RE: Braillists Forum: Blowing the Braille Trumpet
Mary Ward
Chris:
You are right about Braille advocacy in the United States through the National Federation of the Blind. The other large consumer organization, the American Council of the Blind, is also quite strong on Braille. Many of the blindness foundations, like American Foundation for the Blind, also promote Braille, especially for blind children. I don’t know what happens in your world, but over here, most of the pressure against Braille comes through the education system, the one we call public, as in publicly funded. Like too many things in my country, it comes down to dollars and politics. But you can be assured that is not what the parents are told.
I worked very briefly with a couple of teens who had intellectual disabilities. One also had autism and some physical impairments. Both these young owmen could have been determined not to be able to read, but both learned Braille. Both of them dealt with stress by writing Braille letters to people to explain their feelings about incidents that had occurred during their day. Most of these letters were never sent. But these students were able to use Braille to help them manage stressful events in their lives. Using Braille may well have allowed them to avoid behaviors that could have been perceived unfavorably by those around them. In observing these two, I came to believe that the use of print, had it been viable for them, might not have had the same beneficial effect on their lives. Braile was something that belonged to them, but not to those around them. It made them feel powerful.
Sent: Monday, July 31, 2017 2:53 AM
To: brail...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Braillists Forum: New Member and Question
You have one advantage over us, Mary. An organisation that blows the Braille trumpet loud, long and clear - your National Federation of the Blind (ours of the same name is not the same organisation at all). If they can't fund something, my guess is it is impossible but science is evolving. Where does UEB go with this?
On Monday, 31 July 2017, Mary Ward <mary...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
You may be right. We may not be able to create a Braille code that could be marked up so that we could use things like tables of contents. Perhaps computer Braille files will always be used primarily for embossing into hard copy and may never become sophisticated documents on their own. Braille may always be used as a code for translating things into and out of, but that might be all. This makes its status not all that much different from that of handwriting. I hope its secondary status as a code doesn’t doom it as handwriting may well be doomed. We need Braille much more than sighted people need handwriting. In the meantime, I guess I will have to use Windows and iOS more often and stop using native brf files since I find them so difficult to navigate. But it would really be nice if we could enjoy more of the benefits of recent technology and still use native Braille documents. I wish things could be different.
Sad and almost, but not quite, resigned to fate down in Texas,
Mary Ward
From: brail...@googlegroups.com [mailto:brail...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Josh Kennedy
Sent: Sunday, July 30, 2017 8:55 PM
To: brail...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Braillists Forum: New Member and Question
so far, once it is for sale the orbit reader20 will be the cheapest most cost effective braille display selling at $449 USD.
On 7/30/2017 4:05 PM, 'Steve Bingham' via Braillists wrote:
Hi Mary
I am probably of a similar age to you having learned braille at a school for the blind in 1956 and onwards. I too use braille everyday, reading for pleasure and for essentials. I still prefer to read paper braille when I can but also constantly use braille displays on mobile devices and computers. It is surprising where you can find braille these days. The longest read I have found when I have been out and about is in the toilet for the disabled and baby changer in Starbucks where there are extensive instructions on how to use the the baby changing table. How to unfold it from the wall, not to leave baby unattended and so on.
I hadn’t thought about how primitive .brf and .brl files are until I read your email. I am so used to using links in Word documents and HTML but had never really noticed that they aren’t available in the braille basic files. Most modern notetakers allow you to read contracted braille even in Word and HTML documents.
You would need to create a new braille code or at least a mark-up language to indicate headings and links. You would need a new braille word processor to enable people to write the new code. The machines to read the new files would have to have a considerable amount of power to run the braille word processor. With all of this in mind it would seem that you are going to be in much the same position as you are with a notetaker. The betting is that any new braille word processor is going to work very much like Microsoft Word (or at least an earlier version of it).
In the end I suspect that creating a new braille code to allow for mark-up would not be worthwhile as it could only be used on computers and mobiles that already run word processors that allow for contracted braille and can be used reasonably comfortably by braille readers.
I suspect that in the long run the best thing to do is to get used to using Kindle (or another reading product) on whatever device you are happiest using with a braille display.
