Volume 35 Number 2 Special Issue: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)
A magazine for parents and teachers of blind children published by
the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults in partnership
with the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children.
Deborah Kent Stein, Editor
ISSN-0883-3419
Copyright © 2016 American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults
For more information
about blindness and children contact:
National Organization of Parents of Blind Children
200 East Wells Street at Jernigan Place, Baltimore, MD 21230 • (410) 659-9314
www.nfb.org/nopbc • [email protected] • [email protected]
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Unlocking the Impossible
by Deborah Kent Stein
FEATURE
On LEGO, the Pattern of Experience, and Building a Generation of Blind Scientists and Engineers
by Mark A. Riccobono
BEGINNINGS
You Are Never Too Young for STEM
by Marilyn Winograd and Lillian Rankel
Raised in Science: How Parents Can Bring up a Blind Scientist
by Geerat Vermeij
WAYS AND MEANS
The Making of a Blind Maker
by Joshua Miele
A Love Affair with LEGO
by Matthew Shifrin
High-Caliber Problem, Low-Tech Solution
by Cricket Bidleman, Dan Brown, and Mike Tomac
How I Got Access to My STEM Textbooks
by Cary Supalo
Science Is for Everyone
by Barbara R. Heard
CAREERS AND PASSIONS
Maximizing Return: How an Investment of Time in Your Blind Child Can Pay Dividends in the Financial Services Industry
by Kane Brolin
The Cutting Edge: Holding Our Own in the Age of Information
by Ameenah A. Ghoston
Business and Being Blind: One Man's Winning Combination
by Gary Wunder
My New Old Clock
by Frederick W. Noesner
PROGRAMS
National Center for Blind Youth in Science: Increasing Blind People's Informal STEM Learning Opportunities
by Natalie Shaheen
Instruments of the Future
by Caleb Hyndman
Helping Each Other, Helping Ourselves
by Kaylee Nielson
Building and Bonding
by Chris Matthews
REVIEW
DK Braille Books
Reviewed by Janna Harvey
NOPBC CONFERENCE 2016
Transitions: Where You Are and Where You Want to Go
by Kim Cunningham
Schedule at a Glance: Child Care at Convention
by Carla McQuillan
Schedule of Events for Adults, Children, and Youth
ANNOUNCEMENTS
ODDS AND ENDS
Are you the parent of a blind or visually impaired child? Don’t know where to turn?
Founded in 1983, the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children (NOPBC) is a membership organization of parents, educators, and friends of blind children reaching out to give each other vital support, encouragement, and information. We have thousands of members in all fifty states plus Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico.
The NOPBC offers hope, encouragement, information, and resources for parents of blind or visually impaired children. NOPBC provides emotional support and a network of other families dealing with the same challenges you are facing. We also provide information, training, and resources to empower you to take an active role in guiding your child’s development and education. We can provide information on your child’s rights and on the laws and legislative issues that will enable you and your child to become strong and effective advocates.
Have you ever wondered what your blind or visually impaired child will be capable of when he or she grows up? The answer to that question is that blindness/visual impairment does not have to stop your child from doing anything he or she wants to do. We can connect you with other families and blind adults who can serve as positive mentors and role models. They can teach you the attitudes and techniques that will enable your child to become independent and to succeed in life.
What is different about the NOPBC?
Our status as a division of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), the largest and most influential organization of blind people in the world, provides many benefits. Our members are well informed about the societal, legislative, and technological issues that affect blind people. We also enjoy the resources, support, and expertise of fifty thousand blind people who can serve as mentors and role models for us and our children. Finally, as our children grow up, they have the Federation to belong to.
No other organization for parents of blind/visually impaired children offers more programs, activities, and training to families, children, and youth. One of our most exciting activities is our annual conference. Every year since it was established, the NOPBC has conducted an annual conference for parents and teachers of blind children as part of the national convention of the NFB. The program has grown to include five exciting days of workshops, training sessions, activities for all family members, including sighted siblings, and countless opportunities to meet blind adults and other families and children from around the country.
What is the mission of the NOPBC?
The purpose of the NOPBC is to:
Most states have an NOPBC affiliate chapter. You can find your state chapter at <http://www.nopbc.org>. If your state does not have a chapter and you would like to start one, please contact us. We may be able to offer training and other assistance to start a state NOPBC chapter.
What are the programs, activities, publications, and resources of the NOPBC?
Contact Us:
National Organization of Parents of Blind Children
[email protected]
<www.nopbc.org>
by Deborah Kent Stein
In my high school chemistry class there were twenty-seven students, and the teacher divided us into teams for our weekly laboratory sessions. Twelve of the teams were pairs of students, but on my team there were three of us--two sighted students and me. In the course of the year I never touched a beaker or a Bunsen burner. I never once measured or stirred or poured. It was my job, the teacher told me, to record the data my teammates produced. Otherwise I was expected to keep safely out of the way.
Math classes weren't much better. In algebra I listened to the scratch of chalk on the blackboard as the teacher explained, "Just put this in that column, multiply it by X, put your result down here, and divide it by Y. See how easy this is?"
For generations teachers have told blind students that math and science are "visual subjects." In truth there is seldom anything inherently visual about a given area of study. However, visual teaching methods can exclude blind students from the learning opportunities they need and deserve. The achievements of blind people in science, technology, engineering, and math prove over and over that eyesight is not a prerequisite for insight in the STEM fields.
Since my regrettable experiences with high school math and science, I have encountered an impressive gallery of blind scientists and mathematicians from the past three centuries. Nicholas Saunderson (1682-1739), totally blind since infancy, taught mathematics at Cambridge University and was regarded as one of the leading theoreticians of his day. More than a century before Louis Braille invented his reading system, Saunderson developed a tactile method for doing mathematical calculations. Francois Huber (1750-1831), blind from cataracts by age fifteen, spent his life studying the social structure of the honeybee colony. Ralph Teetor (1890-1982), who was blind from birth, invented the first cruise control system for the automobile. Physiologist Jacques le Magnen (1916-2002) lost his sight after he contracted encephalitis at thirteen. He became a pioneer in the study of taste and olfaction. For these and countless others, blindness was not an impediment to original thinking.
This issue of Future Reflections focuses on STEM education and careers. Educators Marilyn Winograd and Lillian Rankel suggest science experiments that can be conducted by young blind children, and paleobiologist Geerat Vermeij shares how his parents encouraged him to explore the natural world. Kane Brolin and Ameenah Ghoston write about their STEM-related careers, and hobbyist Frederick Noesner explains how he unraveled the engineering behind a wooden clock built in 1835. Natalie Shaheen describes a series of STEM enrichment programs for blind youth sponsored by the NFB Jernigan Institute through a generous grant from the National Science Foundation.
In all of their endeavors, blind people in the STEM fields have been boldly creative. In many instances they have invented the tools they need in order to advance their learning. I hope that the articles in this issue will encourage parents and teachers to lead the next generation of blind students to question, explore, and discover. I hope the blind students of today and tomorrow will no longer be relegated to the sidelines, but will have a wealth of hands-on opportunities inside and beyond the STEM classroom. May they approach STEM with a spirit of adventure.
by Mark A. Riccobono
From the Editor: As president of the National Federation of the Blind, Mark Riccobono is dedicated to creating new opportunities for blind students in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). In this article, he discusses the critical importance of building new and more effective patterns of experience. One tool for bringing about the essential changes is the humble LEGO brick.
In science, technology, engineering, and math, patterns are an extremely fundamental component of the knowledge base. In science, patterns often reveal important trends or lead to new understanding of the natural properties of the world. In technology, patterns of sequences help to automate processes that would otherwise take hundreds of human hours. In engineering, patterns are critical in designing strong structures or in recognizing a breakdown in a system. And in mathematics, patterns emerge in everything from memorizing multiplication factors to determining the value of unknown variables. In all of these subject areas, the understanding of patterns only emerges after hundreds of hours of exploration, hours filled with both success and failure. Through more than a decade of work on educational programs in science, technology, engineering, and math for the National Federation of the Blind, I have found the core of the work to be a matter of breaking old patterns of low expectations and establishing new patterns of experience.
In November 2003 I first went to work for the National Federation of the Blind. I had been directing educational programs for blind children in Wisconsin, and I was familiar with the artificial barriers blind children faced in America's educational system. Before coming to work for the Federation, I thought of my work in education primarily in terms of eliminating the systemic barriers. Anything else that I might accomplish was just a bonus.
When I arrived in Baltimore, I learned that a different approach was required. Dr. Marc Maurer was President of the National Federation of the Blind, and he hired me to work on educational programming. When I reported for my first day of work, he assigned me to put together a science program for the following summer.
I was taken aback by the assignment. Build a program from the ground up, without any other parameters or instructions? I thought, though I didn't voice any of the doubt I felt.
I think my fear of that challenge and my work to meet that challenge expose the important patterns of experience that can either limit or empower blind people. To understand my perspective, you need to know two important things about my childhood. The first is that I grew up not understanding that I was a blind person. I was legally blind, but I did not know any other blind people until I got to high school. By that time the pattern of faking it was well established for me. I had learned to pass with what little vision I had, and I was limited by the low expectations that others had for blind people.
The second thing to know is that my favorite toy when I was growing up was the LEGO brick. The more of them the better! It did not matter what color or shape or size the bricks were. If I had some LEGOs, I would build creations of all types (sometimes based on instructions, but often simply out of my imagination).
When the idea of building a STEM education program from the ground up was first presented to me, my initial reaction was to fall back into the pattern of low expectations that had been my experience during my childhood. As a blind person in America's educational system, I was not expected to build things from scratch. Rather, I was expected to follow the predefined and very limiting template often specialized for blind children. My experience in science was not very experiential at all. In fact, on the few occasions when I was expected to do anything in the lab, I was assigned to take notes. In my career as an educational administrator, I had focused on eliminating barriers in the existing system. I had not gone beyond the system I knew to imagine a better system and build it from the ground up.
When it comes to the science programs we built for the summer of 2004, I have slightly exaggerated the situation. Although I was expected to build something from the ground up, I had some instructions. I had become a member of the National Federation of the Blind almost a decade earlier, and I had learned the pattern of thought and action that exemplifies active participation in our organization. I had learned that many of the barriers we face as blind people are artificial, based on misconceptions about blindness and an expectation that the blind cannot participate fully. I had also learned about the structured discovery method of teaching and learning and the history of blind people testing and refining techniques based on their own lived experience. I knew that I had access to a committed, resourceful, and progress-oriented core of people who were ready to help--the members of the National Federation of the Blind.
The work of our 2004 science programs has been covered extensively in Future Reflections, so I will not go into detail here. We continue to use the general technique we developed to design and implement those early programs. In 2004 we tried to think about all of the things in science education to which we, as blind people, typically have not had access. Then we set out to build a program where blind people could do as many of those things as we could fit into the time frame, all under the direction of blind mentors.
My favorite example is dissection. We gathered some of the best blind educators together and discovered that not one of them had ever done a dissection independently. We built a new pattern of experience by teaching ourselves as blind educators how to do dissections. We cut up a lot of dogfish sharks that summer, and we established a pattern that has ripple effects today.
For more than a decade, we have continued to build a pattern of experience in educational programs through the National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute, and we are still seeking ways to expand the opportunities. The pattern of high expectations and authentic experience continues to shape our work. As we build new programs, we find that there are even more new patterns to create. That is where the LEGOs come into play.
I have had countless experiences building with LEGOs, as a child and now as a parent. Therefore, I was shocked by an encounter with a group of students at one of our National Federation of the Blind science programs in 2011. I observed a group of blind high school students who had never had the opportunity to build with LEGOs. They were bright, young people who were working on some pretty complex science projects, but they had never built with LEGOs before. The patterns of building were a complete mystery to them. Had someone always assumed vision was required? Had they been daunted by the fact that they could not see the visual instructions? What other spatial concepts might we improve by teaching building concepts with LEGOs? These and many more questions ran through my head.
We need to create opportunities for our blind children to learn to build with LEGOs. We must let them experiment and try things. Next we should give them the experience of building based on instructions, turning visual instructions into words. If they are written down, the words will build literacy skills; they will build listening skills if they are presented orally. I suspect that the experience of following instructions will also help blind youth build mental maps, a skill that is useful in independent travel. We can further enhance the learning by having blind children build things and communicate verbal or written instructions to others. We can build useful skills in our blind children and, at the same time, build a library of written LEGO instructions for actual and imagined LEGO sets.
In the National Federation of the Blind, we are working on building a new resource, a body of written LEGO instructions that does not depend on pictures. In the meantime, encourage your children and students to experience building and establishing a common language to describe various LEGO pieces. I am working on these concepts with my two young daughters who are blind, and we are having a lot of fun in the process. The experience of building will help them better understand spatial relationships, and the patterns will help them imagine new things to build.
One of the wonderful things about LEGOs is that even if a structure is built incorrectly, you can always rebuild it. LEGOs are a good example of the visual bias that creates low expectations for blind people. Perfectly matching the colors of the LEGO bricks or following visually based directions should not be determining factors in becoming a master builder. The ability to learn the patterns, the opportunity to experience building through hands-on exploration, and the development of communication skills to understand and express building concepts are far more important. I encourage you to join me in creating a LEGO revolution for the blind. Please share your ideas about building with LEGOs without vision. Let me know your tips and tricks and what we might do together to build new opportunities for the next generation of blind LEGO builders. Join with me because, to quote the great builders from the LEGO movie, "Everything is awesome when you are part of a team."
When I think back on the dozens of educational programs we have built in science, technology, engineering, and math for blind students, the critical ingredient is the pattern of exploration and creativity. We always expect blind youth to learn through active exploration, and we present students with opportunities to apply skills through their own creativity. All too often, blind children are permitted a limited range of activities in scientific studies, based on low expectations and a lack of creativity on the part of instructors. While many blind students still experience these limits, the good news is that our work in the National Federation of the Blind has dramatically changed the pattern. More blind people are equipped with the skills to pursue their interests in science. More educators understand how actively to engage their blind students in scientific subjects. Many more examples of successful blind role models and resources in scientific subjects exist to inspire and educate parents and teachers of blind children.
As an educator and a parent, I firmly believe that parents of blind children are in the best position to create the pattern of exploration and creativity that is essential for success in science. As a parent, you can encourage your blind child to build with LEGOs. You can give your child opportunities to gain experience through touch (something that is far too often discouraged today). You can create opportunities for your child to experiment and learn through trial and error. As you nurture exploration, you will help to build a pattern of experience that will be a great asset to your child in the future.
by Marilyn Winograd and Lillian Rankel
From the Editor: Marilyn Winograd, a teacher of the visually impaired, and Dr. Lillian Rankel, a science teacher, work together to share techniques and strategies for including students who are blind or have low vision in all aspects of science education. They have given presentations to teachers of the visually impaired and parents of blind children across the country, and they have led hands-on workshops with children of all ages and abilities. Their book Out Of Sight Science Experiments, published in Braille and large print by National Braille Press, contains thirty-two step-by-step experiments for blind children to conduct at home or as part of a science fair project. They have also co-authored numerous articles on adapting chemistry lessons and labs for blind students. More information about their work can be found at <www.sciencefortheblind.com>.
A two-year-old doing STEM activities? It is never too early to introduce children to science, technology, engineering, and math. By giving them subject-oriented materials for hands-on exploration, blind and low-vision children can be exposed to and have fun with STEM at an early age. Similar activities can be introduced and differentiated for children of other ages and abilities. Exposure to STEM at an early age will lead to integration and success in future classes and careers. We need to emphasize science, technology, engineering, and math to ensure that our children are prepared for college and the careers of tomorrow.
Simple hands-on STEM activities can be carried out with materials found around the house. STEM activities can be fun for the whole family and can translate into life skills as well. Simple STEM activities can be carried out by the time a child is two years old. For example, pouring water from one container into two containers, sopping up water with a sponge and squeezing it out, running toy cars down a ramp, or holding an ice cube while it melts and becomes liquid water are just a few STEM activities that are fun for young children. When children explore STEM activities at an early age, they learn that science, technology, engineering, and math can be interesting and fun play. This positive attitude can lead to academic success and potential careers later on.
