[blindkid] On the Future of Braille: Thoughts by RadicalBraille Advocates (Bookshare)

Tue Jul 16 00:12:51 UTC 2013

That would be awesome!

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 15, 2013, at 19:53, "Deborah Kent Stein" <dkent5817 at att.net> wrote:

> 
> 
> The National Library Service is contemplating a Braille display for Braille readers, that would be distributed the way the digital cassette machines are today.  May it come to pass!
> 
> Debbie
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Darcirae Hooks" <draehooks at yahoo.com>
> To: "Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)" <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: "Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)" <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Monday, July 15, 2013 5:51 PM
> Subject: Re: [blindkid] On the Future of Braille: Thoughts by RadicalBraille Advocates (Bookshare)
> 
> 
>> My biggest beef, is the cost to get the technology to my Braille reading 9 year old. Computers for my sighted children are way more affordable than for Caiden. I don't feel this is fair. Also at what point do u take the plunge, break the bank, just to be told u r better off waiting until he is older bc technology gets outdated too quickly.
>> My sighted kids don't worry bc we can update or afford a new computer but braillenote is too expensive to have that in the plan.
>> 
>> Any suggestions????
>> 
>> Darci
>> 
>> Sent from my iPhone
>> 
>> On Jul 15, 2013, at 15:26, "Dr. Denise M Robinson" <deniserob at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Amen to Braille!!!! This should not even be a question---would print for
>>> the sighted ever be a question---never--neither should braille
>>> 
>>> *Dr Denise*
>>> 
>>> Denise M. Robinson, TVI, Ph.D.
>>> CEO, TechVision, LLC
>>> Specialist in Technology/Training/Teaching for blind/low vision
>>> 423-573-6413
>>> 
>>> Website with hundreds of informational articles & lessons on PC, Office
>>> products, Mac, iPad/iTools and more, all done with
>>> keystrokes: www.yourtechvision.com
>>> 
>>> On Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 2:45 PM, Allison Hilliker <AllisonH at benetech.org>wrote:
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Hi Everyone,
>>>> 
>>>> I thought some of you might like to read the below post from the Benetech
>>>> blog. Benetech is the company that runs Bookshare.org. The article
>>>> demonstrates Bookshare's support for Braille access and global literacy.
>>>> 
>>>> Best,
>>>> Allison
>>>> 
>>>> http://benetech.blogspot.com/2013/07/on-future-of-braille-thoughts-by.html
>>>> 
>>>> Guest Beneblog by Betsy Beaumon, VP and General Manager, Benetech's Global
>>>> Literacy Program.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Betsy Beaumon
>>>> I recently had the honor to speak at the first-ever Braille Summit, hosted
>>>> on June 19-21, 2013 by the National Library Service for the Blind and
>>>> Physically Handicapped (NLS) and Perkins School for the Blind. With the
>>>> goal of promoting braille literacy, this landmark meeting brought together
>>>> braille experts from around the world to Perkins' campus in Watertown,
>>>> Massachusetts.
>>>> 
>>>> My biggest takeaway from the summit: the time could not be more urgent,
>>>> and more hopeful, for the future of braille and the prospects of those who
>>>> need it. That's why braille is an important focus for us in Benetech's
>>>> Global Literacy Program - we know that we must keep braille relevant and
>>>> make it more available.
>>>> 
>>>> One of the biggest reasons is that among people who are blind, braille
>>>> literacy has been linked with higher education levels, higher likelihood of
>>>> employment and higher income. Accordingly, U.S. federal law supports
>>>> braille instruction. In what is known as the "braille provision," the
>>>> Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 2004 mandates that
>>>> the teams who help write educational plans for students with disabilities
>>>> presume that all blind and visually impaired children should be taught
>>>> Braille unless it is determined to be inappropriate.
>>>> 
>>>> What's alarming is that for decades the number of braille users has been
>>>> on the decline. And today, braille is not being taught to most blind
>>>> children. Data from the American Printing House for the Blind's annual
>>>> registry of legally blind students shows that in 2012 only 8.8% of legally
>>>> blind children in public and residential schools used braille as their
>>>> primary reading medium.
>>>> 
>>>> Many professionals argue that this decline in braille literacy has led to
>>>> a literacy crisis in the American population of individuals who are blind.
>>>> Community concerns have grown so strong that on June 19, the first day of
>>>> the Braille Summit, the Department of Education Office of Special Education
>>>> and Rehabilitative Services issued new guidance to States and public
>>>> agencies to reaffirm the importance of braille instruction and to clarify
>>>> the circumstances and evaluation requirements under the law.
