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Welcome back to at your fingertips Braille, then and now. I'm so glad to have you back with me as I chat with you about a couple of really important topics. One is fun and one is just a little bit of a debate. First of all, though, before I start with the debate, I'd like to make sure that you are aware of a fantastic keynote address that Jonathan Mosin gave to the International Congress on English Braille recently. It was a wonderful, wonderful address, and you can find this@mosin.org mosen.org slash iceb 2024. As Jonathan mentioned, Louis Braille is his hero. And Louis is my hero as well. I couldn't do what I'm doing today and even what I'm doing right now, reading from my braille notes on my braille display. Without the wonderful code that Louis Braille developed, you can't miss this insightful, thoughtful, educational and inspirational address that he gave. And for your listening pleasure, I would highly recommend it. As a musician and writer and teacher, I couldn't do what I do without Braille. I am so indebted to him. I know that he endured a lot. His books were banned at some point this school, and he never got to realize what an impact he had on the world. But I truly believe that there's some way that he's got to know that there are so many thousands and thousands and thousands of us that so appreciate what he's given to us in terms of literacy, education and opportunity. So that being said, I thought I would launch into a little bit of a debate and some thoughtful insights on UEB versus whatever other code you were used to reading in the US. Here it's the ebae English Braille, American edition. So as an instructor, I'm daily confronted with both codes. So there is a lot of electronic braille out there in the old code. And of course, since I started teaching over ten years ago when the UEB was deemed the code that we were going to go with, I have learned to, of course, read, write and teach in the UEB code. And I've gotten a lot of questions and comments and concerns from my clients that I teach at our estate agency. We have older adult clients who have read Braille all their lives, and I hear something like, who's messing with my code? Why are you doing that? I don't want to learn it. It's just confusing. And, you know, any number of other things related to. I don't really like change. And maybe the perception is that a bunch of sighted people were just messing with the blind people's code, and that is definitely not true. I know that there are several blind people that are represented on the committees that are a part of the different groups that make up, for instance, the Braille authority of North America. And so, you know, there's plenty of representation for us. And then, of course, we have, you know, people who, okay, they'll learn it. They want to come and learn about the changes in UAB and make sure they feel familiar with it. Then we have clients who are new learners now, so they're adults who are learning to read and write UEB. But I tell them that, you know, there's this other code out here, and if you download books from the bard or bookshare websites, you just may run into one of these in the eBae or older codes. So my new learners actually have to learn both codes. So when the long time braille readers start whining about, you know, having to learn the UEB code, I remind them that my new learners also have to learn new codes. So, you know, there is a lot of paper braille still out there and circulating electronic files that will be out there in the old code. Whatever country you happen to be in, whatever your older code is or was, that proves to be an interesting challenge for new learners. So I would just encourage everyone to take a deep breath and realize that, yes, we've been through a lot of change, but we can do this thing called learning and learning new things. And, you know, I may not think every single notation in terms of perhaps, you know, there's an indicator for bold or italics and do I really need to know all those, you know, font differences? I may. And if I'm studying a manual, I may need to know what word is in bold, or if I'm studying a course in, as I'm doing now, teaching English as a foreign language, I would really like to know which words are in bold. If I had an electronic copy of the material that I could read in braille. So it's handy sometimes, but I would just encourage everyone to rise to the challenge, whether it's learning UEB differences or if you're a new learner, realizing that, yes, we did have a lot of rules that went by the wayside, and I'm sorry that you have to learn them, but you can do it. And some books are just worth reading in the old code. So that is kind of the braille then and kind of now sort of piece. And the debate may be going on, but it has been ten years. So I'm hoping that we've settled into UEB and realizing that standardizing things is really quite helpful for machines, for people, for learners. And it does make a lot of sense to sort of standardize the English speaking reading world of braille. So turning our attention to something fun, because I like to have fun and I'm thinking about motivating my learners with some summer reading ideas. And I thought you might appreciate a little bit of research that I had fun doing. And I discovered that the NLS here in the states, the National Library Service, has a summer reading program, and we will have a link, I think, on the website or in the show notes for this, but it will be running from June 24 through August 9, so you still have time to register. If you're a patron of NLS, you can register for this. So there are three activities and there are also online events, and each of these things is registered individually. So, for instance, here's what's happening there. There's a kickoff on the June 24 at 04:00 p.m. eastern time, and there's a welcome and then a reading of a picture book by one of the librarians. And the picture book is called Marshmallow and Peter. And so that should be fun. And then on July 18, there's a story and dance time by Turtle Music. And I'm hoping, I'm saying Matt Mazors, maybe that's his name, Mazur. He'll read a book called Saturday and then on another date that I didn't happen to write down. My apologies. You can look it up, though that might be a good excuse to go to the website. There is a program on a different day called author talk, and authors discuss their books, fire keeper's daughter and warrior girl unearthed. And what's really cool about all the listings of these books is that it gives the BR number, the Braille book number, as well as the audio recording book number. And what I think is really great about that, and I really encourage my learners when they get to be pretty proficient in their contracted braille code that they examine a either hard copy or a digital braille copy of