The Free Internet Cafe for the Blind & Visually Impaired, the first in the whole of Africa, which opens the World Wide Web, making The Gambia a leading light in Africa, with this technology by allowing free and total access to surf the net send and receive emails and for students to enhace their studies with the aid of this pioneering software. No more do they need to rely on a third party to read to them newspapers, magazines, books, letters and world wide information. Nonvision.KingfisherGambia.com - BBC Learning (expert)
 

www.bbc.co.uk/learning

 

BBC Learning

BBC Learning website (opens in new window )

Level: expert

 

What is BBC learning?

Pretty much everyone is aware of the BBC corporation, and the learning part of there website is a very popular branch, continuing the high standards the BBC aim to achieve.

How to use BBC learning

The learning website is packed full of useful information, links and quizzes. It’s difficult to analyse how accessible these all are, as, for instance, the quiz changes frequently- so whilst one week's may be fine the next may involve lots of images etc and not work as well.

In order to take the quizzes and participate in discussions you will need to register with the BBC. Whilst the form is simplistic and short the actual register button does not appear in WebbIE, so you’ll currently need sighted help to do this.

Another issue with this particular website is that it uses Flash - to show videos, some of the quizzes etc. Flash doesn’t work with WebbIE so it’s fairly limiting. You can, however, through cautious browsing find text only guides and information, but as you can’t see before you click whether you’ll get text or video this is a lengthy process.

Many pages as well as video have a link to show the transcript of what goes on, this is half-useful, but as they often refer to the things they can see, for instance "this is £1.99." you may be left a little lost!

A lot of the learning website is aimed at the younger learner, up to and including GCSE level. There are also sections for parents and for adult learners too though.

Another feature is the search, from the main learning page, where you can enter your postcode and the course you are interested in to see what’s going on locally.

Navigating the website

Firstly, it’s worth jumping straight to the text, so control + down arrow is incredibly useful here. At the top of each page the BBC have a range of links, normally to take you home, to the news, etc. You may wish to familiarise yourself with these just so you know what’s about.

After this you can either navigate by heading, each main section having its own heading, but with this particular website it may be worth just arrowing around. This is due to the fact that the BBC often put snippets of information under each link, which you wouldn’t want to miss out on.

Overall the BBC learning website is a fantastic resource, just frustratingly challenging at the moment.

 

The Free Internet Cafe for the Blind & Visually Impaired, the first in the whole of Africa, which opens the World Wide Web, making The Gambia a leading light in Africa, with this technology by allowing free and total access to surf the net send and receive emails and for students to enhace their studies with the aid of this pioneering software. No more do they need to rely on a third party to read to them newspapers, magazines, books, letters and world wide information.