Read the transcript of video: Olive Fuller, student at Borders College

Well it came as quite a shock, because I suffer with macular degeneration.  I had noticed a slight decrease in my capacity to see.  It came on quite suddenly.  All of the things which I love doing, needed me to be able to see. SO I was left with quite a bit of time.  I happened to come upon computers and I heard about the class here.   So I came down to college and I got a lot of help and encouragement here.  But we were using JAWs, which is a super system but very difficult to use.  I also belong to an organization, the Torch Trust for the Blind. They happened to be having a computer weekend, and so I phoned up and said were they doing Jaws and they said, ‘Yes’ they were.  And I went down and then found out at the last minute, that this Guide system had just come out and they were taking part in the IT for All scheme.  And they wanted to show us how to use that.  Well I was a wee bit peeved actually, going from Scotland down to London, to find out that I wasn’t going to get what I hoping to get.  When I saw the scheme I realized that it was going to be absolutely ideal for me.  And for people like me.  When you are older, as we are, and it’s age related macular degeneration that’s the big problem, you’ve not had a lot of experience of computers. We never had them at school.  And although I was involved in writing the specification for computers at work, I didn’t actually use them and I had no idea how to set about it.  And the beauty of Guide is just that you switch it on, and somebody comes up and talks to you and tells you what to do. And that opens up a whole new vista to you, especially when you are my age and you haven’t had any experience of the computers.  I still stumble, stumble, stumble, or getting onto the web, which I am trying to do here.  I find it very confusing when you are going over the same thing, you know. You think ‘er yes that is the link I want’.  And you press it and it comes up with another list, which seems to be sort of the same.  Sam is showing me how to get through that and how to get to where I want to be.  It is really helpful to me.

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