Coming to Grips with your Child Losing Sight

I believe the parents take it harder than the child about losing sight or being born blind. I have been in so many meetings where the mom is sobbing and the father sits stoically as they listen to the vision loss report. I have had moms stand up in the meeting and shout "My son is NOT blind!" and the dad turns away. I have simulation glasses of vision loss and have moms refuse to look through them because then they would have to admit their child really does NOT see well. I have had parents tell their child "you see well enough so try harder to see better." I have seen depression climb on top of a child and bring them to the lowest points in their lives over the fact they cannot see as well as their parents want them too. I have both sides of the story because the kids talk to me about what they cannot talk to their parents about. I see and hear what the parents are telling the kids every day. I have also noticed that the child gets their attitude from the parents about sight loss. Children want to please their parents, even if it hurts themselves in the process.

I also have parents who accept the low vision diagnosis and both parents and child go full into learning both low vision skills and blind skills to get the best of both worlds and become confident in all abilities. These children go onto become confident in who there are, as they know they can't see well, but can see an enlarged map with magnification, while reading from a braille book and typing their answers out on a computer with talking software.

I have had parents and children who are very low vision or even have moderate vision loss try to pass as sighted. Let me tell you that EVERYONE else knows you can't see well, so evoke pity from others as you try to fool yourself. They see the large print books on your desk with your nose 2 inches from the paper. They see you cannot do all your work or your work in general. They see you trip in the halls. They see you hunched over while you walk to find your way. Everyone is seeing that. Alternatively, they see that you are a confident traveler with a cane standing straight and tall. They see you easily reading braille books sitting up straight. They see your fingers on the computer, typing faster than the wind and outputting work faster than they. They see you as proud of who you are and what you are achieving. For a great story on one's own personal experience with low vision attitude, click on this link Customize Your Cane

With the parents who see blindness as a characteristic and not as a travesty and that their child will just need different tools to succeed in life, the child is well adjusted and learns along with her peers. People STOP seeing you as "this poor blind person," and begin being very impressed with your abilities and who you are becoming.

THINK about what attitude you are projecting

How to Acquire a Free Computer and other Blind Tools

Every district I have gone in to, the children do not have computers, or I had a couple students who had computers but no idea how to use them.

My first quest is to get computers to every child and into every child's home: Nothing fancy, the basic machine will do. I start with the quest for desktop computers because they are the most prevalent. I want children to go from starting work at school, saving it to a memory card, taking it home and finishing the work.

I also know that these children will test the stamina of this machine, so, in general, I never seek out new machines. I don't want anyone to feel badly when it goes down and it will for any number of reasons.

I place an ad in the local newspaper or send out requests in my email looking for machines. I will take any type of PC. If I take in many machines, then I can take from one machine and add to another where something is broken. Then I end up with one good machine. The communities have always been very generous and most had this machine sitting in a corner and they had replaced it with a new one so they were grateful to get rid of it. I always tell them that I wipe the machines clean and I do for everyone's safety. As much as I would like to say all my students are angels...they are not, or they have a sibling that is not. This is usually the case. It is the sibling that ruins the computer...so just a head's up on that one.

Give your youngest to oldest student one of these coputers to practice those touch-typing skills. Once the student has gone through a couple years with this machine and they have proven they are responsible with it, and have successfully kept their siblings away from it, we head to groups that can help them purchase their own tools, especially if they are ready to graduate. Lions Clubs have always been a great resource; where the parents work, their companies have yearly budgets of giving, Microsoft donates thousands of machines all over and so many other avenues, but also people in the community who want to help in some way. They are retired and looking for worthy people who could use their financial support.

I want the student to be working for this equipment somehow also. It is hard to perfect this because you are depending on others to get the child where they need to be in order to help around the company who gave the money or help the couple who bought the equipment. More than anything so many of our students have not gained even the most basic skills of how to sweep a floor or do basic cleaning.....this issue is for another time---parents doing too much for their child

The child acquires the new technology, which is now something portable like a laptop, braille note, etc. that they can take anywhere. The school districts see this is the equipment they need and provide it at school for them. I can tell you that administrators are concerned about buying expensive equipment because so often something is bought then not used because no one knows how to use it. If you can show the school district you have the knowledge to teach it and know where to get it fixed, you will have a lot of support behind you.

