[access-uk] Re: Does the digital age spell the end of Braille? - News - Gadgets and Tech - The Independent
- From: "martin wilsher" <martinwilsher@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 21 May 2014 13:56:37 +0100
But getting a page of braille in a reffreshable form would be so bloody
expencive it would never be done.
-----Original Message-----
From: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ari
Damoulakis
Sent: 21 May 2014 13:53
To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [access-uk] Re: Does the digital age spell the end of Braille? - News
- Gadgets and Tech - The Independent
Sighted people love paper so much that they're working on ink that can re-write
to the paper, i.e finished using something, just remove the ink and reuse the
paper. There is also some research that suggested that sighted people who
hand-write things remember and recall more of what they wrote than if they did
it on a computer or tablet. Braille is beautiful and wonderful and it would be
the most awful thing if paper braille disappeared. To get braille into the
digital age we need multi-line braille displays, one tiny line when you are
trying to find something in a huge document just doesn't cut the mustard and is
awful because you can't skim read downwards and look for things fast.
Besides, if braille disappeared, I think a child growing up totally blind from
birth would never then really be able to really picture words or imagine
letters effectively in their heads like what a braille user can. Bet their
reading and spelling skills wouldn't be as good as a braille user.
Ari
On 5/21/14, Clive.Lever@xxxxxxxxxxx <Clive.Lever@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hello Angel,
>
> So no homer, John Milton or Aldous Huxley either...and before the form
> becomes extinct, I'm going to use a subjunctive: Would that I were
> joking about some blind people beginning to sound like their synthesisers!
>
> Best,
> Clive
>
>
>
> Clive Lever
> Diversity and Equality Officer
> Kent County Council
>
> Office: 01622 221163
> Email: clive.lever@xxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
> Kent County Council
> Room G37
> Sessions House
> Maidstone, Kent.
> ME14 1XQ
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
> Behalf Of Angel
> Sent: 21 May 2014 13:04
> To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [access-uk] Re: Does the digital age spell the end of
> Braille? - News - Gadgets and Tech - The Independent
>
> You are joking surely? Blind people sounding like synthesizers? How
> sad a
>
> situation is it if blind people are so isolated. When I read about
> the possibility of Braille being replaced with electronic media, I
> remember in the 80's when there was talk of a paperless office. Did
> that occur? It did
>
> not. Why was this I ask? It was because sighted people wouldn't
> stand for
>
> it, and some 30 or so years later we still have paper documents. If
> we blind people allow Braille to be replaced, we will be a sadder and
> a sorrier
>
> lot for it. Because our children will be considerably less well
> educated than we blind students were in past generations. When we
> could physically read. I think a lot of this talk about Braille being
> replaced is done by sighted people who feel the code is too hard to
> learn, and are trying to make things easier for teachers of the blind
> and other sighted professionals. Especially with the idea we should
> be integrated with sighted students from the moment we begin our
> careers as students. Not having to worry over teaching or learning
> the code would make our education
>
> a good deal easier for the sighted folk who teach us blind students.
> Who depend on Braille translating programs to write Braille. In the
> 1940's and
>
> 50's sighted teachers of the blind learned to read Braille with their
> fingers. As did we. I was taught by such. The idea being, they
> would be better teachers of us if they immersed themselves entirely in
> the experience. This total emersion is not experienced by today's
> modern teachers of the blind . Sighted people generally, expect us
> blind people to
>
> be less capable in so many ways. So, if our education and literacy
> suffers
>
> should Braille be replaced by electronic medium they won't even
> understand
>
> we lack. A condition similar to the deterioration by sighted children
> in the use of the language. They lack the understanding of its depth
> and its richness. In future, there will be no Shaws, or Shakespeares.
> Not because
>
> they lack the life experiences of either; but, because, blind and
> sighted children alike, won't have vocabularies exceeding 50 words.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <Clive.Lever@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2014 6:19 AM
> Subject: [access-uk] Re: Does the digital age spell the end of
> Braille? - News - Gadgets and Tech - The Independent
>
>
>> Hello all,
>>
>> I believe that if you were born with no useful reading vision, or
>> have had
>>
>> no useful reading vision since early childhood, it is dangerous to
>> assume
>>
>> that Braille can ever be properly replaced by other media. Screen
>> enlargement is of no early use to someone with no sight at all;
>> audiobooks
>>
>> and computer speech technology allow a blind person to be read to by
>> a machine. They don't allow a blind person to read, so the point
>> about the importance of acquiring literacy skills is well made. You
>> can read all the
>>
>> audio books you like on daisy players, Kindles and the like, without
>> learning how to write, spell, punctuate, capitalise and so on. You
>> can do
>>
>> some of this with computer technology, but the process is rather like
>> travelling from Land's End to John o' Groats at the speed of a snail
>> - it's logically possible to do it but life's too short to make the
>> attempt
>>
>> worthwhile. There are other dangers inherent in expecting blind
>> people do
>>
>> be educated entirely through computer speech outp ut. I've heard
>> reports that some young blind people are beginning to sound
>>
>> like their synthesisers, because they are the voices they hear more
>> than any other.