In this simple experiment, you will lift a floating ice cube with a string and a bit of table salt. Soak the string in the water and lay it on top of the ice cube. Sprinkle some salt on the string where it touches the ice cube's surface. Wait for about a minute and lift the ice cube out of the water with the string, which is now frozen to the ice.
The salt melted the ice cube where the string touched it. Then the cold ice cube froze the water again, freezing the string to the ice cube.
Can you lift two ice cubes at the same time with one piece of string?
Fill a large bowl or pan with four inches of water. Take a six-by-six-inch piece of aluminum foil and shape it to form a boat. Float the foil boat on the water. Add pennies one at a time until the boat sinks.
Use a new piece of foil the same size and redesign the boat to hold more pennies. For a challenge try to make a three-by-three-inch boat and find out how many pennies it can hold and stay afloat. Have paper towels handy to mop up spills.
Can you guess what is in a plastic egg without opening it? Use some plastic Easter eggs that open up and have holes at the bottom. Put a pinch of spice or a fruit or vegetable piece in each egg and snap it closed. Onion, orange, cinnamon, coffee, peppermint, garlic, basil, lemon, and banana are some good choices. Try to identify each smell by sniffing at the holes in the plastic eggs.
Another activity is to put each fruit or vegetable in two eggs. Then match the smells in a group of eggs.
Using a bowl filled with six inches of water is a good way to test what floats or sinks. Find random objects around the house such as sticks, plastic spoons, stones, toy cars, blocks, pencils, and crayons. Examine each item and predict whether it will float or sink.
Now test your predictions. One by one drop each object into the bowl and observe whether it floats on top of the water or sinks to the bottom.
All you need is some Jello powder (with sugar), an empty three-ounce plastic cup, a drinking straw, a three-ounce cup half filled with water, and a spoon.
Put two spoonfuls of Jello powder into the bottom of the empty plastic cup. Dip the straw into the cup of water until the straw touches the bottom of the cup. Put your finger over the top of the straw to keep the water in the straw. Now hold the straw containing the water over the center of the cup containing the Jello powder. Release your finger so the water falls onto the powder. Wait a minute and then reach in and pick up your gumdrop! (A prefilled medicine dropper with six to eight drops can be used instead of a straw.)
First you will need a fishing pole. Use a popsicle stick or dowel six to eight inches long. Hang a doughnut-shaped magnet from a string attached to one end. Cut fish shapes from sheets of cardboard, index cards, or paper plates. Place a paper clip by each fish's mouth. You can put a Braille or large print number on each of the fish. For a fish pond, use a plastic or aluminum pan, shallow box, or large bowl.
Now it's time to go fishing. Drop the magnets into the fish pond. Catch the fish by picking them up when the magnets stick to the paper clips.
You can put the fish in numerical order or make addition and subtraction problems with the numbers on the fish that are caught. Fish with a partner and add up the numbers on the fish you each catch. The one with the highest total wins!
For an alternative way to play this game, when initially making the fish, cut them in different sizes. The one who catches the biggest fish is the winner.
Cut a navel orange into quarters. You will also need a small pail or a large bowl filled with water and a work tray to catch water that may spill or splash. Predict what you think will happen, and then try it out.
Place an orange slice, with the peel on, in the pail of water. Does the orange slice float or sink?
Now take the orange slice out of the water and peel off the skin. Again, predict what will happen. Put the slice back into the water. Does it float or sink?
Place the orange peel in the water. Does the peel float or sink?
You just found out that the orange peel acts as a life jacket for the orange. The peel has tiny air bubbles in it that help it float. The orange segment sinks without its peel, or life jacket, because it is heavier than water.
Get a strong magnet and walk through your house, trying to find objects that will attract it. Will the magnet work through water? Will it work through paper? Will it work through cardboard or plastic? Will it be attracted to parts of your shoes?
Sound is energy that is made by vibrations. We easily can explore making different sounds. Gather items such as a wire hanger, metal spatula, and metal silverware of assorted sizes. Tie a piece of string to each item.
Have your child hold each item by the string. Tap each one with a ruler. Listen to the sound each item makes.
Touch the item hanging from the string when it is making a sound and feel the vibration. Attach a string to a coat hanger and wrap each end around a finger. Place your fingers in your ears. Then tap the coat hanger against a desk to hear the sound conduction through your fingers into your ears.
We can make carbon dioxide, the gas found in soda and our atmosphere. To start, get a one-quart Ziploc bag. Put two tablespoons of water into the bag, being careful to keep the zipper dry.
Zip the bag halfway closed. Drop two Alka-Seltzer tablets into the bag of water and quickly zip it closed. Shake the bag gently to wet the Alka-Seltzer tablets. Feel the tablets dissolving through the plastic bag.
Place the plastic bag near your ear and listen to the bubbling sizzle of gas as it forms. Feel the bag puffing up like a pillow as the gas is released.
Dissolving means that a substance breaks apart into very small particles and spreads out evenly throughout the water. Use a few plastic cups filled halfway up with water and gather some things to test for dissolving. Sugar, salt, sand, cookies, string, cereal, candy, and a powdered drink are some things to try.
Make some predictions about what will dissolve and start testing. Put a spoonful of salt into a half-filled cup of water. Stir with your fingers to feel whether the gritty salt is dissolving. Stir for a few minutes to give the salt a chance to dissolve. Has the salt disappeared?
Try some other substances. Does hot water dissolve things faster or more slowly than cold water?
How do we prepare students to think and work in a global environment? This process will not happen overnight. It begins with effective exposure, at an early age, to STEM instruction. Providing children with inquiry-based experiences in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics is the key to unlocking the world around them. Many foundational skills are taught and mastered during the early years. Through STEM integration, children gain exposure to and experience in many areas:
STEM activities encourage thinking, problem solving, observation, and a sense of exploration. Young students will not only master required skills; they will be able to unlock the doors before them and enter our global environment, proficient and prepared.
by Geerat J. Vermeij
From the Editor: Dr. Geerat Vermeij is a world-renowned scientist who specializes in shells. In 1992 he was honored with a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship. He is deeply committed to encouraging blind youth to pursue careers in the sciences. In this article he describes the early influences that led to his passion for scientific study.
From the time I was a young, totally blind boy, science has been at the center of my life. How did this happen? Would not blindness automatically preclude a scientific education, much less a career in research and teaching in biology and the earth sciences at major universities?
The field of statistics tells us that unlikely things occasionally happen, and that many unusual circumstances must coalesce to turn a dreamy hope into reality. In my case one exceptional circumstance stands out. My parents not only awakened and nurtured my burning curiosity about nature and how the world works; they also enabled me to transform that fascination into a deeply satisfying career as a scholar. What did they do right?
Before I answer that question, a brief introduction to what I do in my chosen fields is in order. I describe myself as an evolutionary biologist/paleobiologist. I am a scientist who studies, teaches, and writes about living and fossil animals and plants. By conducting studies at field sites and in museums all over the world, I ask how natural selection has shaped not only individual organisms but whole ecosystems over the course of Earth's tumultuous history. How have plants and animals and their enemies adapted to each other at various times and in contrasting environments, from the poles to the equator, from rainforests to the deep sea, and from coral reefs to freshwater streams? What causes extinction, and what are its consequences? How do the economic processes that govern human affairs and the evolution of life overcome historical limitations?
Although most of my work has concentrated on the shells of molluscs--clams, snails, and their relatives--I have also delved into the study of plants, crabs, fishes, large marine mammals, economics, the geography of life, and the human influence on Earth's biosphere. So far, this work has resulted in the publication of six books and close to 250 scientific papers. I have taught continuously for forty-five years, first at the University of Maryland, College Park; and for the past twenty-seven years at the University of California, Davis. As part of my duties, I review numerous scientific papers written by others, edit scientific journals, direct research by graduate students, and engage in public service by delivering lectures and getting involved in the affairs of major museums here and abroad. The only duty expected of a professor that I have managed largely to avoid is administration, for which I have little talent and less patience.
To prepare for this academic life, I took rigorous courses in physics, chemistry, mathematics (up through differential equations), languages (German and French, with Spanish picked up during my travels), and of course biology and geology. I continue to read compulsively in many fields, and I add daily to my vast Braille library of notes on all the tens of thousands of scientific publications I have read to date. In addition, I maintain a large research collection in which all specimens (the majority collected by me) bear detailed Braille labels.
No one does this work in a vacuum. Such intangibles as curiosity, creativity, a strong work ethic, an exploratory and questioning frame of mind, and the objectivity that the scientific way of knowing demands, do not come out of nowhere. They must be kindled, encouraged, and molded. Teachers--and I have had some outstanding ones at every level of my education--obviously have a profound influence on the process of fostering passion and developing it into a life's work. But parents and other family members, with whom a child spends more time than with anyone else, wield the greatest influence. They instill the qualities that are essential to success in life, including a life in science.
I spent the first nine years of my life in The Netherlands. I entered my first boarding school for the blind before I turned four. I lived in a modest flat in Gouda with my parents and older brother, Arie. Our close-knit family was never financially rich, but we were rich in every other way. As soon as I learned Braille at the age of four, my parents and brother also mastered writing Braille with the slate and stylus. Each member of the family began transcribing books. My father and brother became adept at making illustrations and maps in relief by pressing a stylus on a sheet of Braille paper laid across a piece of window screen tacked on plywood.
From the very beginning, my parents had me examine anything and everything by touch. My father, who had trained in horticulture (although he never worked in the field professionally), was very knowledgeable about plants, and he was a keen observer of nature. We took frequent outings by bicycle to the surrounding polders, tracts of land reclaimed from the sea. There we spent hours exploring ditches, picking flowers, and listening to birds. On warm summer days we rode to the beach at Scheveningen, where I gathered my first shells. At home I spent hours carefully examining the shells I collected, as well as the pinecones, acorns, and stones I had accumulated at school. Things that I could not experience directly were continually described to me in the strong belief that the world, in all its variety, was there to be observed, enjoyed, and understood.
Our move to rural New Jersey opened up an entirely new realm of nature to be explored. The extraordinary contrast with the tame landscapes of The Netherlands awakened in me the beginnings of a scientific perspective. I began to ask questions of nature, and at age ten I started a serious shell collection.
My parents enthusiastically encouraged my budding passion. They read and copied more books, built primitive cabinets out of old wooden crates to house my growing collection, and continued to act as twenty-four-hour tour guides. Arie and I cultivated plants in pots to measure how fast they grew, and together we read about the sea and about faraway places. Our reading stimulated a fascination with geography that we share to this day. My mother spent countless hours reading to me about nature, and later she read about technical subjects she knew nothing about.
If my parents and teachers had any doubts about where this growing scientific interest would lead, they never expressed them to me. On the contrary, they greeted this all-important period in my development with unadulterated enthusiasm and encouragement. Everyone in the family was fully engaged in the pleasures of exploration, discovery, and learning.
What can we glean from these particulars? It is, of course, difficult to generalize from one child's formative years, but some points seem to stand out. Most importantly, perhaps, my parents strongly encouraged curiosity, observation, and sustained attention, three of the necessary qualities for success in science. My family was unaffected by religious dogma, and intellectual inquiry was expected as a matter of course.
My parents possessed a desire to see me and Arie succeed at whatever we wished to do. They did not push us toward any particular career. In fact, my parents likely had little inkling of what a scientific career would look like. I suspect they gave the matter little thought, believing instead that something would work out as long as we put our minds to it. My teachers echoed this freewheeling attitude, though they might have thought to themselves that my passions for shells and science were passing fancies.
To distill these ideas, I wish to make the following eight suggestions to parents and teachers of blind children with an aptitude for and interest in science:
None of this advice is easy to follow. Much depends on the disposition of both the parents and the child. My experience as a professor has convinced me that it is difficult to instill enthusiasm for a given topic, and sometimes the effort is unsuccessful. On the other hand, when one does succeed, it is immensely satisfying for all concerned. There is nothing quite like the thrill of insight, the pride in seeing another individual grow and develop into a thoughtful and enterprising scholar, and the satisfaction of contributing a scientifically literate person to society.
Some people might argue that curiosity and the ability to observe come naturally to children. Perhaps they do, but if so, these qualities are easily squashed and often left undeveloped. In my experience, observation is a skill to be honed and nurtured. Curiosity must be coupled with diligence, objectivity, and an inquisitive disposition if it is to flower into organized inquiry. Science is a method, a way of describing and explaining phenomena; it is a discipline, a habit of mind that involves exploration, recognition of regularities, objective testing of possible explanations, an ability to put seemingly unrelated facts together, and the courage to try things and to take risks without a guarantee of success. The development of this scientific worldview demands sustained attention and reinforcement by parents and teachers in an environment where the pleasure of discovery and insight remains uppermost.
These points apply, of course, to both sighted and blind children and their mentors. However, the challenges are especially daunting for the blind. Parents are apt to overprotect their blind offspring and to be unaware that the sensory world of their blind children is different from their own. The most important thing that parents of blind children can do is to provide experiences and to bring the unseen world into the child's awareness through description and touch, reading and doing.
by Joshua Miele
From the Editor: Dr. Joshua Miele has been innovating in the area of blindness accessibility for over twenty-five years. He has made significant contributions to screen readers, auditory displays, audio/tactile maps and graphics, wayfinding, Braille input, and video description. His work has yielded a number of accessibility products that use low-cost, off-the-shelf technologies to address significant challenges in access to information. Dr. Miele directs the Description Research and Innovation Lab at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in San Francisco, California.
As I look back on growing up as a blind kid in the 1970s and 1980s, I think the greatest gift my parents gave me was the freedom to explore, experiment, and even fail. I was never told that I shouldn't try something, build something, or participate in an activity because "blind people can't do that." Instead, my parents helped me think through the obvious challenges in any given project or activity and identify strategies to meet those challenges. Consciously or not, they realized that their role was to support me as I learned to deal with barriers rather than to shield me from them, or, worse still, add to them through misguided overprotection.
Although the term was not invented until I was over thirty, I have always been a maker. The kind of support my parents gave me resonates beautifully with the aesthetics of the maker movement today. The modern maker movement combines hands-on learning with communal adventure, blending arts, crafts, chemistry, technology, cuisine, and culture with sustainability, inclusion, and social justice. The importance of trying something new is valued more highly than success, and the idea of creative problem solving is at the movement's very heart.
The maker movement is three parts creativity, two parts science, and one part rebellion. Cool gadgets are usually involved--quirky, whimsical, brilliant, beautiful, unique gadgets that embody a spirit of experiential learning difficult to domesticate for the traditional classroom. Makers live by the idea that making something yourself is fulfilling and educational, providing the individual and the community with the benefit of the product as well as the collective experience of creation.
From a very young age I was interested in what we now call STEM--science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Technology has always fascinated me--gadgets, machines, engines, rockets, electronics, you name it. If it moved, made noise, or turned on, I was interested. Even better was when it didn't do those things. That meant it was broken, and it was fair game to be taken apart and explored. I loved taking things apart to see what made them work. In elementary school I acquired a reputation. Friends and family often brought me their broken clocks, radios, motors, and toasters to be disassembled and sometimes even understood. To be completely honest, I must admit that some of the things I took apart were not broken to begin with. Occasionally I was even successful in putting them back together.
My mother has no particular background in STEM, but she understood and supported my passion for gadgets. She also understood that helping me take my interests in a more constructive direction would extend the life expectancy of our remaining household appliances. My preteen birthdays became kit rich. My gifts included chemistry sets, model rockets, Heathkits, windmills, gliders, and steam engines.
The problem was that all these kits came with printed instructions--instructions that I couldn't read independently. My mother was willing to read them to me, but she was usually busy. My projects were rarely as prioritized for her as they were for me. Often I went through the kits without benefit of instructions, figuring out how they worked through a combination of inference and trial and error. Sometimes my strategy worked, particularly with models. In fact, I often fall back on this technique when I assemble IKEA furniture today.
