Category: Let's talk
What do you guys think of using braille nowadays with today's technology? I think braille is not used much accept for braille menus and such. I don't use it much with recorded books and computers. Do you think blind youth should have to learn it in school?
i don't use it anymore.
what with all the advancements today, it's not really needed that much anymore.
i never really liked it, anyway
I still think Braille is quite useful. It comes in handy concerning menus, room numbers, and labeling different items. And considering that I almost never use the voice on my NoteTaker, it's quite useful in that case as well. And what about math and foreign languages? Don't tell me Braille is totally useless at all in those areas.
I think Braille should continue to be taught to school-aged children. I mean, besides math and foreign languages, what about reading out loud in class?
Braille has its place As with any print in my opinion it will be a greatly changing one.
Putting bbooks in to this medium is time, space and financially prohibitive. For example the holy bible is like 60 volumes in braille. I have a talking pocket version that fits in to my purse
Braille should still be taught in schools. It should be mainly used for note taking and other daily tasks. TAking kids out of class to reinforce it so they miss out on other areas of learning is silly. Especially if a child has been blind congenitally or from early childhood, familiarization with it ensures that there is a knowledge of how words look in print and how a page is set up. This assists with learning word processing and formatting etc.
Sighted people are relying less on print books. Schools say they buy paper texts to reassure parents and taxpayers. Most teachers utilize the internet and other sources to supplement what's in the books. Newspapers and print publishing houses are in deep trouble It is totally amazing to me that things like the kindle are not accessible to us.
I don't think it's out of date, at all...so I guess I'll be in the minority. I use braille for most things, and don't know where I'd be without it. so, to answer the question of whether it should still be taught to school-aged children, I emphatically say yes!!
Oddly enough, despite my love of older technology, I don't really use braille that much. The most I use it for is labeling items, reading menus and I'll probably be using it for numerology, astrology, tarot, computer manuals and a Greek dictionary. But most of these things can be done in the computer. Still, I do think that it's a valuable learning tool and that children should be taught it.
I used to like reading Braille, but not anymore. I am still glad I learned it though, because it did help when I was in school. I wouldn't mind reading Braille on a Braille display, but not reading actual Braille books.
The problem with braille books, with me at least, is that they're huge. When they're not, it takes tons of volumes to equal a single book. Also, because my hands sweat alot, the paper gets ruined. I used to adore thurmaform pages and books because I never had that problem with them. I wonder if they make tractor-fed paper like that for my printer? It's probably horribly expensive if they do, but it would be great for printing out cookbooks etc.
Actually, nevr mind. I just remember how that stuff is done. I think it requires a heating process and a special printer. *cry*
I think braille should absolutely be taught in schools. While I use Jaws to read most things, I still like to read books in braille. I know lots of blind people who do not know how to actually read. Think about it, it'd be like a sighted person never learning to read print. When you read braille, you're actually reading, albeit in a different format. A lot of people I know who never learned braille are horrible spellers and do not have good pronunciation because they never read a word in braille to know how it's spelled, or how to use propper punctuation. It'd be great if it were more portable. But I'll bet this could happen in the future. Even if it's not a person's main medium for learning, it can teach a person things that audio learning can't.
I like braille for its portability. I know that sounds really ironic, because books are way bigger, and some are too big to bother with in braille, such as the dictionary, but I still don't know what I'd do without it, being a person who likes to read cookbooks, take notes, and label my appliances when necessary, so I definitely think it should still be taught to school age children. then, the choice is up to them which format they prefer.
Well, I'm a die-hard braille user for many things. It is another tool in the arsenal that can contribute significantly to the life of a non-print reader. To me, the braille display is a wonderful device, although I don't have one myself. If I were a blind student, I'd insist on having one, or a notetaker with one. To be able to take notes silently would be wonderful, and not to have an earphone stuck in my ear to distract me from the lecture. Mathematical concepts and such are more cumbersome with speech than braille. In short, braille, definitely has a place.
Yeah, it can be useful. I use it for pipe music, but fer books I like recordings much better, more portable.