So go put an ad in a paper, send an email, bring some basic computers in and start teaching those touch-typing skills with a free download of JAWS talking software to get them going. Alternatively, if you are blessed with a rich relative, tools make a great Christmas, Hanukkah or birthday gift.

Quick Scan, Spell Check and Translate into Braille

Quick Lesson on scanning, spell checking and using a braille translation program: You need a scanner that is configured correctly to open in Word in addition to its other features, Duxbury braille translation program. Click on highlight words above which are links to find these programs.

1. Place the sheet of printed text on the scanner. If the scanner was configured correctly then open WORD, you should have a feature under your File menu (if you are using office 2003) Office 2010 deleted this feature so scan using your scanner options.
2. In Office 2003, hit ALT+F to go to your file menu and down arrow and you will see scan (with whatever OCR program you have) and enter and it will scan into WORD (if this is not configured correctly just call in the school tech and they can config this for you)
3. If you have Office 2010, scan then copy and paste the document from your scanning OCR program into WORD to spell check--CTRL+A to select all, CTRL+C to copy, go to WORD and CTRL+V to paste
4. Hit F7 to do a spell check, which will quickly take you through the corrections (ALT+C in spell checker to say change or backspace over the mistakes and type the correct word in then alt+c to change your correction)--far faster than doing it by hand--when finished with spell check--you can save it but this next way is faster right now. Do a CTRL+A to select all of the text, then do a CTRL+C to copy it
5. Open Duxbury, do a CTRL+N for new and enter on print layout,
6. To enlarge windows quickly do a START KEY+UP ARROW--it works faster than even ALT+SPACE then hitting x--this will give you a full visual field
7. Hit the command ALT+2 for contracted braille
8. Then hit CTRL+V to paste the text
9. CTRL+T to translate and it translates into contracted braille
10. CTRL+E to emboss--if embosser is not configured correctly, call your school tech people also to configure it correctly

Practice those hotkey commands again to remember them

Quick Easy Internet Commands to Know

For all those who are a bit unsure about accessing the Internet, I want you to try these few commands

Computer and JAWS 11 or 12 on--do not try this with an older JAWS--it will not work well, you need to upgrade (you can download a free 40 minute demo in the meantime)
Open Internet Explorer (IE). In general, you can do a START KEY+M to access your desktop and hit the letter I until you come to Internet Explorer and ENTER to open--try that feature first.
Once IE is open
ALT+D to jump to your address bar. It is highlighted, so type in google.com and enter to open Google (you can do all these commands up to this point even without JAWS)
JAWS will hopefully say, "edit, type a text" if it did not say that, hit the letter e until you hear something close to that and enter for forms mode on--a form is an area where you can type information
Type: blue angels and enter to open selection
Hit the letter H for headings to jump to each heading--you will hear your search choice, landmarks then your headings
Keep hitting H several more times
Now hit SHIFT+H to go backward until you reach: Blue Angels: Official site and enter to open--listen for awhile and then we will go somewhere else
That is only one way to do this
Now CTRL+O to open a dialog box
type: gmail.com and ENTER to open
You are now in gmail to set up an account if you want or sign in if you have an account
ALT+F4 to close all windows
START KEY+M to access your desktop and hit the letter I until you come to Internet Explorer and ENTER to open
ALT+D to go to your address bar and type in: hj.com and ENTER to open
Freedom scientific now opens
Bring up your links with insert+f7 and hit the letter d for downloads and enter to open
Next page, bring up your links again with insert+f7 and hit j to listen to where jaws link is, then down arrow to Real Speak voices and enter to open
TAB through this page and try out all the real speak voices by hitting enter on the voice and a media player will open and play the voice
After you listen to the voice close it with, CTRL+F4 and TAB to next voice
When you find a voice you like, just TAB to the download button after the voice you like and ENTER to begin download. Just follow the wizard and the real speak voice will automatically install in your JAWS
ALT+F4 to close out of everything when done

The Multi-Level Teaching Approach

When a child has lost sight or is losing sight, no matter what age, they need multiple areas of instruction. If they are older, they need this more than ever.