While guesswork occasionally got me through the models, it never worked with the electronics. The circuit boards lacked any tactile indicators, and without an accessible volt meter or continuity tester (standard pieces of electronics test equipment) I had no way to distinguish one resistor or capacitor from another. When she had time, my mother gamely read me the instructions and identified the parts for doorbells, burglar alarms, and radios. However, her lack of expertise, combined with my lack of patience, made the work unrewarding for both of us. Had I been able to read the printed instructions and explanations independently, I would have gotten much more out of the experience.
Unknown to me, a continent away, a blind electrical engineer in San Francisco named Bill Gerrey was publishing a Braille magazine filled with instructions on projects and techniques for a widespread community of blind electronics enthusiasts. The Smith-Kettlewell Technical File offered step-by-step instructions on how to build the accessible test equipment that I lacked. In addition it offered tutorials and recommendations on nonvisual approaches to circuit design and soldering. The do-it-yourself projects published in The Technical File did not include circuit diagrams. Instead they used highly standardized verbal circuit descriptions that allowed blind readers to assemble electronics projects independently. Had I connected with this pre-maker community of blind electronics hobbyists, ham radio operators, and other technical professionals, I very well might have pursued my preteen dream of becoming an electrical engineer.
As I grew older, my focus shifted from engineering to math and physics. With the use of Braille, it was easy for me to pursue these interests independently. It wasn't until years later, as a college student at UC/Berkeley, that I returned to building circuits. As a requirement of my physics major, I needed to take an electronics lab class in which we would build and experiment with semiconductor circuits. When a friend recommended I get in touch with Bill Gerrey to find out about accessible test equipment, I quickly realized I had struck a jackpot of information.
Over the next few months I spent many hours with Bill and his colleague Tom Fowle in their electronics lab at Smith-Kettlewell in San Francisco. The lab was an amazing place where I eventually became a research scientist after I earned my PhD. Bill and Tom patiently taught me far more than I needed to know for my class. They instructed me on many of the techniques of blind soldering and circuit design, and they helped me build some of the accessible test equipment documented in The Technical File.
One of the most interesting things I learned from Bill and Tom was not about technology, but about history. I found out that we belonged to a long line of blind scientists, engineers, and inventors. From physics to biology, from telegraph to radio, recording, computing, and more, blind people have made significant contributions to science, technology, and accessibility for centuries. Long before anyone had heard of accessible instructional materials, determined blind people found ways to access the information they needed in order to pursue their interests and make significant contributions.
Blind people also have a history of sharing information and supporting one another professionally through guilds, societies, and apprenticeships. Before there was a maker movement, blind people were using their ingenuity to invent and build the tools and systems they needed in order to gain access to information. After all, what was Louis Braille but an early blind maker? With the rise of accessible writing systems in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, information was increasingly exchanged among blind people in our own accessible publications. The Smith-Kettlewell Technical File was an amazing example of mutual support, solving technology access challenges based on a deep knowledge of electronics and our unique needs as blind people.
Bill Gerrey's magazine was not the first. In the 1950s and 1960s, The Braille Technical Press, published by Robert Gunderson at the New York Institute for the Blind, reached a global subscribership of hundreds of blind ham-radio operators. Ham radio is a hobby still disproportionately followed by blind people. The technique of accessible circuit description, pioneered in Gunderson's magazine, originated with hams who needed to use Morse code to communicate circuit designs over the air.
I regret that I did not find these blind communities until I reached adulthood. When I think of all the time I spent struggling with the printed documentation of Heathkit projects, I wish I had known about Bill Gerrey, The Technical File, and circuit descriptions. I grew up at a time before the World Wide Web and Google. Finding obscure resources required dedicated correspondence by snail-mail, strings of fruitless phone calls, and the luck of asking the right question of the right acquaintance at the right moment. Information trickled lazily, coming to some places and not to others, rather than flowing freely everywhere equally all at once. As is true in the sighted world, specialized blind communities have replaced paper publications with websites, blogs, listservs, Google Groups, Twitter feeds, and podcasts. Today it is infinitely easier for us to find each other, exchange information, and offer support.
Just as our communication tools have evolved, so have the electronics available to hobbyists and professionals. The modern maker movement, with its sexy 3D printers, laser cutters, and high-stakes robotics competitions, benefits from tools that would have been unimaginable to my childhood self. When I was a kid, building electronics meant designing custom circuits for every purpose and soldering every transistor and capacitor by hand. Miniaturization, globalization, and modern manufacturing have revolutionized integrated circuits, making complex components, microprocessors, and sensors readily available to the modern maker at very low cost. Along with the lowered cost and increased access to parts comes the ease of assembly. Using only a small number of off-the-shelf components and a handful of standard plugs and wires, it is now possible to build extremely sophisticated interactive devices that use techniques such as computer vision, deep learning, and internet connectivity to work wonders of automation. A sixth-grade maker with forty dollars and a few hours to kill can now build devices that, in 1980, would have required a team of professionals, millions of dollars, and years of dedicated effort.
Arduino is one of the most popular open-source microprocessor platforms used by robotics hobbyists and digital makers today. Simply by connecting this small, inexpensive circuit board to an array of sensors and motors and giving it a few programming instructions from a PC, the casual maker can build toy robots, drones, weather stations, and much more. Not only is it possible to build impressively powerful devices with Arduino, but it is extremely simple. Arduino can be used by elementary-school students almost as readily as by adults with degrees in electrical engineering. It is used in virtually all robotics classes and clubs aimed at increasing interest in STEM among a diverse population of students in the US. In fact, hands-on experience with Arduino and similar electronics platforms in collaborative maker spaces has been shown to improve STEM-related outcomes for students from groups traditionally underrepresented in technical fields.
Unfortunately, blind kids are not yet prevalent among these students. Despite decades of technological advancements and an increasing consciousness about diversity and accessibility, barriers to blind people working with Arduino and electronics still remain, and blind people are not yet an intrinsic part of the maker movement. The Arduino development environment is challenging, though not impossible, to use with a screen reader. In addition, the web-based instructions for the vast majority of Arduino projects published by sighted makers from all over the world make heavy use of undescribed images of the wiring of the project, much like the inaccessible documentation from the electronics kits of my youth. Luckily, wiring can often be inferred from reading the software that drives the Arduino project.
The greatest barrier blind innovators face is the attitude of unimaginative sighted teachers and coaches, who often assume that sight is necessary for the wiring of Arduino projects. In my experience, wiring is no harder for blind makers than it is for sighted ones. It is not that blind people can't use Arduino--they definitely can. Rather, there is a need to provide adaptive tutorials and lesson plans, as well as programming tools and project documentation that is accessible to blind makers. Blind people can use Arduino. However, without support, sighted parents and robotics coaches are unlikely to find the right combination of tools and work-arounds to help young blind makers become independent Arduino developers.
In response to this need, some colleagues and I have created the Blind Arduino Project. The project is a grassroots effort supported by Smith-Kettlewell and the San Francisco Lighthouse for the Blind, two organizations with a long history of supporting blind people in STEM careers. The Blind Arduino Project is a new community of blind and sighted makers whose mission is to collect and write documentation and other resources, helping blind kids and adults to benefit from the hands-on maker culture of easy and fun electronics. We want blind kids to join robotics teams and hang out in maker spaces. We want them to learn to build and code and innovate, finding fascination and fulfillment in the STEM majors and lucrative careers that build on those foundations.
The Blind Arduino Project balances on the shoulders of blind giants such as Bill Gerrey and Robert Gunderson, using modern communication media to publish information about tools and techniques by which blind makers can gain access to Arduino and its documentation. This natural outgrowth of earlier blind how-to publications such as The Technical File and The Braille Technical Press supports blind makers in building cool gadgets. It helps to engage blind people with the energy and creativity of the mainstream maker movement.
The Blind Arduino Project also aims to document, with good old-fashioned verbal description, a number of projects that might be of particular interest to blind makers. Like Gerrey and Gunderson, we want to design and publish accessible test equipment, equipment that benefits from the simpler and more flexible Arduino platform. For example, using Arduino to build a talking volt meter would be much simpler than following the instructions published by Bill Gerrey in The Technical File thirty years ago. Similarly, it would be relatively straightforward to publish accessible designs for scales, thermometers, barometers, obstacle detectors, Braille embossers, and many other devices that are prohibitively expensive or unavailable commercially. We want blind people to be able to build the things they need in order to do the things they want to do.
The strategies my parents employed to support and strengthen my skills are identical to those that underlie the maker movement in its quest for creativity and collaborative hands-on learning. With access to the right resources, the strategies that build STEM foundations for our nation's diverse sighted kids will nurture STEM learning for blind kids as well. Encouraged by supportive parents and teachers to try, to experiment, to build, and sometimes to fail, blind kids have a vital part to play in the mainstream maker movement.
Blind people have always been makers, adept at using the technology at hand to solve the accessibility problems we face. From Talking Books to the Optacon and Braille itself, we have a long history of creative problem solving, with a dose of ingenuity and presumption on the side. But we rarely do it alone. Encouraged and supported by blind and sighted parents, teachers, and mentors, we draw strength and confidence to succeed from the communities that surround us, helping us strategize around the barriers that inevitably appear in our path.
The Blind Arduino Project is just such a community, and it is growing. The ultimate goal is not to keep to ourselves, building blind stuff with blind people, but to join the sighted makers in their hack spaces and 3D printing labs, and to invite them into our spaces as well. The potential of merging a growing blind maker community with the mainstream maker movement cannot be overstated. The Blind Arduino Project is our gentle nudge in the right direction--the integration of smart, creative, STEM-savvy blind kids and adults into an explosive mainstream community using amazing technology in novel ways for everyone's benefit. Who wouldn't want to be part of that?
by Matthew Shifrin
From the Editor: As NFB President Mark Riccobono has pointed out, LEGO is not only an engaging children's toy, but a tool for developing spatial awareness and engineering skills. (See the feature article in this issue of Future Reflections.) Matthew Shifrin, a blind high school senior from Massachusetts, is a LEGO aficionado. In this article he explains how he and a sighted friend developed verbal instructions to make LEGO fully accessible to blind builders.
It was the morning of my thirteenth birthday, and I was filled with the usual birthday excitement. I was most eager to see my friend Lilya.
Lilya, a family friend, could adapt just about anything. It was her philosophy that I, as a blind person, should have equal access to everything that my sighted peers had. On my birthday morning she arrived toting a large cardboard box and a binder. The box was labeled, "LEGO Battle of Almut, 841 pieces." The binder contained a set of Brailled instructions.
The gift caught me totally by surprise. I didn't think that, as a blind person, I'd ever be able to follow the instructions to build the creations depicted on the LEGO box without the help of a sighted person. But I was wrong.
My first encounter with LEGO came when I was four years old. My parents bought me a Duplo train. Duplo is the larger and more child-friendly brother of LEGO. I had great fun rearranging the cars, stacking them, and connecting the people and freight pieces in various ways.
My introduction to real LEGO came a year later. One day when I was five, Lilya was driving me home from a music lesson when suddenly she pulled over, stopped the car, and got out. A few seconds later she returned with something big and heavy creaking in her arms.
"Look what someone left on their sidewalk!" she said. "It has a 'Free' sign on it."
I opened the box and reached inside. It was filled to the brim with LEGO pieces. That box on the sidewalk began my love affair with LEGO.
I have always enjoyed touching things to get an idea of my surroundings, and I love to manipulate objects. LEGO proved to be the ultimate manipulative. I could sit for hours with a tray of LEGO pieces, sorting them and mixing them together. Above all I loved to build structures that were always new, always original, and always completely my own.
However, I knew I was not up to building real LEGO sets by myself. When my dad had free time, we'd sit down and build together. Dad would tell me which piece we needed, and I'd search until I found it. Then he would tell me where it was supposed to go. Little by little a structure would take shape.
It was a fun process, but it was incredibly time-consuming. Since my dad was often busy, sets tended to remain unfinished. Eventually I would take a few LEGO people out of the set and dump the rest into the LEGO bin for building my own creations.
As I grew older, I saw more and more of my friends having fun with LEGO. They followed intricate instructions, and independently they built X-wing starfighters from Star Wars and the Hogwarts Castle from Harry Potter. Meanwhile, I was left behind with my own imagination. Once in a while my father and I built small LEGO action figures called Bionicles, but we never had time to build a large LEGO set. I drooled over large LEGO sets on the internet, never thinking that I'd be able to build them myself.
Lilya could make just about anything accessible for the blind. Making things accessible was a challenge she enjoyed, but LEGO was different. It was impossible to Braille the blueprints. The instruction manuals had no words, and they were too complicated to be turned into raised-line drawings. Building a model required so many steps that I couldn't copy them all. LEGO was the only thing that stubbornly resisted adaptation.
Or so I thought.
For my thirteenth birthday, Lilya had custom made instructions for the Battle of Almut, a Middle Eastern domed castle. How had she done it? Where did she find text-based instructions?
It turned out that she didn't find them--she created them! Lilya wrote out the instructions step by step, describing every blueprint, giving names to every kind of LEGO piece, figuring out the most logical sequence for a blind person to follow. She also sorted the LEGO pieces, putting the pieces necessary for each step into a Ziploc bag and labeling each bag in Braille.
Finally I was able to do something kids do all the time!
I knew I was too old for LEGO. I was thirteen, and most of my friends had stopped building at nine or ten. But I didn't care. LEGO is an excellent brain strain. It's a great way to improve spatial awareness and spatial reasoning--areas where blind people sometimes have trouble.
The text-based instructions are so complicated that it can be difficult for a sighted person to comprehend them. Try to figure out something like this sequence from Book 1 of the Lego Tower Bridge Set, No. 10214:
Key: F = flat.
FS = flat smooth.
Hor = horizontally.
Ver = vertically.
Symm = symmetrically.
PP = previous piece.
Number 1
Step 1. Put a F 32x16 hor on the table. It is blue and symbolizes the Thames.
Step 2. Put a 6x1 with side holes ver on the left edge, in the middle (skipping the front five rows).
Step 3. Repeat symm on the right.
Number 2
Step 1. Put a FS 4x2 hor to the left of the PP, in the middle (on the 8th and 9th rows).
Step 2. Put a 2x1 slide ver to the left, slide to the right.
Step 3. Repeat Steps 1-2 symm on the left.
Later sets were easier for Lilya; she realized she could type the instructions on the computer and email them to me. My screen reader took care of the rest, so there was no longer a need for her to Braille anything. Sometimes, though, there were difficulties. Sometimes Lilya made a mistake. More often I claimed she had made a mistake and then realized that I had misread her instructions. Some structures were so shaky that I needed another pair of hands to steady them until sections were connected ten steps later. For the life of me I couldn't figure out how to build a 1930s General Electric refrigerator. My only consolation was that the friend who finally put it together works as a watchmaker for Rolex--and it took him forty minutes!
Now, having described twenty LEGO sets, our jargon is clear and concise. The terms we use are similar to the piece names originally chosen by the LEGO Group. The instructions have grown shorter, and my fingers have grown more nimble.
I find that the most rewarding sets to build are Modular Buildings, which are LEGO-people-scale houses, shops, and fire stations. The buildings are realistic, and they include tons of interior detail. Couches, coffeemakers, and working elevators are all built from LEGO. As I build a set I develop a better sense of what a building looks like, how it is laid out and constructed. For blind people LEGO sets act as miniature 3D substitutes for real-life buildings in lieu of two-dimensional photographs.
LEGO allows me to see things that are impossible to explore by touch, such as the arches of a Middle Eastern palace or the towers of the Tower Bridge. I would like to get my instructions out to the blind community. I would like every blind person to be able to download the instructions, buy a set, have a sighted person sort the pieces, and feel on par with a sighted builder. I want every blind person to feel that the once impossible is now possible, that he or she now can build a miniature LEGO world.