I think print should also be no longer taught, what with the new image-based communications using graphical user interfaces. Why should anyone learn to read if they can just respond to a black circle with an explamation mark inside, or a stop sign?
No seriously guys, c'mon Braille is just another writing system, and rather than not teaching in the schools, they oughta make sure that *you kids* get displays.
When I was growing up through the seventies and eighties, I had all the Braille technology within reason that I could have: a slate and stylus, a Braille writer, and I could get books from the NLS. And I was not rich, I was the middle child of a huge family. We even got one of those typewriters with the digital processor on board so you could backspace out the previous letters you'd messed up - up to a whole line. WOO HOO! But seriously, except for the rich elite who could afford the Apples and other computers, I had it pretty damn good considering. So good, in fact, after they got that typewriter for us kids, my friends used to rib me about being rich.
To that end, you all should be getting Braille displays, and they're less expensive now than they ever were ... at least some are.
Learning Braille doesn't mean you have to Braille all that crap out, then attempt to retype it as you Brailled it - turning math into a mechanical drudgery rather than a learning exercise - but for you with a Braille display and a computer and a screen reader you can now do shit some of us only *wished* we could. No more having to retype an entire page because of a single mistake, no more wondering if the ribbon ran out halfway through your paper. I empathize with your feelings about large books. If I had a rolling gothic-architected estate with a pet raven, then yes, I could afford to house all the Braille I wanted. But as it is, you are right, no need to be carrying around a backpack full of heavy tomes, the teacher skipping to a section in the book that isn't in the tome you have at present, I'm familiar with the drawbacks. And now that you don't need to deal with that anymore, that doesn't have to be an issue. But that is the medium of transport, not the writing system. If you had a Braille notetaker full of books, or a net book with a Braille display and your texts were present on the hard drive, all of these transport issues would be far simplified.
Much as I would love to rely only on Braille and not listen to the blorp of my synthesizer, I do know that a combination of the two is actually quicker than Braille by itself, but Braille is how you will be able to look at things, proof read, and in the case of any profession where layout is an issue, you can look at the layout.
Which does bring me back to math: When my daughter was in third grade or so, I was helping her out with understanding how to do multiplication, I don't remember what the school word is anymore, but where you stair step your rows down and to the left ... I used a Braille display, JAWS and Microsoft Word. That way, she could see the screen, I could see the Braille, and I could in fact see while she changed things. And that without the distraction of speech, plus I could see things were lined up properly, and help her when it wasn't.
As to this nonsense about blind people not spelling, I'm really not so sure about that: I think spelling seems to have taken rather a nose dive in general. You all haven't seen misspellings on other sites? Man, I do all the time ... even the New York Times will misspell stuff. And the there vs. their confusion is so profound that on one particular online rpg game (no, it's not done for the blind), they require new users to solve that before they are allowed to chat.
Any of you older ones on here seen how the young ones spell on Facebook? C'mon some of this can't all be blind ...
In fact, I see more grammarians on here critiquing spelling and sentence structure usage than anywhere else I visit. I think to a point you all are making up the blind aspect of this, not everyone on Facebook, or many other sites, is blind. And some of that spelling makes some of you all look like professors.
Yes I think Braille literacy is really important. And I think if the 'blindness' organizations thought so too, they wouldn't belly-ache about it, they'd help solve it.
Here's what I mean: I've been poor, and on a couple occasions my family had to use the food bank. Well, when we were in better financial times, all I needed do is go to the food bank either on the web or locally (would that be a 'hungerness organization'), and contribute goods, time or money to help out. What were they doing? Giving actual food to actual poor people, not just sitting around like a bunch of scholarly out-of-touch hippie burn-outs from the sixties belly-aching about how people needed food. Imagine how much - or little - donations they'd get doing that?
So if they're serious about wanting the kids to learn Braille, pitch it, raise money like food banks and other organizations we're all familiar with do, then buy the displays and distribute. To be fair, I bet the Lyons club probably does this; they got me a Braille writer in the 70s, at the time, the best technology for Braille that there was, at least within the reach of most normal people.
