Did you read the freaquently asked questions? If you didn't then go do it. Some of your questions should be answered their.

1. The school for the blind I attended had a computer class, I learned the basics there and then learned the rest by my own using tutorials, documentations and the like. And about NVDA, if you are using it on Windows 10 it has a decent enough voice, but on Windows 7 it has a truely aweful one. I'm not sure if you can really learn it, I don't mean you are incapable of that, only that you are used to the convenience of using your vision to use a computer. I guess it'll be hard to replace that with a shitload of keyboard shortcuts and a computer that babbles on and on.

2. Most blind people almost never use the mouse. There are a few audio games that utilize the mouse and the players can use it to play, but generally we only use the keyboard. Also some games support joysticks.

Can't answer the next two questions because I'm not a student and I don't play games much, except a few card games here and there.

1 I learned from a guy paid by my school? Or my parents or someone at an early age to use the screen reader jaws. Can't remember the logistics of it as I was quite young when it all started. I then later learned NVDA and voiceover on the mac and IPhone on my own. I now use exclusively mac.
2 there are ways to use the mouse, NVDA has a mouse tracking feature which I've experimented with, but never used. I have no sight so never bothered to use it although I imagine those with partial vision would find some use for it. Voiceover has the ability to use mac trackpads but its more like using an IPhone screen than dragging the mouse around. So I guess my personal answer would be no, aside from the few games that require it, though thats a thing of the past for me as I no longer game.
3 there are all usable, though they very. I'd say zoom is the best, on the computer at least. The phone there all relatively the same. As far as computer goes though zoom would be the best I'd say, it has the most shortcuts. As far as the actual schooling goes though, doing music college online is a bit of a pain lol, but gotta do what you gotta do.
4 I touched on this a bit early for your second question, but there are some games developed specifically for blind people that take advantage of the mouse. A game created by a guy who actually wasn't blind is called swamp, and its a left for dead type zombie thing. Not sure if its still around but it was quite fun, you would move the mouse around to aim and click to shoot and all that. Was neat.
I find other games that are not designed for the blind to be enjoyable too though, such as the mortal kombat or street fighter games. There are also scripts for the pokemon christal game to make it accessible to screen readers as well as several pc mods for GTA 5 making it playable, but thats not something I have too much experience with personally.

1. I use jaws primarily but know enough of NVDA to get around on a computer somewhat well. I don’t know any of voiceover on a Mac though. All of what I know in terms of how to use them was probably 2/3 taught by other blind people and 1/3 taught myself from playing around with them. Once you get somewhat familiar with them, they can get pretty intuitive to learn IMO.

2. Like another comment said, some specific actions are done more efficiently using the trackpad but I otherwise use the keyboard entirely. Probably like 98% keyboard and the occasional quick use of the trackpad here and there.

3. During the recent school closures, I was initially worried about material being accessible online too but I, personally, did not run into any major issues. In fact, most professors were very understanding because it’s a very unique circumstance for all of us. Zoom is pretty accessible. I don’t know about the Google one you mentioned because I’ve never used it. I am cautiously optimistic about accessibility in the upcoming fall semester. I’m going to be as proactive as possible with all my professors to make sure that I get off to a good start but it’s definitely something to think about given how easy it is to fall behind in classes, especially if the material is not accessible. All campuses have a department that is tasked with trying to make material as accessible though so it’s not like it’ll be all on me to make it work. Plus, I have taken a few online classes in the past and they went well so I’m not too worried.

4. I don’t game. However, I have been playing last of us part 2 simply because they made it so accessible. It’s pretty fun.

we get training on computer usage in school. That just translates into learning that kind of thing. I made the transition from Jaws to NVDA in 2009 and the basics I picked up on fairly quickly. It took me longer to learn some of its more advanced features, but only because I didn't bother trying until a need presented itself.

On gaming, I will use a controller wherever possible. I have used the mouse in certain situations though.

> For screen reader users: How did you learn to use a screen reader? I tried out NVDA recently out of curiosity and was pretty overwhelmed by the documentation and really confused by how to navigate conveniently. I was curious about whether I could use NVDA occasionally so that I don't stare at my screen 24/7 and get headaches, but it was a big struggle.

My first screen-reader was VoiceOver on the Mac, which has a built-in tutorial that is presented to you the first time you enable the screen-reader. VoiceOver is properly designed in the sense that it allows for full navigation with very few keyboard combinations, so even the most basic users like me at the time can feel comfortable and fully in control while using it. It also comes with a built-in help menu which one can browse in order to learn new key combinations, and has a mode that you can enable to press key combinations and hear descriptions of what they do. Regarding Windows I already had experience navigating using the keyboard as a power user / developer, which combined with my experience with VoiceOver meant that I knew what to expect from NVDA when I tried it for the first time. I consider myself an intermediate user of screen-readers even 6 years after going totally blind, that is, I make use of almost all the features offered by them but I haven't felt the need to actually script them yet.

