[Year 12 Its] Would anyone like this problem ?

[Kevork Krozian]

Hi Folks,
 
       I have been happily meandering along with Borland JBuilder ( java ) for a few years as my IT Systems programming language. 

This year I have a blind student in class who is a very bright programmer and uses a "screen reader"  called Jaws to describe to him what the screen looks like at any point in time. He used this with VB and VB.Net last year and did quite well.

     Now, on Friday we started Java, and to my chagrin discovered that Jaws has no way of recognising the JBuilder screen and the RBIV ( Royal Blind Institute of Victoria ) advised we were unlikely to succeed with JBuilder and Jaws. For the record the RBIV advised that there are blind java programmers working in industry ( how wonderful !!! )   but they use a totally text based environment. 
 This meant that I was faced with one of the following choices :

                A. Trying to teach Java to this student in an entirely text environment totally missing the benefits of the IDE 
 OR          B. Teach VB.Net to him by learning it myself in 5 minutes and then preparing teaching material for him to be able to carry out the learning.
 OR          C. Teach him PHP , but this could cause problems later if Jaws takes a disliking to the environment in which it is being used.

   Faced with the smallest of 3 evils , I am inclined to try option B. 
  Any help or advice including good books, exercises and web sites to assist would be welcome with open arms.

Regards
Kevork
Forest Hill College