So for me at least, if an organization wanted to pitch this as a crisis, they might want to stop criticizing this damn text speak you see on the Internet as poor spelling due to blindness, and quit the belly-aching about people being too lazy to learn or whatever, and start doing what for real organizations do, like the Food Banks and such, raise the money, contribute real tools so real people can pull themselves up.
I was always accused of bein' lazy, or whatever, using what we had back then. I didn't mysteriously go from lazy to a workhorse once I got technology, I simply could take all the same amount of effort and get more tork out of it. It's the difference between a drive shaft made of rubber, and one made of galvanized steel ... you know which one has more tork, and hence uses the energy more efficiently. Nobody worth listening to would blame the rubber drive shaft on a lazy driver, if it couldn't get as far and as fast as a proper steel shaft.
But yes, Braille sure is important, and I wish every blind person had a display. But that problem needs to be solved, rather than belly-aching and calling blind people lazy ... unless one *likes* rubber drive shafts with no tork.
I find it so much easier to edit and proofread with braille than I do with a screen reader.
I read a New York Times article, not very misspelled, at least I did not notice any bad spelling, about braille literacy and importance a few months ago. I can´t, for the life of me, find the darn thing any more so I can´t post a link to it, come to think of it, it may hve been the New Yorker magazine.
Either way, the article pointed out that reading braille actually activates different areas in the brain than listening to speech and those areas were important for other brain functions as well. I will keep on hunting for this article but the idea is that it is good for one´s brain to read braille, weird as that sounds. And it is also different to read braille from audio. I can conentrate much better with braille in front of me, braille gives us a bit of a layout idea, which is important.
I do not like the fact most screen reading is completely independent of the visual layout. I don´t know what the red link in the top right corner of the page is, but why shouldn´t I? The screen reader can figure out what text is read and it can render the layout of the page. The problem is, of course, braille displays only show one line and speech does not mimic layout and it can´t do that well.
But I care what the layout of a thing is, what the graph looks like, what the printed letter or symbol looks like (I was stuck in the math SAT exams with an elderly lady as a helper, and she did not even know what half the math symbols were and I did nothave a braille copy, so she kept describing math symbols to me from her printed copy and I had no idea what they were, ever since then I´ve realized it´s important to know these things, just like it can be very helpful for us to carry a pen, even if we don´t write, at least those who can sign their name, for instance).
Also it´s hard to get into foreign languages or sciences without braille, getting a synthesizer for a foreign language can be difficult and expensive, or, in some cases, no synthesizer can be available for that language. To make a TTS engine of decent quality for a language will cost you between 250k and 800k us dollars, so there are nations that just cannot afford that.
I´ve been lucky enough to alwayshave a braile display, I could not do programming without one and find it amazing that some gys can, and do it well.
Speech is good for fast rading and compactness, braille for accuracy and layout information, I believe people need both. And learning to read is important, how else can you learn to write properly, and you can´t learn to read audio, that doesn´t work.
I agree with the Robo dude, braille displays need to be much more widely available and cheaper, however that is to come about. The cost of them has fallen by between 50 and 60% in the last 10 years so if that trned continues they could be within many people´s reach in 10 or 15 years.
The cheapest 40 cell ones now run just around 2K and I´ve seen an 80 cell one under 5K (Perkins sells them, but the displays are called Seika, nothing fancy but I´ve used one for test purposes and I liked it).
Focus displays are probably about 30% more expensive and there are others, like EuroBrialle etc, that provide decent ones.
Cheers
-B
Hi there gain! Here's the link you refer to:
www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/magazine/03Braille-t.html
I realize that fewer and fewer people use Braille. I also use it less nowadays with all the new technology available. But I think it is very important that all blind youth know how to read it. It remains a vital tool, even if it is used less.
I say the the days of the hard copy braille books may be coming to an end in some respects, however the note takers such as the BrailleNote and the like will keep braille alive. Me personally, i never go anyware without my BrailleNote and most of the time i have speech disabled and rely completely on the display. Braille should still be taught, i mean it's the blind people's version of print from my point of view.
Lest I be misunderstood, I do think Braille is important, and it wasn't until I was in my late twenties that I learned most blind kids in the U.S. are saddled with the misfortune of not learning it.