If you can get a child when they are young, you can put them on a brailler, or Mountbatten for small fingers, a computer with talking software and some type of player for audio books: teach them the Nemeth and other blind skills needed and they can grow with the class.

If however, you have an older child come to you, especially if they are in middle or high school, they need a way to get that heavy bulk of work done within the day. If they are going to learn all those blind skills, you will need to show them the relevance of what you are teaching them. If you choose to teach them from an outside curriculum such as one of the braille curricula, which are great, BUT, they will fight you on this, whether passive aggressive or a direct "No". You will be adding to their burden of trying to do their regular classes already...they will think, "HOW am I going to do one more?"

The multi-level approach: Out of the students' day, they will have some type of English class. This is the ideal class to adapt into braille and use technology. You go to Bookshare.org and download the book, or rather you show them how to do it. You show them the thousands of their favorite stories are right there to read. You get him excited. You also download Victor Reader soft and install on the computer or you have a handheld reader. You go to JAWS and download Real speak voices of their choice so when they listen to books they are listening to a voice they enjoy. You get them signed up with the state book and braille library, you get them signed up with everything blind--for a list, go to http://blindgeteducated.blogspot.com/ then click on Files to Download and use and you will see a link for website resources available to you. He will need a minimum of an hour a day with you and you can pull him periodically from English because you will be working on the same lesson. If he is older and about ready to graduate, he will most likely need more time.

Now the student has the book on the computer. You also have him emboss the chapter he is presently reading right now in class. He will braille the pages, read the pages and listen to them on his computer, so he always has a way to keep up in his class. When reading braille, you will paragraph jump with him, as in you read and he follows then he reads. Go to Braille--Get them Hooked in a http://blindgeteducated.blogspot.com/. You show him how to type out all his answers to everything in WORD and then he emails the lessons off to his teacher. He will learn the technology incredibly fast. Even if he has never touched a computer before, which will happen if the child comes from another country, he will learn the keyboarding in about 4-5 hours, an hour a day over 4-5 days...don't try and do this in one sitting. The brain does not work that way. He will know enough JAWS commands to be fairly independent in 2 weeks. It happens fast. If he has something like a Braille Note, his braille skills will accelerate also because he is getting the audio, tactile feedback when he presses the keys. For orientation and mobility, you blindfold him so his listening skills are enhanced and honed and you quiz him on how to get from point A to point B in the building...then an O&M instructor takes him outside and they begin learning about city blocks.

As long as you the teacher know the braille strategies, the JAWS and computer commands, you will see him sail.Teach him the help menu so even if you don't know something he will learn it himself.

The Synchronicity of Braille & Technology

I use many methods for getting students going on their blinds skills. One way is using the Synchronicity of Braille & Technology. When I set up elementary rooms or my classroom for all the equipment to fit, I use the L shape of 2 desks, that way you can place braille books on one side so the child can read, then turn to the other side of the L and type out information on the computer. This is perfect for the elementary school setup. By the time they reach middle school and have all their blind skill foundation, they can move into almost all their books being electronic, minus the Nemeth books which, for now, need to be hard copy braille.

The students will have a brailler, or Braille Note in front of them along with the keyboard to the computer with talking software and the braille work on the other side of the L. I will have them read a line of braille, then braille it, read from display if using an adapted laptop or brailler, then type it on the computer. This way they are taking the braille and seeing how it relates to the print. They quickly learn that braille is braille with all its contractions and print is print and the contraction for" the" is t-h-e and so on. There is no confusion between braille and print and the children go onto become good spellers because of this knowledge and way of learning. If I am ever with them on their computer and they type a word, I will ask "What is the braille contraction for that word?" and they tell me. When the focus is on a braille lesson and they come upon contractions, I ask them, "How would you spell that on the computer?" Once again solidifying the Synchronicity of Braille & Technology.

