[blindkid] braille qwerty usb keyboard needed

Fri Aug 20 03:54:32 UTC 2010

You're no doubt right-- It may take longer, but then again, if she  
drags her feet in qwerty land and just uses a (perkins style)  
braillenote or pacmate (she switches back and forth but mostly uses a  
braillenote) we're making zero progress on the qwerty stuff, so to me  
I'm looking at slow progress compared to almost no progress. That's  
what has me kicking around ideas.

It isn't like this is time critical anyhow-- in her case, she's stays  
on (and often well above) grade level (and remember, this is a second  
grade student, not a high school kid or such). She just is resistant  
to qwerty keyboards. How different are any of us from that sort of  
thing? I'm a Macintosh user. I love them. I've been using them for  
over 20 years. To me PC's are a necessary evil at times, but in  
general, I avoid them for my own uses whenever I can. I'm good at what  
I do and I am FAR more proficient at my work on a Mac, so what am I  
likely to use when I can?...

My Macs do for me what Kendra's Braillenote does for her. Can I work  
on a PC? Sure, but by comparison it is slow and tedious. Keystrokes an  
command shortcuts on a Mac are (to me) absolutely mindless reflexes.  
So what exactly is my motivation to get better with PC's? So it is  
with Kendra. Most of her needs are well met by her Braillenote and she  
finds the qwerty thing to be a hassle. My hope is to make her a little  
more confident that she really is on the right keys so she'll go ahead  
and press them, then as her needs and computer desires grow, she'll  
naturally ease into this.

This is much more typical of Kendra than my other children and I think  
it has little to do with vision issues-- it is just her. She'd prefer  
not to participate, answer, etc., than to risk even a small chance of  
answering incorrectly, or in this case, typing the wrong key. (I also  
think she's much more likely to explore this when she knows she's not  
being watched.)

For now, it looks like a fairly moot discussion anyhow unless I lower  
what I seek and either use stickers or at best adapt a PS2 keyboard to  
USB. I hate to start off with a cruddy adapted solution with a PS2  
keyboard, so hopefully those guys will come up with a better choice.  
Again, no giant rush so I think I'll wait and shop for a while. Maybe  
Kendra will jump in on her own soon and none of this will matter for  
her...

I'm one of those people who can cruise along typing quite quickly  
unless I think about what I'm doing then suddenly I'm missing  
keystrokes and having to back up and look down at the keys and all.  
(Curious how that works.) Still I manage to churn out a lot of type  
when I need to so I'm not always concerned about following perfect  
"textbook procedure" in the first place....

Richard

On Aug 19, 2010, at 10:37 PM, Sally Thomas wrote:

> I don't really think it will matter in the long run but it may take  
> a little longer for her to become a confident typist.  Probably like  
> the difference between true touch typists and those of us who do a  
> combination of looking and touch typing.
>
> My son finds typing on his iPhone a piece of cake because he knows  
> where the letters are.  He just loves all technology so he was  
> motivated to learn the keyboard.  There are lots of other areas  
> where he's not motivated so we'll take what we can get!
>
> Sally Thomas
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard Holloway" <rholloway at gopbc.org 
> >
> To: <empwrn at bellsouth.net>; "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for  
> parents of blind children)" <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2010 9:02 PM
> Subject: Re: [blindkid] braille qwerty usb keyboard needed
>
>
>> Sounds to me like you are doing just what you hope. (I'd leave the  
>> braille where it is.) I can't imagine there is a downside to your   
>> efforts at all. I also think there's a reason why key caps are  
>> printed  for sighted folks and while it may indeed be that  
>> experienced blind  typists can type far faster without the  
>> distraction of braille key  caps (just as sighted typists generally  
>> become faster when they no  longer look at the keys), I think there  
>> is a place for the markings  too, especially with learning children.
>>
>> Again, coming from a sighted perspective at least, I sometimes find  
>> it inconvenient to have to put both hands on the keyboard to enter  
>> a few characters and I tend to look down and enter a quick word or  
>> number  and hit it with only a couple of fingers on one hand,  
>> especially if  the other hand is unavailable. (For example, I'm  
>> pushing a 4-year-old  away from my computer even as I type this.)  
>> Does this need never arise  for blind typists or do they somehow  
>> master the entire keyboard's  layout for use with either hand with  
>> no tactile cues beyond home row  markings? I'm not saying that's  
>> not possible, but that's a pretty big  reach to memorize tactually  
>> and especially to be able to swap from  hand to hand.
>>
>> I would also suggest that factory made braille key caps would be  
>> far  less distracting than oozing, crooked adhesive labels or pre- 
>> picked  dymo tape markings as well. I'm not bashing anyone's  
>> braille labeled  keyboards, but over time, even the best efforts  
>> are going to have  problems on keys that get pressed on by warm  
>> fingers thousands of  times, over and again....
>>
>> That's part of why I wanted to find the keyboard I mentioned to  
>> begin with. In fact it strikes me that even a (tactile) braille  
>> reader might quickly learn to ignore the braille caps once they  
>> were TOUCH typing because at that point, they'd be tapping on top  
>> of the braille, not scanning across the keyboard with their finger  
>> tips. It seems like  only when you stopped to hunt-- like maybe if  
>> you were out of position  and ran your fingers across the keys or  
>> were typing a few strokes with  your hand(s) just getting settled  
>> on the keys) would the braille  suddenly jump back into play.
>>
>> That's pure speculation on my part, but I'd love to see a test by  
>> fast typists who are also tactile braille readers to find out. I  
>> hardly  read braille and what I read, I read visually. I do know  
>> that once  typing, I am entirely unaware of home row markings  
>> unless I pause my  typing and scan for them and if I place my  
>> (admittedly untrained)  fingertips directly on top of braille, I  
>> certainly feel far less  difference from character to character  
>> than if I'm scanning across the  same letters conventionally.
>>
>> Some tactile braille readers may want to jump in and offer opinions  
>> on this topic. That's fine with me, but I suspect they'll be  
>> telling us  what they think it would be like or what it is like on  
>> a keyboard with stickers stuck on it as there seem to be very few  
>> pre-formed braille  key caps out there in the marketplace for  
>> anyone to have tried out.
>>
>> In any case, for my situation, I expect (based on her speed with a  
>> perkins-style keyboard) that my daughter will end up being a very  
>> fast qwerty typist as well. She just needs a jump-start. If braille  
>> key  caps will help her gain confidence and a desire to use a  
>> qwerty  keyboard, I can't see the harm in trying them. It's not  
>> like there is  a major effort in switching back to a standard  
>> keyboard at a later  time for whatever reason. If Kendra gets  
>> through with such a keyboard,  I could put it on a machine for  
>> myself and it would be there to  reinforce my own inept efforts so  
>> simply learn plain old grade 1  braille...
>>
>>
>>> This is an interesting discussion. We have labeled every keyboard  
>>> (letters only) Jack uses at home and school with braille labeling   
>>> tape. He's 5 and just learning to recognize that those dots mean   
>>> something. In the back of my mind I was hoping that I was not  
>>> only   helping him learn braille but also placement of keys on a  
>>> qwerty  keyboard.
>>>
>>> Marie (mother of Jack born May 2005)
>>> See glimpses of life with my determined son who is developing in  
>>> his  own way at his own time at http://allaccesspasstojack.blogspot.com
>>> Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
>>
>>
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