> For computer users in general: Do you use a mouse when using a computer at all, or do you rely solely on keyboard controls? Does this just depend on whether someone is fully blind or has usable vision? I've read that most people who are blind don't use a mouse but some might, and I was wondering how common it is to use a mouse.

As a totally blind user I don't use a mouse at all, but I use pointing devices like touch-screens on smartphones and Windows PCs as well as trackpads on Macs because screen-readers make them accessible, and in some situations it's quicker to get to certain controls using those devices than skipping over all other controls with the keyboard.

> For gamers: Do you guys use a mouse when playing PC games, like FPS or other 3D games in first person perspective? Have you guys tried virtual reality? I've heard of audio games and seen videos from some of the bigger youtubers who are visually impaired, but I'm wondering more specifically about the accessibility of first person perspective games if many people who are blind don't use a mouse.

I don't play games that require using a mouse at all, but before I lost my sight completely I used the mouse like any sighted person would. This hasn't always been the case though, because when I had my first contact with computers everyone played first person shooters like Wolfenstein 3D and Doom with the keyboard. It wasn't until Dungeon Keeper came out in 97 that I learned how to use the mouse to control the aiming of possessed creatures since it didn't provide any other way to do it, and even then it was still very common to find keyboard players as all games before Quake 2 only required you to aim horizontally. Regarding virtual reality my only contact with it was in 95 when the resolution and field of view were very limited; when Oculus Rift made it popular again I was already totally blind.

Blind people can only usually play fighting games, so no PUBG or anything. I basically only play Dissidia Final Fantasy, a PSP game so I use PPSSPP and NVDA's OCR option to read the menus and such, but Retroarch also now has a feature like that. Other blind people just play Mortal Kombat and enjoy that kind of over the top violence.

1. I learned the basics mostly from my parents, who were also screen reader users, which is of course quite rare. Most people learn from the beginning at training centers sponsored by the government or blindness organizations or through teachers contracted by their school, but that usually just covers the essentials. But I also picked up more advanced things here and there from friends and by reading the documentation my self when I got old enough to understand it.
Just learning how to use the screen reader is only part of the battle though, because many common programs have their own accessibility features or screen reader tricks that must be learned if you want to use them to their full potential. That's why I went back to get more official training later for things like MS Office and GSuite.


2. I've never met or heard of a totally blind person who uses the mouse in day to day computing. Screen readers are capable of it to a degree, some better than others, but they already include special virtual cursors and commands for doing allot of what a mouse can anyway
The documentation and training for screen readers also focus exclusively on Windows keyboard commands for basic navigation, keystrokes which anyone can use regardless of weather or not a screen reader is running.


3. Over all things went well. We used several websites/apps that I hadn't had experience with before, such as blackboard, remind, and chomp chomp, but for the most part using them was alright.
Sometimes doing something was easier in the app rather than on the website and vice versa, and other times it was easier just to use more basic workarounds, such as sending word documents as attachments to emails rather than using the upload form through blackboard.
Doing math and parts of science was next to impossible without tactile graphics and braille though, and no website we used had the proper code (math ML) for showing math correctly on a "braille display" either.
I had to do private tutoring with my math teacher and even then I was behind, and this isn't even calculus.
Zoom was easy enough to pick up though; it has lots of keyboard shortcuts and decent documentation.


4. Yes some people use a mouse when ever that's a possibility in FPS games. We have had a handful of those over the years and one of them "Swamp" is pretty hard to play without a mouse, so that caused allot of blind people who had previously been totally against it to pick up a mouse just for Swamp, since it was such a big hit in the community.
Allot of people still play FPS's with the keyboard though. We tend to allow full rotation using the arrow keys or A and D, and snap to nearest 90 degree/turn 180 degrees quickly with other keys.
We also use sidestep keys along with the normal movement most of the time, and do to these restrictions, our maps are generally a series of rectangles or squares, with occasional slight angles in the mix.
We spice up our maps with lots of ambiance and sound sources, reverb, and various footstep sounds, but they are still very barren compared to the mainstream.
VR is promisingas a future platform, we already have a few binaural audio games but some of those headsets go even further. The problem is that most of us don't feel the need to shell out for a good graphics card, and a VR headset which would likely only have a handful of accessible games at most would be a big purchase on it's own.