Cisco Academy for the Vision Impaired new students information
Welcome to all students studying with us this term. The following is important information you need to know before starting class.
Anyone wishing to do their own timezone conversions should check out http://www.timeanddate.com 
If you own a device with world clock functionality you may wish to add Perth Western Australia to your list of cities to aid in conversion.
The academy runs on Perth Time in Western Australia. Orientation is at 9 A.M. Perth time, 1 Universal on Wednesday February  1. For Americans this is 5, 6, 7, 8 P.M depending if you are in Pacific, Mountain, Central or Eastern  time on Tuesday the 31st January. 
Note that when daylight savings comes into affect you will have to ajust your start times accordingly for your location.
This Initial lecture will be for setup purposes and to answer questions. It is highly recommended as many students attend orientation as possible in order to iron out any problems with their ventrilo setup etc. All lectures run for 2 hours. Note the below times are without daylight savings as it does not come into affect till March.
Discovery1 lecture is at 9 A.M. Tuesday Perth time, 8 P.M. eastern time Monday nights for Americans. Exploration 1 lecture is at 8 P.M. eastern time in the US, 9am Perth time, (1 am universal) WednesdayNight for Americans.) ITE lectures are on at 8 P.M. Eastern, 9am Perth (1:00 universal) Friday (Thursday Nights Americans.)
The Linux course is on Wednesday mornings 9AM Perth time, (Tuesday evenings 8pm Eastern) for the US.
You are welcome to attend any and all lectures regardless of your class as long as you are not disruptive to students who are assigned to the lecture you are attending. If you can not attend the lecture; audio will be downloadable from the http://www.cucat.org website sometime after the lecture is finished. It is important that where possible you attend the lectures; this will give you the ability to ask questions in real time and will keep you motivated. For a schedule of all courses offered including time and date links, instructor names, and Skype details visit: http://cucat.org/cavischedule.html
As many of you will have noticed all students that we know of have been subscribed to both the cavi-announce and cavi-discuss mailing lists. Subscription to the announce list is a requirement for studying with us, and the discuss list is very strongly encouraged. The mailing lists are a key tool in our course delivery so it is extremely important that all students  pay  close attention to what is posted to the announce  list.  If you have missed information, the list archives are referenced in the headers and at the bottom of each posted message, and on the list information page. General discussion should occur on cavi-discuss@ciscovision.org and only important announcements are permitted on the moderated cavi-announce@ciscovision.org mailing list. Students are not usually permitted to post to the announce list, except in special circumstances. Announcements will be made on tutorials available from our primary website: http://www.cucat.org as they become available. I would strongly urge all students to have a look around on this website to familiarize yourself with the student resources section. 
To access your academy connection account, on cisco.netacad.net find the second heading from the top of the page called academy connection. To do this using Jaws press the
letter H twice. Now press tab once and you will hear a log in link. This is a graphical log in link, so do not be surprised if you hear graphic log in.
When you press enter on this link a new browser window will open which will allow you to enter your user name and password. 
The first time you log in the system will guide you through setting up your username, password, and profile. Please
make sure that the show accessible content combo box is set to yes. 
All students should also opt in for receiving communications from cisco.netacad.net when they configure their profile, otherwise you can not receive exam feedback emailed to you or emails  to reset your password.
The following is split into sections for local and remote students. Search for the section that applies to you.
*** Local students:
Local students should be at the Association for the Blind by 9am on the day of the course they are studying. This means Linux students are in on Wednesday, Exploration students are in on Thursday, and IT essentials students are in on Friday. The day runs until 3pm, however if students have completed all their 	work, they can leave early after checking with an instructor. There is a cafe at the association, or students can pack and bring their own lunch. (No fridge or kettle is provided for clients). Water is available at the cafe at no charge. Take away food is not to be brought into and consumed in the cafe area, however is permitted in the client lounge. All local students are expected to have their own headset and microphone, or at minimum a method of accessing a computer that does not rely on audio that would disrupt others. Headsets without microphones are available for students to borrow on a temporary basis. All local students should check their email regularly for important announcements and information related to the course.

*** Remote students:
You will need a few more tools and tricks than local students however most of these are free. If you wish to listen live to lectures, you will need to download and install Ventrilo from http://www.ventrilo.com. there is a tutorial in general instructions under student resources on the cucat website that will give more information on how to set it up however the following is a summary: Note that Ventrilo does not use menus, it uses buttons activated with the spacebar. This is easy enough once you get used to it, and Ventrilo is accessible with NVDA or similar once the default hotkey is changed if desired. (It defaults to left control which can cause your microphone to open when you silence speech). username should be your first name dot last name in lowercase for example grace.king. Server hostname is v47.darkstarllc.com port 4031 your password is your first name in lowercase. The Ventrilo server is available at all times (assuming it hasn't crashed) for the use of students both for work and socializing. We have a 50 user license. Usually when people join they arrive in the lobby, you can then move to lecture theater when lecture begins. All lectures are recorded, encoded to vbr mp3 and posted on the sight soon after lecture is complete. It is important that you check your audio levels before trying to talk in class, historically skype would mess with the microphone levels. Also note that if Microphone or suitable recording source has not been chosen, Ventrilo will not choose it for you. There is a test with test button inside the setup dialog which you can use to test your level. Note you will have to shift tab back around to it or you will become stuck in the hotkey field when tabbing. Skype is also used for person to person communication when a student wants to talk confidentially to an instructor, or 1 to 1 communication is desired. It is required for all students to obtain and know how to use skype, and provide their skype ids to the instructors. Skype is available from http://www.skype.com/ and there are Jaws scripts available if desired at, http://dlee.org/skype/ Please email cavi-instructors@ciscovision.org with your skype ID so that the instructors can add you to skype. Most of the CAVI staff are volunteers. The paid staff are only paid to work on this project 2.5 days a week. These days (Perth time) are Wednesday, Thursday 9AM till 4pm. and 9am till 12Pm Friday morning. Instructors can arrange to be available at other times on request, however know that you are taking up personal time, please keep this in mind with your dealings. Email is far less disruptive out of hours than skype chat, msn etc. Your question might only take 10 seconds to ask, but much longer to answer. If your question is relevant to more than one student it benefits all if you ask it on list.
Each student has an account on http://cisco.netacad.net. This account will be used for taking online exams, and will track your progress through the courses as you study. Once you have completed a course, you can register for the alumni, which will allow you to access curricula that you have previously studied after you leave the courses. When your account is created, you will be emailed 2 numbers. Log in with these, and set your profile. Ensure that you choose "provide content in accessible format when available" so you will benefit from the diagram descriptions that will show up on the academy with this setting enabled. Also change your username to something that is easy to remember, and set your password likewise. Note that choosing a unique name on the academy is difficult as there are many users. Curriculum is available both from our website, and the Cisco learning academy. Students are encouraged to read the academy notes, as well as any converted material that may be provided. Academy resources will take priority over converted material.
Payments for your courses are accepted via paypal. Please visit www.ciscovision.org and click on the donate link to pay for your courses. Click on the link to add special instructions and note the courses you are paying for. The due date for payments is March third. Please email cavi-instructors.net with any questions regarding payment, or if you require a payment installment plan before this date. If you have already paid this step is not necessary. Those who do not pay by the deadline risk there accounts on the Cisco server being deleted, and losing Ventrillo access.
Updates may be made to this document as required and it will be made available for students from the cucat website.
From the whole CAVI team we look forward to working with you in 2012 and beyond.
Regards,
Your CAVI Instructors