Touchscreen Braille writer

All those wonderful flat screens from the IPhone to the IPad to the IPod, Kindles, etc are going to make a leap into touchscreen braille writing given the new technology that has just come out.

Standford University just released a newsletter describing the Touchscreen braille writer. It is intuitive and however you hold your fingers in the 6 key fashion, the tablet will adjust to your fingers and allow you to braille on this flat screen.

You can watch a video at this link Touch Screen Braille writer and learn move about this upcoming technology at Braille Writer Tablet

Answers on How to Use Windows 7

When you are using Windows 7, every time you hit the start key, think of it as entering a huge search engine for your computer. Any word you type in, Windows 7 will find.

Your Start Key or Windows Key is the second key in on the left of a desktop keyboard (the key with the windows symbols picture on it). For sighted people it is the round button you most likely click on at the bottom left hand corner of the screen.

Let's do some keystrokes to see how fast Windows 7 is:
Hit the start key and type in: volume and down arrow to adjust system volume or what is applicable to your version of Windows 7. Enter on the volume and your options open. Up and down arrow to adjust the volume. Hit ESC --top right hand corner on keyboard to get out of the volume

Hit the start key again and type: documents and down arrow to documents and enter to open--down arrow through all the documents you have already created on your computer
ALT+F4 to close the documents folder

Hit the start key again and type in the name of a file on your computer, down arrow to find the file and enter to open it. The file opens.
ALT+F4 to close the file

You can search for anything on your computer with that START Key....it is very powerful. Now go have some fun and look for other things on your computer using the Start key.

If you would like to learn how to use Windows 7 and Office products using just the keyboard or keystrokes with JAWS, go to yourtechvision.com and go through the site either with a mouse or with JAWS using Insert+F7. You can move through your options easily on every page, using your TAB key.

If you don't see a lesson you want, just go to the contacts page and request a particular lesson you need and it will be added to the site.

You can be Pitiful or Powerful, but NOT Both

I have the students who take on everything I have to teach them and rise to the top of their class, eventually with no accommodations at all. Completely supported by parents who fight for this independence also and let their child know they can reach this goal. The children have learned how to read their Braille work, so their fingers fly across the page, then they quickly turn to the computer and output the answer. When the teacher says it is time to hand in the work, they open their email, attach the lesson and send it off before all the other work is collected in the class from the sighted students. The teacher grades the work, using TRACK CHANGES to mark the paper. The teacher emails the lesson back with grade and remarks and the student can easily read it with her JAWS commands. , all independently. All these children, are powerful and everyone looks up to them. One particular child even scores the highest on state tests in the spring time and she is only in the 6th grade. Greater things follow and people seek her out to be her friend and she becomes middle school president of the ASB and later successfully enters the college of her choice.

I also have other students, who are backed or rather fronted by parents who seek unlimited time for their child to finish work and they do poorly in class because their lessons have been cut in half or less, so they are not learning the same amount of content as their peers. This child has the same abilities as the fore mentioned child but because of the limited work and due to an unlimited amount of accommodations insisted by parents, they child cannot rise to their potential. Children like this are frustrated by their poor grades and it hurts their self esteem and they either act out or go into depression or just mediocre silence and apathy. They feel sorry for themselves and believe the school needs to do more for them. The parents believe this also. The more the school does, the less the child does and the less they learn other than they have become pitied and pitiful. They do not have friends. They stay home every weekend and do not even have the skills to go to camps in the summer. They graduate school and cannot get into college or find a college to finally go to after many rejections. They go and within the first month cannot do school and drop out. Some call later to ask what to do, others stay with their parents. Some insist that their rehab counselor find them a job and the pity from others and themselves grow.

This is not a blind thing or a sighted thing, this is a human thing. I have seen it in every age, ability, creed and color. You have the people who believe the world owes them something and you have the people who actively put out the energy to make the world a better place. I go back to what Kennedy said decades ago "Ask not what your country can do for you--- ask what can you do for your country." So what are you doing? Are you taking or are you adding?

You can be pitiful or powerful, but you cannot be both. Life is choices. What choice will you make?

Tricks in SEEING the Computer Better

I have spent the last few days with my mother in law—an incredible woman. She has a bit of age on herself and as many older people she is having difficulties SEEING the computer screen.

