My Experience with the Canute
Benjamin Vercellone
Hello Braillists.
I recently attended the 2017 NFB national convention in Orlando, Florida. Ed Rogers personally met with me and my wife Therese. He showed us the Canute and answered all our questions. We were both quite impressed, both with the Canute MK 12, and the effort that has gone into this project from the beginning. I have comfortably read Braille for about 20 years, and Therese has only begun reading Braille recently. I immediately felt that the Canute will fill a very large gap that currently exists, namely the unavailability of Braille for some due to cost. Thank you to all who are involved in the development and testing of the Canute, and to all the Braillists. Braille will definitely survive and thrive if we see products like the Canute come to market soon. Regarding outreach and education, I am loving the BrailleCast podcast.
I gave one presentation at the NFB national convention on July 10, to an audience of maybe 100 people or so (that's just a guess). I used my laptop running JAWS, and had an earbud in one ear. I am glad I had made my outline very concise, as this method of referring to my notes has been awkward in the past. I succeeded in giving my speech, but had to maintain a laser like focus to balance my verbal presentation with my analysis of the outline. This is all to make the point that having the Canute with my outline loaded on it probably would have been much better and more natural. If I had my outline embossed onto paper, with 27 lines of 40 characters per line, and if each page was then cut into thirds and organized properly, this would have been easier than the method using the laptop and earbuds. Obviously, the said paper scenario would have been comparable to having the Canute at the ready. I am very excited, and hope to be one of the first to purchase the Canute.
I was fortunate enough to get the last Orbit Reader 20 that APH sold at this convention. I'm loving the Braille on this device too. The Canute is not much different, in my opinion, regarding the feel and firmness of the dots. Ed did tell me that the dots on the Canute MK 12 that we were feeling were not made exactly how they will be next time around, and that this was because of time constraints. Basically, the dots were rather sharp, but will not be like this going forward. I am glad that Ed got to meet with other convention-goers too, and that he was willing to also meet with Therese and me personally. Especially given the enormous work that was done in the last few days leading up to this convention, I was very impressed how well the MK 12 turned out.
I sometimes say that when cost is made almost into a non-issue for Braille literacy, those who oppose Braille or underestimate its importance or viability will lose one of their very few legitimate complaints about Braille. When people compare learning Braille to learning a new language, I explain how Braille is a code, not a language, all-the-while trying to be polite and patient. I point out how I don't have to learn anything more than the dot 6 for capitalization, and that I don't need to learn both cursive and print. When I factor in the presence of Braille contractions, it all seems about the same as print regarding difficulty. I believe one of the only things that will always be a challenge for some Braille readers is the fact that many of us have gone blind later in life. Imagine a sighted person learning print and reading and writing in this medium for 65 years before losing her sight. She will likely have more difficulty learning Braille than a child who is blind and is learning Braille. I think this is one of those things where people like me need to be gentle, for sure. But, it bothers me to no end when a child or young person is discouraged from learning Braille, though it probably is in his or her best interest to learn this code. There really are few, if any, alternatives to Braille right now that maintain all the benefits of Braille. I personally don't see how any blind person can study math without using Braille. We can debate about Nemeth code verses UEB for math, but just do something! Also, those with neuropathy will always have more difficulty with Braille than those with normal sensitivity. But it is likely that some blind people with only mild neuropathy will benefit from the Canute and the Orbit Reader 20 because of the dot firmness that has been compared to Braille signage.
Thank you all for your work.
Sincerely,
Ben
Paul Sullivan
Thanks for your thoughtful post. I agree with everything you
say about the importance of Braille. It is such a powerful
tool for giving people with little or no sight maximum
control over their lives. I have just telephoned a company
to order a spare part for my vacuum cleaner. It was really
easy to provide them with the information they needed, as I
had the machine's make, model number, serial number and my
debit card details in Braille under my fingertips. So much
easier than finding the information with a screenreader and
repeating it back.
I think that part of the reason why some people are not
given as much encouragement to learn Braille as they could
be is that the people who teach it often lack confidence
themselves. If you don't use it much yourself, and are
therefore not very good at it, you are hardly likely to be
very enthusiastic about it. Now, if they all had a Canute
...
Best wishes,
Paul
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Mary Ward
I have used Braille notetakers and Braille displays of various types for decades. I would like to point out that having access to more than one line at a time may be extremely important to some users. It might help with teaching children and adults how pages might be laid out. Even if they can’t see the entire page at once, seeing more than one line, or part of one line, might make the concepts of page lay-out less abstract.
Many children and adults learning Braille these days need instruction that is as concrete as possible. Having multiple lines would also allow us to move down a column more easily. I know this can be done with speech, but the concepts could be taught more easily with multiple lines. It would sure be nice to be able to teach this without having to resort to paper.
From: brail...@googlegroups.com [mailto:brail...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Benjamin Vercellone
Sent: Wednesday, August 2, 2017 2:19 AM
To: brail...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Braillists Forum: My Experience with the Canute
Hello Braillists.
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