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

[bente at casilenc.com]

I worry about blind student not knowing braille.  I worked with a blind
girl who put it best when she said, "the perkins brailler is my pencil". 
I cannot imagine a blind student doing college level mathematics without
braille and if you eliminate mathematics from the degree program you cut
off so many potential careers.

Bente J. Casile



 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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