[bksvol-discuss] Re: reading technical material in braille
- From: "Chris Hofstader" <cdh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:09:12 -0400
One aspect of the research I do on my own (which is to say that no one pays
me to do it but I sometimes publish articles about the work in professional
periodicals and present the odd paper at a conference) specifically regards
finding ways to deliver information for the STEM (Science, Technology,
Engineering and mathematics) in a reasonably efficient manner. There are a
variety of mathematical formulae Braille systems but, when we look at the
entire Earth and its population of people with vision impairments, we find
that only a negligible number of PWVI have any access to Braille as it is
very expensive to produce on paper and for the most part there are no
refreshable Braille displays that are affordable even to people who live in
the wealthy nations.
At least math has had a relatively large number of people looking at the
problem. One of our primary objectives at BSO, though, is to deliver all
text books for K-12 students in an accessible format. Thus, the question of
much of my intellectual life: how do we, in audio only, deliver relatively
complex formulae beyond math. How do we, for instance, find an audio method
of a basic chemistry molecular model containing one oxygen and two
hydrogen's? What does a water atom sound like?
There are some terrific tactile versions of the periodical table of the
elements so that problem is solved but how do we represent the formula that
describes adding sodium (in its solid form) to h2o and tell the student the
resulting compound plus the release of energy (this is a very common
experiment in high school chemistry as it is really cool that simply
dropping a solid into water would cause a fire in your beaker.
Even the most elementary physics equations can be complex as energy is lost
or `v or any number of other things happen which sighted people use to
describe the event that I do not believe has ever been attempted in audio.
One solution, of course, will be the $1 Braille display when someone invents
it. Until then, we need to find a way to deliver simultaneous semantic
information that makes sense to the student without breaking out of the
boundaries of the human attention model, short term memory and basic
learning theory.
I always love to hear ideas on these topics as they have grown from an
interest into a quasi-obsession.
cdh
Chris Hofstader
CUNY, BSO, ATG, Odds and Ends
email: cdh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Blog: http://www.blindconfidential.blogspot.com
Skype: BlindChristian
phone: 727-896-6393
-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of E.
Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2008 11:08 AM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] reading technical material in braille
You can read the books in braille now.
Just download the daisy and then ask the bookshare unpack tool to
unpack the html extension.
Some braille notetakers can read html files.
If yours cannot then you can open the html in another application and
then do a save as and save the file as a rtf.
Your notetaker will read rtf files.
At 11:01 AM 8/23/2008, you wrote:
>I hope that some day, they can make these books available in BRF
>format. When reading technical things, I do better with braille.
>
>One of the things I always wonder about these books is where to
>start. In other words, there may be several books on a subject,
>but which one should be read first?
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