Currently I have accessible instructions for the following LEGO sets (set numbers are in parentheses):
If you would like any of these accessible instructions, or if you would like to help make more LEGO sets accessible, please email me at [email protected].
by Cricket Bidleman, Dan Brown, and Mike Tomac
From the Editor: The challenges of helping a blind student participate fully in the laboratory may seem daunting. However, with determination and creativity, low-tech solutions sometimes can be found. In this article, a high school physics student and her teachers describe their invention of a simple tactile device for making accurate measurements to the hundredth of a centimeter. Cricket Bidleman is a high school junior in Morro Bay, California. Dan Brown worked with Cricket as a student teacher, and Mike Tomac is her teacher of AP physics. They wrote an earlier version of this article for publication in The Physics Teacher magazine. Their piece appeared in the May 2016 issue.
From the outset, we realized that our new student, Cricket, would be at a severe disadvantage in the physics laboratory. Blind since birth, she would be unable to make the measurements needed to get much meaningful lab data. All of the sighted students could use high-level vernier calipers. For Cricket, our only equipment was a plastic centimeter ruler with tactile divisions to the nearest centimeter, a gadget we had acquired on loan. For work in a scientific laboratory, this was of course unacceptable. There had to be a way to solve this problem.
Using the vernier scale concept, we decided to make a low-tech tactile caliper. The new caliper would ultimately end up having close to 100 times greater resolution than the plastic centimeter ruler, and it could be used quickly and easily by a totally blind student.
We used the tactile centimeter ruler as a fixed scale and clamped it onto the lab table. Then we clamped a scrap piece of doorstop molding at a perpendicular against the left end of the tactile fixed scale to serve as a stop. We used a carpenter’s square to make sure the two stayed perpendicular. Another piece of scrap molding served as a sliding vernier scale that would slide along the top edge of the ruler.
Using a wood burner, we carefully made ten tactile divisions in the wooden slider so that it matched up with nine of the centimeter divisions on the plastic fixed scale. The result, according to the theory of how a vernier scale works, would at this point give 10 times more resolution than the tactile centimeter ruler.
Cricket was a great help here. She enthusiastically placed an aluminum cube onto the centimeter ruler against the perpendicular stop. After feeling where the cube was on the ruler, she concluded that the cube was a tiny bit more than 3 centimeters in length. She then slid the tactile vernier slider against the cube. She felt the tactile divisions on the slider and found that the first division on the vernier slider happened to be the closest mark to match with any mark on the centimeter ruler. From this, she concluded that the cube was about 3.1 cm. To our amazement, her results compared favorably with student teacher Dan Brown’s measurements with a commercially made vernier caliper.
Inspired, we then decided we wanted more. We immediately attempted to make a second sliding vernier scale that would give us even greater resolution. We obtained another strip of scrap wood and used the wood burner to make ten divisions that would, in this case, match up with nine divisions of the first wooden slider, not with the centimeter ruler.
With the new device, any measurement would require two steps. In the first step, Cricket would place the item on the centimeter ruler and push the first slider against it. Then she would feel the tactile divisions of the first slider against the centimeter ruler’s divisions to get a first approximation to the tenths place.
The object would then be removed, and the first slider would be moved all the way to the stop. The object to be measured would then be placed along the top edge of the first slider between the second slider and the stop. Cricket would then feel which division on the second slider matched up with a mark on the first slider directly below it.
In the case of the aluminum cube Cricket measured, the fifth mark on the second slider was the closest match. This meant that this more accurate reading was 5 hundredth of a centimeter more than her earlier approximation of 3.1 cm, giving a final total measurement of 3.15 cm. Again we compared Cricket’s reading with the commercially made vernier caliper and again the results were in excellent agreement.
Here is a table showing a brief comparison between more of Cricket’s readings taken of different samples and our readings using a commercial Vernier caliper:
Wooden Tactile Device |
1.91 cm |
4.83 cm |
1.24 cm |
4.96 cm |
Commercial Vernier Caliper |
1.91 cm |
4.84 cm |
1.27 cm |
5.00 cm |
Not surprisingly, some of the measurements didn’t quite match up. Why? We found that some of the tactile divisions on the plastic centimeter ruler were slightly greater than one centimeter. It would not be difficult to make improvements on the device. Given more time, we could make the wood-burned divisions in the sliders more accurate, too. Those who have access to basic machine shop tools could easily make the tactile sliders from aluminum bar stock, making them extremely accurate.
When some of our sighted students saw Cricket using this homemade device, they wanted to try it for themselves. Some of them found that it was easier to use than the standard vernier calipers, which have such tiny divisions that they are difficult for most people to see. Maybe we’re onto something that could benefit all lab and shop students, both sighted and blind.
We invite you to make your own vernier tactile measuring tool. Maybe you can even make one that will measure to the ten-thousandth’s place, using four sliders.
by Cary Supalo
From the Editor: Dr. Cary Supalo has served as a research scientist in the department of chemistry at Purdue University since 2014. In the fall of 2016 he will be moving to the University of Northern Colorado, where he will teach courses on general chemistry and graduate level science education. He will also be starting a research group with a focus on developing methodologies for helping blind students study science.
As most readers of Future Reflections are well aware, obtaining textbooks in accessible formats can be a challenge at every grade level. By law, schools are required to provide accessible textbooks for blind students. However, for an assortment of reasons, this does not always happen. I wrote this article to share some nontraditional approaches to obtaining accessible textbooks. I believe these approaches may be useful to some blind students who are enrolled in science-related classes.
Throughout my college career I made extensive use of Learning Ally and Bookshare, both of which have large collections of accessible textbooks and other titles on the sciences. The Louis Braille database, hosted by the American Printing House for the Blind, was also a valuable resource. However, the titles available from these organizations were chiefly audiobooks or electronic books, and they did not give me access to charts, graphs, or illustrations.
In my STEM courses, I found that using an audiobook from Learning Ally in conjunction with a hard copy Braille book was ideal. The Nemeth code for Mathematics and Science Notation was the Braille system used in the United States to communicate technical content when I was in school. (Today some states have opted to use UEB Math as an alternative to Nemeth Code.) The hard copy Braille book included all of the properly illustrated equations using Nemeth Code. I found it very informative to read these equations in Braille. Many times as I advanced in my learning, I encountered new symbology in Nemeth Code that I had never before seen. Generally, the audiobook explained the symbology to me. I was able to learn through both listening and reading, a dual approach that was very helpful.
Of course, hardcopy Braille books often were not available as I worked with the audiobooks from Learning Ally. In a course such as organic chemistry, the books were laden with diagrams. Access to tactile graphics was essential for my successful comprehension of the course material.
My work-around solution was very innovative, but it required considerable planning and scheduling. When I was an undergraduate studying chemistry at Purdue University, I recruited an art student to work for me on a part-time basis. I gave her an ink-print version of my organic chemistry textbook along with a big pile of 11-by-11.5-inch Braille paper. I asked her to go through the book and draw the figures from each chapter. We started with Chapter One and worked our way through the whole book, creating each illustration on a separate page.
After my assistant completed the drawings for each chapter, we met for an hour or two. One by one I put each page into my Perkins Braillewriter, and my assistant showed me where to place Braille labels. We started with Figure 1.1, labeling the title of the illustration and its key atoms and other components. I trained the art student not to make the drawings to scale. Instead, I asked her to leave lots of space between the key attributes so I could put Braille labels on the pages.
When this stage was completed, my assistant took the images home and traced over the lines with a hot glue gun. Once the glue had dried, she put the illustrations into a three-ring notebook and added a Braille label on the spine, indicating which illustrations the notebook contained.
I used these tactile illustrations in conjunction with my audiobooks from Learning Ally. The audio descriptions of the organic chemical structures gave me context that I needed in order to comprehend the technical content.
Through this approach I successfully completed my undergraduate organic chemistry courses. This approach also may work in other areas of study that are presented in highly visual ways.
Later on, Purdue developed one of the first innovative Braille transcription facilities on any college campus in the United States. It operated under the premise that blind students should have access to the same materials sighted students received--textbooks, course handouts, and graphics. If it had not been for these scaffoldings I received from Purdue, I am not sure I would be practicing chemistry as my profession today.
I now gain access to scientific materials with human readers who make audio recordings of technical content. I train my readers to describe figures in the fashion that I require. I also teach them to read mathematical and technical content using Dr. Abraham Nemeth's "MathSpeak," a set of rules he published in 1995. The ability of a human reader to read mathematical equations in a nonambiguous manner is very important for me, and it is important for other blind students who are studying in STEM-related subject areas.
Due to the cost of technical materials in Braille, some schools are not ready or willing to provide them for blind students. I hope my work-arounds will be useful to students who are currently encountering these challenges. With an innovative can-do attitude, accessibility can be achieved.
by Barbara R. Heard
From the Editor: Barbara R. Heard is an assistant professor who has enjoyed teaching biology to students for fifteen years. This article includes information from her recent study evaluating the effectiveness of the specific accommodations that enable blind and low vision students to participate in the laboratory activities of college biology courses.
My eighty-year-old father thoroughly embraced the arrival of computers. In the late 1990s he managed his accounts and corresponded with family and friends online. My children giggled because he signed every instant message "Love, Grandpa," but we enjoyed keeping in touch daily at a time before text messaging.
Eventually my father began losing his vision to macular degeneration, a condition that severely worsened after he underwent open-heart surgery. We searched for ways to help him continue using the computer, but the technology wasn't advanced enough back then. We watched, frustrated, as something that had given him such pride, independence, and joy faded from his life.
That experience instilled in me an awareness of the importance of supportive technology for people with blindness and visual impairment, an awareness I carried into my career. I wondered how I would support blind and visually impaired students in my biology classes. After all, biology is a science in which students interpret graphs, identify microscopic images, streak agar plates with microorganisms, dissect worms, and determine the eye color of fruit flies. How could a blind student participate in those activities?
When I inquired whether our science department had ever supported a blind student, I learned that one student several years earlier had taken a chemistry class. No one knew of any other blind or visually impaired students who were completing courses in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) at the college.
Studying life excites and humbles me. I enjoy sharing my love of biology with my students. It was important to me to discover how to share that excitement with all students, sighted and blind. I researched specific accommodations for the science laboratory, the importance and benefits of active participation in laboratory activities for blind students, many new supportive technologies, and several criteria important to student learning. I discovered that no standards exist regarding the specific accommodations that should be provided (Moon, Todd, Morton, and Ivey, 2012), that college biology instructors have little experience teaching blind students (Womble and Walker, 2001), and, not surprisingly, that the number of blind individuals in the STEM professions is quite small (Moon et al., 2012; Supalo, 2010).
A few professors had written articles detailing their experiences supporting blind students in the college biology laboratory, including explanations of specific accommodations they had provided (Caldwell and Teagarden, 2007; Vollmer, 2012; Womble and Walker, 2001). Considering the limited number of studies evaluating the effectiveness of specific accommodations (Supalo, 2010), I was left questioning whether they were effective. Answering that question was critical, so I decided to evaluate their effectiveness by gathering the perceptions of those most closely involved: blind biology students and instructors who had taught them.
To locate potential participants for the study, I emailed the disability support services offices and biology instructors at 714 institutions of higher education across the United States. After eight weeks, five students and fifteen instructors had completed the surveys. The twenty students represented had disabilities that ranged from mild visual impairment to total blindness, and they were supported with a variety of specific accommodations.
Three of the students, including two who were totally blind, had no specific accommodations provided. However, most of the students had an aide to assist them; many commented that lab partners and groupmates were helpful. Some used computers in a laboratory setting. One student used a tablet to enlarge images. Other technologies included projecting microscopic images onto large screens or televisions, offering tactile models of cells, and using audible devices for measuring oxygen and carbon dioxide levels. Braille-labeled beakers and images, enlarged font sizes, and extensive descriptions were beneficial as well, which led to a realization: specific accommodations don't have to be technologically profound to be effective. "Some things just seemed really impossible for a blind person to do," said one student. "But every week I would come in and my instructor would be waiting for me, usually with half a craft store in tow. I learned about cells with tactile images made with puffy paint. I learned about gram stains with stickers and pipe cleaners, and I learned about genes with buttons and beads. I found out that pretty much any lab is possible to do. There is some creative way to make it make sense. You just have to have someone who is really patient to help you out."
Advance planning is key. Instructors recalled being unprepared to teach blind/visually impaired students and unaware of available technologies, making instructor professional development crucial. "I was making it up as I went, and I had no idea what technologies might be out there that could be helpful," said one professor who was teaching a totally blind student for the first time. Creativity and innovation are necessary when adapting existing teaching methods, but instructors need to prepare ahead of time. Universal instructional design urges us to incorporate methods for accommodating students as courses are developed rather than modifying them after the fact, and to ensure that all course materials are accessible.
Students in this study revealed how much they wanted to learn and actively participate in the laboratory activities. As an instructor observed, "She desperately wanted to participate in this class . . . [and] threw herself into the class with great enthusiasm." Instructors indicated their earnest endeavors to support the students, several explaining that they worked with the students outside of regular class time, with positive results. "I will never forget handing [my student] a sea anemone," said one professor. "Her response was, 'So THAT's where Nemo lived! I couldn't figure it out from the movie.'" A student with low vision remarked, "I was pleasantly surprised," and a totally blind student pronounced, "It was a great experience."
Perhaps the most moving account is one professor's story of a student's reaction to viewing microscopic images for the first time through an apparatus projecting images onto a television screen. "One day she was sitting in front of the television looking at a slide of a water weed that we always use to show cytoplasmic streaming, and I could see that she had a tear running down the side of her face. I asked her if she was okay, and she told me that she had heard other students describe what she was looking at in other biology laboratory courses, but she had never actually seen it herself. She was so excited that she spent the next two hours looking at everything she could find to put on a slide that she had always heard other students or instructors describe to her, but never seen."
Of the twenty students represented, seventeen were unable to participate actively in all of the required laboratory activities of their courses. Even though specific accommodations were provided for fifteen of those seventeen students, some activities proved prohibitive. Ongoing research is necessary, and improvements to specific accommodations are essential. Most of the students were able both to construct and interpret graphs, but skills that presented challenges for students included finding and identifying microscopic images; recording results requiring color interpretation; using Bunsen burners and/or hot plates; assisting in animal dissection; working with potentially harmful chemicals; pipetting, pouring, and measuring liquids; and taking notes and recording data without assistance. The study did not include all possible activities of a biology course, such as participating in fieldwork, inoculating agar plates with microorganisms, or interpreting a gel electrophoresis. With continued research, the goal is that we can develop specific accommodations for those activities that are currently prohibitive for many blind and visually impaired students.
This study is just the beginning. An instructor remarked, "Unfortunately some of the blind/visually impaired students I have instructed told me they were afraid to take a biology laboratory course because of how visual most of them tend to be." Yes, biology instruction is visually oriented, but it shouldn't be limited only to sighted individuals. A different, inclusive approach is necessary, one that enables blind and visually impaired students to use senses other than sight in order to learn. "At first I never imagined I could take any science course," wrote one blind student. This study revealed that blind and visually impaired students not only can take college biology courses; they can complete such courses successfully.
It is my hope that blind and visually impaired students will come to believe they can take any science course. Study participants supported that sentiment. An instructor wrote, "During all the years I have taught, I have never had a blind student or any disabled student perform at a lower level than the other students. They have faced challenges all their lives and been successful. Why shouldn't they be successful in a biology laboratory course?" Another instructor remarked that the blind student observed by touch something the sighted students in the class had missed. A blind student mentioned earning an A in the class thanks to specific accommodations, and another proclaimed, "I also think I learned more than other people in my lab."
When more blind students enter the sciences, they can assist in developing more effective accommodations and serve as mentors and role models. Improvements in technology will continue to support students as well. Parents, teachers, and counselors should encourage blind and visually impaired students to consider biology classes and pursue careers in STEM, because science is for everyone. As a blind student participant concluded, "It proves that a blind person can learn biology, and a blind person can do chemistry, and a blind person can do physics. It's pretty amazing stuff."