So, with indelible ink , using large black letters, I wrote on the hard space of her laptop to help her remember the important keystrokes.
To enlarge the Internet, use CTRL+
To reduce the size, CTRL-
When you are in WORD and having difficulty seeing the words, keep the same font size so you don’t print out large letters, but use a ZOOM effect
ALT+V then hit Z, then hit 2 and enter and you will have 200%. No matter what Office you are using, just keep hitting those keystrokes and ZOOM effects will open

Just little fast keystrokes can make all the difference in your life. For more ways to make your life easier in using your computer, Go to Low Vision Lessons for a multitude of low vision lessons

The advantage of Firefox over Internet Explorer

There are a couple great advantages in using Firefox over Internet Explorer (IE).

The biggest one is the advantage of automatic spell check on any and every word you write. It will be underlined in red for you sighted people, and for JAWS users, it will say the word oddly. You can arrow back and hit your applications key (3rd key to the right of the space bar on a desktop keyboard), which is just like using the right click on your mouse. The keystroke is faster—try it out.

The next and most important for any JAWS user is the great accessibility and interaction with websites. Where they are problematic in IE, they are not in Firefox. Even if you do not know the h for headings, or ; for landmarks, you can easily TAB through content, slowly, but TAB through content to move through a page.
For more quick keystroke lessons go to http://www.yourtechvision.com/products/jawsinternet

TAB through your lessons or Insert+F7 for your links and just down arrow through all the possibilities of keystroke lessons of JAWS with the Internet.

How many Accommodations should a child have in school?

When a blind child first starts school, the child needs to learn everything about the print world AND the blind world. You will need to find that fine balance between cutting down lessons, but still getting the point of the lesson; allowing more time to finish an assignment because the child may be using technology that he is just learning to output work and reading Braille books where he is just learning the Braille code and if he has some sight, may be using a CCTV that enlarges pictures and graphs for math class.

The biggest point is every year you want to diminish how many accommodations the child needs. The child needs to get to the point where he can finish the same amount of work as everyone else is doing in the same amount of time given. That means the child needs to be gaining enough skills each year to reduce the accommodations down. By high school these accommodations are very minimal and by graduation, the child can do what he needs to do to go onto college, self-advocate and find the answers he needs to be independent. That independence may be in hiring a “reader” where the reader comes in and helps the student pay bills or shows him the campus so he can travel independently with his cane; the student needs to know all types of technology to scan the printed work the professor just handed out, or the ability to go to the Internet and find anything he needs to complete his work or use an adaptive Braille note taker.

This independence goes after graduation from college to the job when the young person is confident in his/her abilities to travel anywhere, asks assistance for the tasks that are completely visual, but for the most part knows how to take the visual world and put it into a tactile or verbal feedback so he/she can access what is needed.

If you are asking for accommodations by the time you want a job and you are competing with others that are NOT asking for accommodations…who do you think is going to get the job? Go back and get the training you need to gain the skills necessary so you can go in with skills and confidence to do the same job within the same general time period as your potential colleagues. That is the way to compete in a global market that is looking for people with talent and skills to ADD to their business.

Keystroke Lessons at yourtechvision.com

For lessons on using only keystrokes, go to yourtechvision.com

If you want to advance in your computer skills and do it the fastest way possible through keystrokes, then this site is for you:

At yourtechvision.com hundreds of lessons are ready to download, on Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint and Word, other lessons on Braille Note and other blind technology under OTHER TAB and Mac-iPad-iPhone lessons under the Mac/iTool Tab--skills to learn yourself or teach a student. All lessons are compatible with Jaws talking software too.

If you are low vision, there are dozens of lessons to see your computer better too- yourtechvision.com under the Low Vision Tab

If the lesson is not there that you need, make a request and it will be written up for you and added to the site

LookTel Money Reader on IPhone

Are you blind and you want a way to know what money you are holding without using sighted help. The IPhone 4 offers you an app to do that.

How about going to a restaurant and they have no braille menus. This app also offers you the ability to take a picture and have the iphone read it back to you.

Would you like to know the objects in any cupboard, this app will do that for you too.

An incredible new app that gives so much. Go to this site and watch the demo and read all about it LookTel Money Reader

It is more than a money reader...it does a little of everything.

