[Ohio-talk] UEB--Not A Laughing Matter

[Kaiti Shelton]

I feel conflicted by the change, though I found the story cute and
helpful.  I avoided doing anything with UEB forever and only recently
started using it because I have to with the braille input on my
IPhone.  I can acknowledge that though I personally don't travel from
the U.S to other countries often at all there are others who do, and
that it would be very confusing to have to switch braille codes when
you're just going north to Canada or to London or something.  Still, I
am a bit worried about my ability to assimilate into it.  I've been
getting by with writing it on the IPhone all right but I haven't read
anything in UEB yet.  I remarked the other day to someone else that I
am a little worried about the day when Bookshare switches to UEB
because I think it will take me longer to read due to the new code and
getting distracted by it.

I do think that improvements in the technology could have fixed these
problems, and I don't necessarily agree with going completely digital
for transcription.  Though it's great that braille is being turned out
more quickly all the time computers aren't always smarter than people.
I remember in high school my braillist could work pretty quickly but I
was also grateful that she looked over everything to make sure it was
correct.  Not to mention that I don't believe print materials are just
scanned into a computer without being proofread by a human reader,
though I could be wrong there.  I also don't think I buy into the
"braille is too hard to learn" mantra.  I don't think that dot six or
dots three and six in the middle of words for contractions are
confusing to readers as long as they know the rules.  Occasionally in
high school I would see "com" in the middle of a word where my
braillist just missed something, but it wasn't anything I couldn't
figure out quickly.  Other things like BLE and DIS have never been
problems from what I've seen.  If it is confusing for the computer
that just goes back to sparking improvements in technology, I think.

However, it's coming whether we like it or not so we might as well
stop avoiding it.  I apologize in advance for some of the spacing
errors I will undoubtedly make for a while if anyone reads anything
from me.  My TVI in elementary school used a chant with me that went
like this: And of for, with the A.  No space in between, no no way.
It accomplished it's goal and taught me to keep those contractions
bunched up, so I feel very wrong still whenever I have to space those
out.  If that mantra is coming back to haunt me 15 years after I
learned it I don't know how soon it will go away.

On 5/10/15, Milena Zavoli via Ohio-talk <ohio-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Hello Everyone,
>
> I don't see the validity of this story.  The loss even of one contraction
> saddens me.  I see no reason why we needed to change our present system of
> Braille.  Many point out that our American Braille system does not compete
> with today's technology, but I believe that improvements in Duxbury or other
> translation programs would remedy such discrepancies.  Many say that the
> existing Braille code is too hard to learn and that they feel intimidated by
> all its varied contractions, but I believe that with time and patience, this
> difficulty can turn into triumph.  Is math easy?  Yes, for some, but we
> don't go around changing the system.  Is physics easy?  Yes, for some, yet
> we don't change the methodology which brought us to understand the mysteries
> of our universe.
>
> In closing, might I say that the death of one contraction means the ruin of
> our beautiful Braille code?  Yes, I will.
>
> Milena Zavoli
>
>
>
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-- 
Kaiti Shelton
University of Dayton 2016.
Music Therapy, Psychology, Philosophy
President, Ohio Association of Blind Students
Sigma Alpha Iota-Delta Sigma