[nabs-l] Learning to learn faster

Carly Mihalakis carlymih at comcast.net
Wed Apr 9 16:23:31 UTC 2014


Good morning, sami and everyone,

Often in my experience the class won't be disturbed by soft speech. 
As you may have noticed, the monotonous rhythm of the digitized 
speech blends in to the background background of whichever room. I 
too, used to think the sound of my equipment's speech would disturb 
people, but I have, in recent years let that go. Perhaps, you might 
consider this, as well?
Have a good day, sami!
for today, Car
408-209-3239

, Mohamed wrote:
>You a bit remind me of what I do.  I turn off the speech myself, to 
>avoid disturbing the class.  Yes, I use a stream.  Are you using the 
>second generation stream? Just curious.
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: sami osborne <ligne14 at verizon.net
>To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list<nabs-l at nfbnet.org
>Date sent: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 18:28:40 -0500
>Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Learning to learn faster
>
>Hi all.
>
>I use a BrailleNote Apex for schoolwork and emails.
>I know that you guys might think that audio is faster than
>Braille, but I turn off the speech on my BrailleNote so as not to
>disturb the other kids in my class.
>However, I also use a Victor Reader Stream to listen to books,
>and its audio qualy, to me, is very good.
>I also use a computer with Jaws installed for surfing the web and
>for playing games.
>I'm not  sure what my average braille reading speed is, but now
>that you mentioned it, I'll probably test that and see, although
>I do know that I'm a fast Braille reader...
>
>Sami.
>  ----- Original Message -----
>From: Mohamed <malhajamy at gmail.com
>To: National Association of Blind Students mailing
>list<nabs-l at nfbnet.org
>Date sent: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 15:18:35 -0500
>Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Learning to learn faster
>
>Hi Helga, me, personally, I  like audio more.  Braille, for me,
>is rather slow.  I have my BrailleNote sped up to the maximum
>speed, rate 16.  I just simply like audio more than braille.
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: <helga.schreiber26 at gmail.com
>To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list"
><nabs-l at nfbnet.org
>Date sent: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 11:36:07 -0500
>Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Learning to learn faster
>
>Hi all, this  is Helga! I actually use both JAWS and Braille! But
>I actually
>like braille more than just listening to audio, since I
>comprehend more the
>college material in Braille! But if I have the Braille copy in my
>hand, and
>I have the text of it on the computer I learn the material
>faster! For
>instance, for my Government class I need to learn 19 steps in how
>a Bill
>becomes a Law.  So in that case I use JAWS and the braille copy
>of the steps.
>Thanks so much for listening to me! God bless!
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: justin williams
>Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2014 8:16 AM
>To: 'National Association of Blind Students mailing list'
>Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Learning to learn faster
>
>Screen reader; I have my jaws up to more than sixty usually.  I
>may slow it
>down to 55 or so when I am reading; I hae pretty good
>comprehention because
>I read before class.  Also, I use learning ally; I speed it up as
>much as I
>can.  Reading your emails I have my jaws on 65 or so.  If I am
>really
>searching for something on the internet, I may speed it up to 70
>or even 80
>for greater speed.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: nabs-l [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
>Jamie
>Principato
>Sent: Monday, February 24, 2014 8:02 PM
>To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
>Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Learning to learn faster
>
>How many hours a night must you spend reading in order to keep up
>with and
>be successful in your classes? Are you using Braille or a screen
>reader? I'd
>love to hear everyone weigh in on this.  If you don't read for
>class every
>night, how many hours a week?
>
>Jamie
>
>Sent from my iPhone
>
>On Feb 24, 2014, at 5:34 PM, Arielle Silverman
><arielle71 at gmail.com
>wrote:
>
>I find it easier to skim in Braille than in audio or E-text.
>You can
>skim in Braille by looking for indented text, sliding your
>fingers
>down the leftmost edge of the page looking for spaces where the
>text
>is indented or centered to indicate a new paragraph or section
>heading, or of course, flip to the next physical page.
>Also, I'm not sure speed is  the end goal, at least not all the
>time.
>I think a better goal is to achieve a good speed-to-accuracy
>ratio.
>That is, you want to understand as much  as possible in as
>little time
>as possible.  Anyone can put their screen reader on 500 words a
>minute
>and just breeze through, but if you comprehended less than half
>what
>was spoken, that's not useful at all.  Similarly, carefully
>reading in
>Braille at 100 words per minute but understanding everything you
>read,
>and remembering it later so you don't have to re-read right
>before the
>test, is valuable.
>I'm one of those Braille readers who reads very quickly, and
>I've
>often found, especially as an adult reading denser material and
>having
>less practice with Braille, that I have to force myself to slow