Phone that you can Speak to and it will Text for you

This is a WOW moment.
SIRI is a new app on the iPhone 4S that lets you listen and respond to voice messages automatically. Send and receive texts all with verbal commands.
Ask for weather in different parts of the world, ask any question and your app will find the answer and tell you verbally the answer.
Listen to how incredible this new piece of technology is:

Apple - Introducing Siri on iPhone 4S

Internet, JAWS and hotkeys

I get many requests from people on how to navigate the Internet more quickly. Many hotkeys can be used without JAWS also.

Here are a few hotkeys to get you going
Hit your windows key+R for your run menu and type in: www.google.com and ENTER and your Google page will open (you can use your run menu to get wherever you need to go VERY quickly) Your windows key is at the bottom of the keyboard to the far left. It goes CTRL, the Windows Key, also called Start--it is on the right hand side of your keyboard also.

After you enter your Google page, if you are using JAWS and you do not hear him say edit: type a text, then hit the letter E until you hear this, then hit enter for forms mode on, and type in a search word: Type: yourtechvision and hit enter and all searches for that word will come up.

Now hit the letter H for headings until you get to the link that says: Blind/Visually Impaired Education: YourTechVision and hit enter to open (you will hit H several times to get through your headings)
You will come to my blog with that heading on it, so hit the letter H again until you jump to the heading of YourTechVision and down arrow to listen to the content

When you are done, in Internet Explorer you will hit CTRL+O and in Firefox you will hit CTRL+L to jump to your URL address edit bar. This time you will type in: ask.com. This is a site where you will type in a question you want to know the answer to. Type: How many blind people are there in the world and ENTER

When the page opens hit the letter H for headings until you jump to: How many blind people are there in the world and then down arrow to listen to the answer
Hit SHIFT+H to go back up to the link and hit ENTER to open the link. When the page loads, jit the letter H again to jump to the heading and down arrow to listen to the content

ALT+F4 to close the page--More quick key lessons -practice and have fun

Leave room for MARGIN

I was talking to a very busy father the other day. He is the Chief of Staff of medicine at one of the major Hospitals in the area and was taking time out for his daughter's soccer game, though he admitted he regularly worked 16 hour days and did not see his children often enough. He is a brilliant man of medicine yet confessed he did not know how to use technology well. I immediately had him pull his iPhone out and showed him several features. A major one was texting.

Many parents are overloaded with schedules that are too busy, not enough time and especially not enough time for their children. I told him that texting his children several times a day, just to say "I love you," "You matter", "What are you doing?" will make all the difference in the world in keeping connected. It will let them know you care and are really just a call or text away.

We need to leave room for margin. That white space on a page. That free time in our day for something else to occur. We cannot get so busy that we forget about doing those special things for our spouse, our children or a stranger.

Do you know that Jesus did his greatest healing in what you would call "margin"? He was always on his way to somewhere, when someone in great need stopped him and asked for a healing. He took time out and healed them. He made time for something else along the way, which made the greatest impact in someone else's life.

Are you making room for MARGIN? Are you taking the time to help someone along the way, or help your family along the way? Are you looking around and noticing the unnoticeable? You can make some to the greatest impact with some of the littlest things in life.

Breaking BAD HABITS

Bad Habits have many names, but the one that prevails in the blind field is "blindisms". A Blindism may be rocking, poking eyes, pressing or hitting oneself, light gazing and a plethora of other things.

We all have bad habits and the only way to get rid of one is to do something else consistently for a minimum of 30 days. Yes, you can take the "Will Power" route and say you are just going to break the habit. In general, I have NOT seen this work. Where I see success is exchanging one habit for another less noticeable or offensive habit. Oh yes and the most critical is you have to get that person on board with changing the habit. You will have to show them there is something better and a better consequence will occur if they get rid of the bad habit.

If you take drugs or smoke, you have a chemical bond to break in your body , which makes it very difficult to break such a habit. With a body injuring technique or unusual movement, that no one else does and everyone stares at you while you do it, you have some sort of psychological need of doing a particular habit and is also a bond. It is giving them stimulation that they are being rewarded by and they don't particularly care what others think, when young....and by the time the habit is so well worn it, everyone is making fun of them by now, and the child feels they cannot break it when they really want to.