You can learn more about my study or contact me by visiting my website at <http://bheardu.net>.
Caldwell, J. E., and Teagarden, K. (2007). "Adapting Laboratory Curricula for Visually Impaired Students." Proceedings of the 28th Workshop/Conference of the Association for Biology Laboratory Education (ABLE), 28, 357-361.
Moon, N. W., Todd, R. L., Morton, D. L., and Ivey, E. (2012). "Accommodating Students with Disabilities in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM): Findings from Research and Practice for Middle Grades through University Education." Atlanta, GA: SciTrain: Science and Math for All, sponsored by the National Science Foundation under Award No. 0622885.
Supalo, C. A. (2010). "Teaching Chemistry and Other Sciences to Blind and Low-vision Students through Hands-on Learning Experiences in High School Science Laboratories." (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. (3442959)
Vollmer, A. C. (2012, July 26). "Seeing Biology through the Eyes of Visually Impaired Students." Odds and Ends, Teachers Corner: Pedagogical Issues. American Society for Microbiology. Retrieved 11/14/2014 from <http://schaechter.asmblog.org/schaechter/2012/07/seeing-biology-through-the-eyes-of-visually-impaired-students.html>
Womble, M. D. and Walker, G. R. (2001). "Teaching Biology to the Visually Impaired: Accommodating Students' Special Needs." Journal of College Science Teaching, 30 (6), 394-396.
by Kane Brolin
From the Editor: Kane Brolin is a self-employed certified financial planning practitioner and is the proprietor of Brolin Wealth Management. His company provides money management and financial advice to individuals, families, and businesses. Kane is vice president and cofounder of the Michiana Chapter of the NFB of Indiana. He lives in Mishawaka, Indiana, with his wife, Danika, and their three children. Kane and Danika have been licensed foster parents since 2010.
The scene had become all too familiar over the past twelve years, ever since my first college graduation ceremony. I waited in an office after a computerized aptitude test and my second interview for the job. I fully expected to hear, "We're just not sure. We like your tenacity and drive. Yes, the master's degree is very impressive. But we just don't think you are the best fit at this time. Good luck." In the best-case scenario, I would get a pat response such as, "We only have a few openings for this position at any given time. We have already exceeded this month's quota. We'll call you next month when openings come up again."
Instead, what I heard sent a wave of joy coursing through me. "Mr. Brolin, we have chosen to offer you the job," said Bill, the vice president in charge of the field office. "There will be a lot that you and we have to adapt to. But there's no question you are qualified. Now we just need to figure out your start date, whose management circle you will be a part of, and how to adapt our processes to fit the tasks you'll need to perform."
The job? Financial advisor. The company? American Express Financial Advisors. My experience doing that kind of work? Absolutely none. Yet I had the job.
Soon after I began work in 2000 I realized that this would not be a job "advising" anyone. During the first few months after I passed the licensing exams, I was assigned to sell securities and insurance. My job entailed talking persuasively on the phone to as many people as my fingers could dial. I set up appointments; asked intimate questions about people's finances, hopes, and dreams; and tried to get people to hire me to write financial plans or move money into investment products or insurance policies. If I didn't get enough paying business--well, I couldn't think about the alternative. Failure was not an option.
Thanks to a lot of hard work and the grace of God, I can say many years later that I am still employed--in fact, self-employed. I work as a financial planner and broker/dealer representative who happens to be totally blind.
Fast forward to November of 2005. I found myself climbing into a car--Bill's car. This was the same Bill who had given me my first job offer in the industry back in 2000. Our company name had changed, and Bill and I were now each franchise owners of equal stature, responsible for independent financial planning practices in neighboring towns. We had just traveled together to Tinley Park, Illinois, just south of Chicago, to sit for a grueling, day-and-a-half-long board examination. If we passed, we would have the right to call ourselves Certified Financial Planner Practitioners.
During the CFP board exam I didn't benefit from accessible technology, or any technology at all. Nothing was allowed in the testing room with me except some paper, a No. 2 pencil, a simple four-function calculator without speech output, and Vito. Vito was a reader/recorder who had been hired to read me the questions, operate the calculator according to my directions, and take down my answers. I'd never met him before.
Though he had no experience in the financial services industry, Vito read me the exam questions with painstaking thoroughness. Dutifully he circled each answer I selected. The CFP board exam is all about solving cases drawn from real life. For this old-school exam, I had to work out in my head which data I needed to understand from several pages of background material. I had to ask Vito to read or re-read only the information I really had to know, leaving out the "noise" that had been planted in the client data to trip me up.
Seven weeks later I waited nervously at my computer. The results of the exam had been released. Thousands of people tried to access the same site at the same time across the country. At last I learned that I had passed. I could now hold the CFPÒ marks. I was the first totally blind person to pass the CFP board exam in the memory of any of the people who had arranged or overseen my test.
Today, more than ten years later, I still cherish that moment. Whenever I feel annoyed as I sit through a tedious continuing education session, I conjure up the joy I felt in January 2006 when the word pass appeared on my computer screen. I am thankful that nothing I go through today is a recurrence of that stomach-churning CFP board exam.
As a financial adviser, I have found a way to make a living for myself and my family. Even in a recessed or stagnant economy, I serve individuals and businesses as a CFPÒ Practitioner. I manage money, give proactive tax advice, sell life or long-term care insurance, and help design or implement charitable gifting plan or death settlements.
None of my work would be possible without a firm foundation in STEM. Without mathematical and computer literacy, I would never have passed the board exam or other licensing tests. Without overcoming my fear of numbers, I wouldn't be able to talk meaningfully to clients about bond prices, Federal Reserve policy, price-to-earnings ratios, standard deviation, or sustainable withdrawal rates.
By no means am I a biogeneticist or an astronaut or an electrical engineer. Back in the ‘80s I wanted to be a great writer, or perhaps the next generation's answer to Peter Jennings. I was a broadcaster and a journalist by training. I was much more at home with a tape recorder or a novel than with a graphing calculator or an oscilloscope. However, my father, a mechanical engineer, had no tolerance for an effort less than 100 percent. Thanks to him I learned to think logically and do math with competence.
Since talking calculators were not yet available, I learned arithmetic on the Cranmer abacus. From an incredibly tough but fair resource teacher named Miss Wagner, I learned that no excuse was good enough to make up for a lax attitude or a sloppy mistake. And there was Braille, Braille, Braille! Instead of playing on a Sunday afternoon, I sometimes could be found in front of my Perkins Brailler, producing columns of digits, figuring sums and differences and quotients. My dad looked at every page to make sure that my columns were properly justified on the right side.
That same Perkins Brailler turned up in my high school math classes, probably to the annoyance of the students around me. They had to listen to its rattle as I hammered out algebra problems line by line. The abacus would not do; to receive credit I had to show my work. And yes, I had to wait longer than anybody else for my homework or tests to be graded. I had to wait until the traveling resource teacher could check my work and hand-print her transcription between my lines of hand-embossed Braille.
In the early ‘90s I discovered that the broadcast industry did not love me enough to pay me a living wage. I realized I could get into a top-flight business school. By then I had purchased a computer, and I could use certain functions to automate some of my work. I had learned to use Lotus 1-2-3 and some Unix-based stat programs. But I found it incredibly frustrating to complete homework in numbers-intensive classes such as cost accounting, finance, and operations management.
Sometimes in graduate school I felt a disturbing sense of déjà vu. I had to hire human reader/recorders, much as I had done in the early 1980s. I needed readers to record case packets and inaccessible textbooks on cassette tapes and to read test questions and write down my answers. My most advanced calculator was a program that came with my Braille 'n Speak. I did not have a portable scanner, and certainly I had no smartphone or mobile apps.
Even in the highly rarefied environment of Northwestern University, hardly anyone felt like reading quantitative material or helping me write out financial equations--not even for money. I turned to a unique tool that has nearly been forgotten: the Optacon. Developed in the 1970s, the Optacon is a device that turns characters on the printed page into vibrating pins on a tactile array. It did not enable me to read the volume of case studies I needed to cover in my master's program. Nevertheless, this old-school, print analog reading machine gave me a firm grasp of the charts and mathematical symbols that were critical to my understanding of a problem.
Did I excel in numbers-heavy classes? Absolutely not, especially compared with the geniuses who studied physics or engineering along with a full load of graduate business classes. But the point is, I passed. When I stood up on graduation day to receive the diploma I had sweated over for two long years, I was embarrassed when some people in the audience gave me a standing ovation. In that moment I began to understand that even if those around me don't understand blindness, they respect someone who takes on a difficult challenge and overcomes the odds. In my opinion, this is the most important message you can send to a blind child--or any child, for that matter.
My job is not dominated by numerical analysis as if I were an actuary, nor by chemical reaction as if I worked in a laboratory. But since my parents and teachers insisted that I take a full load of classes including geometry, algebra, trigonometry, statistics, physics, and chemistry, I can talk credibly about nearly any topic with a prospective client. Furthermore, I can approach a new challenge with hope instead of dread. That confidence is something STEM learning has given me.
What is my advice to a young person considering a career in financial services? If you can figure out how to sell with reasonable effectiveness, you'll never be forced into a subminimum wage job. You'll always be able to prove your worth by the dollars you bring in. To be credible as a sales or servicing professional in the financial world, though, you'll need to embrace STEM to some degree. Even if you are an English or history major in college, take more math, science, and computer courses than your academic advisor says you need. Attack STEM courses without fear. Today STEM courses can be undertaken much more easily by a blind person than when I went through school. Thanks to spreadsheets, talking scientific calculators, Web-based emulators, and smartphone apps, the student of today will need to rely on human reader/recorders far less than I did. Thanks to the work of E.A.S.Y. LLC and advances in 3D printing, a blind science or math student soon will have more tactile access to atomic structures and complex geometric patterns than ever before. Thanks to mathematical translation tools such as LaTeX, the blind student can communicate almost in real time with his or her sighted teacher, translating seamlessly between text-based Microsoft Word documents and symbol-laden math equations. The Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (TSBVI) offers an impressive array of math learning tips and resources, thanks to the tireless efforts of Susan Osterhaus. (Susan, I've never met you, but please never retire!) Even if you live in the tiniest town, you can ask the whole world for a solution to any STEM-related problem you encounter as a blind student. Probably you can get the solution you need by evening if you tap into the blogs and listservs that are populated 24-7 by blind folks who have been there and done that. At the core of a blind student's learning in every discipline, there's no substitute for Braille, Braille, Braille.
All the high technology in the world won't make you a successful student or worker in the STEM fields unless you approach problem solving with a positive attitude and a genuine curiosity. Conversely, not even the complete absence of high technology can keep you out if you approach life with sufficient creativity and tenacity. Just ask fellow Federationist Curtis Willoughby, an electrical engineer with AT&T who got there long before the personal computer became a part of anybody's home décor. To my amazement, a blind mathematician in the United Kingdom, working clear back in the 1700s, is quoted as saying, "If the blind lover of mathematics persists, it is possible that in time he may be more at home in these higher reaches of mathematics than his seeing rivals, and may dispense even more readily with external aids. Geometry is the proper science for the blind because no help is needed to carry it to perfection. But such heights are attainable only to a chosen few."
That well may be. But even those of us in the blind community who don't attain the heights of mathematical or scientific perfection can use STEM knowledge as a stepping-stone to a decent living. STEM can play a vital role as we come to live the lives we want and as we teach our children to do likewise. The freedom to pursue opportunity drives me to serve my clients, to be there for my family as a husband and father, and to pay it forward to others in my community.
by Ameenah A. Ghoston
From the Editor: Since 2005, Ameenah Ghoston has worked for the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), where she facilitates collaboration among stakeholders in software development processes. In 2010, she was certified as a federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) by the National Defense University Information Resources Management College. The CIO prepares leaders and agency personnel for leading within and across federal and organizational boundaries. Prior to joining federal service, she worked at the National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute International Braille and Technology Center, where she tested and evaluated assistive technology devices for use by blind persons. She led efforts to organize the first ever Goals for Achieving Math Accessibility Summit, a forum for math educators, companies developing math accessibility solutions, and blind professionals working in STEM fields. She attributes her success to her NFB mentors and the confidence she gained by attending the adjustment to blindness program at the Louisiana Center for the Blind in 2003.
Before a farmer can plant a field, he or she must cultivate and prepare the soil. This process requires tools, fertilizer, and most importantly, hard labor. Just as a farmer cultivates the land, students must take advantage of opportunities that will prepare them for employment, cultivating them throughout their school years.
I have had many cultivating opportunities that have led me to pursue the field of information technology (IT) with an emphasis on helping people connect with one another. Information technology concerns cellphones, computers, and the internet--all the networks and devices that have drastically changed how we connect with one another and with the world around us.
My early interest in IT was cultivated by my desire to connect with a guy--my stepfather. In 1984, when I was eight, we connected for the first time by playing a game of bowling together on an IBM computer. That IBM computer now sits in the basement with a collection of other tech relics, but in 1984 it was considered top of the line, and it stood prominently on my stepfather's desk. I remember sneaking to touch it and wondering how it worked. How did it play a bowling game, anyway?
I attended a resource room for blind students in the Chicago public school system. When I was in fifth grade, my classmates and I were given a computer course. We were introduced to the Apple II-E computer and a programming language called BASIC. Our instructor taught us the essentials of the program, and we programmed our first computer game. This class also introduced me to a screen access program and synthesized speech.
Ironically, though we were learning about the computer, my classmates and I still used the manual typewriter to produce our homework assignments for the classes in which we were mainstreamed. We also used the Perkins Brailler and slate and stylus for taking notes and handling assignments, which we turned in to our resource teacher for translation. Needless to say, it was frustrating to navigate among these assorted technologies. However, the experience taught me to rely on multiple devices. I learned to determine which solution would work best for me in a given situation.
While my dad and I connected through our mutual interest in computers, my mother and I connected through literature. We spent hours reading together--that is, I read Braille books to her aloud. When we were not reading, she had me define words and use them in sentences. I used my slate and stylus to produce these assignments because I thought the Braillewriter was noisy and hard to carry. When I entered high school in 1992, I continued to use a slate and stylus, though I was exposed to much of the technology I use today in my career as an IT professional.
During my sophomore year in high school, my teacher of the visually impaired enrolled me in a research study sponsored by Northern Illinois University (NIU). Through this study I was provided with a Braille 'n Speak notetaker, a Blazie Braille printer, a laptop with Windows 3.1, and a screen reader. The primary purpose of the study was to expose blind and low-vision students to the internet and to evaluate the impact of the internet in an academic setting.
In many respects, this study was my first hands-on experience with hardware and software, and it helped me understand how the various technologies connected. Most importantly, I learned to integrate my new arsenal of technology into everyday life. When we connected to the internet and learned to send email, I began to see the full significance of what I was experiencing. I realized that I wanted my career to center around access to information.
Granted, the amount of information available on the internet was nothing like what we have today. At the time, however, going online provided me with greater access to information than I had ever known before. I had an immense appetite for learning, and I was starved for reading matter. Few of my family members were college educated, but they placed high value on literacy and learning. I had access to Braille and recorded books through the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS), but I was frustrated because I could not go to the library and browse like my peers and relatives. The internet was truly a game changer. For the first time ever, I felt that I had a competitive edge. I was on the cutting edge of technology, ahead of my sighted peers in learning about the new online world.
In 1994 the internet was still a relatively new phenomenon, and students rarely had their own computers. However, the story was very different in my household. At that time my stepfather headed a major project to connect all of the computers at the agency where he worked to other networks. My mother was learning to use a computer for her work as a university administrator. You might say that I had a front-row seat, witnessing the transformation of our society as it went online. I saw how the PC and the internet could change how people learn and work. This understanding gave me hope and a zeal to be part of the future of IT.
