I appreciate that most of the correspondence in dis-forum concerns
undergraduate students who are in receipt of DSAs, but what about
postgraduates and those who are not? At Leeds we have many mature,
part-time postgrad students, who still need help, but who have no
DSAs to buy expensive computer equipment. They would be only
too glad of a secondhand computer on which they could type essays,
assignments, etc. I have in the past typed essays for students who
were unable to use the computer clusters, but I cannot type essays
for every disabled part-time postgrad - I just don't have the time.
Anbd believe it or not there has been a complaint that a particular disabled
student was "hogging" a computer in one of the clusters provided for
student, because he took a bit longer than normal to do an assignment!
But there is also a problem that part-timers may have a drive of up
to 3 or 4 hours to get here, and after the lecture/seminar/whatever
they need to get home to their families and do not want to spend
another 3 or 4 hours on campus at a computer cluster.
I would be grateful for any suggestions on helping disabled part time
postgrad students, many of whom come late to higher education
and have no access to computer equipment. An outdated computer
which might otherwise be scrapped would help this category of
student, who needs the most basic form of word processing.
The disability services office last year put out an appeal on the Uni
for any old machines and we were offered several - but they had been
networked and had no software on them!
Anne-Denise
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|