You have to exchange one stimulus for another. Example: One of my students rocked furiously and poked her eyes while doing it. She is very intelligent but did not look intelligent while in this frenzy of motion. Her peers jeered and made jokes and it was difficult for her to make friends. When young, her parents were told it was fine. No one knew the consequences of being told that. So instead of giving her other activities to keep her entertained, they let her entertain herself with rocking and eye poking. Then it became such a problem the girl had a terrible time breaking the habit. By her teens, she was very distressed at the lack of friends and worse the damage that she had done to her eye sockets. She had pressed her eyes back in the socket, had dark circles around her eyes and further damaged her optic nerves and lens'. Doctors refused to do eye surgery because she would cause even more damage after the surgery if she could not break the eye poking habit. (I have had kids actually pull their eyes out of their sockets, or pressed them so deeply that the deep black circles around their eyes looked as if someone hit them hard every day). Habits like this look bad but also damage...damage physically but also possibilities of making friends, getting jobs or advancing and competing with others around you.

Back to breaking the habits: For the fore mentioned girl, we tried bracelets and necklaces for her to rub instead of eye poking and rocking. That worked for a while, then it stopped. We moved to makeup and that was almost the breakthrough. Then we added a cool looking pair of glasses and that pretty much did it, but it took a couple years, until she could do it consistently for 30 days. She is pretty much steady as a rock now, though she admits, behind closed doors on those depressed days, she reverts back. But she knows she has to fight it every day until it stops being a urge to revert back.

Other techniques that have worked: That soft fleshy part of the skin between the thumb and pointer finger. Yep, that's the part, press it and just slightly massage it. Very stimulating and enough to break another habit you do not want others to see. Holding a paperclip or pen, yep, even blind people can hold a pen and twirling it in the fingers keeps yout mind off doing the other habits that are not as acceptable in society. Others shake their leg, well just about everyone shakes their leg, so that is really acceptable. Find something!

I even had a friend who told me that for Lent she gave up rocking and eye poking and it worked after the period was up. Yep, God is a good one in helping you break those habits.

Grocery Shopping for the Blind

The grocery shopping skill is used for everyone; I will just be putting a blind twist on it here. There are many different ways to do this, so here are a couple.

Get Organized...hmmm, an absolute running theme in what we do
Keep a grocery list throughout the week, either on a brailler or slate-n-stylus (slate n stylus is truly easiest at a home. Easy to put in a drawer, take out to add an item then slip it back in the drawer because it is so small and compact), yes a Braille Note or other adapted laptop works too, but I am always leery with computerized equipment around food and liquids. A grocery store can mean anything and you will never cry over ruining a piece of paper you brought to the store versus a Braille Note. Bring a calculator.

In school, students can practice this also, except it will be for a cooking lesson at the end of the week. So a list is made with a budget.

Today, this step takes a leap and a bound. Prices can be looked up online, to get the idea of the budget you have and need to stay within and if you are in a big enough town, groceries can be ordered online. What an incredible time saver. Yes, you are going to have to be a bit tech-savvy, but once you learn the ropes in ordering your food online, it is an easy process. In a small town, with a small store, a telephone still does the job.

So let's say you do not want or can order food online. Pick a local grocery store where they will get to know you. You can bring a sighted friend with you, but if you would like to do this on your own, make arrangements for someone at the store to walk through with you and get food items (The ease of asking for help depends on the store, so find a willing one and give them your business). Call ahead and establish this connection so the person is waiting for you when you get there. Take the bus to the store. If at school, take the bus or walk. What a great way to work in an orientation and mobility lesson. When I lived by myself, I would always bring a rolling shopping tote and I would only buy as much as I could fit in the tote, so I could easily get it back home. When you are doing this with students, I bring the reusable shopping bags and they get to carry the contents. Working in the shopping tote should also be used so they have options.

I do also have students who are not handling the food and liquids, keep track of the items as they are being purchased on the braille note and keep track of the total--great math lesson; yes, there are exceptions to every rule, but I always go back to the options thing.

They need the whole experience of making a list, checking prices, calling for assistance at the store or bringing a friend, walking or taking the bus to the store, buying the food, paying for it, packing their tote or bags and getting back home, or school.