I'm not up on psychology but in terms of using different centers in the brain, that does make sense to me, because speech is so one-dimensional.
I just hate attribution of a flaw to being a member of a particular population - all Mexican immigrants are lazy, all blacks raised in projects steal things, all blind people who haven't learned Braille can't spell ...
I misspell things too, as you all have no doubt noticed on here. Know why? Because I often get things turned around: re versus er, things like that. Basically right to left or left to right can look the same to me. I don't think that's because I'm blind, because blind people I have talked to - even on here - say they don't experience that. That particular quirk which irritated teachers to no end, and occasionally got my hands smacked for reading the line in the wrong direction, is why I used to get the and symbol and the y confused, s versus wh symbol, i versus e, all sorts of things.
All that aside, I'm glad I use Braille regularly:
That particular quirk of mine actually serves quite well when debugging and looking at a problem in reverse.
Ironically, it only shows itself when reading Braille or otherwise operating with the physical universe, not when using speech.
I have even heard people complain that Contracted or Grade II users can't spell because of the contractions.
Basically, I think Braille is important, like print is, and that it's a mistake to pitch it as Braille versus technology. For example, if I am looking at a table for real on a web page or in a spreadsheet, I can see it better on the computer with a Braille display than I could traditionally in a book, because they tended to lay it out in linear fashion. This may seem anecdotal, and I can't corroborate it, but I think being able to see the layout helps one interpret the content, it's not just an added or visuall component.
However, it's equally devastating to assert that blind people's inability to spell, or perhaps a lapse or two here and there, is because they either must not know Braille or read Grade II. Reasonings like that - if you can call it reasoning - is how lots of behavior against minorities has been justified.
I agree both that spelling has taken a dramatic nose-dive in more recent years and that, for the blind, using only speech may contribute to many spelling mistakes. I've even noticed it with myself. When I read braille more frequently and played games/looked up words with my dictionary, my spelling was much better. Also, if I've only heard a word with speech and have never stopped to see how it's supposed to be spelled, I'll often spell it incorrectly, whereas ones that I've seen usually stick in my brain. this is why, with my Greeek lessons, I go through the monotonous task of writing everything out instead of just listening to it. That way, I learn the words and their spellings. I also think that grade II can be a factor but it's a very minor one in the grand scheme of things.
Forgot to add. I think netspeak is far worse than not reading braille and often mock people who use it. For me, unless you have a physical or mental problem which prevents you from using your hands and/or remembering the letters in a word,, or unless you're just learning the language, you should try to write correctly.
I think part of the problem with spelling is that a screen reader will often pronounce the misspelling as if it were spelled correctly. I've had this problem on several occasions, and I, too, often reverse the spelling of words. I think of the correct spelling in my head, but I end up typing certain letters in reverse. I think reading braille will help quite a bit with this, as reading print for sighted people will often help with this.
The spelling among the blind has gone far downhill, and I agree with Tiffany. If everyone used Braille every day, as we were forced to in days gone by, this problem would be largely alleviated. Even a Braille display, for those who can afford them, would contribute to solving this problem. I see it as a big issue for literacy among the blind, as potential employers would look far down their noses at the type of writing I am seeing far too often among the blind these days.
All of you have brought out great points. I'd like to add a few thoughts.
Robo dude, what you say makes a lot of sense, but I can't perceive how a person can get a lay out of anything from a one line braille display. If I want to see how something looks on the screen, I use the up and down arrows,. the control and all that stuff. I figured that's what it is there for. Then I have a mental picture of what the page looks like.
My husband and i were part of the group of lab rats they used for the braille reading experiments. it was very interesting, transportation was provided, and we made a couple hundred a piece at a time when the money was definitely appreciated.
I totally agree about the organizations of the blind putting their feet and the money where the whining is. It is easier to complain then to act i guess.