However, my hope was quickly dashed. I came face to face with reality when I confronted the challenges of studying math and science, subjects that are essential in every STEM career field. In college I became so discouraged by my difficulties accessing material that I gave up on my dream of earning a BS in computer science. In 2002 I earned a BA in history with a computer science minor from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Nevertheless, I did not give up entirely on a career in STEM. I simply found an alternative path. During college, I worked part-time at the National Center for Super Computing Applications (NCSA). Its primary mission is to harness the power of computers for data modeling and simulation of science and engineering. It was definitely one of the places to be if you wanted to be on the cutting edge in the world of computing. One aspect of its mission was educational outreach and technology for the K-12 environment. I worked on grant proposals to get funding in order to bring these educational opportunities to local schools.
Because I had both computer programming and writing skills, it was not unusual for me to edit grant proposals one day, develop websites in support of our educational programs the next day, and on another day generate user accounts for participants to access data visualization tools. In that environment my combination of skills was quite rare. Most of my student coworkers were averse to writing anything in actual words. However, my combination of skills also made me unsure about life after college, about what I should do and where I should go. It was my stepfather who encouraged me to work for the Department of Defense, and I have been there since 2005.
One of the problems I had to solve in my job was how to access diagrams. With my supervisor's support I devoted work time to talking with experts in tactile graphics, comparing the cost and function of various tactile graphics solutions. I settled on the Emprint embosser, which is a dual tactile graphics and inkprint printer. I also obtained IVEO software and an accompanying touchpad. Both technologies are manufactured by ViewPlus Technologies. I can explore a diagram through Braille and speech, and I can collaborate on diagrams with sighted colleagues. I have also created and given presentations that have process diagrams in them.
Once a supervisor asked me to develop and give a presentation on the project I was working on. I was so shocked by the request that I blurted out, "Why me?" "Because I assigned you as the lead," he responded. I was shocked because PowerPoint is a visual aid for giving presentations, and I was unsure how I would use it as a blind person. I worked with several people to ensure that the presentation was visually appealing, and I gave it using a laptop and a Braille display. To present the diagram I arranged for one of my teammates to assist me, partly because he was more knowledgeable than I in that particular area. When it came time for questions, I answered them to the best of my ability. One of my coworkers pointed out that I had presented to some of the most difficult personalities in our group and congratulated me for holding my own.
That is what I desire for the upcoming generation of blind STEM professionals to do: to be able to hold their own. Technology is becoming virtual, wearable, robotic, and mobile--and all of it is interconnected. Blind people need to be at the forefront, ensuring that all of this technology is usable for and by the blind. Ensuring that blind people are involved begins when parents and teachers actively seek the involvement of blind children. I had access to cool and interesting technologies. Above all, the adults in my life, people whom I respected, communicated critical messages. "We believe that you can do it," they told me. "We believe in you so much that we are going to prepare you for the future."
by Gary Wunder
Reprinted from Braille Monitor, April 2016, Volume 59, Number 4
From the Editor: A foundation in STEM can open the way to a vast array of employment possibilities for blind people. This article recounts how one enterprising young blind man established a successful business as a provider of computer technical support.
As we navigate the job market of the second decade of the twenty-first century, it is clear that small businesses are coming to play an ever-increasing role in the workforce of our country. Many of us who once would have worked for someone else will have to create our own businesses to thrive in this economy. A number of people have speculated about this change, opining that it is a good thing for blind people. They believe we will encounter less discrimination in working for ourselves than we do in trying to work for someone else. Still others say that the same kind of discrimination that keeps us from being hired in private- and public-sector jobs still exists when we look for bank loans, try to network to create business associates and a customer base, and strive to work with technology that is either inaccessible or inefficient.
This article focuses on the former view. We will highlight a business called Commtech LLC and its founder and owner-operator, Gabe Vega. Gabe created his company in 2008. But before we talk about his business, let's focus first on the man.
Gabe was born in 1985, and from the first he was considered precocious. He graduated from high school at sixteen, went to a community college to study computer and information science, and at eighteen he became certified by the A Plus program run by CompTIA, the Computing, Technology, and Industry Association. This means he can build, repair, install, and troubleshoot hardware. He is also certified in computer networking, meaning he can implement, design, and repair network computers in a corporate environment.
Though he finished with honors, getting a job was difficult. "I found that the attitude was that disabled people were less valuable than others. No matter what I said, no matter what I could show on paper, no matter what I could demonstrate, I never felt as though I was being treated as a first-class citizen." Beyond the issue of poor attitudes, Gabe realized he was living in a part of California rich with computer talent. At nineteen he decided to move to Phoenix, and he soon found a job working for the state of Arizona. He was a technical support specialist, a job in which he provided both remote and in-person repair. "It was a very rewarding job for one so young. I had a decent salary, got the opportunity to travel throughout the state, and was able to work with both state and federal computer systems." He loved the technical challenges, loved exercising the analytical skills required to diagnose problems, and enjoyed the feeling that came with making the systems perform as expected. Of no small benefit were the learning and confidence that came from each success he could claim as his own.
But not all was rosy when it came to feelings about his job. He was feeling stressed and eventually realized that it was not the technical demands of the job but the interaction with fellow employees that was the source of his discomfort. "I found that I have no patience with office politics. I can follow directions as well as the next person, but I can't go in multiple directions at the same time. I would get one directive one day, a different one the next, and six different demands on the day following. I kept asking myself why I was putting myself through this. I concluded that I was too good at what I did to let stress get the better of me and that there must be a way to do what I enjoyed and was good at without suffering the slings and arrows of those who were intent on power games and turf battles."
To his surprise and relief, Gabe found that as a vendor/contractor he could do the same work that he was doing as an employee of the state. "There was no going to the office, no office politics, just doing the work I loved and thrived on completing."
Being an independent contractor meant that it was in Gabe's best interests to get the simplest form of business incorporation, and he became incorporated as DBA (doing business as). With his own small business, he did the same technical work he was doing before and avoided the turf wars and office politics that had for some time been the major source of his stress.
Starting in 2005, things went well. Income was up tenfold, stress was down to an acceptable level, and Gabe felt as though he had found the ideal job. But with the downturn in 2008, many of the state and federal customers that had relied on him for service found their budgets cut. "When the bottom fell out in 2008, I found myself scrambling. It was quite a shock. All of a sudden those four-figure monthly checks began to fall, and I knew I had to do something in addition to contracting with the state and federal governments."
Eventually Gabe decided he had to change his business model. While he would continue to market his services to large customers, he knew he must include other groups who could benefit from his expertise and could pay for it. A change in corporate status was required for him to operate the kind of business that was taking shape in his head, and incorporating took considerable time and money that he was hard pressed to find. So too did finding office space, finding people, and putting in the telephones and servers required to conduct a nationwide business. In changing its focus to meet more needs from the private sector, the new business found that some of its contractors stayed and others left. The same was true with staff--some easily made the change, while others decided to go elsewhere. The new business focused less on big state, federal, and corporate customers and more on business-to-business services, as well as direct service to consumers.
For businesses, Commtech USA, which has become Gabe's brand name, provides website development, accessibility consulting, user experience evaluations, and accessibility checking to ensure Section 508 compliance. Commtech USA also provides computer network installation and troubleshooting services for businesses both large and small.
Despite his success, Gabe confesses that blindness is still an issue in his mind, a fear he must work to overcome. "Sometimes my fear is still blindness. When I have a meeting with five important people (business owners, executives, and high-ranking board members), my fear wants to take control, and I start asking myself, 'Will they take me seriously, and will I be convincing.'” But when that meeting comes the next day and I hit it out of the ballpark, the gratification I feel from that is wonderful."
A big part of Commtech USA's business has evolved to serve consumers. One service is selling and exchanging cellular phones, a process many of us would consider visual, given that most of the phones on the market today do not talk or have any nonvisual interfaces. Gabe has learned the menus for the phones he sells. By repeating the keystrokes necessary to navigate menus and choices, he is able to configure the phones, change SIM cards, and update settings required by the carrier his customer chooses. "Mostly phones are pretty similar. All of them have a menu key, a settings menu, a tools menu, and a call log. I rely on my memory, and, on the rare occasions when that fails me, I can always rely on Google if I know how to ask it the right question. If in doubt, as a last resort I can ask the customer in front of me to confirm that I am where I think I am by having him or her read me the screen."
Gabe uses a screen reader to set up accounts, accept payments, and help customers choose plans that best meet their needs. "I don't depend on sighted people, but I do have them on call for the times when they are needed. I try to use only tools that are accessible or at least as accessible as they can be. This is my business, and, though sight is sometimes indispensable, it is important that I do as much of this work as I can.
"You wouldn't believe how gratifying it is to interact with the sighted public on a day-to-day basis in the consumer market and to know that they could not care less that you are blind. I tell them I am blind if we meet in person, and most generally they say, 'Okay, can you do what I need done?'” I tell them yes, and they watch as I help them pay their bill or set up their phone. They may see me feel around my desk or hear my computer talk, but what is important to them is that they are the customer, and I can do what they are paying me to do. Blindness is off the table. To them the important fact is that money changes hands, and they leave with what they came to get or to do."
Whether blind people want to learn about assistive technology or learn to use office products, Commtech USA has a plan to fit their needs. For $60 a month a consumer can get training and technical support by telephone. For those times when there is no substitute for vision, the plan includes three sessions in which a person with sight connects to a customer's machine, sees what is being displayed, and uses the mouse and keyboard to perform the inaccessible functions required.
"I'm an NFB member, and I'm on a number of our listservs to talk about jobs, rehabilitation, education, and how to train the trainers. I see the questions being asked: 'Will they hire me? Will they accept me? What kinds of things can I do if I'm blind?' I think we have to get out of this state of mind. The things I have accomplished as a blind man have exceeded my wildest dreams because, after all the questions, all the anxiety, and all the self-doubt, I just went out there and did it, keeping in mind that I am Gabe Vega, I am a technician, and, as long as I can do a job that satisfies my customers, my blindness isn't going to hold me back."
by Frederick W. Noesner
From the Editor: Frederick W. Noesner has been totally blind since early childhood. His interests include collecting and studying antique weapons, clocks, and tools and building furniture in his workshop. His novel, The Fortunate Ones, is available in print from Amazon and through the Talking Book program of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS). He lives in Delaware with "two wonderful ladies": his wife, Margarete, and his Seeing Eye dog, Juniper.
Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock. I felt as if my new old wooden clock had just come back to life. As I stood listening to it, I placed my hands on either side of its mahogany-veneered case and tried to absorb its history.
My clock was made in Connecticut by Williams, Orton, and Prestons circa 1835. I could picture it standing on the mantle in an old farmhouse until one day, after years of service, a weight cord broke. This mishap may have relegated the clock to a barn or attic, probably for decades. Small pieces such as the key, pendulum bob, and weights might have been set aside on a separate shelf, sadly never to be reunited. As time passed, dirt and grime clung to the outside of the case and filtered inside through the openings on top where the broken wooden pulleys once had been. The broken pulleys may have contributed to the breaking of the weight cords.
This was the condition the clock was in when I was lucky enough to find it for sale at a clock collectors' meeting a few months ago. I had always wanted a wooden clock, and I knew I would give this one a good home.
Uncertain of the best way to treat the clock's old wooden movement, I requested and received some very helpful advice from Greg Perry, a noted restoration authority. He explained that I should treat the entire movement in a heated bath of linseed oil and beeswax. As the kitchen filled with the aroma of this heated mixture, I felt as though I could smell history.
Of course I had taken the movement totally apart for its bath. After everything cooled, the reassembly began. Okay, it took me a week, but it was fun. Every evening after dinner I tried to figure out where each gear belonged. Some were obvious, such as the winding drums and the cannon gear for the hands. A lot of the strike side could fit in only one place. In fact, even though there were a number of parts, most could work only in their correct places. The most difficult part was to fit the lifter wires that are so necessary in the strike train.
After all the parts were in the correct places, I still was not all the way home. The front plate had to drop down into place. This would be possible only when the shafts that held the gears were all lined up at the same moment.
Next the case needed some light cleaning and a few coats of Danish oil. When the case was ready to receive the movement, it was time for me to tackle the installation of new weight cords. This was a challenge, as the holes drilled through the winding drums were very small. The cord was too flexible to be pushed through and too thick to be knotted to anything. After several hours of trying, I came up with a method that worked for me. I used a dental floss threader. The threader is very thin and has a flexible loop at one end. Using a closed loop of floss with the weight cord laid over it, I gently tugged the cords through. Then I only had to bend new wire S hooks for the weights to hang from.
When the clock started ticking it was music to my ears. I listened for a while to make sure it really was level, ticking smoothly and evenly.
I have been totally blind since early childhood, having been born with malignant tumors of the retinas. I had wonderful parents who encouraged me to learn and try anything that interested me. Dad's machine shop gave me an excellent opportunity to learn about and use many kinds of tools.
I got my first exposure to antique clocks when Dad restored a Chauncy Jerome OG case with a thirty-hour brass movement. The mechanics of this clock were interesting, but what really fascinated me was its history. Some fifty years later it is still ticking away here in my library.
A few years ago I had the opportunity to work seasonally as a colonial person for Historic Philadelphia. This experience led me to ponder what life might have been like for a blind person during the eighteenth century. Eventually I wrote a historical novel entitled The Fortunate Ones, 18th Century Philadelphia as Seen without Sight. In the novel I explored several trades in which blind or low-vision people might have taken part. Among the characters are a powder horn maker, a gun stock maker, a potter, and a sailmaker. I am currently at work on a second book, this one set here in northern Delaware. This novel will feature a blind clockmaker and lots of blind spinners and weavers.
In the final step for this old clock, I will make a shelf from mahogany and mount it on the wall. I already have my next clock project lined up. I will be restoring a tall case wooden works clock. I am eager to hear it ticking, and I am certain that I will.
by Natalie Shaheen
From the Editor: For nearly three years, the National Federation of the Blind has coordinated a project called the National Center for Blind Youth in Science, made possible through a generous grant from the National Science Foundation. In this article project director Natalie Shaheen describes each of the programs created under the project. She encourages blind people to explore science museums as untapped resources for learning and fun.
In September 2013, the National Federation of the Blind was awarded a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation (Grant No. 1322855). The three-year National Center for Blind Youth in Science (NCBYS) project, which will conclude on August 31, 2016, has the overarching goal of increasing blind people's access to STEM learning opportunities. The project addresses this goal through three embedded components: NFB STEM2U regional programs, NFB EQ summer engineering programs, and collaboration with science museums across the country to increase nonvisual accessibility. This article provides an overview of each component of the project, beginning with the NFB STEM2U regional programs and concluding with a discussion of the collaborative nonvisual accessibility work at the museums.
Six NFB STEM2U regional programs were facilitated in partnership with science museums and affiliates of the National Federation of the Blind. The programs took place from November 2014 through May 2016. The program sites and dates were as follows:
NFB STEM2U Baltimore (November 6, 2014-November 8, 2014): Port Discovery Children's Museum, NFB of Maryland
NFB STEM2U Boston (March 12, 2015-March 14, 2015): Museum of Science, NFB of Massachusetts
NFB STEM2U Columbus (May 14, 2015-May 16, 2015): Center of Science and Industry (COSI), NFB of Ohio
NFB STEM2U Phoenix (November 5, 2015-November 7, 2015): Arizona Science Center, NFB of Arizona
NFB STEM2U San Francisco (March 3, 2016-March 5, 2016): Exploratorium, NFB of California
NFB STEM2U Minneapolis (May 19, 2016-May 21, 2016): Science Museum of Minnesota, NFB of Minnesota.
Each NFB STEM2U regional program served three audiences, and two of the programs served four. The NFB STEM2U regional programs each served approximately twenty elementary school students (grades 3-5), referred to as "juniors" in the program; twenty chaperones, who accompanied the juniors to the program; and ten high school students, referred to in the program as "apprentices." In addition, the Baltimore and Phoenix programs each had a professional development component, which served approximately ten teachers of the blind.