We have refrigerators at school and shelves to store the food until we use it. You need to divide these activities up, so we shop one day and cook or bake another. This way the students get to bake their reward and learn shopping techniques in the same lesson. When out on their own, they will have been through this process to know how to do it by themselves better, but as you know a bit of fear of doing this by yourself always enters. Just do it and the fear will go.

When in school it is a greater benefit when you can do this in groups. I have my high school students mentor the young students...or sometimes everyone is learning the same thing and mentoring each other, but being together always adds to the fun.

JAWS spelling magic

Jaws offers up a great spell check option that WORD cannot.

Word offers you the applications key any time you misspell a word. Open word and misspell any word, arrow into it and then hit your applications key. Those of you who do not know what the applications key is, on a desktop keyboard, it is the 3rd key to the right of the space bar. It is the key you most likely have never used because you have no idea what it does. It is a very powerful key. Any time you do not know how to spell a word, spell it out the best you can, then hit that applications key and it will give you the correct spelling...that is as long as you have not misspelled it so badly WORD really has no idea what you want.

The next spell check in WORD is F7. I will provide a lesson on that later on, as it is very involved.

But the power spell check for JAWS is ALT+SHIFT+L. Try it out. Open word, misspell several words, then hit the command ALT+SHIFT+L and it will bring up your misspelled words and tell you how many you have in the document. Hit enter on the word and you will pop back exactly to the word, hit your applications key and enter on the correct spelling. Repeat the command ALT+SHIFT+L and continue until all words are correctly spelled.

Today, as I showed one of my students this power command, I could hear her smile across the miles of our virtual screen. She lit up the room and once again, she is shown how technology is making her life so much easier.

Lessons to help you learn more

Jaws magic

The UnTEACHable

First of all, there is no such thing as unteachable. The only people who are unteachable are those who decide NOT to learn any more.

In regards to people, we all have this tremendous ability to learn, no matter where we start out. Children are given labels and everyone starts teaching DOWN to that label. We need to teach UP to the child.

"The Structure of the Brain changes with ACTIVITY!!!!" The Brain that changes itself by Norman Doidge

I have proven the brain changes itself through activity over and over: Taken children that had been written off or inundated with labels that said "unteachable." Ignoring the label I taught the child about a world they could access. Computers and different types of technology have enabled the deaf/blind to "talk" with their friends through texting. The Blind to be independent and keep up with their peers. The low cognitive to "speak" and interact with their surroundings.

Emailing opens up everyone's world and if you have a reluctant child to learn, tell them you will start with making friends on email. Add a braille display and they start reading. Everyone wants friends and it gets any child engaged.

One of my children who was put in the lowest class in the district, was thought unteachable. It appeared he had no skills. Slowly but surely through many activities of teaching color, moving and stacking objects and yes, teaching conversation skills, this child began to open up. After a year, I added a talking computer. As soon as I placed it in front of him, he placed his hands on it and said, "My computer." He got it. He knew this would help him even more. When we opened it I helped him to learn how to type words, so even when he did not want to speak, he could through his computer.

Everyone can be TEACHABLE!

Babies, beads, cupboards and Math

Counting starts with the simple things.

Inexpensive counting starts with a long sting and a set of beads...or even lots of buttons lying around. Help the child string the beads or buttons on the string and count as they string it. Then tie knots at each end and have the child count moving the beads from left to right and back again. Make strings of ten, so counting to higher numbers is easy.

Make different lengths and tie around their neck for a necklace. Make a small strand on elastic and tie around wrist for bracelets. Keep their minds active and busy so they won't be thinking about poking their eyes or rocking for entertainment. They can wear their entertainment.

Cupboards are also a great way to learn math, spatial concepts and stacking. Have your child sit on the counter after you go grocery shopping and have them place the cans of food in the cupboard. I can already tell you, they will want to do this over and over again. That is fine. It is worth the mess at first and the inconvenience for you, as this teaches so many concepts.

I used to have several drawers and the bottom cupboards of my kitchen just for small children who would enter our house. I had a large can of beans with a bowl and stacking cups. The child will get these out, open and start scooping from the can of beans and measuring into the bowl and vice versa. I did this with rice also. They have that lower cupboard full of canned goods and the child will pull them all out (you will have to help them at first to know what to do) then 1 by 1, place them back on the shelf, counting each can they place back in the cupboard. Depending on the size of your cupboard, the child should be able to stack 2 or 3 cans on top of each other. For beginners, the sides of the shelf are great to help support an off centered can, but they get good at this. Then they count the cans as they stack. They also eventually learn how many cans will fit in a certain space.

