Challenges of Computer Technology for the Education of the Visually Impaired

Challenges of Computer Technology for the Education of the Visually Impaired

Future Reflections Winter 1989, Vol. 8 No. 1
(back) (contents) (next)
CHALLENGES OF COMPUTER
TECHNOLOGY FOR THE
EDUCATION OF THE VISUALLY
IMPAIRED
by Bettye Krolick
Editor's note: This article is reprinted from the
National Braille Association newsletter, the NBA
Bulletin, Summer, 1988 issue.
The following is excerpted from the
address given to the general session of
the CTEVH/NVA conference, March
18,1988 in Irvine, California, by Bettye
Krolick, president of the NBA.
When Bob Stepp, my husband's music student
who knew nothing about Braille, wrote the first
Braille editing program in 1980 from our Apple
computer, we had no idea that in 1988 there
would be over 700 teachers and transcribers
using computers as a Braille tool. Nor could we
have envisioned in 1988 a new industry to
manufacture computer-driven Braille embossers
would be in full swing or that paper companies
would be turning out continuous- form paper just
for our use.
The miracle of this technology was very simple,
but exceedingly important. For the first time, I could ERASE Braille! I could erase, make a correction,
and continue Brailling. To the Braillist's
world, that was a real miracle.
My next experience with this technology was
when my friend, Georgia Griffith, who is blind
and deaf, ordered a paperless Brailler not intended
for the deaf-blind. Bob Stepp devised a
way for her to use it. He also taught her about
computers. Before long Georgia had a job working
for a computer service, using her computer
from her own home. It brought this deaf-blind
woman immediate, fruitful employment in addition
to the Braille music proofreading she had
been doing for years.
David Holladay has devised programs for direct
use by the blind. He and his blind wife, Karyn
Navy, work together in a successful business
producing programs that visually impaired
people can use directly and that help typists
prepare reading materials in Braille.
Such technology has been a real breakthrough in
the employment opportunity for the visually
handicapped. Blind people are using computers,
repairing computers, and building computers as
well as writing software programs for them.
I see two major challenges in this otherwise rosy
picture. One is to help prepare visually impaired
children to use the technology that suits them
best as they grow up. The other is the challenge
to make computer technology available to every
visually handicapped person who wishes to use it,
not just the chosen few.
With a computer, visually impaired students can
prepare lessons and papers independently. In
addition to speech output, they have the
capability to get their hands on the finished copy.
Braille readers know how to read, write, spell,
punctuate, and handle language in detail. Now
they can erase, make corrections, and do the things that are exceedingly cumbersome in
Braille alone. Material they turn in to a teacher
and, later on to a publisher or business contact,
is theirs, and thknow it is accurate. They are
truly literate.
To help more students take advantage of computer
technology, simply teach them Braille.
Only a small percentage of visually impaired
children are learning Braille skills. I find that in
many public schools Braille is taught only to the
totally blind and only to those unusually intelligent
or who have parents who are demanding it
be taught.
Today we face the major challenge of influencing
public schools to put greater emphasis on teaching
the Braille language not only to the bright totally
blind child, but to the slower learner and, as
an alternative language, to many of the partially
sighted as well.
The second major challenge is that of making
technology available to every visually handicapped
person. You are undoubtedly ahead of
me in identifying some of these problems. There
are the schools with many computers and those
with a precious few. There is the money needed
for special equipment. And there are the attitudes
of the teachers responsible for our
mainstreamed students.
In many schools, computers are used in the first
grade. Is that the time when the teacher sends
the visually handicapped child back to the
resource room for special help or a chance to
work on other assignments? It takes more time,
you know, to show a visually handicapped person
how to use a computer. And besides, they can't
see the screen.
Meet that challenge! Send the children right back at eighth grade level. Explain that exposure
to computers is very important. Suggest learning
up with sighted children who will read what it says
on the screen. That is one reason for
mainstreaming-to provide opportunities for
blind and sighted children to work together.
School budgets are being cut back. How about
recruiting volunteers to help work with students
on computers? We members of NBA and
CTE VH believe strongly in volunteerism, and we
know it works. A volunteer who knew nothing
about computers or Braille, that did understand
kids, was a tremendous help to a Braille
youngster. And how about Norman Blessum
(author of the Braille program for the IBM PC)
and Ken Smith who retired from their professions,
but are working full-time now, helping
produce materials in Braille?
To meet any of these challenges, you don't have
to be a computer programmer or back-room
hobbyist, you just have to have one--or know
somebody who knows one. Encourage people to
try. You never know who will come through. A
man who thought Braille must have 26 characters
to represent each letter of the alphabet, made a
terrific breakthrough. That was Jack Hoefer,
who wrote the program for transcribing Braille
on a Commodore computer.
The automatic translation programs are taking
care of a lot of the recreational reading needs.
That scares some volunteer transcribers, but it
doesn't scare me a bit. We want all the materials
in Braille we can possibly get. Furthermore, we
can't keep up with requests for textbooks, math,
music and other technical materials.
This is the big challenge for transcribers--to
learn the advanced technical codes. We now
have the computer code, and we need people to
learn it and use it. It can be used by people who
do not know Nemeth code. Did all you
transcribers hear me? You do not need to know
the Nemeth code before you learn to do computer code. There is your challenge. Attend
workshops and learn to be one of the people who
transcribe computer books.
Another challenge is to get programs written for
teaching Braille to transcribers or to the blind,
such as programs to teach transcribers the advanced
codes or to teach slow learners to read
Braille. Projects like this could go to computer
teachers looking for class projects or serve as
ideas for a master's thesis. The results would be
of extreme value to the handicapped.
There is no question that computer technology
has opened fantastic possibilities to the visually
impaired community and to those who help
prepare their reading materials. Braille is vital if
a child is to take full advantage of computers, and
I believe many more children could be learning
Braille than are now being taught this language
that provides true literacy.
Let's work with classroom teachers to help our
kids have the same chance as sighted kids to learn
about, to use, and to have fun with computers. Be
aware of and meet the challenges of attitude, of
money, or of special needs to adapt computers
for use with speech or Braille output.
Last, but far from least, we must meet the challenge
of learning advanced codes and preparing
materials in Braille that will help students and
adults as they advance in the use of technology,
with its effect on their potential employment.
Computers seem almost like a dream. Dream
on, and make all your dreams come true.
(back) (contents) (next)