When the children get to class, they have the familiar L shape arrangement, which helps them keep organized also. They know where to place their books as the computer is taking up one side. Each side of the desks shaped in an L has slots or drawers for storing tools underneath. Organization is key to any blind child so they can find their tools when they need them. When the child is organized and ready they can follow along with class and do just what everyone else is doing. Since the students have and know about many tools, they can choose what they will need at any given time. They learn the joy of reading through braille and the joy of being able to output information quicker than their sighted peers due to the use of the computer. If you know key commands, it is far faster than trying to locate a mouse with your eyes, and I am talking about sighted kids here. My students are far faster on the computer than sighted kids. When the sighted students get stuck, it is my students they turn to and who can get them out of trouble by telling them a keystroke. They know that and are very impressed with their speed and agility on technology as well as watching them read those beautiful dots with their fingers.

Here is kudos to our kids.

Reading Braille with Special Hands

I am always blessed when teaching. I love teaching and seeking out the best methods that will help my students the most keeps me going, so I have to phrase this next sentence carefully because all my students bless me in different ways.

In the last few years, I have been so incredibly blessed by one particular child. The second grade teacher had gotten a hold of me at the end of the school year, saying this particular student was having a great deal of difficulty seeing and accessing her school work and wondered if I had any ideas for her. This young lady was not on grade level and struggled with everything. She has a condition where she was very small and has partial limbs; she had a useable finger, and half-useable thumb on one hand and a tiny finger extension on the other fixed limb. She had had many facial surgeries and just many surgeries in general. I could easily pick her out when I walked into the room. I just watched her for some time, in her adorable pink outfit, on her tiny frame. She had figured out how to grasp a pencil and was leaning over about 2 inches from her paper, slowly but surely printing out letters. When recess came, I asked if she would stay in with me and she agreed. The first thing I always ask children is "What do you want to be when you grow up?" She immediately replied, "A Princess." I smiled. Of course. Most girls want to be a princess. She was just like everyone else. We all are inside and it does not matter what the outside looks like.

Because it was the end of the school year and she had several more surgeries scheduled, I could not begin instruction with her until the middle of third grade. During the fall, I worked with the special education teacher, the Para educator and mom; teaching them braille and the technology that she would be using. She had an incredible team, all dedicated to her success. As we began instruction, I noticed that the "finger" the doctors had created and attached to one limb did not really have receptors to read braille, so I was depending on that one little finger on her other hand to read. I did have her use that specially created finger on the other limb to track the braille as she read with her right finger so she could create some type of speed. Over a couple of years and a lot of braille reading and computer instruction, that wonderful brain created enough nerves in that "finger" to start reading braille or at least the first word or two of each sentence. She increased her reading speed to 115 words per minute with practice. Those tiny little fingers started to fly across the page. Her computer skills accelerated her also and with her blind skills, she is now on grade level. I might add that she has the most supportive mom who followed through on every lesson I handed out. Truly, her team of people at school and home has contributed greatly to her success.

She has become one of my brightest shining stars...literally. She is the first student I try out my new technology adventures with and she loves it. She can email, text or SKYPE me, which has become her favorite mode because of its accessibility features and ask how to solve a problem. With a simple reply, she can fix whatever her issue is. She gets it, remembers and is now excelling and succeeding in life. Where humans place such value on beauty, her brains and abilities now can take her further than any pageant queen.

Lessons to help you learn fast skills, click on link: Braille Reading

"Seeing" in the Distance

There is a quick easy and fairly inexpensive way to adapt a child's inability to see in the distance in the classroom.

For the Low vision child: Most classrooms today have a document camera or computer hooked to a projector that projects the teacher's work to the front of the room. Where it is completely inaccessible to children with visual impairments. With a simple VGA splitter, you can hook any size of monitor to that document camera and the world in front of the classroom is immediately brought to the child. In a pinch where something was not enlarged, the document camera can be turned into a CCTV (closed circuit TV) where the paper can be placed under the camera and immediately projected onto the child's monitor.

For the completely blind, I take a different approach. As teachers use their computer and projector to project to the front of the room, I have installed JAWS talking software on the teacher's computer. Then I hook the Braille Note to the computer or any other adapted laptop. With today's Bluetooth option, the cable can be eliminated now. However, if you have an older Braille Note that needs a cable, the information that is projected to the front of the room, immediately goes to the Braille Note and the child can read from the display while listening to the teacher. Now the blind child can "see" in the distance too.