>down
>or I start missing stuff.
>
>Arielle
>
>On 2/24/14, Carly Mihalakis <carlymih at comcast.net> wrote:
>Good afternoon, Sophie,
>
>         Growing up,I admit, I took braille very much for
>granted,
>couldn't fathom those blinks I heard about who, didn't read
>braille.
>Served the Federation's summer program as the braille
>instructor, was
>a devotee of this page slate I have.  Was beginning to learn
>Grade 3,
>the whole bit.  I forgot, in studying Japanese language, I, with
>the
>help of a key my Dad found for me On-line, began teaching myself
>nihongo tenji (Japanese braille) Then, at age 19, I was hit by a
>car
>which caused severe brain damage, a symptom of which has been
>acute
>tactile appraxia which for me, refers to an inability of hand to
>perceive that which is sent to it via the brain.  thus reducing
>braille reading pretty much to a very rich and stimulating  pipe
>dream.  And, It isn't about the spacing of the dots, like you
>see with
>neuropathy people, as if anything was produced in jumbo braille,
>anyway.  I just don't perceive what my finger feels!
>But, I say aoll this to make the point of my also not retaining,
>during the time i did use hard copy braille as well as a Braille
>Light 40 purchased by the school district and, having no
>alternative,
>I have forced myself to learn audotorally on the comput as well
>as
>talking books....  so, it can be possible in case, got help you,
>you
>find yourself in this way.
>for today, Car
>408-209-3239
>
>Courtney, I have to disagree with you on braille textbooks.  I
>actually find them more useful than audio textbooks.  Granted,
>I'm in
>high school, so I'm probably not moving at as fast a pace as
>college
>students, but still.  If you read a braille book in an electric
>format
>with a notetaker (I use a braillenote apex), you can use the
>Find
>command to search for important keywords if you're trying to
>look up
>something quickly.  You can also move by paragraph and by page
>if you
>wish to skip irrelevant material.  For me at least, I comprehend
>more
>when I read braille.  I do okay with audio, but when I read it
>with my
>fingers, I tend to absorb more of the information, whereas when
>I'm
>listening to it, I occasionally zone out and miss something.
>This is
>more important for some classes than others, but reading braille
>tells us how to spell things.  Braille also allows us to see
>what's
>underlined or italicized, which may be important for some
>lessons.
>These are just my thoughts.  Have a great day!
>
>Sincerely,
>Sophie
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Courtney Stover <liamskitten at gmail.com
>To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
><nabs-l at nfbnet.org Date sent: Mon, 24 Feb 2014 14:20:35 -0600
>Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Learning to learn faster
>
>Antonio,
>
>I'll return with more thoughts later tonight when I've properly
>read
>the article, but I thought I'd answer your questions, because
>they
>interest me on a philosophical level.
>
>This is one of the ways that, frankly, my life experience simply
>hasn't jived with NFB philosophy.  NFB philosophy emphasizes the
>importance of fast Braille reading, which I agree with; practice
>absolutely must be maintained.  However, they also seem to
>strongly
>insist on Braille textbooks, which I don't get behind so much.
>Doing
>college-level reading; I have never had to consume material as
>quickly as I am right now.  And, at least for me, reading
>textbooks
>in Braille is simply impractical, even if that Braille has
>shifted
>to electronic instead of hardcopy.  I can read loads faster,
>even
>with something like RFBD and the Bookmarks function on my player
>to
>find important material again, than I ever thought about with
>Braille, particularly because I can quickly skim over
>superfluous
>material like map descriptions, vocabulary I already remember,
>or
>excerpts from outside documents that are meant to enhance the
>readings, which are always located at the end of the page, by
>simply
>going to the next one with the press of a button.  With books
>read
>by a screen reader, particularly if they're from somewhere like
>Bookshare and have Daisy navigation, this is even more true.
>
>I think your point is very true, about Braille readers only
>reading
>at the pace of sighted ones.  I went in recently to take a test
>in
>Braille (the one reason I keep my Braille skills sharp; my test
>performance plummets when I have to have a reader), and was
>noted as
>one of the fastest Braille readers the proctor had ever seen.
>However, someone was taking the same test with a screen reader,
>and
>was finished in half the time I was.  So, learning to take tests
>with screen and human readers is something I wish to become
>proficient
>at.
>After all, I may have Braille accommodation now, but I doubt a
>workplace, such as a call center, that has a training process
>before
>proper work begins, is going to allow me to have a Braille
>display.
>
>Now, this says nothing about leisure activities, in which I
>vastly
>prefer Braille to audio, save in rare cases.  If I'm going to
>read a
>book, I want to actually be reading it.  Also, any proofing task
>would be made immensely more difficult without the use of
>Braille.
>
>I hope this at least provides an interesting perspective on your
>questions, as you certainly provided a very interesting article
>I'm
>looking forward to diving in to.
>Warmly,
>Courtney
>
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