[accessibleimage] Touch Graphics version of Touch The Sun!

Greetings colleagues,

The students and instructors of the Kaizen Program have been privileged to
try out the Talking Tactile Tablet prototype of the Touch Graphics talking
book version of Touch The Sun.

Before summarizing our experience I want to remind people of Steven Landau's
description of the TTT version of Touch The Sun, which was posted on the
list on Thursday, March 16, 2006 7:27 AM. I don't think I can describe it
with as much accuracy and detail, so I will restate Steve's description
here:

"It is an Illustrated Digital Talking Book, based on Noreen Grice's Touch
the Sun. It uses the same images that were in Noreen's book, but rather than
read the text in Braille, you place a tactile overlay sheet on a TTT and
then navigate through the text by pressing the right and left arrows to go
forward or back. Like in DAISY books, you can also press the up and down
arrows to change the navigation level (the increments you move when you
press the right or left arrow), which can be set to chapter, paragraph,
sentence, word or letter. When you want to explore the pictures, you do that
by touching lightly, then pressing down on any part you want to hear audio
description for. You can also hook up a Braille display to the computer, if
you prefer to read the text that way."

We received the Touch The Sun TTT program last week, and my partner, Robby
Barnes, installed it without any difficulty.

Then, before introducing it to our students, both of us tried it out. Robby
is partially sighted and I am totally blind, and we both found it easy to
use. It needs some rough spots ironed out to make it operate more smoothly
and with fewer little errors, but it is very accessible.

Then I used it with three of my adult new English learners who have been
reading the book in braille with me and enjoying the tactile graphics. They
also participated in Noreen's prototypical science lessons with similar
tactile graphics, but slightly different interactive activities involved.

My students are now very enthusiastic about the whole experience, including
especially the TTT part! One man in his fifties, who did not learn to read
and write in braille or in any format until he came to this country ten
years ago, is now so enthusiastic about reading the book that he wants to
get it himself. This is the first book that has made him truly excited about
reading! So, I am thrilled.

All of the students enjoyed having access to the same material that fully
sighted people have. They all are more and more interested in learning about
science topics as part of learning English. And, the TTT version of Touch
The Sun makes it very easy for them to feel fully supported in exploring the
tactile graphics on their own, going over and over them.

So, thank you! thank you! all at Touch Graphics for producing and sharing
this material.

Sincerely,

Sylvie

Sylvie Kashdan, M.A.
Instructor/Curriculum Coordinator
KAIZEN PROGRAM for New English Learners with Visual Limitations
810-A Hiawatha Place South
Seattle, WA  98144, U.S.A.
phone:  (206) 784-5619
email:  kaizen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
web:  http://www.nwlincs.org/kaizen/

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