Information Technology Career Opportunities for the Blind/VI

Information Technology Career Opportunities for the Blind/VI Arnold Bailey [email_address] www.blind411.org/ITCareers/

Part 1

What is Information Technology(IT)?

How IT is used in business and industry.

Information Technology Definition Software and hardware technology used to gather , store , process , maintain , distribute and utilize 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

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

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

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

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

You can view the tracking on the web site.

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

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

The design data is then translated to chip build data.

Each tool that builds the chip uses the build data.

Design data is used to test the chip.

Semiconductor Manufacturing

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

Orders are made from the sales office.

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 Operations Operations Analyst Network Administrator Network Systems Analyst Database Administrator Database Manager Computer Support Specialist Systems Programmer Systems 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 65 do 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 * tax 12.5625 >>> price + _ 113.0625 >>> round(_, 2) 113.06