The International Council on English Braille held its Mid-Term Executive Committee Meeting from 5-9 June 2022. As well as transacting various items of business, there were lively discussions around the history of braille, braille music, braille technology and the braille code itself. In this episode of Braillecast, we were joined by ICEB President Judy Dixon to discover the highlights of the Mid-Term and look ahead to how the discussions that took place will influence the future of braille aroun...
Sep 19, 2022•54 min•Ep. 39
Connor Scott-Gardner is an avid reader, and on Tuesday 6 September 2022 he demonstrated how to download books from RNIB Reading Services, transfer them to a braille display and read them. He also explained how Reading Services differs from other offerings from RNIB and elsewhere. For further information please visit the Braillists Foundation Media Page .
Sep 12, 2022•52 min
If you have an iPhone, iPad or Android device, it’s highly likely that you can braille in grade 2 directly on the touch screen and have it back translated instantly – a perfect replacement for the on screen keyboard. In this episode, Matthew Horspool and special guest Chris Norman demonstrate how this works on both iOS and Android. We also briefly explored other ways of entering braille without a braille display, including the popular Perky Duck program from Duxbury Systems. This session was rec...
Aug 01, 2022•53 min
It’s often said in the industry that garbage in = garbage out, but what does this mean in practice? On 17 May 2022, our Chairman Dave Williams held a conversation with Kawal Gucukoglu, who worked for many years as a braille transcriber at RNIB. They discussed the principals of effective braille layout – headings, paragraphs, lists, tables and so on – and how to implement them in electronic file formats to achieve optimum quality.
Jun 20, 2022•59 min
In this session, Matthew Horspool explains how braille is still relevant in the 21st century and demonstrates how free and low-cost braille technology is significantly improving the independence and productivity of blind and partially sighted people of all ages. We paid particular attention to Braille Screen Input and the Orbit Reader, both of which are relatively recent additions to the braille technology landscape and are being used by thousands of people all over the world. This session was p...
May 16, 2022•55 min
The annual CSUN Assistive Technology Conference took place in March in California, and there were lots of exciting braille and tactile graphics announcements. We assembled a line-up of braille-using panellists who attended the conference who talked us through what was announced and gave their first impressions of the new products they saw.
May 02, 2022•55 min•Ep. 38
We know about braille in the UK, of course, and we regularly hear about braille in other developed English-speaking countries – the US, Australia, New Zealand and so on. But there are many other countries in the world about which we hear much less. How is braille taught? How is it produced? How easy is it to obtain? What braille technology is in use? On Tuesday 4 January, to mark World Braille Day, we explored these issues in detail with three panellists: Adrijana Prokopenko is a teacher of Engl...
Apr 18, 2022•52 min•Ep. 37
The Perkins Brailler has been a staple in the lives of braille users ever since the first one was manufactured in Watertown, Massachusetts in 1951. To this day, the Perkins is widely considered to be the most durable braille device on the market, with machines over 50 years old still going strong. They are so popular, in fact, that it is easy to forget that we need to teach new braillists how to use them! Furthermore, even established braillists do not always know how to diagnose faults when the...
Apr 04, 2022•1 hr 3 min
We were delighted to be joined by Scott Davert, one of the most well-known authorities on the use of iOS with a braille display, for the third and final part of his exploration of this winning combination. Scott is the Coordinator at the Technology, Research and Innovation Center, part of the Helen Keller National Center for DeafBlind Youths and Adults, and serves on the editorial team at AppleVis. In this session, he explained how to re-assign braille display commands and demonstrated web brows...
Mar 21, 2022•56 min
Following the first successful Masterclass, we were delighted to have been joined once again by Scott Davert, one of the most well-known authorities on the use of iOS with a braille display, to continue his exploration of this winning combination. Scott is the Coordinator at the Technology, Research and Innovation Center, part of the Helen Keller National Center for DeafBlind Youths and Adults, and serves on the editorial team at AppleVis. In this Masterclass, he introduced some more advanced na...