While the tiny child would be playing in the cupboards, I would be making dinner. Of course, if the child were 3 or more, the child would get up and help me. As you know their attention wane's quickly, so then they would go back down to the cupboards and continue to "play".

By building in things to do at the child's level and around what you already do, they quickly gain concepts about the world around them.

Perception is Not Necessarily Reality

Working with many children, but especially teenagers who feel everyone is staring at them and judging them for every little thing is only in your mind: Ache on the face, their clothes; for beginner blind students, it is carrying a cane, or reading braille in front of their peers.

As adults, we judge ourselves from everything from what we wear, the job we have or the house we live in; to waking up at night thinking, we may have said something to hurt someone's feelings (OK, that last one might just be more of a woman thing).

Here is what we must realize.
Our children who are self-conscious about what is growing on their face, well everyone else has something there too.
Our children who "don't want to be different" by reading braille or carrying a cane, sighted kids think it is cool and you fight something that everyone else is REALLY impressed by seeing, but even after the initial seeing of it, it is out of their minds.

People in general who are beating themselves up about every little detail because they THINK someone perceives them in a certain way, is not necessarily reality.

In general, everyone is so involved with their own lives that after the 3 initial seconds of talking with you or seeing you, you are pretty much out of their mind.
In general, your perception of yourself is not reality for the way others are thinking about you. Everyone is too caught up in his or her own lives.

Even if you trip and fall (OK, the exception is a President, where the media decides to play the same video over and over for the world) so even if you trip and fall and we all do it, after 3 seconds, you are pretty much out of everyone's mind.

We need to get over ourselves, so we can go on uninhibited and do greater things. As long as you are self-absorbed, you cannot see the bigger picture of what can be accomplished. You are wrapped up in the fears in your world that are not true reality and then you cannot improve yourself, because all you see are your faults. Figure out your faults and correct them.

You will make your fears and faults your REALITY if you don't change.

m.facebook.com is FASTER

All you who are using talking software and are trying to use FACEBOOK.com, it is time to switch to m.facebook.com

m.facebook.com is an HTML version of Facebook. All the information is lined up vertically so you can easily move through the text. You will save tons of time reading the Wall and responding to people

So save time and frustration...go to m.facebook.com and TAB through the pages. You will start smiling about your Facebook experience.

Survey for Teachers-Win a Blind Tool

TVIs Needed for AT Study! It's not too late to help the field and have the chance to win fabulous prizes!

Researchers from Texas Tech University and Missouri State University are surveying TVIs to determine what assistive technology competencies they possess. If you are a certified TVI in the United States, please consider completing the online survey at survey monkey by October 31st!

All participants who complete the survey will be entered into a drawing to win one of many wonderful AT prizes such as: a Book Sense Audio Book Player, Audio Graphic Calculator, talking alarm clocks, Victor Reader Stratus, Book Port Plus, Keyboarding Key Guard, Big Eye Magnifying Lamp, or one free single-user copy of Window-Eyes!

Already we had four lucky winners who completed our online survey so far, and who have received a New Generation Perkins Brailler, a ReproTronics Thermo Pen, and two Talking Alarm Clocks. Congratulations to:


Ms. Pam Duda in Illinois,
Ms. Sallie Case in Alabama,
Ms. Jamie Baggett, in Washington, and
Ms. Lori Pulliam in Washington.

It is still not too late to participate in sharing your perspectives and win! See the survey for more information.

Best IPAD APPS for kids

If you are looking for a few IPAD apps for kids check out the link.

Baby Finger is an IPAD app that has been touted as a great tool for children with cortical visual impairment or low vision children learning their colors and shapes.

With large bright objects and verbal feedback giving directions on objects to touch, children are absorb in this interaction. It is also free, which makes it something great to try out to see if this would be right for your child.

Interesting article to read about how to use the IPAD with low vision children

Another free app iFarkle which is a dice game for iphone or the IPAD--and a completely blind person can utilize this game..fun for adults too.

Click on link for extensive list

An extensive list at: Apple Apps

Watch Video: Just out of the box learning with IPad and refreshabraille