Braillecast

In our last Masterclass before the Christmas break, we’re delighted that Kim Charlson, Executive Director of the Perkins Library (part of Perkins School for the Blind), was able to join us again. Kim is author of the book “Drawing with your Perkins Brailler”, which includes step-by-step directions for creating 36 different drawings including shapes, animals and subjects with holiday and transporta...

On Tuesday 15 November 2022, we hosted an incredibly informative panel discussion around writing software and working in the technology industry in general when using a braille display. We heard from people in a variety of different IT rolls about the techniques they use, when they use braille and when they use speech, and left plenty of time for audience questions.

We are delighted to be collaborating with Sight and Sound Technology for our inaugural online conference to mark World Braille Day. Find out more in this episode, and register for the conference here .

Find out all about the Braillists Foundation's new Braille for Beginners On-Demand programme in this archive of the launch event which took place on Monday 10 October 2022.

There are two well-known braille keyboards on the market today, the Orbit Writer and the Hable One. What are the similarities? What are the differences? Which one would suit your needs best? On Tuesday 4 October 2022, we were joined by a user of each keyboard. They told us more about how their preferred keyboard works and why they like it, and we learnt how they compare against each other. For fur...

In April 2022, our Chairman, Dave Williams, travelled to Boston Massachusetts in the US to run the Boston Marathon. While he was there, he took a trip to the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown and recorded a tour of the facility where Perkins Braillers are manufactured.

The International Council on English Braille held its Mid-Term Executive Committee Meeting from 5-9 June 2022. As well as transacting various items of business, there were lively discussions around the history of braille, braille music, braille technology and the braille code itself. In this episode of Braillecast, we were joined by ICEB President Judy Dixon to discover the highlights of the Mid-T...

Connor Scott-Gardner is an avid reader, and on Tuesday 6 September 2022 he demonstrated how to download books from RNIB Reading Services, transfer them to a braille display and read them. He also explained how Reading Services differs from other offerings from RNIB and elsewhere. For further information please visit the Braillists Foundation Media Page .

If you have an iPhone, iPad or Android device, it’s highly likely that you can braille in grade 2 directly on the touch screen and have it back translated instantly – a perfect replacement for the on screen keyboard. In this episode, Matthew Horspool and special guest Chris Norman demonstrate how this works on both iOS and Android. We also briefly explored other ways of entering braille without a...

It’s often said in the industry that garbage in = garbage out, but what does this mean in practice? On 17 May 2022, our Chairman Dave Williams held a conversation with Kawal Gucukoglu, who worked for many years as a braille transcriber at RNIB. They discussed the principals of effective braille layout – headings, paragraphs, lists, tables and so on – and how to implement them in electronic file fo...

In this session, Matthew Horspool explains how braille is still relevant in the 21st century and demonstrates how free and low-cost braille technology is significantly improving the independence and productivity of blind and partially sighted people of all ages. We paid particular attention to Braille Screen Input and the Orbit Reader, both of which are relatively recent additions to the braille t...

The annual CSUN Assistive Technology Conference took place in March in California, and there were lots of exciting braille and tactile graphics announcements. We assembled a line-up of braille-using panellists who attended the conference who talked us through what was announced and gave their first impressions of the new products they saw.

We know about braille in the UK, of course, and we regularly hear about braille in other developed English-speaking countries – the US, Australia, New Zealand and so on. But there are many other countries in the world about which we hear much less. How is braille taught? How is it produced? How easy is it to obtain? What braille technology is in use? On Tuesday 4 January, to mark World Braille Day...

The Perkins Brailler has been a staple in the lives of braille users ever since the first one was manufactured in Watertown, Massachusetts in 1951. To this day, the Perkins is widely considered to be the most durable braille device on the market, with machines over 50 years old still going strong. They are so popular, in fact, that it is easy to forget that we need to teach new braillists how to u...

We were delighted to be joined by Scott Davert, one of the most well-known authorities on the use of iOS with a braille display, for the third and final part of his exploration of this winning combination. Scott is the Coordinator at the Technology, Research and Innovation Center, part of the Helen Keller National Center for DeafBlind Youths and Adults, and serves on the editorial team at AppleVis...

Following the first successful Masterclass, we were delighted to have been joined once again by Scott Davert, one of the most well-known authorities on the use of iOS with a braille display, to continue his exploration of this winning combination. Scott is the Coordinator at the Technology, Research and Innovation Center, part of the Helen Keller National Center for DeafBlind Youths and Adults, an...

Following our brief introduction to Braille on iOS last year, we’re delighted this year to have been joined by Scott Davert, one of the most well-known authorities on the topic, to explore this winning combination in more detail. Scott is the Coordinator at the Technology, Research and Innovation Center, part of the Helen Keller National Center for DeafBlind Youths and Adults, and serves on the ed...

In our first Masterclass of 2022, Matthew Horspool tackled the hows, whys and wherefores of braille embossers: choosing them, setting them up and making the most of them. The session covered: The purpose and function of an embosser and why you might want one Different types of embosser Different types of paper Connectivity options The user interface The relationship between embosser and computer T...

Happy Christmas! In this special episode, James Bowden talks us through drawing some stars. The instructions are provided in written form below: Star 1 Line 1: ow sign (Dots 246); comma (dot 2) Star 2 Line 1: o (dots 135; k (dots 13) Star 3 Line 1: capital sign (dot 6); ar sign (dots 345); gh sign (dots 126); apostrophe (dot 3) Line 2: dot 4; wh sign (dots 156); s (dots 234); a (dot 1) Star 4 Line...

We were delighted to be joined by Kim Charlson, Executive Director of the Perkins Library (part of Perkins School for the Blind). Kim is author of the book “Drawing with your Perkins Brailler”, which includes step-by-step directions for creating 36 different drawings including shapes, animals and subjects with holiday and transportation themes. In this session, she used a drawing of a Christmas tr...

We were delighted to have been joined by Sean Randall for the second in a two-part series. Sean is something of a computing and IT mastermind and now works at New College Worcester, training many of their students in the use of assistive technology including screen readers and braille displays. This session covered sources of reading material that are more mainstream in nature, including apps or s...

Freedom Scientific is perhaps best known for its popular JAWS screen reader , but it also manufactures the Focus line of refreshable braille displays . The first generation of these well-known units was released in the early 2000s, and now the fifth generation is available in 14, 40 and 80-cell configurations, with the 40-cell version being an integral part of the ElBraille from Elita Group . To t...

For at least the past 30 years, blind people have been well-served by notetakers: electronic, computer-like devices with a Perkins-style keyboard and speech and braille output. At their most basic level, they've functioned as an electronic brailler for composing documents and, of course, taking notes, but they've also included functionality such as a calculator, address list, scheduler and, latter...

We were delighted to have been joined by Sean Randall for the first in a two-part series. Sean is something of a computing and IT mastermind and now works at New College Worcester, training many of their students in the use of assistive technology including screen readers and braille displays. This session primarily discuss the various braille devices available to consumers. He then provided an ov...

George Bernard Shaw, in his play Pygmalion, wrote that "the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain." That line has its roots in spoken language, though of course in English rather than Spanish! But what about written language? We quite often talk about braille being useful as a tool when learning languages, but María García Garmendia of Madrid, Spain has taken things to the next level by qualifyi...