Mar 07, 2022•1 hr 12 min
Following our brief introduction to Braille on iOS last year, we’re delighted this year to have been joined by Scott Davert, one of the most well-known authorities on the topic, to explore this winning combination in more detail. Scott is the Coordinator at the Technology, Research and Innovation Center, part of the Helen Keller National Center for DeafBlind Youths and Adults, and serves on the editorial team at AppleVis. In a series of three Masterclasses, he discussed and demonstrated how to m...
Feb 21, 2022•57 min
In our first Masterclass of 2022, Matthew Horspool tackled the hows, whys and wherefores of braille embossers: choosing them, setting them up and making the most of them. The session covered: The purpose and function of an embosser and why you might want one Different types of embosser Different types of paper Connectivity options The user interface The relationship between embosser and computer The role of translation software This session was recorded on Tuesday 18 January 2022. For further in...
Feb 07, 2022•55 min
Happy Christmas! In this special episode, James Bowden talks us through drawing some stars. The instructions are provided in written form below: Star 1 Line 1: ow sign (Dots 246); comma (dot 2) Star 2 Line 1: o (dots 135; k (dots 13) Star 3 Line 1: capital sign (dot 6); ar sign (dots 345); gh sign (dots 126); apostrophe (dot 3) Line 2: dot 4; wh sign (dots 156); s (dots 234); a (dot 1) Star 4 Line 1: space three times; letter sign or grade 1 indicator (dots 56); semicolon (dots 23) Line 2: space...
Dec 25, 2021•11 min
We were delighted to be joined by Kim Charlson, Executive Director of the Perkins Library (part of Perkins School for the Blind). Kim is author of the book “Drawing with your Perkins Brailler”, which includes step-by-step directions for creating 36 different drawings including shapes, animals and subjects with holiday and transportation themes. In this session, she used a drawing of a Christmas tree to explain the concepts behind using braille cells to create pictures. Bring a Perkins and some p...
Dec 21, 2021•57 min
We were delighted to have been joined by Sean Randall for the second in a two-part series. Sean is something of a computing and IT mastermind and now works at New College Worcester, training many of their students in the use of assistive technology including screen readers and braille displays. This session covered sources of reading material that are more mainstream in nature, including apps or specialist software used to read. These included: Amazon Kindle Local libraries Smaller publishers (e...
Dec 20, 2021•50 min
Freedom Scientific is perhaps best known for its popular JAWS screen reader , but it also manufactures the Focus line of refreshable braille displays . The first generation of these well-known units was released in the early 2000s, and now the fifth generation is available in 14, 40 and 80-cell configurations, with the 40-cell version being an integral part of the ElBraille from Elita Group . To tell us more, I'm joined by Ron Miller, Blindness Hardware Product Specialist at Vispero . UK Pricing...
Nov 30, 2021•53 min•Ep. 36
For at least the past 30 years, blind people have been well-served by notetakers: electronic, computer-like devices with a Perkins-style keyboard and speech and braille output. At their most basic level, they've functioned as an electronic brailler for composing documents and, of course, taking notes, but they've also included functionality such as a calculator, address list, scheduler and, latterly, internet connectivity. Over the past few years, there's been a steady shift towards vastly incre...
Nov 27, 2021•25 min•Ep. 35
We were delighted to have been joined by Sean Randall for the first in a two-part series. Sean is something of a computing and IT mastermind and now works at New College Worcester, training many of their students in the use of assistive technology including screen readers and braille displays. This session primarily discuss the various braille devices available to consumers. He then provided an overview of libraries and sources of materials specifically for blind people, including: RNIB: reading...
Nov 15, 2021•52 min
George Bernard Shaw, in his play Pygmalion, wrote that "the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain." That line has its roots in spoken language, though of course in English rather than Spanish! But what about written language? We quite often talk about braille being useful as a tool when learning languages, but María García Garmendia of Madrid, Spain has taken things to the next level by qualifying as an official translator for the Spanish Foreign Ministry. As well as professionally translating...
Nov 13, 2021•40 min•Ep. 34
Transcription, for anyone who doesn't already know, is the process of taking content in one format and converting it into another. In this case, print is being converted into braille, a process ubiquitous in the production of braille books, magazines, bills, bank statements, legal documents and much more. Humans have been at the heart of this process since its inception and, in spite of numerous technological advances, they remain so today. Kawal Gucukoglu, herself blind since birth, was a brail...