>>>> 
>>>> At Benetech, we agree that braille is an essential literacy tool and that
>>>> every child who needs it has the right to be taught braille. We also know
>>>> that braille materials must be far more available to braille readers of all
>>>> ages in order to realize their full benefits. At the Braille Summit's
>>>> kick-off event, keynote speaker Peter Osborne, Chief Braille Officer for
>>>> the Royal National Institute of Blind People, U.K., argued that we must
>>>> shift from spending on the provision of hard copy braille to the provision
>>>> of refreshable braille and the associated digital file formats to enable
>>>> people to read so much more.
>>>> 
>>>> "As organizations," Osborne said, "we must liberate spending to focus on
>>>> the promotion, learning and innovation around braille," and recognize that
>>>> we ought to embrace today's changing economics and technology so that
>>>> braille can be part of an equation which delivers access to information for
>>>> all, not just to those who can afford it.
>>>> 
>>>> We strongly support this position and believe the digital content
>>>> revolution holds the best promise for the future of braille. The massive
>>>> shifts in the fields of consumer technology, education, and publishing open
>>>> the door to combating some of the major obstacles to braille availability -
>>>> high cost and time to produce hard copy braille books, as well as
>>>> difficulties in distributing and storing them due to their large size (for
>>>> example, one Harry Potter book in printed braille stands about four feet
>>>> high). We are confident that technology can continue to improve the quality
>>>> of electronic braille such that a blind consumer can expect both immediate
>>>> AND high quality braille on demand.
>>>> 
>>>> As we have explained in other Beneblog and Bookshare blog posts, these are
>>>> exciting times for everyone who has been working to meet the imperative to
>>>> provide people with print disabilities equal access to published
>>>> information. The increasing focus on digital content, rather than its
>>>> printed form, and the shift to electronic distribution of ebooks pave new
>>>> avenues for removing the barriers to accessibility. At Benetech, we want to
>>>> ensure that in this brave new world of digital content, braille is as
>>>> available as any other ebook format to those who want it. In this sense,
>>>> you could say that we are radical braille advocates.
>>>> 
>>>> With Bookshare, Benetech's online library for people with print
>>>> disabilities, our ebook-based approach to the accessibility challenge has
>>>> already delivered on the promise of ending the famine of accessible books
>>>> in the United States. Now, with the new Marrakech Treaty from the World
>>>> Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and our hundreds of direct
>>>> publisher relationships, we are poised to help deliver on this promise
>>>> worldwide.
>>>> 
>>>> Today Bookshare adds around 3,000 books per month to the collection, with
>>>> our publisher and electronic distribution partners supplying most of these
>>>> books, at the same time as they go to electronic retailers like Amazon. We
>>>> also continue to add books from volunteers, staff and outsourcers through
>>>> scanning and proofing, including student requests. Our commitment to
>>>> braille literacy means that the entire Bookshare collection of over 198,000
>>>> titles (and counting) is available not only for use in text, audio or the
>>>> combination, played with a wide variety of assistive technology tools, but
>>>> also formatted for use on electronic braille displays.
>>>> 
>>>> Granted, due to the limitations of fully automated conversion, this is not
>>>> perfect braille, and we continuously work with experts to improve the
>>>> quality of our Braille Ready Files (in the BRF format). Creating a perfect
>>>> digital braille book, particularly with subjects such as math, still
>>>> requires a great deal of human preparation and is therefore very expensive.
>>>> Our belief is that having hundreds of thousands of solid - if not perfect -
>>>> braille books available to read as soon as they are available to everyone
>>>> else is far better than getting them much later or not at all. The
>>>> convergence of standards in digital publishing and major advancements in
>>>> braille codes - such as the recent adoption of Unified English Braille
>>>> (UEB) format by the Braille Authority of North America - are on our side.
>>>> This allows a much broader group of experts to keep working on the problem.
>>>> Imagine the day when we are ready for UEB launch: the entire Bookshare
>>>> collection will be made available in UEB with a click of a button!
