Hello Bob, and all Personally I use Braille all of the time I spend using computers or mobile phones. Here, we all have iPhones, as we’re very much in the Apple camp. However, I believe it would be foolish to ignore other technologies, so I’m going to invest in an accessible Android product shortly. But that is beside the point.
I personally would love to see this happen, and I’m sure it will happen. I was in hospital when Lynne found this article, and she brought it in and read it to me. It really cheered me up. Braille, I believe, is essential for those of us devoid of the visual sensory element. Literacy is crucial, and sadly, I see so so much of that evident on the Internet where, through no fault of their own, blind people struggle with spelling and grammar because they’ve been brought up on a diet of speech and synthetic output from their so-called learning devices. Yes, it has become very noticeable over the last ten to fifteen years or so just how much of an impact that has on adult literacy. Let me give you one or two examples where people constantly slip up. I see everyday the word “Then” used primarily by Americans, it has to be said, in place of the word “Than”. For example, they will say something like: “I like coffee more then tea”. What they really mean is: “I like coffee more than tea”. The word “Then” is substituted because of the American accent, it has nothing whatever to do with language variations on this occasion. Clearly, the single letter “E” replacing the letter “A” in their statement makes the whole thing look really ugly to be honest. Another issue which I see amongst blind people globally is the inability to determine which “Their” or “There” they should use. Also, “Hear” and “Here” cause a lot of problems. There are lots of other examples I could give, but I think the point has been made and I do not wish anybody to think that I am criticizing, snubbing or looking down my nose at them. As I said earlier, this is not the fault of the individual. It’s a global issue, caused primarily, I believe, by a reliance on synthetic speech. That in turn is the fault of governments because the technologies should be made available to people in the educational sector. I work in the education sector. I am heartened by the fact that the children who attend our school are given access to Braille, both in terms of hard copy and also when they are being taught to use information technologies. Sadly though, at least here in the UK, I think that our school’s V.I department is in a minority. Having spoken to teachers across the board recently, most of them tell me when they visit us that we are so lucky to be able to offer our students what we can offer them. Braille is absolutely essential in my opinion. Everybody who is denied the right to become literate is being robbed, and their parents would be within their rights, I think, to take out law suits against the local educators. Perhaps that would make them sit up and take notice. I was educated in the 60s and 70s when, to all intents and purposes, information technology didn’t exist. We didn’t even have calculators, because the smallest such device would have taken up most of our desk space. So, when we were taught things like long division and multiplication during maths lessons, we had to calculate the equations either in our heads or else on paper. That really gave us the ability to actually do these things in our adult life, along with literacy skills. I thank my lucky stars for that fact, even though at times I hated it when it was happening. I rarely, if ever, use a spell checker. I never use them in casual E-Mail, that’s for sure. I would find them quite irksome I think, and I find that in general I don’t need one. I’d b the first to admit that I make errors here and there. But at least I can say, and I thank my good fortune for it, that my spelling is reasonable, as is my command of the English language. I just wish that everybody had access to the same technologies that I do, and although this has been something of an essay, I agree whole heartedly with Bob, Braille is god! Kindest regards <--- Gordon Smith ---> <[email protected]> Information Technology Accessibility Consultant; Proudly Providing Braille And Alternative Format Transcription Services, Plus I.T Help & Support To The Staff And Students Of the Visually Impaired Department at: Sunnyside Academy Manor Farm Way Colby Newham Middlesbrough Cleveland United Kingdom [Currently In Summer Recess] On 9 Aug 2014, at 11:33, Bob Hill <[email protected]> wrote: If this project succeeds, that would be fantastic news!!! For me, speech is good, but my preference is still braille! ======================================= The Techno-Chat E-Mail forum is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free To modify your subscription options, please visit for forum's dedicated web pages located at http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/techno-chat You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Techno-Chat group at either of the following websites: http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/techno-chat/index.html Or: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> you may also subscribe to this list via RSS. The feed is at: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> ---------------------------------------