The price is still the main barrier although there are some signs that cheaper designs are becoming available I suspect that they can only get really cheap if all the moving parts can be eliminated and some sort of non-physical braille is invented like tiny jets of compressed air giving the impression of dots on a finger.
Enjoy the braille you have!
Steve
From: brail...@googlegroups.com [mailto:brail...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Mary Ward
Sent: 30 July 2017 02:04
To: brail...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Braillists Forum: New Member and Question
Hello. My name is Mary and I’m sweltering down here in Austin, Texas. I am writing to ask a question of other Braille readers, especially those who have been using Braille for a long time. But it’s a long question, so I will just introduce myself here and put the question in another email. It’s good to be with Braille users across the pond.
I am probably older than you, and I have an interesting Braille history. I taught Braille for a couple of years in Ecuador back in the eighties. For newly blinded or uneducated adults, a sheaf of loose Braille pages got handed to the student, who returned them so they could go to the next person. The sheaf of papers had been written on a Perkins or slate. I learned what passed for Spanish Grade 2 in Ecuador using these sheets. No, my Spanish wasn’t really all that great. I just had to stay a step ahead of the students.
Sadly, I don’t remember if I made more copies of the pages, but I hope that I made good use of my Perkins. I really wish I had left it down there. Braillers were in short supply. But I didn’t trust the staff of any of the schools to make good use of it. They had a habit of putting nice things in the closet to bring out only when important officials came to visit. So I ended up taking my Perkins back home.
Children were taught using embossed books from Mexico, but we had no primer for actually learning the Braille alphabet. So the sighted teachers usually just told the kids to write, thus avoiding the necessity to actually prepare material and write lessons by hand for each student. But since the students had no pattern to base their Braille writing on except for blocks and other teaching tools, they were not very successful in this endeavor. I frequently asked the sighted teachers if they thought that sighted children could learn print without ever having seen any writing not their own, but I didn’t get very far with this line of reasoning
In that school, the third grade teacher was also blind, so he and I created materials for the kids after class so they could read something other than their incorrect writing. So they actually learned both Braille and the alphabet in third grade. They would crowd around either one of us and ask question after question about Braille, about other subjects, about the world.
Those were the days!
So now I’m just an old colonial soldier boring everyone with her old war stories. But I still love Braille.
Thanks for letting me join.
I don’t know what happened to any of the kids, so I hope at least some of them moved on with their education.
Back in the nineties, electronic Braille became possible for regular Braille readers and writers. As we gained access to displays and embossers, we found that we could get our hands on more Braille than ever. These days, I use electronic Braille much more often than I use hard copy.
So here’s my question. Am I the only one who feels like progress pretty much stopped? We are still reading Braille in a modified ASCII text format. We can read regular word processor documents in Braille, and with care, we can even edit them. We can make use of features these documents might have, such as headings. But in actual Braille files, the ones with the brf extension, we cannot make use of headings, lists, links, or any of the other features so familiar to us in documents used by our sighted peers.
Am I the only person who longs to move through a table of contents in a brf or dxb file? Would anyone else like to use their stand-alone Braille device to move through a table of contents and actually link to the desired chapter or section? Would anybody else like to have Braille files that actually contain tables and can be navigated that way? Is there a need to bring Braille into the new century, or is it enough to just rely on standard print formats if we want to use sophisticated features and move by different elements? Should we just forget about using dedicated Braille notetakers if we expect to have access to these elements, always using the display function of the Braille device instead of using the notetaker’s word processor? I’m finding that for writing down notes, and sometimes for reading, I’m comfortable reading and writing in my native Braille, without having to check for translation errors all the time, even in notes to myself. But I’m finding that the comfort of native Braille comes at an increasingly higher cost. Right now, it’s irrevocably stuck in DOS. Do I need to just bite the bullet, or are there others who want a more sophisticated, feature-laden Braille?
I know that I am talking about limitations that come from several sources.
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Christine McMillan
On 31 Jul 2017, at 20:22, Mary Ward <mary...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
Chris:You are right about Braille advocacy in the United States through the National Federation of the Blind. The other large consumer organization, the American Council of the Blind, is also quite strong on Braille. Many of the blindness foundations, like American Foundation for the Blind, also promote Braille, especially for blind children. I don’t know what happens in your world, but over here, most of the pressure against Braille comes through the education system, the one we call public, as in publicly funded. Like too many things in my country, it comes down to dollars and politics. But you can be assured that is not what the parents are told.
