[Blindmath] FYI: BBC website article on Braille (and David Blunketton Braille)

[Michael Whapples]

I think the comment by Blunkett about just having the information in front 
of you is probably one of the greatest strengths of Braille. With maths, if 
you find yourself either scanning through equations to get the general form, 
jumping to particular elements, refering back up the page to previous steps 
in working, basically anything where you are not reading it in full detail 
in sequence then Braille provides that type of access. Imagine some of those 
non-sequential things you do when using written mathematical information and 
trying to instruct a machine or a person to give just the information you 
need.

Viewing it from a technical subject angle, the lack of teaching of Braille, 
not sure fully what the reasons might be, some might be because more VI 
people are older people loosing sight and so being less willing/able to 
learn new things but some I think might be financial/funding as Braille 
teaching is certainly a specialist skill.

An interesting thing I will just toss in, is Braille hard to learn, possibly 
not. I remember back in 2010 at the international conference on computers 
helping people with special needs (ICCHP) there was a talk on a GPS system 
being developed by a hungarian group which used Braille for input 
(admittedly only what is needed for GPS input so letters and numbers, not 
sure about punctuation) and I asked them why they chose Braille when it 
seems to be taught less and less now. Their reply was that they found 
Braille the quickest and most convenient method of getting accurate input 
and that they had found people who previously knew no Braille could pick up 
enough in two or three days to be able to use the device (I think older 
people were included). I think the open university library system has access 
to the ICCHP papers from 2010 if you want to look it up. Admittedly what is 
needed for a GPS input and learning to feel for the dots when reading, 
contracted Braille and the maths code may take longer, but my basic point is 
that understanding the basics can be picked up pretty quickly and may be 
some just percieve Braille as being difficult to learn. In my view its 
certainly well worth the effort particularly if you want to study anything 
technical.

Michael Whapples

-----Original Message----- 
From: J.Fine
Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2012 11:21 AM
To: 'Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics'
Subject: [Blindmath] FYI: BBC website article on Braille (and David 
Blunketton Braille)

Hi

There's an article "Braille is spreading but who's using it?" on the BBC 
News website.
  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16984742

Linked from it is a 2009 article "Why Braille is brilliant" written by David 
Blunkett (former British home secretary, and blind since birth) to mark the 
200th anniversary of the birth of Loius Braille.

Blunkett wrote that Braille was valuable to him because "when chairing a 
meeting it is vital that I have an agenda on my own that I can refer to 
without reference to someone else."  This gives me, as a sighted person, 
some insight into the difficulties blind people have when doing mathematics 
and how they can be overcome.

--
Jonathan

-- 
The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt 
charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302).


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