The Power of JAWS Insert+4

JAWS talking software uses a special command to do so much: Insert+4 is "Symbol to Print"
Open Word, turn JAWS on and have some fun

When you are in WORD and need to type all those fancy characters for Spanish....Insert+4 will bring up your Spanish symbols
¡Buenos días!
Adiós.
Hasta mañana.
¿Cómo está usted?
¿Qué tal?
or you speak a bit of Portuguese and need a cedilla mark: Açai

When you are in Math class, Insert+4 will bring up your math symbols
7 • 5
7º
4¢
4÷2
5€
8×9
6²
7£
¾
9¥
and give you the ability to do those fancy symbols easily and quickly AND JAWS will say the names correctly

Insert+4 does so much more, so try it out!

Tricks to Learning Braille in your Teen Years or Later

I use this one particular method repeatedly because it serves me so well. Well, it actually serves my students well. Especially those who lose their sight later: Later is later than 3rd grade. You just need to employ different strategies to achieve the same goals.

One small example. A student came to me during the summer to gain Braille skills. He had learned most of the alphabet and a handful of contractions, but could not read Braille at all and had a difficult time remembering how to braille in general. I had him place his fingers over top of mine as I placed my hands on the Braille sheet of words. I slowly moved my hands in the "butterfly" motion, which I call it, because your hands glide together across, split a few words in, and the right hand finishes the sentence and the left hand begins the next in a smooth floating motion...just like a butterfly. I increased the speed so he could feel the gentle and easy movement across the page. He had no idea it was that easy.

I told him he would be reading Braille by the end of summer if he would commit at least an hour, but I asked for 2 hours a day...Ok, I know in my head, what teenage boy is going to read for 2 hours a day in the summer, or really ever?..but I put it out there. I know with even a minimal amount of effort he can do it with the next method I use.

He first begins with brailling. He only brailles about himself. His life. What he likes or does not like. I have him braille 3-4 rows of the exact same words in a sentence, using all contractions. He first tells me the sentences he wants to use. I pick out all the contracted words and have him braille these first, over and over until his fingers start to flow. Then I have him braille the sentences. Example. I like to fish. (he will braille that for 3-4 rows--sometimes more depending on the ability of the child's learning patterns). Next row. I like to fish with my dad.
I have him use 11 x 11 paper, so really, only those 2 sentences fit on a page. He takes out what he has just brailled and positions his hands on the braille paper. At first, I need to help him read the page. However, by the second reading he can do it almost independently. Before he goes home for the day, he has his braille sheets to practice for the next couple of days along with flash cards of a brailled words that he had difficulty with in reading.

There are a couple things going on here. I need him to get the flow of his hands reading well so he cannot be struggling with reading the braille. That is where we get all those bad habits from; scrubbing the braille, flying fingers, 1 handed reading. The reading must be easy at first and if it is about the person, they remember. With the constant repetition of the words, he begins picking up the feel of the contraction and the word and flows through the page.

By the end of the summer, as in 2 months, he was reading Braille at 32 words per minute and he only practiced reading about 3 hours a week. On his final day of testing his skills, I asked him, "Are you surprised at how fast you can read Braille?" Very matter of fact, he said "No, you told me I could, so I expected it."

When he went back to his school, he emailed me and told me his teacher was very impressed with his braille reading ability, both ability to read it, but read it with a beautiful 2 handed flow.

Making JAWS work great with the Internet

I have had many past students and people who just found me along the way ask why their Jaws does not work well with the Internet any more. As soon as I ask them what version of JAWS they are using, I have my answer.

In general, when you update the Internet, you need to update your Jaws. Example, when JAWS 7 was out, it ran great with Internet explorer 7 (IE7), but then IE8 came out and if you did not update to JAWS 10 you would have problems. JAWS 11 worked even better with IE8 and JAWS 12 works great. So, if you would have purchased the upgrades when you purchased JAWS 10, you would be a happy camper because the upgrade fee would have been a lot cheaper than buying 3 whole new licenses.

Exceptions to the rule. However, when IE9 came out, JAWS 12 did not work well with it. IE9 needed a lot of work and JAWS worked on its updates also to make these 2 work together. Now it works well...but that took months.

