[nabs-l] Learning to learn faster

[Sophie Trist]

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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