News

We have a number of small index card sized Janus interline slate and stylus (hand frame) sets available for £5 each. If you’d like to order one, please contact [email protected].

Whether you’d like to join a book club, talk more about Braille, or take part in a virtual pub quiz, we’d love to hear your ideas for how the Braillists can best support you over the coming weeks and months. With that in mind, we’ve created a survey to help us better understand the needs of our audience. You can take the survey at https://forms.gle/CkZfBLdNWHgEsSGh9

The form should take less than ten minutes to complete. As a way of saying thank you, if you complete the survey, we will enter you into a raffle to win a £10 Amazon gift voucher. The survey will close two weeks from now on Thursday the 14th of May. We will draw the winner on Friday the 15th and announce it during that evening’s Zoom call.

Several Braillists members are collaborating on a project to create LibLouis tables for the indigenous South African languages. This will have various empowering use-cases, including:

• Making tables available for free or low cost translation software, to prepare materials in indigenous languages to be read on the new low cost Braille displays coming onto the market
• Having tables for indigenous languages included in NVDA, to facilitate Braille output of text in these languages, for which synthetic speech is not available in some cases
• Enabling grade II Braille input into NVDA in these languages

Laurent, who organises the London Braillists meetings, will be posting more on their endeavours on the forum as the project progresses – so sign up if you would like to have this news and other Braille discussion delivered straight to your inbox.

Braillists’ very own Dave Williams has amassed a great team of Braille aficionados to produce a new regular podcast celebrating the value of Braille. They have already produced four great episodes with plenty more in the pipeline.

Here’s some info from the team:

How did a student win £1,000 using Braille? What do QTVIs really think of the latest BrailleNote at school? Is the Orbit Reader low cost Braille display really worth waiting for? These questions and more are answered in the first few episodes of BrailleCast.

BrailleCast highlights the many ways Braille touches our lives, and offers a platform to share ways we can broaden Braille’s appeal.

As well as exploring innovations in Braille technology the team are eager to share your news and reviews. So if you have something to share get in touch with them through the website www.BrailleCast.com or on twitter: @BrailleCast

As well as their website, the BrailleCast podcast is available on Apple Podcasts (a.k.a. iTunes) and many other podcasting services.

The Braillists will be giving two awards in 2018. The first will be for progress in teaching and learning Braille. The second will be for promoting the availability and use of Braille or other tactile media.

The purpose of the awards is to further the Braillists’ mission “… to create and support projects that advance Braille and other tactile media, to the benefit of its subscribers and all other users of tactile media”.

The awards project is being led from Bristol by Paul Sullivan. The Braillists Community will be invited to nominate candidates for each award during the summer. A small committee will consider nominations in the autumn and the awards will be presented in March 2018.

Full details about the awards and how to nominate someone will follow shortly. Meanwhile, if you would like to join the Awards Committee, or if you can help in any other way, please contact Paul Sullivan.

Thanks to support from Bristol Braille Technology, Braillists will be participating at the following Sight Village exhibitions this year:

• Birmingham – 18th & 19th July
• Manchester – 27th September
• London – 7th & 8th November

We will be demonstrating and talking about some of the projects we are involved in and letting people know about our activities. The exhibitions are always fun and interesting events to be part of, producing much discussion and new connections.

We are looking for Braillists to help run the stands. If you’d like to volunteer please do get in touch and we’ll let you know further details. Even if you can spare just a few hours we would very much appreciate your support.

We will also endeavour to run our popular Braille and Beer get-togethers at the end of the first exhibition day at each event – a great way to meet and converse with fellow Braillists in the convivial atmosphere of a pleasant establishment.

Braillist Paul Sullivan attended an introduction to assistive technology in Birmingham, UK with fellow Braillists Stephanie Seargent and Dave Williams. They were also joined by Braillist and Braille technology developer Ed Rogers of Bristol Braille Technology. Here is Paul’s report on the day:

On Tuesday 28th February Ed Rogers and I travelled to Birmingham City University, where we rendezvoused with Stephanie Sergeant. We were there to take part in a Technology Day for the final year FdSc Rehabilitation Studies (Visual Impairment) students. Later we were joined by Dave Williams who stood in for Ed who had to return to Bristol in the afternoon. The event organiser, Kirsty Jackson, made us very welcome and kept us supplied with tea and coffee throughout the day.

A number of other organisations had been invited to participate, including Orcam, Ultra Cane, Synaptic, GiveVision, Sight and Sound and Optelec. We were based in three rooms which the students circulated round. Ed and Dave demonstrated the Canute MK10, while I showed the students a range of older Braille equipment, including a Braille slate and a Stainsby. Steph demonstrated a Braille Sense U2 mini, a Victor Reader Stream, and an iPhone. All bits of kit not on display by the other exhibitors. Dave and I also demonstrated our different electronic Braille displays, which the students seemed to find very interesting. Their assignment was to learn more about the technology on display, and find out the advantages and disadvantages of each device.