In general, if your JAWS is working well with what you have, don't be anxious to update quickly. Let the companies work out the bugs in their hardware and software. Talk to people around you about their experiences and when you get the green light, update your JAWS and Internet together. And if you are having problems with your JAWS, it is most likely too old.

Internet and JAWS-Which browser to use

I have many browsers on my machine as each one does something different...some very annoying features and some fantastic.

When I want a great virtual connection with video plugins and there is not a blind child on the other end, but I will be joining a meeting, I go Chrome. It truly is a fast browser. However, if I try to turn JAWS on while Chrome is open.... JAWS will NOT open. As soon as I close Chrome, JAWS starts chatting away. Let's just say there are compatibility issues here.

Internet Explorer (IE) offers some good features and in general, you can move around quite easily and get to where you want to go. There are hotkeys for almost everything and in general, it is very friendly. However, if you want to do video plugins, for example, Google chat or video plugins, JAWS in general will tell you what you are typing, if you hit backspace he may just say blank, blank, blank. When someone replies to you, you will NOT hear what is typed. So there are inaccessible features with IE and JAWS.

For a great browser that makes a huge majority of things accessible where they would not be, Firefox is it. Example, if you want to chat using Gmail, you hear everything you type, JAWS repeats the letters you erase, AND you hear everything the other person is typing. JAWS will even tell you someone is texting you and JAWS will tell you who it is. Firefox keystrokes can take you far and wide easily with JAWS.

Safari is completely inaccessible...well, you can fool it in some places, but forget it, and it is too much work.

However, none of the browsers offers you keystrokes to access video. Shameful!

So what should a blind person do if they want to video chat to their Mom and Dad in France or Argentina? Or a student to teach?...enter SKYPE. You can download special JAWS scripts to allow JAWS to talk everything in SKYPE. You can make calls, video, chat, add contacts, you name it, all for free, even calling thousands of miles away. When someone is texting you, SKYPE tells you their name and you hear a typing sound as they type in their text. When they hit enter and send the text to you, you hear everything in the text. You can disconnect and connect with ease. You can do everything you want using JAWS.

So for now, or at least with the knowledge I have right now, I find SKYPE to be the best in video, chat, text, and all features accessible with JAWS though it is not a browser but a great addition to browsers: Internet Explorer is good for a huge majority of surfing and Firefox if you just want everything accessible...or at least most things.

Learning Nemeth First

A student came to me when she was 16 years old. She had spent years trying to keep a brain tumor at bay, until one day, she woke and the majority of her sight was gone. She could no longer do the world visually. She was very depressed at first because she really wanted to graduate with her class and it was only a couple years away. But her hopelessness quickly transitioned into hope as she learned her blind skills.

She flew on the technology but resisted braille. She loved math though and was clearly unsure how to do it blind. We started with Nemeth code, NOT braille. She learned Nemeth very quickly and sailed through her math classes. Little did she know, she was learning the Braille code along with her Nemeth. When I finally got her to try a Braille book, she was a bit surprised how well she read the book.

Yes, I taught her braille going through the back door of ease versus the front door of resistance. Once a child gets something in their head of whether they will or will not do something, it is not worth the fight. As teachers, we need to bring them along on the journey by showing them how they can do their favorite things. Then the child discovers that they inadvertently learned what you wanted them to learn in the first place.

JAWS Tandem-new feature

Today I figured out a new feature in JAWS Tandem. JAWS Tandem is where I connect to people far away and can teach them a lesson virtually on their computer--I had guessed I could do this special trick, but did not have a chance to try it until today.

As one student was working on her Nemeth, reading from her book and inputting answers on her computer, we ran long on our time and she needed to go. She did not have time to email it off to herself to complete from home. She was working on a computer at school as her laptop had gone down the day before. So here comes the magic, I copied her work and pasted it to my computer, saved it and emailed it to her, so when she got home, she could open her email, download her homework and continue working on it.

With another student, somehow she managed to have many font sizes on her math work that she was working on during the day. It looked very odd, so I tried this feature again, by copying it off her computer and pasting it to my WORD on my computer. I have 2 monitors, so literally I can work off one while still be connected on the other. I figured out the problems on the page, then copied it off my computer and placed it back on hers all within 30 seconds. When I pasted it back, I then showed her what she had done to make it look so odd. The "ah ha" moment came and now she knows what NOT to do next time.

