[Nebraska-students] Slate Contest

[Karen Anderson]

Hi everyone,

 

James Konechne, the Braille instructor at BISM, asked me to cerculate the
following. Anyone interested in having a contest in Nebraska? We could even
do a couple catagories amongst ourselves if people are interested.

 

Karen

 

 

Hi all,

My name is James Konechne. I'm the Braille instructor at Blind Industries
and Services of Maryland's comprehensive adult blindness structured
discovery

training program.

As a large component of my Braille curriculum, I teach our students how to
write with the slate and stylus. A strategy I recently began utilizing to
monitor

my students' accuracy and speed with this skill has been to create a monthly
contest within the student body. Not only does this give me the information

I need to gage their progress, it also encourages a healthy dose of
competition between the students. The contest consists of two components: a
slate sprint

and an endurance race. Each involves writing the alphabet repeatedly. For
the slate sprint, the students write as fast as they can for 30 seconds. I
count

each four letters as a word and take a word off for every error that is
made. The endurance race is similar in scoring and speed, with the exception
of

the student being timed for five minutes of constant writing. 

My students were trash talking lately and came up with the idea of having a
friendly little competition among all adults currently learning how to write

with the slate. They are ready and willing to take on any writer with the
guts to join in on the contest!! If you want to get a piece of the action,
time

your students for both races and send me your results via e-mail. Then, let
the trash talk begin!! Let's have a little fun and promote Braille writing

at the same time!

 

Official Rules:

Contest writing must be done using a standard, 28-cell, four-line slate.

Standard, heavy weight Braille paper must be used.

Only one alphabet can be written per line.

The clock must be allowed to continue to run while the slate is being moved
to fresh paper since this is an essential component of writing.

 

A Timing Example and Scoring:

In the five minute endurance race, if, for example, a student writes five
complete alphabets, they will have written a total of 30 words. If they make

five errors, five words are subtracted bringing them down to a total of 25
total correct words. This is then divided by five to come up with a total of

five words per minute.

 

Call or e-mail with any questions.

James K

cell 4109250707