>>>> 
>>>> The road toward full access for braille readers has a number of other
>>>> hurdles that must be overcome. One major roadblock is the affordability of
>>>> braille reading tools. The cost of electronic braille displays remains
>>>> prohibitively expensive for most blind people in the world. We believe that
>>>> every reader should be able to have a braille display and we therefore
>>>> support the efforts to bring this cost down, especially for those least
>>>> able to afford it. We are now directly participating in the DAISY
>>>> Consortium's Transforming Braille project, which seeks to dramatically
>>>> lower the cost of braille cell technology, the fundamental technical
>>>> building block of a braille display. This is important here in the U.S.,
>>>> and critical for the inclusion and empowerment of people in developing
>>>> countries.
>>>> 
>>>> Another major challenge involves the graphic content in ebooks, such as
>>>> pictures, charts, and diagrams, formulas and special symbols. Images are
>>>> currently omitted altogether in electronic braille formats and require
>>>> extensive human intervention to produce in an accessible, tactile form. In
>>>> response to the need to make accessible images cheaper, better, and more
>>>> cost effective, we created the DIAGRAM Center with funding by the U.S.
>>>> Department of Education Office for Special Education Programs (OSEP).
>>>> Through this R&D Center, we are working to revolutionize the availability
>>>> of accessible images and tactile graphics by targeting standards and
>>>> developing open source tools that help close the gap between what
>>>> technology can do automatically and what requires expert human work.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> A 3D graphic test on paper substrate of a circuit diagram.
>>>> Image by the National Braille Press, a DIAGRAM subcontract.
>>>> We are addressing key questions such as: When is a tactile required? How
>>>> can we make tactiles easier to produce, use and share? And how will
>>>> changing technology impact tactile design, production and use? Against each
>>>> of these questions we are targeting projects on which we collaborate with
>>>> some of the leading experts in the field. DIAGRAM projects include
>>>> automating a tactile graphic decision tree to target the efforts of
>>>> experts; multiple projects around 3D printing as an inexpensive, emerging
>>>> output format for tactile objects; our Poet tool for crowd sourcing image
>>>> descriptions and MathML; tools to read QR codes as labels on tactile
>>>> graphics to increase available information; and work in whole new haptic
>>>> graphical models for fully electronic tactile experiences. We are also
>>>> actively pursuing legal approaches to allow sharing of image descriptions
>>>> and tactile graphics files to reduce costly re-work by underfunded schools
>>>> and nonprofit organizations/NGO's.
>>>> 
>>>> We are developing many of these free tools with publishers and content
>>>> creators in mind and in consideration of the online platforms more and more
>>>> people use to author and publish information. As the entire industry is
>>>> changing the ways in which content is produced and as digital content
>>>> becomes increasingly media rich, we want to ensure that all content that is
>>>> born digital is also born accessible. Through intense collaboration, we are
>>>> advancing open tools and standards so that accessibility is built into
>>>> mainstream products.
>>>> 
>>>> The future of braille, empowered by innovations in technology, is bright.
>>>> And while the advancement of technology presents new types of challenges
>>>> for accessibility, we at Benetech see them as tremendous opportunities for
>>>> making content truly and universally accessible. New technology will allow
>>>> breakthroughs that will continue moving people who have vision impairments
>>>> toward a better tomorrow. With cooperative and coordinated efforts across
>>>> many communities, we can achieve a future in which new technologies improve
>>>> braille proficiency and life outcomes for braille readers.
>>>> 
>>>> Please join us in realizing this "radical" future!
>>>> 
>>>> Bookshare is participating at the National Federation of the Blind's
>>>> National Convention in Orlando, Florida on July 1-6, 2013 and at the
>>>> American Council of the Blind's 52nd Annual National Conference &
>>>> Convention in Columbus, Ohio on July 4-12, 2013. We'd love to meet you
>>>> there!
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> *Dr Denise*
>>> 
>>> Denise M. Robinson, TVI, Ph.D.
>>> CEO, TechVision, LLC
>>> Specialist in Technology/Training/Teaching for blind/low vision
>>> 423-573-6413
>>> 
>>> Website with hundreds of informational articles & lessons on PC, Office
>>> products, Mac, iPad/iTools and more, all done with
>>> keystrokes: www.yourtechvision.com
>>> 
>>> "The person who says it cannot be done, shouldn't interrupt the one who is
>>> doing it." --Chinese Proverb
>>> 
>>> Computers are incredibly fast, accurate, and stupid: humans are incredibly
>>> slow, inaccurate and brilliant; together they are powerful beyond
>>> imagination.
>>> --Albert Einstein
>>> 
>>> It's kind of fun to do the impossible.
>>> --Walt Disney
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>> 
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> 
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