I still have that incredibly happy glow....as I just finished the last lesson of the day and just had to share the wonderful magic with all of you.

Math and the Computer Scientific Calculator

One of my older students is taking geometry, which has a lot of algebra and our wonderful Pythagorean Theorem. I went over the basics of the calculator on her laptop during the summer so she would be familiar with it when the time came to use it in class.

During our sessions, I always try to begin homework with the students so they know how to tackle it when they get home. She has a great spatial understanding of how to layout math problems, taking it from Nemeth and putting it in print, so it is just doing all the long calculations to get the correct answer that is required. The one attached to the computer is fully accessible to the talking software and is free, versus buying a scientific calculator for almost $300 somewhere else.

She would read from her Geometry Nemeth book, calculate the answer in her head as she typed it out on the computer, and then she would recheck her answer on the calculator. She grew in her confidence of finishing answers more quickly because now she had a way to double check her work to make sure she truly had the correct answer.

I will add the list of all the hotkeys to the calculator on my site under the title: Files to download and use. I will name the file Calculator shortcut keys

Digital Handwritten Notes

Digital Handwritten Notes. it sounds like an oxymoron...kind of like a hairy bald guy, but it is here.

The writing surface is about the size of a small piece of paper. The whole board is light and easy to carry and about the size of an 8x11 piece of paper. It is a tiny computer and you can add more RAM- with a memory card.

The blind student can take the digital note-taking device to a class where the teacher is very driven by writing on the board. The blind student hands it to a sighted student and she takes notes on it. At the end of class, the sighted student rips off the pages for their self and hands the board back to the blind student. The blind student can then download all the notes onto the computer. In tangent with this is a handwriting recognition tool, which translates the handwriting into digital text that talking software can read. Note taking made easy.

This is the one I have been using and as long as the handwritten notes are legible, the pad can read it to the computer. SolidTek DigiMemo 692 Digital Notepad with Memory by SolidTek Make sure you purchase the hand writing software also with this pad, as it is this software that allows you to go from image to text.

If you read this information in my blog, http://blindgeteducated.blogspot.com/ you can just click on the links and it will take you directly to the product, or if you are using talking software, just bring up your links and you can go to the product. This is true for all the information in the blog.

Be SEEN

As I set up and teach my students about SKYPE or Google Video, I often hear the phrase, "I don't need video because I'm blind!"

I remind them of our lessons on "looking people in the face," when talking to them, standing and walking tall and confident, and making that personal connection. It is the same principal. Sighted people want to "see" you. To make a good impression, we need to hold ourselves in a certain way and with the majority of people being sighted, they want to see, so let's be SEEN.

Even when I virtually meet with people around the country: Given a choice of whether we do just voice over a phone or video conferencing, across the board, people want video. It does not matter that you cannot see someone; video is like standing next to them, making that connection, almost like a touch. It is getting outside ourselves and thinking about what works best for that other person. Then finding a way to make it happen and accomplishing so much more in the process.

Losing Sight in Middle School

J was in middle school a year before I had met him. He had an incredible Special Education Teacher who noticed that he was getting closer and closer to his pages of work as the months went on. She also noticed that he would not walk around in any dark places. She convinced the parents to take him to an eye doctor and sure enough, he came back with a diagnosis of Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP).

There was no Teacher of the Blind in the area, so the Special Ed teacher did the research on the Internet to pull a program together for him to start teaching him Braille. A year later, I enter the scene greatly impressed with what she created. She knew someone blind so she knew how to position his fingers on the braille sheet and brailler and she picked out a wonderful Braille program called "The Braille Connection" for children who knew print but were transitioning to Braille. J had learned many letters and some contractions, but his progress was slow. J was several grade levels behind his peers and struggled with learning. He was one of the kindest gentlest people I have ever met and he had many friends. His special ed. teacher was incredibly fond of him as all people in the building and really wanted to see him succeed so was really hoping there were more tricks to teaching students braille.

He had been very active in sports but started missing the ball; or rather, the ball started hitting him because he could not see it coming. When I talked with him, he said that he noticed something funny about his seeing years ago but never said anything to his family. His family was very poor and their focus was on survival. He just did not want to burden them.

