Our popular Braille Bar returns this Tuesday at 7:30 PM. No question is too small, from kit to code – just ask and our experts will assist you!
Or, to join by phone, use these details:
ICEB is delighted to announce its 2026 mid-term Executive Committee meeting, which will take place from Monday 10th to Thursday 13th August. All meetings will be held at Perkins School for the Blind.
From Actual Tactuals:
I thought that you might be interested to know that we are offering an informational webinar on Wednesday, February 11. This presentation will give teachers/parents an opportunity to learn what our books are like. It will allow TVIs to consider how these books can be used to increase braille literacy in their students.
Please join Actual Tactuals Braille for a Zoom Presentation on both:
BrailleBlazer and
Unified English Braille (UEB) Practice Sentences
Q: What is BrailleBlazer?
Q: How can it help me instill a love for reading in my student? (It will!!)
Q: How can it help me? (All of the work is done for you. You don’t have to do a thing!)
BrailleBlazer has been used successfully with emergent readers, dual media students of various grade levels, and adults.
Q: What is Unified English Braille (UEB) Practice Sentences?
Q: How can it help my students improve in their reading skills and fluency, despite having some difficulty at this point?
Q: How can it help me? (All of the work is done for you. You don’t have to do a thing!)
Unified English Braille Practice Sentences has helped a various ages improve in both their reading and writing skills. It’s emphasis is on the ability to recognize and use braille contractions.
On Wednesday, February 11 the author AND a TVI who has used “BrailleBlazer” and “UEB Practice Sentences” successfully with many new braille readers, will be presenting virtually about how you can use it to teach students to read braille, and love it!
We will present information about how students respond positively to using it, diminishing fear of reading, and improving self-esteem.
Please feel free to let others (TVIs, parents, college students) know about this presentation. You will need to give them the following information:
Please send your name and email address to [email protected] if you are interested in attending this BrailleBlazer presentation. Our presentation will last approximately one hour.
It will be on Wednesday, February 11, at: 7 PM Eastern Time/4 PM Pacific Time
If you would like to get a better idea of what these two books are about, take a look at BrailleBlazer Volume 1 and Unified English Braille (UEB) Practice Sentences at: www.ActualTactuals.com.
I am hoping that you will share information about this webinar with anyone that you feel might benefit from these materials.
Prevail with Braille!
Roberta Becker
Library of Congress Certified Braille Transcriber
Teacher of Children with Visual Impairments
Actual Tactuals Braille
Website: http://www.ActualTactuals.com
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 516-434-1506
For Beginning Readers:
BrailleBlazer
Beginning Braille Reading
Activity Book
For braille readers having difficulty with contractions:
Unified English Braille (UEB) Practice Sentences
A FREE online webinar via Teams.
Learning braille can open up a whole world of opportunities, information and pleasure – it’s all about access. However, before you start the business of learning the intricacies of all those dots it helps to refine gross and fine motor skills as well as being able to use a light touch. These don’t just happen of their own accord or overnight, especially if you are learning braille because of sight loss – as a teenager, say. This session will give ideas linked to foundational braille (pre braille) and how to make learning these skills fun and incidental.
We welcome questions in advance but there will also be the opportunity to ask questions throughout, via the ‘Chat’ function of Teams.
Bookings will close on Friday 27 February and the Teams Link will be sent to delegates on Monday 2 March.
David Woodbridge joined the Tech Doctors with his HumanWare hat on to talk more about the BrailleNote Evolve.
If you missed our February webinar, we have you covered. It’s now available on our YouTube channel and it’s packed full of lots of demos as well as questions from participants.
The UK Association for Accessible Formats (UKAAF) is conducting a short survey to seek your views about Spanish braille in an educational context (Method 2), specifically how the inverted question and exclamation marks are shown. The outcome will be especially relevant to anyone using braille to study Spanish in the UK, particularly those taking GCSE or A-level exams.
No other braille signs are under consideration at this time.
You can access the survey at:
The survey should take you no longer than 5 minutes.
No personal information is collected, so to hear the outcome of this survey, please subscribe to the UKAAF-Announce email list by sending a blank email to: [email protected]. This is a low-traffic announcement-only email list carrying important announcements from UKAAF.
If you are a teacher, UKAAF would also love to hear the views of your students, particularly those studying Spanish using braille.
