information technology career opportunities for the blind/vi

Information Technology Career Opportunities for the Blind/VI

Arnold Bailey

[email protected]

www.blind411.org/ITCareers/

04/10/23IT Careers for the Blind/VI

Part 1

What is Information Technology(IT)?

How IT is used in business and industry.


Information Technology Definition

Software and hardware technology used to gathergather, storestore, processprocess,

maintainmaintain, distributedistribute and utilizeutilize information that is critical to running a

corporation


Before the Information Age

People + Paper + Filing = Slow


Information Age

Information is everywhere.

But, How can I get to it?


Information Age

The information is

•Stored in databases

•Connected by networks

•Accessed via programs

•Distributed via networks to

•printers

•computers

•mobile devices

•Other databases


Information Age

All Data

•gathering

•storing

•processing

•maintaining

•distribution

is accomplished through programming and requires

support.


Corporate IT Examples

• UPS – IT is used to improve service (External)

• Semiconductor Plant – IT is used to improve the manufacturing and development process (Internal)

• Software Development (not shown)


UPS Tracking System

1. Package to UPS. Shipping information is entered into a computer.

2. The data is transmitted to a main location and stored into a database. A package ID is created and transmitted back.

3. A label, with the ID, is printed with a bar code and it is pasted onto the package. This is the tracking package ID.


UPS Tracking System

4. The package is tracked on entry/exit to each location and a transaction is sent to the central database each time.

5. You can view the tracking on the web site.

6. On receipt you sign a PDA device that transmits wirelessly a transaction to the main database


Important Points!

•Notice the critical nature of networks and databases to the business.

•Tens of millions of lines of code that were written and need to be maintained and supported.

•Thousands of hardware devices including the network and computers that need to be maintained and supported.


Semiconductor Manufacturing

1. Engineers design a chip circuit at a terminal using software design tools and simulation software.

2. The design data is then translated to chip build data.

3. Each tool that builds the chip uses the build data.

4. Design data is used to test the chip.


Semiconductor Manufacturing

5. Each chip serial number is entered into the inventory database and sent to the warehouse.

6. Orders are made from the sales office.

7. Orders are added to a shipping bill of material and shipped.


Important Points!

•Networks were not shown; but, designers, mainframes and databases are worldwide.

•Notice the critical nature of networks and databases to the business.

•Tens of millions of lines of code that were written and need to be maintained and supported.

•Integrant process control and tools that need to be maintained and supported.


Part 2

Overview of Information Technology Career Paths


Assistive Software

Screen Readers JAWS(IE), Windows Eyes(IE),

Orca(Linux) Voice Over(Mac), Narrator(Vista) Systems Access(IE), IBM WATS(IE) Magnifiers (XP, ZoomText,MAC) Voice Recognition (Dragon

Natural,Vista, MS Word)


Assistive Hardware

Braille note-taking Scanner/OCR software Refreshable braille displays Braille translation software Braille embossers

http://www.blind411.org/ITinit/assistive.htm


Business Applications

Development Programming

Tools Dev. & Support

Operations Support

Major Areas of IT Jobs


Operations Support

OperationsOperations Analyst

Network Administrator Network Systems Analyst

Database AdministratorDatabase Manager

Computer Support Specialist

Systems ProgrammerSystems Engineer


Applications Architect Systems Analyst Programmer/Analyst Web Developer Report Administrator Data entry

Business Applications


Software Engineers, Systems Software Designer Developer (Programmer/Engineer) Tester Technical Writing Field Reporting

Development Programming


Tools Development & Support Program Library Support Accessibility Consultant

Tools Dev. & Support


Part 3

Summary


Why consider an IT career?

Opportunity Financial Creative Your on your own Fun

Exciting and Challenging


Importance of Marketable Skills

“’What are your marketable skills?’ That's it! If you don't have marketable skills then there's no sense in looking for a job. If you do, you need to know what they are. You need to know how you compare with others in your chosen occupation.”Michael Bullis, Blind Industries and Services of Maryland


Summary

Many opportunities in an IT career

Employers are looking for intelligent, dedicated and hard working employees.

The education and the tools are there.

IT skills make you more competitive and valuable as an employee.


Final Advice

You can do it, if you want to.

Persevere. Don’t get discouraged.

Never believe anyone who says you can’t do it.


Enc of Presentation


Appendix A - Programming Development

Requirement Analysis Design

Psuedo Code FlowCharts

Code Test Maintenance


Design: Pseudo code

set counter to 65do add one to counter if counter > 91 then print the counter

leave loop else increment counter by 1

End if loop

End program


Design: Flowchart

Set counter to 65

Counter>91?

Add 1 to counter

Print Counter

Yes

No


C

C++

C#

Java

Visual Basic

Assembly

Python

Pascal

SQL(DB)

Typical Programming Languages

Cobol

Pl1

Fortran

Assembler

RPG

CICS(Tx)


HTML/XHTML

JavaScript

JAVA

ASP

ASP.NET

PHP

Perl

Web Development Languages


Appendix B – Example Program Source


Basic Language

what is the final value of J?

10 A = 4096

20 B = 1

30 J = 1

40 IF A=B THEN 90

50 A = A/4

60 B = 4*B

70 J = J+1

80 GOTO 40

90 END


C Language

#include <stdio.h>

main()

{

int i;

for(i=65; i < 91; i++)

printf("%c", i);

}


ASP

do while FoundStyle = 0

X = (file.ReadLine & vbCrLf)

if inStr(X,aa)=1 & FoundStyle = 0 then

FoundStyle = 1

'Response.Write("<b>Found first style</b><br>")

Response.Write(X)

end if

loop


Python

>>> tax = 12.5 / 100>>> price = 100.50>>> price * tax12.5625>>> price + _113.0625>>> round(_, 2)113.06