2014-06-11-Braille Exchange
Seminars@Hadley
Braille Exchange: Enhancing Independence integrating modern technology in Braille.
Presented by
Vilene Shah
Jennifer Ottowitz
Moderated by
Doug Anzlovar
June 11, 2014
Doug Anzlovar
Welcome to Seminars at Hadley, my name is Doug Anzlovar and I’m the dean of the Educational programs and instruction here at the Hadley school. Today’s seminar topic is our quarterly brail exchange and the title of today’s seminar is Enhancing Independence, Integrating Modern Technology in Braille”.
Now let me welcome today’s moderators Vileen Shah and Jennifer Ottowitz who are instructors here at Hadley. And they will introduce themselves and then they will also interview our panelists who are Hadley students. So Vileen I’m going to hand over my microphone to you.
Vileen Shah
Thank you Doug and good morning everybody. I’m Viileen Shah, currently working as instructor with the Hadley school for the blind. I was hired as a Braille transcription specialist in 2001.And for the last ten years I have been teaching Braille at Hadley school. Friends, initially when we were talking about this seminar, the title I had thought for this seminar was “relevance of Braille in the 21st century”. But my co-worker and today’s co-host, Jennifer Ottowitz suggested that how about keeping this, enhancing independence integrating modern technologies in Braille. And I said fine. So thank you Jennifer for suggesting this interesting title.
If we look at the title friend, I see that there are three premises. The title again is enhancing independence, integrating modern technologies in Braille. And I see that the three premises on which this title is rested are one, what is the significance of Braille? Does Braille have any station, any importance in a personal life? Two, how far and how much are we able to integrate modern technologies in Braille? And three how much independence it provides if we integrate modern technologies in Braille. Talking about Braille, I may say that I’m not only a teacher of Braille, but I’m also a user of Braille in my personal life for the personal, professional career and also in the community, I have been using Braille.
Braille has been here in the world since 1824, which we may say that it has been here for 190 years since the day Louie Braille invented this six code system.And if we go back to the history when Louie Braille invented this system, the school where he was a student and later on he even taught did not accept Braille as a medium of learning.
So right at the [00:03:35] of Braille, he faced a challenge, he faced the survival challenge but thanks to Louis Braille who continued to use this system for communicating with his friends and writing notes. That,after his death this system started getting recognition initially in Europe and then all over the world. Often time’speople talk. That Braille has no place in your life anymore today.
With the modern technologies coming in people who are blind and visionary impaired people who are sighted often say that Braille has become obsolete. It’s not longer needed, it is fading out.
And many of them are convinced stopped this, but I’m not. I believe that Braille has been a prime support for people who are blind and visually impaired. Not only in their personal and professional life but also in the community.
Braille as we go ahead with the history, then found recognition all over the world and by the end of the 19thcentury it was almost used in all countries of the world. I would like to summarize the potential of Helen Keller who said that without Braille, anoles of literature and science would have remained dark for the blind. True, very true. But unfortunately, when we move on to the later age, around 1960s, the cassette tape recorders came. And that became a challenge for the survival of Braille.
People started listening to cassettes and learning from the cassettes and the text books were preachers and many other books and all and many features sighted and bind and the visually impaired children started saying, that we don’t need Braille anymore. Because students can learn from cassettes. Well I would say let’s not compare an Apple with an Orange. Braille and audio cassettes are not the same thing.
Braille is a medium of literacy. You learn the language, punctuation, spellings, [00:06:34] and what not. If you are literate. The sets and later on computers, I woulddwell on that later. Cassettes are a medium of learning. Yes, you can learn a lot, you can listen to the text books and you can listen to other things, you can learn. But you can’t be literate. I learn by talking to people. That doesn’t mean that talking to people can replace Braille. Yes. I can learn, anybody can learn.
And therefore, as time went on, Braille still continued and many institutions also supported the promotion of Braille thanks to these organizations who took up the task of promoting Braille and supporting including the Hadley School for the blind. It has been a strong supporter of Braille literacy.
Around 1988, the computers were introduced to the new world of screen readers and the screen readers opened a new world for the blind and visually impaired, allowing them to exercise more independence. Again those who went on saying that Braille has become obsolete started repeating “oh no we don’t need Braille now. We can depend on computers” and to add to that the whole world of I devices came in and people started using iPhones and iPads and iPods and what not, all fine good to use. But all of them did not make Braille obsolete. As I said Braille has inner strength of taking challenges and therefore Braille has been here.