Participants came from all over the US to attend the NFB STEM2U programs. Though some students came from the towns in which the programs were held, many traveled thousands of miles to enjoy a weekend of fun and learning.
All participants arrived on a Thursday afternoon. Sessions began on Thursday evening with dinner and introductory activities. The juniors and apprentices worked together throughout the weekend on museum exploration and various STEM activities. The chaperones attended concurrent workshops. They learned to prepare their children or students for success in STEM, both in school and through informal learning opportunities such as visits to science museums. At the Baltimore and Phoenix programs, teachers learned about the various tools, techniques, and accommodations that blind students can use in the study of STEM subjects. The program concluded Saturday evening for the juniors, chaperones, and teachers. The apprentices stayed for some additional activities on Saturday evening and departed Sunday morning for home.
Following is a brief description of the types of activities in which each group of participants engaged.
Throughout the weekend the juniors participated in classroom STEM activities developed by the National Federation of the Blind and the host museum. These activities included:
At the museum, students got behind-the-scenes hands-on experiences with museum shows pertaining to topics including electricity, biology, nanoscience, paleontology, acoustics, and psychology. Students also spent time exploring the museum with their chaperones and with the apprentices. On the museum floor, students explored a wide variety of exhibits: the Bed of Nails, the Hall of Human Life, a high-wire unicycle, Science in the Park, Math in Motion, and the Fisher Bay Observatory.
A hallmark of every Federation program or event is the opportunity for participants to learn from other blind people. The juniors who participated in the NFB STEM2U regional programs had the chance to learn from blind instructors and program facilitators as well as the apprentices, the blind high school students who were just a few years ahead of the juniors.
After participating in several engineering activities during the program, one junior said, "We had just started learning the engineering process at school, but now it's more clear." After engaging with the accessible STEM learning activities at the program, another junior shared, "[I have a] better perspective on science processes. Science classes at school are visual. Now, because I understand the processes, my school science will make more sense."
The chaperones, too, found the programs enlightening. One chaperone explained that her child "learned what his BrailleNote can do because someone else here has one and can share what he is doing with it. He is learning from others like him." Another chaperone explained, "[my child] came away saying that he wants to be more independent at home. That spoke volumes to me, and I'm grateful that we both had the opportunity to participate." Another parent explained how important the accessible learning environment at the program was to her daughter. "[My child] doesn't have opportunities to go have fun and do educational things with other kids. She goes to a public school and only gets about half the experience. . . . She loves science. Here it's hands-on, she can experience the activities, and she can experience the museum."
While the students were engaged in their activities, chaperones were engaged in a variety of STEM- and blindness-related lessons in an adjacent classroom. Parents began their weekend with the Marshmallow Challenge, an engineering exercise. Afterwards they made comparisons between the iterative nature of the engineering design process and the iterative nature of parenting.
On Friday morning the parents discovered the five elements of a successful blind person, as defined by James Omvig in his article "Freedom for the Blind." They applied the five elements throughout the weekend.
Building on the initial engineering challenge, parents explored a variety of topics pertaining to their children's success in STEM subjects. These sessions covered topics such as the following:
Throughout the weekend, parents got to talk with successful blind people, some of whom were scientists.
Perhaps the most exciting activities were those that the parents did with their children. Parents and children explored the museum exhibits and a variety of hands-on STEM activities side by side.
"Being able to share experiences with other parents is always invaluable," one chaperone commented. Another noted, "[The program] challenged [my son's] comfort zone while allowing him to be well taken care of . . . the perfect balance." Another chaperone shared that she valued "interacting with successful blind adults who could share how they learned to be independent and how they overcame barriers to become scientists."
One parent related an emotional aspect of her experience at the program. "I'm finding I didn't deal well with the grieving process [over my child's loss of vision]," she said. "This is helping me be less overprotective." Another parent explained, "I loved the facilitators! I think they talked at our level and respected all the different opinions of parents. I enjoyed listening to them and [hearing] their personal stories."
The NFB STEM2U experience for the apprentices was comprised of two programs, the NFB STEM2U Leadership Academy and the NFB STEM2U regional program. The leadership academy was held early in the fall of each program year, before that year's NFB STEM2U regional programs began. The leadership academy, a weekend seminar, provided the apprentices with the leadership and mentoring tools and techniques that they would need to help facilitate activities, differentiate instruction, and mentor the juniors at the NFB STEM2U regional program. Approximately thirty apprentices attended the two NFB STEM2U Leadership Academies, one in the fall of 2014 and one in the fall of 2015.
In the six weeks leading up to their regional programs, each group of ten apprentices took part in a weekly synchronous distance education program, an extension of the leadership academy. During these six weeks apprentices collaborated to create a plan for their work at their regional program. This planning process included developing the opening evening's activities for the juniors.
At the NFB STEM2U regional programs, the apprentices led some activities; helped differentiate the instruction during other activities (e.g., helped students who didn't understand a concept, repeated instructions, etc.); helped orient the juniors to the space (e.g., locating various rooms or features within the room); capitalized on teachable moments (e.g., showing a junior how to use scissors if the junior had never done so before, showing a junior how to do something with his technology that he didn't know how to do, etc.); and acted as friends and role models for the juniors.
After their full days of working with the juniors, the apprentices participated in nightly reflection sessions. They shared their challenges and successes and offered each other constructive feedback. During these sessions the apprentices made connections to the leadership and mentoring concepts that they had learned at the leadership academy.
One teen shared that mentoring is a "mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship" whereby the mentor and mentee both benefit. After the leadership academy, one apprentice commented, "If I hadn't felt that sense of community and friendship, I know that I would have kept myself emotionally away from everyone else and would have been too nervous and distracted to really pay attention to any of the lessons. The lessons were also very intriguing, and I could tell how great everyone felt with the confidence and independence that our teachers were trying to ensure that we had."
One apprentice explained how the leadership academy helped her feel more comfortable and confident about her role as an apprentice and her capacity to be a mentor. She shared, "Participating in the different activities that will be similar to what the children will be doing will most likely be really useful for the regional program, as I will know what to expect. Different seminars helped me to believe that I would be able to help mentor these younger students."
During the NFB STEM2U Baltimore and Phoenix teacher cohorts, teachers of the blind from across the country came together to learn from each other and to gather additional tools, techniques, and pedagogical approaches for making STEM content accessible to blind students. Teachers learned about a variety of tried and true tools that have been used to make STEM subjects accessible, such as transfer pipettes, micropipettes, cafeteria trays, tactile diagrams, notched syringes, and click rules. Teachers also learned about emerging tools and techniques such as crowd-sourced video description, 3D printing, and new tactile drawing tools. Teachers collaborated to develop techniques for making STEM activities such as dissections accessible. The teachers also learned about resources and programming offered by the museums, resources that they could leverage when working on STEM subjects with blind students.
"NFB STEM2U reinforced that my students who have the interest and intellectual ability can tackle anything they want to in STEM," one teacher stated. "Their only limitation is my own creativity and willingness to problem solve. I am bolstered in my efforts to help my students succeed."
"I really see the need and importance of introducing my students to successful blind adults in the fields of science, engineering, math, or technology," another teacher noted. "I also hope to use NFB as a teaching resource as future needs arise for my students." Another teacher told us, "I appreciated the collaboration with other teachers in the field who, like me, often work in isolation."
"[NFB STEM2U] was a safe place to reveal inadequacies that exist for me as a teacher," one teacher told us. "The learning opportunities that came out of that were most helpful." Another teacher added, "I feel as though I am better prepared to make suggestions to STEM teachers for how best to instruct my students. I also have more tools in my own personal toolbox that I can use and suggest, not only to my teachers who I work with, but my district as well. I also feel as though I know a little better how to work with my students within the STEM classroom setting."
During the course of the grant, the NFB Jernigan Institute will host three NFB EQ programs in Baltimore. The first of these programs was held August 2-August 8, 2015. The second iteration of the program will be held June 19-June 25, 2016, and the third will take plaçe July 31-August 6, 2016. Each iteration of the program serves twenty blind and low vision high school students, primarily juniors and seniors who are interested in pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and math.
During the week-long advanced engineering program, students are presented with a real problem from the developing world. Students work in teams to design solutions to the problem. Specifically, they are asked to design a method for purifying water and transporting the clean water across a body of nonpotable water. The challenge requires them to engineer a water filtration system and a boat from materials that are readily available in the geographic region where the problem occurs. Students' water filtration systems utilize common materials such as empty plastic bottles and jugs of various sizes, pebbles, charcoal, scraps of cloth, and five-gallon buckets. The students' boat designs make use of common building materials such as PVC pipe, tarps, duct tape (lots of duct tape!), and plywood. In addition to engineering the solutions, students must create technical drawings of their work and present them to stakeholders for feedback.
After their boats are built and their water filtration systems are finalized, the students put their work to the test at a nearby state park. At the park they gather water and run it through their filtration systems. Then they test the water with various probes to ensure that it is safe to drink. They load up their boats with the filtered water and row across the body of water.
Throughout the week, students learn a great deal of content that they are seldom, if ever, exposed to at school. In particular, students get in-depth learning opportunities around the engineering design process, technical drawing, and construction. In the technical drawing portion of the curriculum, students learn to use adapted drafting tools to create tactile technical drawings. As students execute their boat designs, they use saws, hammers, and drills to assemble their own components. The program offers blind students the opportunity to try and succeed or fail independently. Such life experiences are crucial to long-term success, particularly if the student is pursuing a STEM career.
One teen who attended a state school for the blind wanted to take the "different tools" back home, "[so I can] be independent and do some of these things by myself. [I want to] share them with others in class, help them feel independent." Another student shared a take-away from the program when he said, "During the NFB EQ program I realized engineering isn't about following instructions to the letter. It's changing on the fly. It takes a set of skills to fundamentally change something to make it better while you're working on it."
Several teens discussed the teamwork element of the program and how it differed from their experience with teams at school. "I want to be part of a group, even though I'm blind and they [classmates at school] aren't," one teen said. Another shared, "In the classroom people don't always ask us to get involved. I feel I can integrate myself better now after having the experience at this program." Another teen said, "I've been taking engineering classes at school, and now that I know there are tools, drafting boards, I'm going to ask for [them] next year. This program has made me more confident in what I can do."
"My science teacher didn't want me to do anything, and I know how I can do these things," another student explained. "I can use a talking scale or measure. I can be one who participates, not just the one who takes notes." Another stated, "Participating in this program gave me the determination to push forward. If I hear someone say 'You can't,' I will push forward." One teen stated, "Expectations for blind [people] are really low. This program showed us all that there is a way to do things we never thought we could do. I always thought STEM seemed kind of impossible, but there are tools, techniques, and there is a way to integrate into the real world." Several teens cited the opportunity to network with like-minded peers who shared their perspective as a benefit of attending the program.
Finally a young man shared, "I wish I could be a pilot. I thought that was impossible. Here I learned people don't hire you for what you see, but for what you know. If I make my own decision--I shouldn't listen to others say I can't. That's the barrier. Since this program, I'm more confident I can do activities friends who are fully sighted can do. I have physical and mental capacities I'm willing to use and show."
In addition to the programmatic aspects of the project, the NCBYS team has collaborated with six science centers across the country to increase the accessibility of the museums, thereby improving the experience of blind patrons. Working with the six science museums has been an exciting learning experience for all involved. Each of the six museums has a unique culture and a unique approach to designing STEM learning opportunities for its patrons. All of the museums have been open to and enthusiastic about working to improve the experience of blind visitors. This section will outline the collaboration framework that has been implemented to facilitate the accessibility work, point out interesting things to check out at each museum, identify the three common nonvisual access barriers found in the museums, and highlight some of the accessibility work that is in progress.
President Riccobono has said on numerous occasions that one key issue in the museum space with respect to nonvisual access is that there is a disconnect between blind people and museums. That is to say, blind people do not go to museums because they assume there is nothing there for them. At the same time, museums do not feel an urgency to make their spaces fully accessible to blind people because blind people are seldom around the museum.
The Federation's goal in collaborating with museums is to interrupt this cycle and create connections where they have previously not existed. Consequently, the collaboration framework was designed to provide multiple places for connection and relationship building. The framework is comprised of four elements:
(1) collaboration between the NFB Jernigan Institute, the local affiliate, and the museum
(2) museum staff training, in advance of the regional program, regarding interacting with blind people and making learning opportunities more accessible
(3) the NFB STEM2U regional program
(4) museum partner meetings hosted at the NFB Jernigan Institute.
Collaboration began a year prior to each museum's NFB STEM2U program. Before the event members of the NFB Jernigan Institute team, as well as the affiliate liaison, visited the museum to learn about it and to get acquainted with the staff. Members of the local affiliate volunteered to participate in an accessibility advisory group. Members of the advisory group visited the museum to evaluate the accessibility of the experience for blind patrons. Group members then attended a meeting where they shared their feedback. That feedback was aggregated and synthesized by the affiliate liaison and the NCBYS project director. The synthesized feedback was offered to the museum at an accessibility roundtable meeting. These meetings served to kick off and set the direction for the accessibility work.
The NFB representatives offered feedback regarding the aspects of the museum experience that worked really well for blind people and the aspects of the experience that posed barriers. Museum representatives then shared their ideas and asked questions. After the meeting the museum staff continued to work with the affiliate liaison to develop a formal plan for moving forward and then to implement the plan and get feedback on various prototypes of designs.
Simultaneously, members of the NCBYS team were facilitating trainings with the museum staff. These trainings included:
These trainings were developed collaboratively with the museum to ensure that they met the needs of the institution. Consequently, the trainings took on various formats and covered a variety of content. Topics covered in the training included tips for interacting with blind people, common access barriers that blind people face in informal learning environments, nonvisual teaching strategies, examples of accessible learning materials, legal and technical standards and guidelines, and Q&A about blindness.
One museum staff member commented on the value of watching videos that showed active blind people. "Seeing people blind being interviewed and watching them maneuver through their day really helped me understand them. They were less mysterious and more like me." Others noted that the discussions gave them a broader perspective. "It has made me focus on specific details and concepts about our museum so that I can better describe it to people instead of just pointing at something and not describing it." "I feel like I have inside knowledge on how blind people feel and what they experience," a staff person commented. "I understand I don't have all the answers, but I feel more like a friend and less like a stranger. I'm sure that alone will help me interact with more sensitivity, warmth."
"I didn't realize how much tactile clues contributed, as audio seemed more obvious to me as a method of learning and perceiving things," one staff member told us. Another remarked, "Even small changes/modifications can have a big impact on accessibility. Start small, think big. As educators interacting with visitors, we can make changes on the fly if we are aware of challenges."
One goal of the trainings was to empower museum staff and increase their confidence so that they would feel prepared for their NFB STEM2U regional programs, when the museum would be taken over by blind people! Each regional program served as another point of collaboration and learning. Members of the NCBYS team collaborated with museum educators to design and adapt various museum activities to ensure that they were accessible to blind students. During the program, the museum staff members got to implement some of their newly acquired knowledge and gain confidence from their successes.
Finally, a representative from each of the museums attended one of two museum partner meetings at the NFB Jernigan Institute in Baltimore. At these meetings, the museum partners had the opportunity to learn more about the Federation and the work that we do. Museum partners also had the chance to share the accessibility and programmatic work they were doing related to the NCBYS project. By sharing their work, the museums were able to learn from each other. In the spirit of the informal learning world, the meetings also incorporated learning through play. Museum representatives, NFB affiliate liaisons, and NFB staff collaborated to solve engineering challenges such as building bobsleds and flying discs.
What do the science museums have that is of interest to blind people? All sorts of cool exhibits! Some of the exhibits are cool for everyone, because, well, they are just cool! Other exhibits are particularly cool for blind people because they offer a learning experience that one cannot get anywhere else. Following are some very brief highlights from each of the six museums. This is just a sneak peek into what the museums have to offer. Take a Saturday afternoon and discover the rest!
