[accessibleimage] Re: producing tactile graphics

One of the new ideas in education is to use the arts as a teaching strategy. Called "arts infused education" the idea is that creating an art project helps make routine academic units more memorable.
I am a teaching artist and a photographer. Among many other things, I've used pinhole cameras to teach about the physics of light and helped create giant wire and cardboard models of DNA molecules. Filling a school with these models has a ripple effect beyond the group of students who have to learn the basic details to make the model. The rest of the students in the school also learn something.
I appreciate Swelltouch paper as a curriculum tool for creating the tactile graphics students need in math or the maps they'll need in history.
I encourage educators to think beyond the obvious academic applications and think about using swelltouch paper as an art material. How many of us have done grave rubbings as children or put coins under a paper and rubbed them with a pencil? Need to teach orientation? Choose a bunch of tactile landmarks. (A unique wall, a manhole cover, building cornerstones, etc.) Put the paper over the object. Unwrap a china marker (grease pencil) and use the side of it to get an image. Run the paper through a heat machine. First student to find all the landmarks wins.
How come "art" for blind students always means clay? Give your students some swell paper and a marker and let them create bas relief murals of their world.
Yes, of course, part of the lesson is about orientation. But this activity also gives them access to the medium. These students are no longer simple consumers of pre-made tactile graphics. They now have the power to create their own. 

Barry Kleider
Minneapolis, Minnesota



Philip wrote:

Firstly to note we manufacture swell paper and hence are a supplier to
the industry.

We have set up a free to use web site loaded with tactile images. They
are roughly based on the UK National Curriculum but I am sure many
diagrams are universal. There are regular contributions to this site so
it is constantly growing. Some subjects are more heavily populated with
images than others.

The address for this site is www.tactilelibrary.com

For any image there is a thumbnail and pdf. To access the image just
click on the pdf and print.

Zychem Limited
Unit 1, Valley Court,
Sanderson Way,
Middlewich,
Cheshire.
CW10 0GF.
Tel: +44 1606 738739
Fax: +44 1606 738752
Web: www.zychem-ltd.co.uk

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Subject: [accessibleimage] Re: producing tactile graphics

Hi,
One advantage with an embosser that makes tactile graphics is the possibility of sharing files with others, that is someone sends you a file of a graphic they have made and all you do is emboss it out. The APH a site where you can download tactile graphics "APH Tactile Graphic Image Library" http://www.aph.org/tgil/index.html Another link from Canada of downloads http://www.prcvi.org/visualimpairment/file_download.html Note, files can also be used as a basis for a graphic where you can add or change to your specifications. 

http://www.perkins.org/clearinghouse/geography/creating-tactile-graphics
.html
Good luck,


Regards,




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