I worked very briefly with a couple of teens who had intellectual disabilities. One also had autism and some physical impairments. Both these young women could have been determined not to be able to read, but both learned Braille. Both of them dealt with stress by writing Braille letters to people to explain their feelings about incidents that had occurred during their day. Most of these letters were never sent. But these students were able to use Braille to help them manage stressful events in their lives. Using Braille may well have allowed them to avoid behaviors that could have been perceived unfavorably by those around them. In observing these two, I came to believe that the use of print, had it been viable for them, might not have had the same beneficial effect on their lives. Braile was something that belonged to them, but not to those around them. It made them feel powerful.
To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/braillists/007f01d30a32%24581ca070%240855e150%24%40sbcglobal.net.
Norman
Children were taught using embossed books from Mexico, but we had no primer for actually learning the Braille alphabet. So the sighted teachers usually just told the kids to write, thus avoiding the necessity to actually prepare material and write lessons by hand for each student But since the students had no pattern to base their Braille writing on except for blocks and other teaching tools, they were not very successful in this endeavor. I frequently asked the sighted teachers if they thought that sighted children could learn print without ever having seen any writing not their own, but I didn’t get very far with this line of reasoning
In that school, the third grade teacher was also blind, so he and I created materials for the kids after class so they could read something other than their incorrect writing. So they actually learned both Braille and the alphabet in third grade. They would crowd around either one of us and ask question after question about Braille, about other subjects, about the world.Those were the days!So now I’m just an old colonial soldier boring everyone with her old war stories. But I still love Braille.Thanks for letting me join.I don’t know what happened to any of the kids, so I hope at least some of them moved on with their education.Back in the nineties, electronic Braille became possible for regular Braille readers and writers. As we gained access to displays and embossers, we found that we could get our hands on more Braille than ever. These days, I use electronic Braille much more often than I use hard copy.So here’s my question. Am I the only one who feels like progress pretty much stopped? We are still reading Braille in a modified ASCII text format. We can read regular word processor documents in Braille, and with care, we can even edit them. We can make use of features these documents might have, such as headings. But in actual Braille files, the ones with the brf extension, we cannot make use of headings, lists, links, or any of the other features so familiar to us in documents used by our sighted peers.
Am I the only person who longs to move through a table of contents in a brf or dxb file? Would anyone else like to use their stand-alone Braille device to move through a table of contents and actually link to the desired chapter or section? Would anybody else like to have Braille files that actually contain tables and can be navigated that way? Is there a need to bring Braille into the new century, or is it enough to just rely on standard print formats if we want to use sophisticated features and move by different elements? Should we just forget about using dedicated Braille notetakers if we expect to have access to these elements, always using the display function of the Braille device instead of using the notetaker’s word processor? I’m finding that for writing down notes, and sometimes for reading, I’m comfortable reading and writing in my native Braille, without having to check for translation errors all the time, even in notes to myself But I’m finding that the comfort of native Braille comes at an increasingly higher cost. Right now, it’s irrevocably stuck in DOS. Do I need to just bite the bullet, or are there others who want a more sophisticated, feature-laden Braille?
I know that I am talking about limitations that come from several sources.--
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Christine McMillan
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Judith Furse
Judith
Tel: 01793 976196
Mobile: 07403 646773
Email: info.swin...@talktalk.net
Web: www.swindonbraille.co.uk
Graham Page
Sent from my iPhone
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Norman
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Judith Furse
Judith
Tel: 01793 976196
Mobile: 07403 646773
Email: info.swin...@talktalk.net
Web: www.swindonbraille.co.uk
Paul Sullivan
I've heard it is sometimes used by people with learning
difficulties.
Paul
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Christine McMillan
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Christine McMillan
On 1 Aug 2017, at 13:57, 'Judith Furse' via Braillists <brail...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
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Elisabeth Standen
Years ago, my grandfather who earned a living making door mats, used moon.
As many of the letters resemble print characters, some people who went blind late in life find it easier to learn.
Elisabeth Standen