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Blind woman adjusts teaching career Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Karen Barlow, who is legally blind, teaches people with disabilities to use computers. Barlow�s computer runs a program that magnifies screen images and text so she can see them. Other programs translate computer text into audible speech or print screen text in Braille characters. She teaches use of software designed for blind operators By Bill Kettler Blindness couldn�t keep Karen Barlow from the work she loves. The Medford woman taught computer classes until complications from diabetes left her legally blind. Looking for a new career, she learned how to use computer software for blind people. Now she�s teaching again, showing blind men and women how to use computers they can�t see. "Without this technology, I can�t imagine where I�d be emotionally and financially," Barlow says. "It�s been an absolute lifesaver for me." Barlow works at the Education Resource Center in the Rogue Valley Mall. She teaches computer skills to people with disabilities in a program developed by Southern Oregon Goodwill Industries. "We�re training people to be more productive in the everyday working world," she says. Barlow lost her right eye to diabetic retinopathy, a degenerative eye disease that fills the eyeball with extraneous blood vessels. Doctors removed the eye last August. Glaucoma reduced the vision in her left eye to 20/400. She can see shapes and large blocks of color, but no significant details. "I can see you have gray hair and a beard," she tells a visitor, "but don�t ask me what color your eyes are." Barlow learned about software for the blind several years ago when her vision began to deteriorate. The Oregon Commission for the Blind referred her to Goodwill. There she learned about Zoomtext, a program that magnifies text and images on a computer screen to make them legible for people with severely impaired vision. Using Zoomtext, she worked for a time teaching sighted people to use programs such as Microsoft Word and Excel, then came to Goodwill when the agency received grant money for vocational rehabilitation education. Goodwill used the money to create a technology center for people with disabilities and hired Barlow to teach. "I needed an assistant," says Kerry Malone, who manages Goodwill Technology Services. "And she was the best one there was." Barlow meets several times a week with her clients, helping them learn new job skills and showing them how computers can enrich their lives. She teaches people who still have some vision to use Zoomtext or a closed circuit television camera that works like a miniature overhead projector. The camera picks up printed text from a page and magnifies it on a computer screen. Other programs help people who can�t see at all. A "full screen reader" program called Jaws translates screen images and text into audible speech, and allows blind people to "see" what they type by echoing each character audibly as it�s struck on the keyboard. Other programs translate screen text into Braille characters and print the raised dots on paper, making screen text readable to anyone who has learned the Braille alphabet. "The technology is sitting here for people to use," she says, "but so few people know about it." Malone says computers have opened a world of new career opportunities for blind people. As recently as 15 years ago, most blind people who worked at all were relegated to simple physical tasks, such as broom-making. Now, she says, "the only thing that limits the job is what the technology will do." Barlow uses the closed circuit TV for much of her own work. Her left eye has stabilized, but there�s no way to know if it will deteriorate. She is learning Braille against the day when she might lose her remaining vision. It�s humbling, she says, to relearn the alphabet at the age of 53. "I�m in grade 2 Braille," she says, with a chuckle. "I know all the letters. Now I�m putting them into the words." Barlow hopes doctors will soon give her the okay for a permanent artificial eye. Her temporary eye, which she christened Lucy ("because she�s loose; she keeps falling out") serves as a place holder while the eye socket heals after surgery. The permanent artificial eye will be made from a piece of coral. The coral�s porous structure allows the muscle tissue in the eye socket to grow into it, so it will follow the natural movements of her left eye. "That eye," she says, "will be Lucille." Reach reporter Bill Kettler at 776-4492, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.