Speaker: Jane Sellers

Braille Into Christmas (Extra 61)

As the days get shorter and the nights get colder, a few people joined us for a cosy fireside chat to round off the year on Tuesday 19 December.

How do you write and address your Christmas cards? How do you know whose Christmas presents are whose? And what part does braille play in all of this?

We were joined by our expert Braille for Beginners team, Mel Pritchard and Chantelle Griffiths, to get the conversation started, and we heard plenty of ideas from the audience too, on a multitude of Christmas-themed topics.

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Six Dots to Success: Braille for Leisure (Extra 54)

The fourth of a series of recordings from the recent Six Dots to Success conference held in collaboration with Sight and Sound Technology Ltd.

This episode features a recording of one of the breakout rooms.

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Using Braille Displays with Phones and Tablets (Episode 45)

The Braillists Foundation recently held its first face-to-face event since the Coronavirus pandemic. In this episode, we catch up with some of the people who attended, and we also hear recordings of the three presentations which took place:

  • Reading multilingual text using an iPhone, the Kindle app and a Focus 14
  • Text entry with an iPhone and a Brailliant BI40X
  • Reading books with an iPhone, the Kindle app and an Orbit Reader 20
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Formatting Your Braille (Extra 43)

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 formats to achieve optimum quality.

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Dr Robert Englebretson on the International Phonetic Alphabet (Episode 25)

Based in Houston, Texas, Dr Robert Englebretson is widely recognised for his contribution to braille research. In 2008, his work on updating the Braille International Phonetic Alphabet was published by the International Council on English Braille, and in 2019 the Braille Authority of North America made him a recipient of the Darleen Bogart Braille Excellence Award in recognition of this work.

More recently, in his role as Associate Professor of Linguistics at Rice University, he has begun to tackle misconceptions around how students learn to read and write braille from the perspective of the cognitive sciences, with a large research project due to be completed in 2024.

On Friday 3 June, we caught up with Robert as part of our series of Stay Safe: Stay Connected conference calls, and we started by asking him to describe the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Links of Interest

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What has the Federation ever done for Us? with Everette Bacon (Extra 20)

On Friday 28 August 2020, Everette Bacon joined a Braillists Foundation Stay Safe: Stay Connected call to talk about how the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) promotes braille literacy across the United States.

Everette is a member of the Board of Directors of NFB and President of the Utah State Division. He told us how he has personally pushed to make assistive technology more widely available and explained the kinds of resources and programmes that NFB provides for its members, including the work it has done to promote equality of distance learning for blind students during lockdown. We also heard about some of the most exciting projects NFB has supported through the Dr Jacob Bolotin Award.

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Getting the Braille you Need in Work or Education (Extra 17)

This session covered how to obtain braille through the Access To Work and Disabled Students Allowance schemes. We talked about how to advocate for the braille you need and what options you have. We also looked at advocating for braille textbooks and braille signage in work or education.

This session was recorded on Tuesday 9 March 2021. For further information please visit the Braillists Foundation Media Page.

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An Introduction to Unified English Braille (Extra 10)

Led by James Bowden, Braille Technical Officer at RNIB, this session answered questions such as: How does UEB differ from Standard English Braille? Where can you learn about the changes? What tips and tricks are there for switching to UEB?

This session was recorded on Tuesday 19 January 2021. For further information please visit the Braillists Foundation Media Page.



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An Introduction to the Slate and Stylus (Extra 5)

This session was a practical introduction to the Hand Frame (also known as a Slate and Stylus). We covered inserting the paper, holding the stylus and writing some characters, as well as some basic types of frame and where to get them, and we answered many questions from participants. The session was led by James Bowden, Braille Technical Officer at RNIB.

This session was recorded on Tuesday 10 November 2020. For further information please visit the Braillists Foundation Media Page.



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Getting Around the Orbit Reader 20 (Extra 4)

Dave Williams, Braillists Foundation Chair and Customer Experience Manager at RNIB talks us through the Orbit Reader. What is it, how does it compare to other displays on the market and how can you get one?

This session was recorded on Tuesday 3 November 2020. For further information please visit the Braillists Foundation Media Page.

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