Annual report of the managers of the New York Institution for the Blind.

Report year ends Sept. 30, 1874-1911.

Refreshing Refreshable Braille Displays

The increased access to books afforded to blind people via e-publishing has given them long-sought independence for both recreational and educational reading. In most cases, blind readers access materials using speech output. For some content such as highly technical texts, music, and graphics, speech is not an appropriate access modality as it does not promote deep understanding. Therefore blind braille readers often prefer electronic braille displays. But these are prohibitively expensive. The search is on, therefore, for a low-cost refreshable display that would go beyond current technologies and deliver graphical content as well as text. And many solutions have been proposed, some of which reduce costs by restricting the number of characters that can be displayed, even down to a single braille cell. In this paper, we demonstrate that restricting tactile cues during braille reading leads to poorer performance in a letter recognition task. In particular, we show that lack of sliding contact between the fingertip and the braille reading surface results in more errors and that the number of errors increases as a function of presentation speed. These findings suggest that single cell displays which do not incorporate sliding contact are likely to be less effective for braille reading.

Reverse problem-based learning - a case study with a Braille machine

Engineering Education includes not only teaching theoretical fundamental concepts but also its verification during practical lessons in laboratories. The usual strategies to carry out this action are frequently based on Problem Based Learning, starting from a given state and proceeding forward to a target state. The possibility or the effectiveness of this procedure depends on previous states and if the present state was caused or resulted from earlier ones. This often happens in engineering education when the achieved results do not match the desired ones, e.g. when programming code is being developed or when the cause of the wrong behavior of an electronic circuit is being identified. It is thus important to also prepare students to proceed in the reverse way, i.e. given a start state generate the explanation or even the principles that underlie it. Later on, this sort of skills will be important. For instance, to a doctor making a patient?s story or to an engineer discovering the source of a malfunction. This learning methodology presents pedagogical advantages besides the enhanced preparation of students to their future work. The work presented on his document describes an automation project developed by a group of students in an engineering polytechnic school laboratory. The main objective was to improve the performance of a Braille machine. However, in a scenario of Reverse Problem-Based learning, students had first to discover and characterize the entire machine's function before being allowed (and being able) to propose a solution for the existing problem.

Llegir en braille i en català. 'Leer en braille y en catalán'.

Resumen del autor en catalán

Aprender braille en Internet.

Resumen tomado de la revista

Las musicografías de Abreu y Llorens : dos sistemas alternativos a la recepción del braille en España.

Resumen tomado de la publicación

Adquisición de las estructuras morfosintácticas de la oración simple y didáctica de la lectoescritura braille.

Resumen tomado de la publicación. El trabajo obtuvo el Primer Premio en el apartado 'Trabajos sobre material docente adaptado' del 'XVIII Concurso de Investigación Educativa sobre Experiencias Escolares' convocado en 2004 por la ONCE

La aventura de Pecas : divulgación del braille en un aula de Educación Primaria.

Resumen tomado de la publicación. El trabajo obtuvo el segundo premio en el 'XIII Concurso de Investigación Educativa sobre Experiencias Escolares' convocado en 1999 por la Dirección de Educación de la ONCE

En la información reside la tolerancia : una actividad de acercamiento al braille con niños videntes.

Resumen tomado de la publicación. El trabajo obtuvo el primer premio del 'XIII Concurso de Investigación Educativa sobre Experiencias Escolares', convocado en 1999 por la ONCE

La musicografía braille.

Resumen tomado de la publicación

Escritura musical para invidentes : Louis Braille y la música.

Resumen basado en el de la publicación. Resumen en inglés

Aprendemos el método braille en el colegio.

Proyecto de integración de niños ciegos en un centro educativo. La base de esta experiencia es que todos aquellos que rodean al niño ciego deben entender sus dificultades y aceptarle. Para ello, muestra una serie de actividades que, por medio de fichas, pueden realizarse en el aula. Finaliza con un apartado dedicado a la ONCE y a su labor educativa.