It is a lot easier for sighted kids to learn reading. After all from infancy they subconsciously incorporate all the print around them in to their learning process.
teachint braille in a public school setting is dificult for many reasons. I'm only a parent, so you young folks might have a better handle on this. When my daughter was in first grade, the kids laughed at her braille books and brailler. Additionally she had a different desk to hold all that stuff. Many were the days that she cqame home crying frustrated saying she hated braille. I had to be the meanie and say get over yourself if you want to grow up smart you have to learn your special print. Didn't make much difference as her teachers yelled at her about it, the kids laughed at her, and our voices of positive reinforcement were far outweighed.
Then, she found out she was dyslexic just like me. Lucky her. So she uses braille for note taking marking stuff etc.
Robo did you know that blind people can have dyslexia? That's why some of us reverse stuff and so forth. using the slate just can reinforce that too.
My dear family has a long line of dyslexics. My dad, brother, and I for starters. Both my generation and my daughter's have learned or been taught strategies to get around it. My dad was illiterate until he was in his 60s. He was a genius but the inability to write things was a terrible handicap. People badck in the 20s just said he was stupid and stuck him in the back of the class. during world war ii, he could have been a commissioned officer but he was unable to read the books and training material.
Therfore,I think it is vital for blind kids to have some form of writing down things. Tape and digital recorders can break a lot easier then can paper.
I also think that Net-Speak is an atrocious thing. Yes, it might come in handy in a few situations, but people should really just write the entire word out. So I think Net-speak is part of the problem. Another problem is that people don't like to read much, and, the stopping of spelling or vocab lists after elementary or junior high. Yes, vocab lists are given in some English classes these days, but not very many. I think those would come in handy, and it might improve speech as well as spelling.
I've gotten in the habbit of using my Mac with speech muted. Sounds and braille guide me. It's really, really nice. I can have music on without worrying about masking speech. I turned speech on when I unhooked my braille display and actually forgot I had done so. Ever since I got my display I've missed it when absent as I'm not a fan of reading words letter-by-letter. Braille is dead useful.
Someone mentioned misspelling being attributed to blind people. Everyone misspells. I definitely see a lot of blind people spelling words as they would be pronounced using certain accents i.e. "mimbers" instead of "members" or "orction" instead of "auction."
Braille, out of date? No way!
I still like reading braille books. Yes they are quite voluminous and I would not buy the bible in braille for that matter, but ... I prefer reading from listening, I somehow get "into the book" easier with braille.
And even though I use speech on my netbook, I'd love a braille note taker (If I could afford it), because I need it, let's say, in my oral exams for bullet points.
So, no, braille is still important. And by no means people should stop teaching it to kids! Some people are tactile learners, some are more auditive, but I agree with the person who said that it is hard to read aloud in class with a speech synthicizer. It's hard for me at least, since I have no braille display.
I agree wholehartedly with post ten. all blind or visually impaired children should be taught how to read Braille.
Someone said that braille is very important for learning languages.
I agree, it certainly is, especially when it comes to accents, like in French. I struggle with where to put the Accent accut, Circumflex etc. It's so confusing.
However, when we are given a handout and we are reading things aloud, I always know how things are pronounced, sometimes before others know, because I am using jaws in French.
Still, I agree, that braille is even more important in foreign languages for prove reading. AGain I agree that you need both: Braille and speach.
Reading braille would also alert you when you have your caps log on ...
and I agree that braille displays, or note takers, should be cheeper.
Or even if I knew someone who could fix them. I have a braillewave, which I have acquired nine years ago in Germany. Yes I know it is old, but you can use it as a note taker apart from the computer as well. The cursor routings don't work but if I found someone who could fix that, I'd be well off.
My Pac Mate's braille display probably saved my skin when I had to write an outline for a research paper outline for my English class in college last semester. I could have done it with JAWS and my arrow keys, but it would have taken me hours longer, and been a lot more confusing.
Yes Braille is the only way to proofread. And I use it rather exclusively on the job.
To the question about the 3D or even 2D orientation using a single-line display, I think if your display has keys that let you naturally move the line up and down you naturally feel the dimentions I guess. I use the whiz wheels with my PAC mate display, sometimes just the wheels and the JAWS cursor so I can look at the UI the way it looks or whatever.