During the day we had in-depth, one-to-one conversations about Braille and Braille technology with around fifteen students. They all knew Braille and were really enthusiastic about its potential for enhancing the lives of visually impaired people. Having got your comments on the value of Braille via the forum, I was able to give the students specific examples of just how important it is for our independence, education, employment and social opportunities.

Stephanie took the student’s contact details and we will be writing to them individually to thank them for their interest. Some of them are already members of the Braillists and we will be inviting the others to join our community.

Prior to attending Paul had asked the Braillists’ forum for input on what Braille meant to them and insights into learning Braille, etc so they could pass on more views to the students. This inspired a lot of amazing and compassionate feedback – you can read all the responses on the forum thread here.

Hi Everyone

To further the Braillists’ aims, as outlined at braillists.org, what would you think about the creation of an independent high quality podcast celebrating all things Braille for Braillists everywhere? Find my proposal below. And if you are interested in helping start a podcast about Braille? Or if you have views about the sorts of content you think should be included in a podcast about Braille? I would like to hear from you directly. Contact details at the bottom of this post.

Why Does the World Need a Podcast about Braille Anyway?

Lots of people listen to all kinds of podcasts about all manner of weird and wonderful subjects, but I’ve not been able to find any about Braille specifically. Yet, by joining this forum you agree braille is an important subject. Audio is also a very natural way for us as blind people to share information with the wider world. I find it slightly odd that a podcast about Braille doesn’t exist already. And even if there is one, there may still be compelling reasons why we may want to make our own.

About 18 months ago I had the idea that a braille podcast could help introduce new people to Braille; support those getting started with Braille; re-energize anyone who has lost their confidence with Braille; provide Braillists with resources to help spread the word about Braille. A Braille podcast would seek to showcase the many ways Braille touches our lives, and share ways we can broaden Braille’s appeal. A Braille podcast could explore innovations in Braille technology. And a braille podcast could be a vehicle for sharing your Braille news and Braille reviews, not just of gadgets, but Braille publications, Braille policy etc.

The reason I have sat on this for 18 months, is as a freelancer with a young family to support, I have been searching for a suitable sponsor. As well as paying the bills, I would like to be able to offer some remuneration to contributors, and web hosting, domain registration fees etc don’t pay themselves.

While clearly such a podcast will need volunteers. Given sufficient interest from this forum, as a community interest company Bristol Braille Technology is willing to sponsor an initial production run. We would have a very modest budget to help with the costs of managing a website, produce audio, record content, promote the podcast, etc. This being the case, I am now in a position to help make a braille podcast a reality.

So Why Me?

As a blind dad and independent accessibility consultant, I am passionate about the power of Braille to enhance the independence and dignity of blind people. As well as directing ACB Radio for the American Council of the Blind between 2003 and 2006, I have produced packages broadcast on BBC Radio 4. I have also promoted Braille commercially for the assistive technology industry. I am regularly invited to present at RNIB Braille networking days and have led Braille technology workshops at the UK’s only course for Teachers of the Visually Impaired at Birmingham University.

While I hope my background in assistive technology and community media gives me a useful starting point, I certainly do not have all the skills and knowledge needed to make this a success. But with your help, I believe we can make it happen.

What Next

If you love Braille, or have audio production, journalism, podcasting, social media or web site skills that could be useful to bring a podcast about braille to life, please consider joining the Braille Podcast Team and help us make a difference.

To discuss this post further:

Email [email protected]

Call: 01905692279

Send a direct message via Twitter @dwilliamsuk

Our newsletter now reaches more than 250 subscribers! We’re still small and would like to reach more of the community so if you know someone who would be interested do let them know. The easiest way is through the sign up form on our website.

We also run a friendly forum that discusses our projects and other Braille related news. By signing up you’ll be better informed of the latest happenings in Braille and have a voice in our online community. To get it directly in your inbox simply reply to this email, send an email to [email protected] or go to the web form. It’s still fairly low volume so you won’t get inundated but you can easily control how many emails you receive or unsubscribe at any time. Alternatively you can read it online through our website.

Please let us know of any problems signing up to the newsletter or forum. We’ve recently resolved an issue with CAPTCHA fields and screen-readers/braille devices on our Newsletter sign up form but can only do this if we’re aware of the problem. Just email [email protected].

We would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas, a happy New Year, and very much look forward to your input on more, exciting braille developments in 2017.

Skipton Building Society has donated £500 to the Braillists to help promote our group’s growth as a pro-active force for promoting Braille use. It comes at a perfect time, with our renewed focus on projects, and it is great to have their support.