Closing date: 1 March 2026.
Thank you for taking part in this survey.
From the Braille Working Group of the European Blind Union
Dear colleagues,
I was asked by the company Cubed Design for a help in their work. They write:
“we’re currently doing interviews on some new questions with people in the braille display space!”
If you’d be open for a 15 min interview, that would be awesome. For booking the slot, just select a time here and a member of their team would chat with you! Thank you!
They are specifically interested mostly in teachers and trainers who are working with braille or braille displays.
From APH:
The Monarch 1.4 update highlights several key areas, including continued growth in braille terminal support with PC screen readers like JAWS and NVDA, the introduction of KeyDrive for cloud file access, and meaningful improvements to eBraille reading performance and formatting.
Supporting both Google Drive and OneDrive platforms, students can now instantly access assignments and content via the cloud. KeyDrive, allows students to login to the platform of their choice to access, move, or copy files from those cloud platforms using their familiar File Manager interface. Previously only connecting to PCs using the USB connection, Monarch 1.4 now gives users the opportunity for wireless Bluetooth connectivity via the Bluetooth Braille Terminal. Finally the Monarch’s Book Reader app comes equipped with the capability to open eBraille books, ensuring efficiency and braille format integrity. Read our Monarch 1.4 blog to learn more about all the ways these changes reflect a steady move toward making Monarch more capable, more connected, and easier to use.
Blazie Technologies is pleased to offer our first update for 2026. Keep reading to learn more about the features and enhancements we’ve added.
Your BT Speak should tell you that a new update is available and will ask if you’d like to install it. Press the letter Y to begin the installation.
The BT Speak will download and install the update.
Once BT Speak restarts, you will be able to start enjoying the new update.
Our new Technical Support Gateway allows a member of our staff to remotely access your BT Speak when needed. This can be helpful if work needs to be done on your device and you would prefer to have one of our team members handle it for you.
Note: You should only enable this support connection after a Blazie Technologies staff member asks you to do so. If you open it on your own, your BT Speak will not connect to our staff automatically. Only you can start the connection and you can end it whenever you wish. Blazie Technologies will never access your device without your knowledge or consent.
For the technically or security-minded, this support connection is established via a SSH Reverse Tunnel.
To enable this feature, go to Options, BT Speak Management, Advanced BT Speak Management, Enable Technical Support Gateway.
When you activate this option, you will be asked if you want to initiate a support channel and you will be advised to only use this service when working with a Blazie Technologies staff member. If you want to begin a support session, press Y for yes.
The File Browser now includes a new Open in LibreOffice option. When you point to a file in the file browser, press L to import or open that file directly into LibreOffice. The file will open automatically in the appropriate LibreOffice application, such as Writer, Calc, Impress, etc., based on the file type.
Google Drive now offers the option to open documents with rich text formatting in LibreOffice. These include files with the extensions rtf, docx, doc, xlsx and pptx. When selecting a document with rich text formatting, BT Speak will say “this file has rich formatting. Open in LibreOffice?” Pressing Y for yes will open the selected file in LibreOffice in desktop mode. Typing N for No will then ask if you’d like to open the file in the Blazie mode editor. If you answer no, the file opens in read-only mode, meaning that you won’t be able to edit the file. When the document closes, you will automatically be returned to the Google Drive app in Blazie mode. In addition, any changes that you may have made to the document in LibreOffice will sync with the file on Google Drive.
Please read the Google Drive help file section entitled “Open files for reading or editing” to learn more about this new feature.
Note: Some files, such as spreadsheets, cannot be opened in the Blazie editor.
The BT Code editor now reports indentation levels while writing code. When a line of text is spoken, BT Code announces the number of tabs and spaces before reading the line’s content. Indentation is only spoken when it changes relative to the previously read line, reducing unnecessary verbiage. This behavior applies only within the BT Code editor.
In addition, WH-chord with dot 8 now reports the current line’s indentation (number of spaces and tabs) on demand. This command works in any file in the editor, not just in BT Code. These features should make it much easier to review Python code you have written.
When adding a new event, pressing z-chord from the “Time?” prompt generated an error. This has been fixed.
As always, we appreciate and welcome your feedback regarding this update. Please email your feedback to [email protected] or call us at (772) 214-1616.
The Blazie Technologies Team