Whatever display you have, if the up and down movement things are where you can easily use them, I guess it's just natural. And Turricane too bad about your uncle. Yes, even though it was the seventies I'd often be accused of having been playing dumb.
I didn't even know dyslexic or anything similar would be anything other than visual. I don't think I ironed out what was really happening till my mid twenties. But even with turning things around all the time, Braille is inordinately useful, and because of it I have never gotten into talking books for pleasure.
And as I said, this tendency to mix up right to left / left to right actually serves me in so many ways when working problems inside out, upside down and sideways. In short I'm not a very linear programmer, but I sure fix a lot of bugs with this firmware glitch of mine ... lol
For those who talk about the Bible being voluminous, I actually have the New King James Version in Braille, which is only twenty volumes, both testaments. I acquired it when I was ten. But again, I don't just read the Bible on my own. Sometimes, I will take a certain volume to church and read along with the rest of the congregation, or my family will randomly have times when we go over different selections from the text, and each of us will read a portion aloud.
I too think that both speech and Braille are necessary. They both have their advantages, especially when editing/proofreading.
If it wasn't for Braille, I wouldn't be where I am today.
I hope Braille stays for ever!
Children should be taught Braille as soon as possible. Why should they have to suffer with eye strain and head aches.
I really enjoy the Pac Mate and the Braiil display. Use both all of the time
Braille is beautiful!.
Hi, braille is great for learning how to format papers. If for instance in college, if I were writing out a Sociology paper and needed to know how to write References, I could look at a braille copy of a paper. This totally saved my butt on more than one ocasion.
I personally love Braille! Hence why I teach it, lol.
Can I take a minute and push the slate and stylus, too.
a writing device that's $20 or under, never breaks down or has a dead battery, and produces line after line of Braille on any piece of paper you can find.
another great option and a way to use Braille.
I've never really thought about braille and formatting because things like that don't often cross my mind. Still, I do suppose it can be used in special circumstances. But for me, nothing will replace being able to relax and listen to a book on tape or even through a nice synthesizer. I haven't used Greek braille extensively, because there simply isn't that much of it, but I'd love to get my hands on more. I I'm oding well with the computer here but I think this would provide me another means of reading/writing in the language that I love. As a sidenote, when I used French braille in high school and then had to print it out, I had to simply capitalise the letters which were to be accented because the braille accents didn't come out correctly in print. It was very annoying. as for the slate and stylus, I could never seriously consider it as more than an absolute emergency back-up for small things. I couldn't imagine having to manually punch out every single dot for anything more than quick notes or testing my skills and having fun. I suppose the cost makes it good in countries where braillewriters can't be bought easily or in instances where people just can't get anything else. that said, I do own a few, since I wanted to learn it.
Jamesk, I have to agree about eh slate. My brailler has been dying a slow death, and at home, the slate is pretty much all I use. It has saved me on several occasions. I was at a conference and had to do a presentation of which I was informed the night before. I had a slate with me, and the hotel recently provided me brochures in the room. Paper! I was visiting my in-laws. They were going to play cards. Slate to the rescue! I brailled the deck. Sure it took awhile, but the lessons taught and learned were well worth it.
I personally don't use braille anymore. I find E-books and auido books musch easier to use, and you can type much quicker on a computer.
I absolutely think it should be learnt, because for some subjects it's very important, not only that, but I don't believe all this imertion in technology is really very good.
Sometimes I don't want to read audio or etexts, actually, with reguard to etexts, I avoid them at all cost.
Braille is a help for all kinds of things.
if you're going to be a musician, a serious one, then learning the braille music code is assential. as is learning the maths code in school.
Braille is good for learning other languages too, especially for learning to write them.
I couldn't have learnt cornish without braille.
last of all, it's the best way for enjoying a quiet and relaxing read. for that, it surpasses audio books completely.
The only thing I find very difficult with braille is scanning long books or references to find a specific keyword or sentence. I find that much easier on the computer. I, too, love the slate and stylus. It usually confuses me at first, until I get used to writing backwards. It's a bit slow, but almost as portable as a pen and notepad.
I also like writing down my private thoughts in braille, because nobody else in my house can read it. Lol.