According to statistics, now in the United States only the 10% of blind and visually impaired people are able to read and write Braille. And another statistics indicate that about 50% of blind and visually impaired people use Braille at work.
Yes, it is little bit discouraging, depressing but I take it positive not from that. Believe that even if 10% are using Braille, it means Braille is important to us. And when combined and integrated with modern technology, Braille and modern technologies can do wonders. It can allow you to exercise more independence, live a fuller life, a happier life.
I am a technology user, I use technology with Braille, but I don’t want to take all your time. So I decided to invite five Hadley students who are actually using modern technologies. And who would like to tell you from their personal experience how integrating modern technologies and Braille make our lives better.
But before going to these five presenters of today, I would certainly like my co-host and Hadley’s instructor Jennifer Ottowitz to tell you something about the integrating modern technologies and Braille.
I use technology but not as much as Jennifer does. She is a technology personified. And yet she does not under estimate Braille. So over to Jennifer Ottowitz.
Jennifer Ottowitz.
Thank you very much Vileen and welcome everyone. I do use technology as Vileen said, although I would certainly describe myself more as an intermediate user as opposed to advanced to power user that some of you may be in our audience today. I also am a Braille reader and I’ve been reading Braille for over 20 years and actually teach four of Hadley’s Braille courses as well. And I’m very excited to be with you all this morning.
I’d like to thank Vileen for sharing with us the importance of Braille, even given all of today’s modern technologies that enable us to access information and perform tasks.
Now just as any good chef has more than one utensil in their kitchen drawer or any good handy man or handy woman has more than one too in their tool box. We often use more than one method to complete a task. And often use these methods in combination with each other.
So now we like to talk about some specific ways that Braille and technology can work together. It could be something as simple as using the Braille markings on the Digital Talking Book Player to locate and identify specific button or as advanced as using one of the refreshable brail devices that you learn about from our guest presenters.
So Braille and technology certainly can go hand in hand. And here’s an idea for you to consider. In many situations you may find the need to label items to more easily identify them or to easily locate them. And it could be a box of cake mix from your cover, a DVD in your collection of movies, medication, a particular piece of clothing or other personal items. It could be one of the several books either print or audio that you need for school, it could be folders or other items that you need for class.It might be a particular button that you need to locate on a copying machine at work. A mail slot you need to find or other features and other equipments at work.
And although there are many different methods for labeling these items, Braille is a really effective method for doing this. Now unfortunately for people who are blind or visually impaired, we often times need sighted assistance to initially help us identify these items. But new technologies change this. One of these types of technologies is called the Talking Bar Code Reader. And an example of this is called the ID Mate.
And this device contains a database of thousands of household products, common household products.And what it does is, it scans the bar code of an item, compares it with its database and then announces the name of that item if a match is found. There are also what are called Object Identifier Apps for iPhones, iPads, and Android devices.
And some of these are apps include Tap TapSee, LookTel reader, [00:13:54], and there are many others there. There are new ones coming out all the time. And what these apps do is they enable you to take a picture of an item and then that picture is announced or identified auditory by an outside resource. So for example I can use an app on my iPhone to take a picture of a can of food from my cupboard. After I take the picture, the app will tell me the name of that item. So I’ll know if it’s a can of peaches, or a can of diced tomatoes, which could make a big difference if you are making a peach pie for dessert.
Now thank fully the price of these devices, both the bar code readers and the apps is decreasing and their availability is increasing. But not everybody wants to use their device every time they need to locate or identify the same item. So they may use their technology to tell what it is the first time and but then put a Braille label on it. The technology decreases the need for sighted assistance and allows you to function in a variety of environments, but the Braille can increase your efficiency and often save even the battery of your device.
Now in just a few moments, you are going to learn more about refreshable Braille devices from our guests and how these devices are utilized by them to help with everyday activities. Now generally speaking these devices can be connected to a computer or an iPhone or an iPad or be a part of a specialized note taker. Now not only do they enable you to read information in Braille, but as Vileen said they also help with literacy skills by showing you how words are properly spelled and punctuated that paragraphs and passages punctuated.
