd be wanting to hold on to try and look at the screen as much as possible and would be really struggling sometimes to read text, etc..

11:32 S2

There can be quite challenging and rightly so for a lot of people. And I think what I tend to do, especially in schools where I see students, that they actually become at a disadvantage, relying on their vision as opposed to transitioning across into speech. And I think it's something that you have to tackle with sensitivity, and I think you have to sort of coach them through and you have to allow them to understand potentially the benefit of using speech more as opposed to their vision. So it's a very gentle approach. At least that's the way that I do it.

Just recently, actually, I was working with a student and they were reading a piece of text and I said, Okay, we're going to just get you to read that text, see how you go. And there was just a paragraph. And then after that I got them to listen to it. And I said, Well, how did you find your comprehension with that text? Did you find it easier reading, or did you find it easier listening to it? And they said, Well, you know, actually just listening to it, I can probably give you more information about what I read. And I said, Not only that, what did you think of the speed? Like how quickly were you able to read that information? And they said, Well, much quicker with audio. 

So something like that can help people to understand that you may still use your vision in a certain way, and that's absolutely fine. Each person is completely different. But if you look into the audio side of things where you need it, especially people with severe vision loss. You might find that it becomes easier to get through information quickly. Not only that, I've seen and heard of experiences where people that sometimes move from their vision to audio, other things happen, like they reduce the amount of headaches they might have. At the end of the day, they rely on their vision so much that end of day headaches sort of come through. And, you know, all the glare in the classroom and things like that.

13:14 S1

And once... they're used to the audio, less fatigue.

13:17 S2

Yeah, absolutely. So that's that's actually quite a common thing that I've seen a lot in schools is that... when they suffer from fatigue and they start to use audio, they can continue with the learning and being able to get through content. So that transition very different for a lot of people, but it's an important one to help people understand the benefits of using speech, if that's if that's required for them.

13:39 S1

Yeah. Very interesting. It's been great chatting with you today, Kent, and I'm sure people have found it interesting to learn what goes into your thinking behind the scenes of just the... Yes, I talk to these people and I installed this equipment, etc., it's a lot more to it than that in the access technology world. So good on you and hope to have you back on Talking Tech again sometime.

13:59 S2

Thanks, Stephen. Appreciate the chat.

14:01 S1

I've been speaking with Kent Walsdorf, who's an Access Technology Lead with Vision Australia based in Geelong. He's been telling us about his role with Vision Australia. 

Just before we go, a reminder you can find details of this program and previous editions by going to VA radio, Talking Tech, VA radio, Talking Tech. And you can write to the program at Vision Australia. Is the naughty boy still looking at his emails? Damo McMorrow at Vision Australia dot org. This has been Talking Tech. I'm Stephen Jolley. Stay safe. We'll talk more tech next week. See you.