Thats an interesting development. I wish we had contact details. It would be worthwile asking them to develop this device into an electronic note taker with some memory. Rohit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Geetha Shamanna" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Access india" <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2007 3:58 PM Subject: [AI] Fwd: Talking Braille: A new tool to teach blind children
> >>Thursday, October 11, 2007 >> >>Talking Braille: A new tool to teach blind children >> >>By Supriya Kumar >> >>Learning Braille can be a formidable challenge in developing countries. >>Supriya Kumar profiles a new device that's addressing the task. >> >>Imagine picking a hundred blind people at random from around the world. >>Chances are that 90 of them would come from developing countries. Of these >>90, a large proportion would be living in poverty and only two would be >>literate. >> >>At less than three per cent, the literacy rate among blind people in >>developing countries is extremely low, even in comparison with the low >>general literacy rate, which is 50 per cent in some countries. >> >>Often, parents do not see the value in educating their blind children. >>Even >>if they do, children may not receive appropriate attention in traditional >>schools. Very few teachers are trained to teach Braille, a written >>language >>for the blind, in which letters are represented by a group of raised dots >>that are felt with fingertips. >> >>But reading and writing Braille is important: it is very difficult to >>learn >>mathematics orally, and Braille is important for the economic independence >>of the blind. >> >>So researchers in the United States have developed a Braille 'tutor', >>which >>tackles many of the issues faced by new Braille learners in the developing >>world. >> >>The challenges of Braille >> >>Braille is written using an array of different tools, depending on the >>available resources. In the developed world, Braille-writers use a six-key >>typewriter called a Brailler. At US$600 dollars, these fast and >>easy-to-use >>devices are too expensive for most in the developing world. >> >>Children in developing countries use a slate and stylus - a writing >>utensil >>- to emboss Braille characters onto the back of thick paper. Embossing a >>mirror image from right to left on the back of the page ensures that what >>is >>written can be read from left to right when the page is right side up. >> >>To be able to read and write Braille, children thus need to learn not just >>each letter in the Braille alphabet, but also its mirror image. >>Furthermore, >>feedback on whether they've written the characters correctly is delayed >>until the page is flipped over. The entire process presents a formidable >>challenge to young children learning to read and write. >> >>Another challenge for learners arises from the fair amount of strength >>required to emboss dots onto thick paper using the stylus. >> >>"Weaker students and small children have problems learning braille," says >>Gubbi Muktha, managing trustee of Mathru School for the Blind in >>Yelahanka, >>near Bangalore, India. >> >>"The Braille slate itself is heavy for the weaker and smaller children. >>Holding it is another big problem. In addition to this, holding a stylus >>and >>putting pressure through it to get the print of the dot is even more >>difficult." >> >>The electronic solution >> >>Nidhi Kalra, of TechBridgeWorld - a venture of the Carnegie Mellon >>University in Pittsburgh, United States - that aims to develop and >>implement >>technology to aid sustainable development around the world, decided to >>tackle some of these issues. >> >>She asked Tom Lauwers, a fellow student at the Robotics Institute at >>Carnegie Mellon University, if he knew anyone who might be interested in >>building hardware that could be used with software she had written. >> >>Lauwers jumped at the opportunity and together they decided to produce a >>robust, low-cost, low-power, electronic Braille tutor. They wanted it to >>be >>something that could be used for a long time, whose parts were available >>locally and could be replaced using local manpower. >> >>Their tutor - an electronic slate and stylus - uses affordable electronics >>to track contact between the slate and stylus, and text-to-speech software >>to provide immediate, audio feedback. >> >>Kalra and Lauwers are developing the first generation tutor in close >>collaboration with the students and teachers at the Mathru School for the >>Blind in India. When Kalra took the Braille tutor to Mathru for field >>tests >>in the summer of 2006, the response she got was overwhelmingly positive. >> >>Interactive learning >> >>Mathru is a residential school with 45 blind students and eight teachers, >>six of whom are blind themselves. Kalra found that after six weeks of >>using >>the Braille tutor, students who previously made frequent mistakes started >>writing noticeably faster, with almost no mistakes. >> >>"Now the small children and weaker students of Mathru