Nov 01, 2021•43 min•Ep. 33
It's a question we get asked all the time – how can I read braille more quickly? To answer it, we were delighted to be joined on Tuesday 19 October by Kit Aronoff of Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and founder of Main Line Accessibility Consulting . Kit has a background in elementary education and, using principals of teaching literacy to emerging readers and articles from the National Federation of the Blind , she has developed a series of strategies which are sure to benefit even...
Oct 25, 2021•53 min•Ep. 32
Perhaps you’re thinking about learning braille, but don’t know whether it’s worth it. Maybe you learnt braille as a child, but haven’t used it since. You might know braille and want to use it in your daily life, but can’t work out where it will fit. Or you could be bamboozled by braille technology, gadgets and gizmos. A panel of passionate braillists met in front of a live audience on Tuesday 12 October 2021 to celebrate National Braille Week . They explored how to overcome common obstacles face...
Oct 22, 2021•51 min•Ep. 31
What is computer braille? Are there different flavours? What are all the signs? Why would you want to use it? Is it still relevant now that we have UEB? The latest occasional Masterclass from RNIB’s braille expert James Bowden answered all of these questions and more. This session was recorded on Tuesday 21 September 2021. For further information please visit the Braillists Foundation Media Page ....
Oct 11, 2021•49 min
Dave Williams, Chairman of the Braillists, explored how to use braille displays with various combinations of screen reader and web browser, unpicked some of the jargon that appears on the display, and explained how to navigate without a QWERTY keyboard or touch screen. This session was recorded on Tuesday 7 September 2021. For further information please visit the Braillists Foundation Media Page ....
Oct 04, 2021•57 min
How many listeners remember Talks? The popular screen reader for Series 60 and other phones running the Symbian operating system. It first came to the market in the early 2000s, and perhaps its most well-known proponent in the UK was Steve Nutt, the man behind Computer Room Services . His expertise when it comes to mobile phones is unparalleled and, unphased by the slow demise of Symbian, he’s now just as well-known for his knowledge of Android . There’s more to Steve than phones though. His com...
Aug 17, 2021•39 min•Ep. 30
Most of us know about grade 2, of course, with its 180 contractions designed to make braille quicker to read and write and occupy less space. Grade 3 extends this concept still further with over 300 additional contractions, rules to allow vowels to be omitted, and provisions for reducing spaces and new lines. Whilst it’s not an officially recognised code, it has a loyal following amongst long-time braillists, who have used it very successfully to take shorthand notes or transcribe passages of te...
Jul 26, 2021•53 min
"Most of us who know braille were taught it." It sounds like such an obvious statement – so obvious, in fact, that it seems appropriate to conclude that the world has an abundance of braille teachers, and the methods and techniques that they use are mature, uniform and understood by everyone working in the field. Presumably, approaches that work well have been iterated over time, those that haven't worked so well have been abandoned, and the entire process has been well-documented so that future...
Jul 19, 2021•48 min•Ep. 29
In Using Braille on Windows , we introduced you to the basics of making a braille display work with various screen readers. In this session, we took this to the next level in the first of an occasional series of Masterclasses looking at the braille settings of a particular screen reader. This time it was JAWS. There are lots of settings and we weren’t able to cover all of them in an hour, so instead we reviewed some of the most common questions we’re asked, found the settings that relate to them...
Jul 12, 2021•1 hr 1 min
After a recap of octave signs and intervals, this session covered: Word signs Ties and slurs Phrase marks You can follow Stuart on Twittre (@stuartlawler)...
Jul 05, 2021•23 min
We're almost exactly a month away from the opening night of the BBC Proms , the world famous summer season of concerts of classical music founded in 1895. Since their infancy, they've championed the composition and performance of new works of music through various channels including, latterly, the BBC Young Composer competition . In 2018, one of the winners of this competition was blind composer Xia Leon Sloane , who describe themselves as "a writer of words and music, with a particular interest...
Jun 28, 2021•27 min•Ep. 28