For many school children, the use of these devices eliminates the need for volumes of hard copy Braille books. And it can also reduce the time that it takes to transcribe their class room material into Braille.
Now something to keep in mind is that technology often changes very quickly. And I’ve been really excited in the past to try a new device that sounded amazing and just revolutionary. Only to have the obsolete in two years. So it’s really important to keep up to date on new technology, what’s available. But it’s also important to talk to others who are using it or may have experience with it. Know how it works and whether or not it’s worth the money.
A lot of these devices do still have a high price tag and you may not be able to afford every device the minute it becomes available in the market. So you want to be wise and get a lot of good information to help you make wise decisions when you are trying to obtain the best technology to help you.
There are different resources, websites, listers and other resources to help you stay up to date with technology. Unfortunately that is beyond the scope of this presentation to go into these resources. But I would direct you to our Hadley website, we have a resource section that contains a list of websites as well as additional course material which includes hand downs that talk about some of these new apps and some other technologies. So visit our resource section on the Hadley website,
And now I’d like to pass the microphone back to Vileen to introduce our guests and to continue with the rest of the presentation. Thank you. And here you go Vileen.
Vileen Shah
Thank you Jennifer for this enlightening information. Participants, have you heard of a Braille pen? Yes. There are Braille pens and Braille displays and Braille embosses and many other computer based devices that enhance the use of Braille and help integrate modern technologies and Braille. Who other than the Braille student of the year 2012, awarded by the Hadley School to tell us more about this and that’s our first guest speaker, Darrin Cheney?
Darrin made his career in building and managing distance learning programs, designing and evaluating curriculum, producing multimedia ground and teaching them the technology. Darrin is currently retired, but is not retired from his activities and he keeps up with the modern technologies. So let’s hear how the Braille devices based on computer help using integrate the technologies and Braille and enhance our independence. Over to Darrin.
Darrin Cheney.
Thanks Vileen. I love to read Braille and have the story come alive in my head and I remember more information that way. There are thousands of web Braille books you can read on the refreshable Braille display. Now Web Braille is an internet based delivery system that provides digital books and magazines that are already converted in a contracted Braille. Two examples of these services are NLS-BARD and Bookshare.
Now refreshable Braille display has movable pins and typically eight pins per cell. And your device or the screen reader translates texts into Braille and the pins move refreshed as you move the text so no more reading smushed dots. Everything has a nice, perfect crisp touch. Now you can display the Braille uncontracted and contracted or eight dot Braille.
Eight dot Braille is a code where dots seven and eight contains information like capital signs and such. Now our refreshable Braille display also have eight input keys. And has much faster typing in Braille than used in the on board keyboard. Now I’m fortunate have two Braille displays. I have a Braille pen 12 and an ALVA BC1040. I get the Braille pen first because it has 12 cells and is super portable. Doesn’t have all the bells and the whistles of the ALVA. But it’s very easy to use and I take it with me wherever I go.
Now the only drop back is, you have to move the focus of the text after you’ve read twelve characters. And that’s why I brought the ALVA. Now the ALVA BC 640 has 40 refreshable cells that allows up to read an entire line of text now the ALVA has a lot more features than the Braille pen. It’s got curser routing keys, it’s got additional navigation and short cut keys to simplify this task. And it comes with an on board note taker.
Now the ALVA is much bigger and heavier than the Braille pen, but it’s still portable. Now I connect my refreshable Braille displays to an iPod touch. And iPod touch is an iPhone without the phone. And it uses the Wi-Fi network as opposedto a 3G or 4G network which is much faster.
My iPod touch users voice over which read any text on the screen and the translate it intoBraille. I use my Brail pen 12 to write and send a quick e-mail. And I really like using the Apple mail app and also the Google mail. I text with imessage to keep in contact with my sister who has an iPhone. And I use the free app called text now to stay in contact with my wife and kids who just have a standardcell phone.
I like to use the far reader to use the internet and I have save surrey [00:22:08] read me things and test scores. Now the ALVA is great for writing longer e-mails and doing course assignments because of the additional number of cells, extra navigational buttons and circuit keys I like to use AFB access note app to create my notes and listen to my home work because it was designed for a Braille display in mind and it actually has short cut commands that you can use for various commands.