Help Viewing the Courses

The PTSD 101 course modules are in either Flash or PowerPoint format. To view them you must have the latest version of Adobe Flash Player or PowerPoint (or the free PowerPoint Viewer 2007) installed on your computer. These are available on the VA Plug-Ins and File Viewer Page.

NOTE: These courses are in the process of being made more accessible to screen readers and other assistive technology. Please contact ncptsd@va.gov for assistance if needed.

Flash Courses

Flash files will play automatically when you click the link.

The transcript for Flash modules is available in the 'Notes' section of Flash player.

Keyboard commands for your screen reader

To navigate through Flash courses using assistive technology:

• Spacebar will Play and Pause
• Arrow Left, Arrow Up, or Page Up will Play Previous Slide
• Arrow Right, Arrow Down, or Page Down will Play Next Slide
• Home key will Play First Slide
• End key will Play Last Slide
• O key will show the Outline tab
• T key will show the Thumbnails tab
• S key will show the Search tab
• N key will show the Notes tab
• V key will Toggle Display View Modes
• M key will Toggle Audio Mute

Microsoft PowerPoint Courses

Course modules with audio narration by the instructor are packaged in ZIP format to reduce file size and download time. Each package includes one PowerPoint Slideshow file (the course module) and several MP3 audio files (the narration).

A text-only transcript is also available.

Instructions

1. After downloading the course package from the module page, unzip the package (instructions below).
2. After unzipping, open the folder containing the PowerPoint and audio files. Double-click the PowerPoint Slideshow file to view the course. NOTE: Do not move any files out of the folder, or the audio will not play correctly.
3. The narration will play automatically as you advance to each new slide. At the conclusion of the narration for each slide, you will hear a tone indicating you may advance to the next slide when you are ready to do so.
4. Click the speaker icon located in the bottom left corner of each slide to stop and restart the narration, or hit M on your keyboard to mute volume.

Unzipping Downloaded Files

Windows XP users

• Right-click on the .zip file you downloaded, choose "Extract All..." from the popup menu, and follow the Extraction Wizard instructions.

Mac OS X users

• (10.3 and later): Double-click on the .zip file you downloaded.

Users of older operating systems

• You will need to download a helper utility to unzip the files. Windows users may download a free evaluaton version of WinZip; Macintosh users may download a free version of Stuffit Expander. After downloading and installing the appropriate helper utility for your computer, follow the instructions provided with the software to unzip the course module and audio files.

If you experience difficulty navigating, please contact ncptsd@va.gov. We are here to help.