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Clive
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Clive Lever
>> Diversity and Equality Officer
>> Kent County Council
>>
>> Office: 01622 221163
>> Email: clive.lever@xxxxxxxxxxx
>>
>>
>> Kent County Council
>> Room G37
>> Sessions House
>> Maidstone, Kent.
>> ME14 1XQ
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
>> Behalf Of Gordon Keen
>> Sent: 21 May 2014 10:52
>> To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: [access-uk] Does the digital age spell the end of Braille? -
>> News - Gadgets and Tech - The Independent
>>
>>
>> http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/does-th
>> e-digital-age-spell-the-end-of-braille-9405836.html
>>
>> Does the digital age spell the end of Braille?
>>
>> It took more than a century for Braille to be established as the
>> English reading system for the blind after an acrimonious and lengthy
>> dispute dubbed the "War of the Dots".
>>
>> Now it faces another battle as the rise of digital technology means
>> its importance to blind people is diminishing. It might even fall
>> into disuse
>>
>> altogether, according to the curator of a new exhibition.
>>
>> "Braille is embattled. The biggest threat is computer technology,
>> which makes it much easier not to have to learn it," said Matthew
>> Rubery, from Queen University of London.
>>
>> "A lot of people fear Braille won't survive because it will be read
>> by so
>>
>> few people. The use has declined and there are concerns about funding
>> to keep it going."
>>
>> Dr Rubery, with Birkbeck University's Heather Tilley, is curating the
>> exhibition How We Read: A Sensory History of Books for Blind People.
>> The exhibition, which opens in November in London, will introduce the
>> development of alternative ways of reading over the past two centuries.
>>
>> These include the development of Braille and its embossed-print
>> rivals, talking-book records, speech-synthesisers and systems that
>> magnify text on
>>
>> computer screens.
>>
>> Many of the devices have never been displayed. Dr Rubery said it was
>> an opportunity "to explore this significant but largely neglected
>> aspect of the nation's literacy heritage".
>>
>> A series of competing systems emerged in the 19th century to help
>> blind people read. Braille was a system published in 1829 by the
>> Frenchman Louis
>>
>> Braille. Among its rivals were the embossed pages published by
>> William Moon.
>>
>> About 30,000 people use braille in some form today. About 6,000 of
>> these are heavy users, according to the Royal National Institute of
>> Blind People
>>
>> (RNIB).
>>
>> But it faces threats from advances in low-vision technology, the
>> greater availability of recorded materials and reading machines. The
>> RNIB revealed
>>
>> fewer people are using its Braille library. Steve Tyler, head of
>> planning
>>
>> at the RNIB, said the body was worried about the decline of Braille,
>> but
>>
>> that it was putting more resources into teaching products and
>> electronic
>>
>> Braille.
>>
>> He said: "We do see threats to the system but it is still at the
>> heart of
>>
>> what we do because of its literacy and educational value."
>>
>> The exhibition will also chart the development of talking books for
>> the blind, first provided for veterans blinded in the First World War.
>>
>> Dr Rubery said: "Ever since Edison invented the phonograph in 1878,
>> people
>>
>> have been listening to spoken- word recordings. But the first
>> full-length
>>
>> recordings were made for blind people in the 1930s. Before, the
>> records only allowed a few minutes."
>>
>> Among the exhibits is what is believed to be the oldest surviving
>> talking-book record, from 1935 - the BBC announcer Anthony McDonald
>> reading Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell.
>>
>> "Blind people started listening to long-playing records 15 years
>> before anyone else," Dr Rubery said. The first spoken-word records
>> released were
>>
>> the Bible and excerpts from Shakespeare.
>>
>> The first popular novels were The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha
>> Christie and Joseph Conrad's Typhoon.
>>
>> Three blind types: Rival systems
>>
>> Braille
>>
>> Louis Braille invented his system at the age of 15, taken from a code
>> invented to send military messages at night. He published it in 1829;
>> it was established as the English system of choice in 1932.
>>
>> Boston Line Type
>>
>> Devised by Samuel Gridley Howe, founder of the New England School for
>> the
>>
>> Blind, it was an embossed, simplified Roman alphabet. The first book
>> using
>>
>> the system was published in 1834.
>>
>> Moon
>>
>> After losing much of his sight from scarlet fever as a child, William
>> Moon
>>
>> developed a system of raised-print letters, which he published in
>> 1845. It
>>
>> is still available in the UK and can be generated with computer software.
>>
>>
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