One of the biggest challenges was J did not want anyone to know he was losing his sight and he said he would not do any blind skills outside the room. This is why he was learning slowly, he only spent 1 hour a day learning blind skills at school. But, I combined his learning of hard copy braille and the brailler with the Braille Note. As soon as he put his fingers on the Braille Note, brailled a letter and it gave him verbal feedback as well as tactile, he was hooked. He was so hooked that he wanted to take it home and practice. He knew he could succeed because the Braille Note told him what he was brailling and if he made a mistake, it was easy to correct. Within 2 years, he had learned the Braille code. This child labeled "slow" learned the whole Braille code in 2 years.

To challenge him, I would give him Braille to read and he would either input it into Duxbury or the Braille Note...This is the way he did homework also. Then he got hard copy braille reading practice and brailling practice at the same time. While in school, he always wanted to use Duxbury. He could enlarge it enough to see the braille, so what he was seeing matched the braille display hooked to the computer and to what he was hearing with JAWS. With him "seeing" the braille, then hearing it, then touching it, he was able to excel in his learning.

I have discovered there are many children that need multiple ways to learn one thing. By giving a myriad of options, people excel in the process.

In the Effort to Become Braille Certified

Oh so many years ago, leading up to my braille certification, I killed a LOT of trees in the process. I would braille hours every night after school and after work in order to learn that code. Using 11 x 11 paper and a great deal of it.

Today, things have changed tremendously. People who want to learn how to braille can download Perky Duck, which is free and is a minor program compared to its parent Duxbury, which is a very powerful and superb braille to print, print to braille translation program, but cost money. I also use the Library of Congress Braille Handbook and many supplements for my adult students to work from. They six key in their work, then email it off to me for correction. In this process, we save hundreds of trees. When there are too many students, I have them sign up with the Library of Congress, which the National Federation of the Blind has taken over in the correction and helping mode. They too are set up to receive everything through email and they respond using email also, with a grade and or corrections that need to be made.

When taking the Braille certification test, you can use your reference manuals. When I take them through the lessons, I have them mark the sections and underline the areas they are struggling with, so when the test comes and they are unsure, they can quickly turn to the answer in their book. A great supplement to the classes is the Braille Enthusiast's Dictionary. It has every word and contraction you can think of that may be in text.

When my students are preparing for the test I have them braille it out in Perky Duck or Duxbury to get an electronic copy. Then they move to the brailler and braille another copy out. Next, they compare their hard copy to the electronic copy. Proofreading your own work is one of the hardest things for students. It was for me too, so it is great with these new techniques to use to double check your work. If they are really in doubt, they rebraille another copy on Perky Duck or Duxbury. When they are practicing their proofreading or slate n stylus, once again, they can use Perky Duck to braille out all the different options they believe it to be.

I have had more people pass their braille certification quicker using these methods versus not using them. Using everything at our disposal gives us a better idea of how to help our students too. Many methods, mean more success, for more people.

The Para who became an Incredible ProTech

There is a lot of debate about para educators and how to utilize them, so I thought I would tell a story of one of my greatest and best experiences.

I worked in a particular school district for 7 years. It was typical in this district for the para educators to do too much for the students. But that is all they knew what to do. It became clear that the paras needed to gain blind skills in order to stop doing the work for the blind children as if they were sighted. So, the paras started attending training classes that met a couple times a month to learn how to be a para and how to braille. Within a year and a half over a dozen paras passed the braille exam and had increased tremendously in their technology skills. Another year went by and another half dozen or so passed their braille certification and all continued in their advancement of skills. As they passed the braille certification test, they became known as ProTechs--highly skilled individuals working with students.

Most of their time is utilized adapting work. They have fine tuned their knowledge to know when to step in to help and when to step back. They easily can adapt the work for their student or students and assist them when needed. When one Protech is out, the others take over their student or students. Everyone works together with each others best skills.

Skill advancement has to come to all: Protechs (or past paras), students and Teachers all have to constantly advance in their skills in order to help the students learn what is best for them. They will meet their goals and dreams.

One of my favorite things to hear is when the Protech asks the student if they will need any help in a certain class that is difficult and the student replies, "No Thank you, I got it."