I like reading mostly fiction in vbraille, if it's coursework of course I'd rather electronic, but braille is the best for casual quiet reading.
I never use the speech on my note taker so I always just use the display. I also use it for math so kids who are blind must learn it.
i think brail is beautiful. immagine drawing stuff with braille.
I remember a teacher drew a braille card for me for my 16 birthday i might have it still charrised in my treasure box. I thought it is pretty cool.
one thing i wished i really did have is a braille display for my laptop because it's so hard to proffread my work since my screen reader isn't that good at capturing errors.
i rather see the mistake than try to listen for it. but i mannage to have excelent papers some how with the help of the writing center at school.
now since i'm so used to using my laptop, i feel so weird using the braille lite and sometimes forget how to go to the different menues.
Hello Everyone,
I forgot in the similar thread to this one, a few smallish points, so I'll mention them below!
A little know fact to start, but unlike in other English speaking countries, the capital sign is rarely used in British English Braille Code, one of the reasons, why the idea of the Unified English Braille (UEB) code, got into difficulties in the UK was just this, that the UK tended to because Braillists were used to the British code, not having ways of denoting capital letters, I.E. dot 6 for an initial capital for example, they rejected the idea of the UEB code! Now I say 'tended', as again I'm a rarity (see my post to the similar thread to this one), but, I douse the capital Braille Signs! :)
I must confess two points. I was taught in 1991 to use the Perkins, and a UK Blind School, actually taught to use the Stainsby paper (but that's another story), but, as I learnt slightly later than I would have liked, but nothing could be done to allow me to learn in mainstream, I do have problems scanning Braille with my right hand, and I did used to cheat originally, but the latter problem, doesn't happen any more! LOL
I also, due to learning on a Perkins Brailler, have hardly used the Slate and stylus method, though, I am going to learn, as, I was the youngest member of the RNIB's Assembly that advised the board, tried to get on the board itself and that caused worries, due to my young age (but on the topic of Braille) at a meeting, I got (and some others did as well) a free model of a new Stylus, that works the correct way roudn for producing the Braille, so must learn to use it! I got the demonstrator's (who is blind himself) copy!
It has been said at least once on this thread, and more than once on the other one, but I reiterate, print isn't going to disappear, diespite the notion of a paperless office or any other phrases that go the rounds, (putting it into my own words here)!
Hopefully, I won't have forgotten anything this time, but, think, in the UK, similarly (and for reasons I won't go into here, I'm not yet one of them but I hope to be perhaps sooner than would have been a couple of years ago), most employeed blind people, are braille readers! Also, only around 30 per cent, or a third at the most of blind people are in employment! And, think from another source, or from my intuition, the information given earlier, that Braille uses a different part of the brain, from taking in speech, makes sense and a lot of sense to me!
OK, I'll leave my contribution at this point, was going to leave my thoughts with the other thread, but then the points I remembered came back to me (the ones I forgot before that is)!
Best wishes to all zoners,
Timothy Bamber AKA Timber from the Zone
Hello again Everyone,
Forgot :O to say, regarding Braille, I was staying in the Christian community off Scotland, on the Isle of Iona at Christmas, and I wanted to join in, they only planned most things when I was there, from help from my Father, he's provided not just for me, but for any blind person who stays in the future, (using my embosser), a copy of the Psalm book! And secondly, due to their planning at the time of my visit, which, as, I said is standard practice, I read a reading (as my NRSV [New Revised Standard Version] Bible is still bulky of course) LOL to carry, I had my father kindly read and I dictated the reading from Isiah (I think it was), a dramatised one it was anyway, I shared with someone else (sighted) into my Pacmate, and obviously without speech, read it, plus a prayer, I wrote myself, in a service we did, only small near crisis, we didn't have much time to practice, but the audiance/congregation; ("small", due to being Christmas time, they normally have more there in a standard week)small were very impressed, which consisted of the group I was in and the staff (basically just that), due to it being Christmas as I said already!
OK just that story I forgot to write previously (I hope anyway that is so)! :)
Kind regards to All,
Timothy Bamber AKA Timber on The Zone