[Mabs] Study Tips

[Gary Wunder]

Hi Todd. If you are using one of the newer Daisy players, learn how to use
what they call their bookmarking features. This is roughly equivalent to
underlining in print books. These Daisy devices--Victor Stream, BookSense,
Plextalk--also allow one to record notes with voice.

I have always found rewriting something helps me to remember it, so I will
read something and then try to write what I've read. This will either reveal
that I understand it or show me that I can't explain what I thought I knew.

The main drawback in using audio is that sometimes I don't get the spelling.
Having a print copy of the material is helpful and using a reader
occasionally can be very beneficial. If you have a dictionary you can use,
this can help with spelling. If you use some of the speech-recognition
software, it may reveal the spelling if you pronounce the word in context.

The problem I had to work hardest to overcome was falling asleep.  If
something I was listening to had a plot, it kept my interest.  If it was
political science or sociology or some difficult to read piece of
philosophy, there was no plot and paying attention to the material was much
harder.  I learned to actively listen, to periodically ask myself if I was
understanding what was being said, and sometimes even introducing a pause
every so often just to make sure that I was still awake and listening.  Some
products such as the Kurzweil 1000 have this feature and can stop reading
after 1 min., 3 min., or 5 min.  Some of the portable book players have
settings which are actually intended to help you go to sleep and their times
are significantly longer as in 15 min., 30 min., 45 min., or an hour.  I
really used to confuse sitting in a chair for three hours with a book
running with study.  I didn't have the problem in using braille, but the
fact that the voice will keep on whether or not you are paying attention
really does make staying awake more difficult.

The last observation I would make is that people who read audio don't always
pronounce names correctly.  I was in an educational psychology class and
reading about the theories of Gonyea.  I won't vouch for the accuracy of
that spelling, but I remember having two different books discussing his
educational theories and two different readers narrating them. One said
something that sounded like Gonyay. The other told me about the theories of
Gagney.  I was told that our first test would involve comparing and
contrasting different theories of the educational psychologists we were
studying.  For the life of me I could not do a good comparison contrast of
Gagney and Gonyay.  As I tell the story now, it seems like it should have
been obvious what was happening, but I had to fail a test to realize we were
talking about the same person.  I wouldn't have made that mistake had the
textbooks been in braille or even if I had read them using synthetic speech.
Knowing what I know now, I would have ascertained the spelling of both names
ahead of time, knowing that I would be required to spell them when I was
dictating the essay.

I hope some of this is helpful.  I'm about 35 years from my last college
class, but I still have dreams about coming close to the end of the
semester, finding a rumpled class schedule in my briefcase, and realizing I
signed up for a class that I haven't attended all semester.  I've probably
had this dream at least 10 times, and it always makes me sick inside when I
realize it is far too late in the semester to drop the class and the time is
too short for me to do it justice.

Warmly,

Gary


-----Original Message-----
From: mabs-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:mabs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
Todd Orlowski
Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2011 10:41 AM
To: mabs at nfbnet.org
Subject: [Mabs] Study Tips

I was wondering if anyone had any study tips for taking notes and studying
for tests if your blind. And your books and materials are in audio format.
Or any other kind of format. I was wondering what strategies people had that
worked for them
Thanks
Todd 
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