the book and then also download the audio file. So if they run across a word or a phrase or something that they want to check and make sure they've read it correctly, they could then listen to the audiobook to confirm what they've just read, or they might do the other way around. They might listen to a paragraph and then read it in braille. So that's a really good strategy for encouraging reading fluency and accuracy. So this NLS summer reading program also has some online activities for everyone to enjoy, both kids and adults, before August 9. One is called a whispering online escape room. And if anyone's ever been to an escape room, I think there are games in there. And you have to kind of solve things and find things, and that's that sort of activity. There's also an activity called choose your reading adventure. And I think that would probably be, you know, different types of ending to stories and all that. And then for adults specifically, there is a, I think a story or an activity where someone goes into the library and the front desk is abandoned and the door is open. And I guess we have to discover why. Why is the door open? Where did everyone go? Kind of maybe a mystery to, to solve. So finally, if you want to register for those things, that would be great. You and or your kids who read braille would enjoy those. If you're in the US, this is something that, this next thing is something that everyone can do. I looked up on a website, everydayreading.com, and there's a dash. I think it's everyday dash reading.com. the only problem with the website is it had a whole bunch of ads. So I had to endure the ads to get the 20 tips on how to make summer reading special for adults. And some of these are sort of recycled ideas of each other, but you get the drift when you think about just make it out of the ordinary. So the first thing is to read outside. You know, who doesn't like to get a little fresh air, a little sunshine? If you have a porch or you have a park somewhere, just to get out of your, your own space inside number two is to host a book club. Perhaps, though, you even just have one other person that you want to be accountable to read your braille, and you could read the same thing. One of my favorite memories of my early teaching was teaching a few women to read braille at our agency. And they would get together for coffee. They would bring their braille books and go to a favorite coffee spot and enjoy reading the same together. So that was really fun for them and it was really encouraging. So being sort of accountable but also having a reading Betty is really fun. You could take a family trip to a bookstore. Maybe you have your braille display or your reader and your kids or grandkids or family members are looking at the print shelves and maybe you find a book that we, you know, that you can all read together. I did this with a little friend of mine. She would bring her books over that she loved reading and I would just bring out my braille display, download the book and we would read together. There are apparently summer reading programs for adults at various libraries. You might check that out. You could also get your favorite beverage along with a book. Somehow that makes a book read better. If you like to have a beverage along with your book, you could stay up late if your schedule is flexible and allows it. My workday starts at 08:00 a.m. so I usually try not to stay up too late or take a nap if I know I'm going to. But you know, if your schedule allows for it and it's conducive to that, this is a good one to visit a cafe or library, especially when you're on vacation, and it's nice to have a change of venue and read somewhere else. There are summer reading guides online that you can avail yourself of so you could type that into a Google search and see what people want to read in the summer. You could reread favorite titles. Now, for some reason, I'm not into rereading books. Once I've read it, I move on and I want to read the next book. But if there's a favorite book that you have in your library, especially if you're a braille reader, I think rereading things is a great way to review. So then we have this outside tip mentioned again. They have that a few different times in this list in different forms. You might want to save your favorite titles until the summer so you can look forward to them. You can take a road trip to a bookstore, maybe there's a bookstore in another state, or you're on vacation and you're going to visit that. This one doesn't apply so much to braille, but it could. If you have a braille display, you could get a free Kindle unlimited trial. Some people like to try something out and then cancel it just to say they had the experience of using the service and see how they like it. Some of these Kindle apps, you know, work with the, with some of the braille displays pretty seamlessly, you could have a theme month of reading. So maybe in June you read a certain theme of books, and then July you perhaps read another theme. Another one? They were trying to describe this online. It was a reading bingo board, and I don't know exactly what that looked like, but I'm imagining that maybe each square had a different theme or a different category. Maybe you could decide different categories that you'd like to read, even if you're a newer learner. Perhaps you read a recipe or you read some directions, or you write and then read backs and things. One the other suggestions is to put books on hold at the library that you only read in the summer. I suggest this for some of my college students to do fun reading only. If you don't have college classes in the summer, maybe you would really like to only read for fun. No learning, no heavy duty, no, you know, computer manuals or, you know, hard to digest kind of things and technical things. And then, as mentioned earlier, kind of going along with the road trip or the time outside, find a fun place to read. And then, you know, maybe lastly is something fun for every three books you read, a snack, a reward, a plant, they mentioned a pedicure, you know, anything that rocks your world that you think, okay, I'm going to reward myself for reading. Everybody likes to reward. But I think the most rewarding thing is that you're reading, you're keeping literate. And in our case, if we're working it on our braille, even if it's a simple kids book, you're still expanding your knowledge, your literacy, and your ability to read fluently. And whatever form that takes. That is just great. So I hope you've been encouraged with ways to read this summer, and perhaps you're stuck in the UEB. I don't like it, but let's come along with the party and see if we can encourage each other in our UEB learning. And also you can encourage others to read along with you. Thanks so much for joining me for at your fingertips, braille then and now. See you next time.