are happily learning >>Braille as it is easy and also fun learning," says Muktha. >> >>Even students who were fluent in Braille enjoy using the tutor because of >>the audio feedback. Overall, Kalra found that students and teachers seemed >>to be writing much more. >> >>Based on feedback from teachers and students at Mathru, Lauwers designed >>the >>tutor to feel like the slate the students are used to, by placing a >>cut-out >>of a normal plastic Braille slate over the top of two rows of Braille >>cells >>in the tutor. >> >>The stylus is also a normal Braille stylus, connected to the tutor by a >>wire. In addition to two rows of 16 cells each, the tutor also has four >>buttons that can be programmed so the students can interact with the >>tutor. >> >>For example, one button mutes the speaker so that advanced users can write >>without audio feedback; another button allows students to choose between >>writing right-to-left or left-to-right. >> >>Each alphabet in English Braille is written as a set of six dots in a >>cell. >>The tutor feeds back on both the dot sequence and the letter that the >>sequence encodes, thereby reinforcing the sequence to the beginner. >> >>Further, the tutor provides this audio feedback as soon as the writer >>touches the stylus to the slate, removing the need for strength that would >>be required to emboss paper. >> >>The software for the tutor uses a digitised version of a Mathru teacher's >>voice for audio feedback, as the children - especially the younger ones - >>had difficulty understanding the American accent normally used in >>text-to-speech software. >> >>The tutor can be tailored to address the specific needs of the student >>based >>on their level of fluency in Braille. The tutor can be adjusted to read >>out >>the position of the dots in the cell, the letter and - for students >>well-versed with the alphabet - just the final word or sentence they have >>written. >> >>The tutor has also been useful in diagnosing students' problems with >>Braille. Mangala, a student at Mathru, always completely embossed all six >>dots of a Braille cell before she started using the Tutor, suggesting that >>she didn't understand the concept of Braille. >> >>But the tutor showed she understood the concept; her mistake was that she >>wasn't moving from one cell to the next as she wrote the sequence of >>letters. So, for instance, she would emboss dots one and three of a cell >>for >>the letter 'k', and then, dots one, two, four and five of the same cell >>for >>the letter 'n'. >> >>Her teachers, who are also blind, realised that this was the case because >>the tutor would read aloud the letters she was embossing. >> >>Work is underway to produce the next generation of the tutor, which could >>be >>tested later this year. >> >>Kalra found that students at Mathru were often scared of touching the >>original stylus because of the wire that connects it to the tutor, so in >>the >>new version of the tutor, the stylus interacts with the slate wirelessly. >> >>Shivayogi Hiremath, an engineer who has undertaken a pilot project to >>produce six tutors locally in Bangalore, says that mass production in >>India >>will require some adjustments to the electronics design so that >>locally-available materials can be used. >> >>"All details of hardware and software design will be made open-source. It >>should, therefore, be fairly easy to adjust the design if need be, in >>order >>to produce the tutor in large numbers," says Lauwers. >> >>Hiremath and Anil Biradar, an IBM (International Business Machines >>Cooperation) employee in India, helped to get a US$1000 donation from IBM >>for the Mathru School, so they can continue to explore local production of >>the tutor. >> >>For now, the Mathru School has three tutors, and is expecting to have some >>more available soon, thanks to the grant from IBM. Mathru also plans to >>introduce and encourage use of the tutor among potential users outside the >>school, once there are enough tutors available. >> >>All too often, technology used in developing countries is not designed >>with >>the explicit needs of local people in mind. But the Braille tutor appears >>to >>be a case of technology from the 'bottom up'. The need for the Braille >>tutor >>existed, and Kalra and Lauwers are successfully providing the technology >>to >>address that need. >> >>Supriya Kumar is a biologist and a freelance writer from Bombay, India, >>currently working towards a degree in public health at the University of >>Pittsburgh in the United States. >> >>Related links: > >>TechBridgeWorld >>www.techbridgeworld.org/ >> >>www.scidev.net/features/index.cfm?fuseaction=readfeatures&itemid=658& >>language=1 > > > To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with the subject unsubscribe. > > To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, > please visit the list home page at > http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in > To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject unsubscribe. 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