[nabs-l] Learning to learn faster
Mohamed
malhajamy at gmail.com
Tue Feb 25 01:08:58 UTC 2014
Me, personally, I use a mix of everything. I use braille on my
BrailleNote to keep up with schoolwork. Now, my teachers are
sending me most things electronicly. I don't really find hard
copy a good option, because I always find myself losing
assignments somewhere. So, my teachers are switching to sending
me things by email.
----- Original Message -----
From: Jamie Principato <blackbyrdfly at gmail.com
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Mon, 24 Feb 2014 18:02:18 -0700
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
_______________________________________________
nabs-l mailing list
nabs-l at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account
info for
nabs-l:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/sweetpeareade
r%40gmail.com
_______________________________________________
nabs-l mailing list
nabs-l at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account
info for
nabs-l:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/carlymih%40co
mcast.net
_______________________________________________
nabs-l mailing list
nabs-l at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account
info for
nabs-l:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/arielle71%40g
mail.com
_______________________________________________
nabs-l mailing list
nabs-l at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account
info for nabs-l:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/blackbyrdfly%
40gmail.com
_______________________________________________
nabs-l mailing list
nabs-l at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info
for nabs-l:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/malhajamy%40g
mail.com
More information about the NABS-L
mailing list