Port Discovery Children's Museum, Baltimore, Maryland
Freely explore the two-story playscape in the center of the museum with your cane. Then visit the nano exhibit to construct a human-sized carbon nanotube.
Museum of Science, Boston, Massachusetts
Lie on a bed of nails. Don't worry--you won't get hurt! In the Hall of Human Life, get hands-on experience with the diversity of the human species. Be sure to visit the wall of feet!
Center of Science and Industry, Columbus, Ohio
Visit the Progress exhibit to get your hands on everyday items from various periods in history. Build a bridge in the Gadgets exhibit. And don't forget to take a spin on the high-wire unicycle!
Arizona Science Center, Phoenix, Arizona
In the Forces of Nature exhibit you can feel what it's like to be in a hurricane, tornado, volcanic eruption, and wildfire.
Exploratorium, San Francisco, California
Visit the Tactile Dome to win a "lights out" maze! And check out the tidal ribbon in the observatory; it's a very accessible depiction of tide data.
Science Museum of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota
Check out the collectors' corner, where visitors donate and trade natural treasures such as rocks, minerals, and fossils.
Throughout the project the accessibility advisory groups from each affiliate visited the six museums and reported their feedback. Three common barriers were repeatedly reported. These barriers were found at almost all of the museums.
The first common barrier was wayfinding; blind people have little access to information about what is in the museum and where various exhibits are located. The lack of information makes navigation more challenging than it should be.
The second common barrier was access to textual information within exhibits. The vast majority of the exhibits across museums did not provide the text of exhibits in an accessible format. Without access to the text in the exhibit, it is difficult for blind patrons to understand what they are supposed to do in the exhibit or what they are supposed to learn.
The third common barrier was partially inaccessible interactives. Science museums are full of hands-on exhibits, which are generally great for blind people. But some of the interactive exhibits had elements that were inaccessible, which prevented the blind person from completing the activity. These barriers were frequently found in input-output exhibits; the input mechanism would be hands-on, but the output mechanism might only be visual. For example, in some of the museums there is an exhibit that compares the amount of energy required to illuminate different types of lightbulbs. Visitors produce the required energy by turning a crank or peddling a bike; this part is great. But there is no nonvisual indicator that the lightbulb is lit. (Some creative blind visitors solved this problem by using the light detector app on their iPhones to get around this barrier.)
All six of the NCBYS museum partners have been very receptive to the accessibility feedback that the team has offered. The museums are eager to work toward eliminating the aforementioned barriers. Here are some examples of the work that is currently underway at the museums to eliminate or mitigate the access barriers.
This three-year project has been a fun and exciting learning opportunity for all involved. The museum partners have been wonderful to work with and to learn from. If you want to increase the accessibility of your local science museum, work with your affiliate to develop a relationship with the museum personnel. We have found science museum staff to be open-minded and excited about this work, and we suspect that the same will be true of staff at other museums.
If your affiliate is interested in working with a local museum to increase accessibility, reach out to me at [email protected]. I can share resources and information from the NCBYS project.
[Note: This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1322855. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.]
by Caleb Hyndman
From the Editor: Caleb Hyndman is a third-grader from Lewiston, Idaho. After he attended the STEM2U program in San Francisco, he wrote the following article about his experiences.
At the STEM program we did many fun, interesting engineering activities. First we designed a tower made of index cards and tape. It had to be strong enough to hold a toy panda bear on top. Our tower was about fourteen inches tall, and it held the panda, but it fell over when we added another layer!
I liked meeting new friends. One of them was Nicholas. He and I designed a car from recycled things like CDs. Our goal was to make the fastest and strongest car possible. We met our goal!
On Saturday we visited the Exploratorium, and we learned about how sound is made. My favorite part of the lesson was making a musical instrument out of recycled things like a plastic pipe with five holes in it. When I played it, it sounded like a horn.
I really liked designing and building the tower, the flying disk, the race car, and the musical instrument.
When I grow up, I want to be a musical instrument maker!
by Kaylee Nielson
From the Editor: Kaylee Nielson is a high school student who served as an apprentice at the STEM2U program in Baltimore, Maryland. In this article she writes about some of the lessons she carried away with her.
Science, technology, engineering, and math are four crucial elements in today's curriculum. For those of us who are visually impaired, it can be very difficult to excel in these fields. The STEM2U program provided me with an opportunity to travel across the country in order to improve my way of learning these STEM subjects.
Located in Baltimore, Maryland, the program allowed us to meet others like ourselves who have struggled with learning STEM subjects easily. We did projects such as building towers and building cars from recycled materials. We completed activities that encouraged us to work with others. Besides teaching us these skills in a different way, the program showed us new technology to help us learn better in a classroom setting.
In addition to learning skills to help us in our future schooling and careers, the program also taught me how to work with individuals who have no vision. We applied these skills when we worked with children who were visually impaired. One thing we did was take them to a science museum and do activities with them. We got to be role models for the younger children, people they could look up to.
While the skills we learned will always help us, the experience itself will also be remembered. The friendships we made will always last. Being able to learn from people who have become successful despite their low vision encouraged us to do our best. We can use our knowledge to help others who struggle in the same ways we do.
by Chris Matthews
From the Editor: Chris Matthews is a high school student from Cedarburg, Wisconsin. In this article he writes about his participation in the EQ program sponsored by the National Center for Blind Youth in Science project.
My first impression of the EQ program was one of anticipation. I had attended summer camps since the age of six, so being away from home was not a new experience for me. However, when I learned through friends about the NFB's opportunity, I was excited to attend one of the STEM programs myself.
The program started out like any other, with introductions and a team activity. Each team was given marshmallows, spaghetti strands, and a few other materials. We were instructed to build the tallest possible structure. Having a limited time to work, my team bonded immediately. We used each other's ideas to form a solid pyramid, and it was the winning structure. This was the start of a really special bond we shared throughout the week of working together, one I will never forget. Even now, months later, we still keep in touch, through a bond that started at EQ.
Throughout the week engineering remained at the center of our activities. However, it was not the only focus of the program, or at least it is not all I took from the experience. From community outings to watching movies, from getting together and playing Uno and Truth or Dare, we got to know each other well. It came in handy as the week progressed. Teams bonded, and I think we all felt close to each other. It made the days of building and designing our own boats and water filtration systems easier, knowing each other's capabilities.
Teamwork was an essential part of EQ, forming the baseline the program followed. Over the course of the week, we learned to work together, using a multitude of techniques and tools introduced by our instructors and mentors. The staff did an excellent job of making us feel welcome and comfortable. Then they pushed us a bit out of that comfort zone to accomplish our project goals. Each team worked hard throughout the week to achieve those goals, cooperating with other teams when resources and time became restricted.
From building a boat and water filtration system to learning to draw design plans and sketches, NFB EQ 2015 was a spectacular experience. I learned a lot about what is possible, what is realistic, and what is attainable. I made friends, and I continued to build a sense of confidence in myself. I think that experience was shared by each one of us, staying with us long after we boarded our planes and trains for home.
Reviewed by Janna Harvey
From the Editor: Janna Harvey is a teacher of the visually impaired in the suburbs of Chicago.
Shapes
ISBN: 9781465436122, 18 pages
Counting
ISBN: 9781465436139, 18 pages
Animals
ISBN: 9781465436115, 32 pages
On the Move
ISBN: 9781465436108, 32 pages
It Can't Be True
ISBN: 9781465444066, 72 pages
DK, a division of Penguin Random House, has recently launched a series of Braille books for children. The books combine tactile and visual features with Braille and large print to create a reading experience that can be enjoyed by both sighted and visually impaired readers.
DK Braille Books can be used in many ways. Blind parents and teachers can read the books with sighted or blind children, and sighted parents can read them with blind children. Sighted siblings and friends will be engaged as well, attracted by the colorful pictures on every page.
The series features preschool-level books on shapes and counting, as well as elementary-level books on animals, vehicles, and comparative size. All of the books include Braille and large print text along with tactile pictures on every page. The counting book adds interest by making use of a variety of textures: fuzzy, smooth, and even sticky. The remaining books mostly contain smooth raised pictures, but they have some varied textures as well. Uncontracted Braille is used in all of the books, and it follows the UEB rules for punctuation and numbers.
The book that I found most engaging and valuable is It Can't Be True: Incredible Tactile Comparisons. Many visually impaired children have difficulty with concept development because they cannot access certain objects--generally those that are very small or very large--via touch. It can be hard for a blind child to understand how big a shark is, since it is not usually possible to explore a real shark tactilely. This book displays tactile pictures of the largest shark in the world, the highest wave ever recorded, and much more. For comparison, each object is placed beside a tactile representation of something already familiar to children, such as the figure of a human being.
Each of the other books in the series contains a few features I found particularly helpful for blind and visually impaired readers. Animals has a brief quiz at the end that allows children to practice their tactile discrimination and concept development skills. It presents a few animal body parts that have already been displayed on previous pages and asks readers to identify them. Taking this quiz could be a fun activity for sighted readers to try with their eyes closed. Shapes features both cutout shapes and raised shapes. Learners can feel the shapes as negative space or as raised representations. This approach provides two distinct types of experience with each shape, encouraging generalization of concepts.
Counting offers a different and interesting texture on each page. I am sure the worms, which are actually sticky, will be a hit with young children.
On the Move encourages an understanding of comparative size as well as some science concepts. The brightly colored, realistic tactile pictures of tractors and monster trucks will excite blind and sighted readers alike. On the Move has a tactile quiz at the end similar to that found in Animals.
Finally, I liked the fact that in each book the Braille dots are not only crisp and raised but also printed in black. A sighted parent easily can see the exact Braille letters the child's fingers are passing over. This may help a parent be more aware of which Braille characters the child has trouble reading. It also helps reinforce the configurations of Braille letters for sighted parents or siblings who may be trying to learn the Braille code.
All in all, I definitely recommend DK Braille Books to visually impaired parents and to parents and teachers of the visually impaired. The books are available through Amazon and also can be purchased from Seedlings Braille Books for Children.
I applaud DK Books, a mainstream publisher, for recognizing the needs of Braille readers. DK Books has come up with a great concept, and I look forward to the company's future offerings.
by Kim Cunningham
My name is Kim Cunningham, and I am the president of the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children (NOPBC). I would like to invite all families, friends, and teachers of blind and low vision children to join us at the NFB National Convention from Thursday, June 30 through Tuesday, July 5, 2016 in beautiful, sunny Orlando, Florida. Every year the NOPBC holds its annual national conference during the NFB National Convention. Our board has been working hard to bring relevant, informative sessions and activities for families and teachers of blind and low vision children. We welcome all families of children who are blind, low vision, with or without additional disabilities to come together for a week full of fun and educational workshops. We believe that all children can learn with the right support and training. Please help us to share the news that blindness is not what holds our children back! Together we can work to change what it means to be blind!
Ten years ago my daughter and I attended our first NFB National Convention. Because my daughter was considered low vision by our school district, I didn’t think the NFB was for us. After all, no one ever called her blind. But, we were at a loss about my daughter’s future and how she would grow into an independent person. We were concerned about how she would take her science classes in school. We were concerned about the length of time it took for her to complete her work. We were concerned about her identity and feeling like a broken person. We were concerned about her struggle to read. We had no one to answer our questions and give us direction.
This all changed when we attended the NFB National Convention along with 2,000 other blind and low vision people. Everyone was tapping their canes and living their lives just like all the sighted people I knew. It was an energizing atmosphere that I have never felt before. The Federation embraced us and welcomed us into their family! I learned that low vision kids would benefit from all the tools “blind” kids used. The magic wand ended up being a cane, and the secret word was Braille. I attended workshops while my daughter learned about accessible science from a blind scientist. She also learned about the benefits of the long white cane. The exhibit hall was filled with technology, books, and independent living items to choose from. If I had a question, someone was there to answer it.
This year our theme for the NOPBC Conference is “Transitions.” As parents, we are constantly transitioning from one area to another. When our children were born, we transitioned to becoming parents of blind and low vision babies. Our children transition from toddlers to elementary school, to junior high, and then high school. Some kids transition from reading print to reading Braille. And with each new transition, we find we are at a crossroad of which way to turn. We hope that our workshops will give you the tools to make educated decisions about the road you want to take.
This is what I want all families to experience. I want you to feel hope for a bright future for your child. I want you to learn the skills that blind and low vision children need to live their lives to the fullest. I want you to know that we all have the same goal—a bright future for our children.
Please join us:
Rosen Shingle Creek Resort
9939 Universal Boulevard
Orlando, Florida 32819-9357
2016 NOPBC Annual Conference
Transitions!
The 33rd Annual NOPBC Conference
Thursday, June 30—Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Orlando, FL
We welcome all families and teachers of blind and visually impaired children to attend the NOPBC’s annual conference. We will hold our conference in conjunction with the 2016 National Convention of the National Federation of the Blind. We look forward to seeing you at our full-day seminar on Thursday, June 30, and at our many activities that will be held throughout the remainder of the week. We are also in the midst of planning an informal trip to a fun kid friendly Florida attraction on Wednesday, June 29. For more information about this trip, please make sure you are a part of our Facebook group, our blindkid email list, or visit our website at <http://www.nopbc.org>. We will post trip details to all of these places as soon as they become final. If you’d rather talk to an actual person about this trip, please contact Kimberly Banks at 404-259-2651, or Melissa Riccobono, 443-803-0266.
Preregister by June 21, 2016:
$30 for an individual adult
$50 for two or more related adults
Children and youth free
After June 21, 2016:
$40 per individual adult
$70 for two or more adults
Children and youth free
In addition to registering for the NOPBC annual conference, you will also need to register for the National Federation of the Blind National Convention in order to take advantage of our excellent room rates. Registration information, as well as a variety of other convention information, can be found at <https://nfb.org/convention>.
Childcare is available for children ages 6 weeks to 12 years. Children must be preregistered for child care. Find more information below, and register here: <https://nfb.org/nfb-camp-registration-form>.
In addition to NFB childcare, youth ages 11-18 are invited to participate in special NFB Youth Track activities. Youth track welcomes blind 11-18-year-olds, and also any sighted siblings in this age group. Information on Youth Track activities is provided below, and updates on the Youth Track schedule can be found at <http://www.nopbc.org>.
The 2016 room rates are singles and doubles, $83; and triples and quads, $89. In addition to the room rates there will be a tax, which at present is 13.5 percent. No charge will be made for children under seventeen in the room with parents as long as no extra bed is requested. Please note that the hotel is a no-smoking facility.
For 2016 convention room reservations you can call the hotel at (866) 996-6338. You may also write directly to the Rosen Shingle Creek, 9939 Universal Boulevard, Orlando, Florida 32819-9357. The hotel will want a deposit of $95 for each room and will want a credit card number or a personal check. If you use a credit card, the deposit will be charged against your card immediately, just as would be the case with a $95 check.
All Rosen Shingle Creek guestrooms feature amenities that include plush Creek Sleeper beds, 40” flat screen TVs, complimentary high-speed internet capabilities, in-room safes, coffee makers, mini-fridges, and hair dryers. Guests can enjoy four outdoor swimming pools, a full-service spa, and dining/lounging options from fine-dining and elaborate buffets to casual dining both indoors and poolside.
Thursday, June 30: Seminar Day Opening Day of NOPBC National Conference
Morning NOPBC General Session
Afternoon NOPBC Workshops
Evening NOPBC Family Hospitality Night
Friday, July 1: NFB Registration Day, Meetings of Divisions and Committees
Morning NOPBC Cane Walks
Afternoon NOPBC Style Show
Evening “Laps for Literacy” NOPBC Fundraiser
Saturday, July 2: NFB Board Meeting, Meetings of Divisions and Committees
Afternoon NOPBC Annual Meeting and Parent Power
Early Evening NOPBC Braille Book Fair
Evening NOPBC Dad’s Night Out
Sunday, July 3: NFB Opening Day Session
Evening NOPBC Workshops and Children’s Activities
Monday, July 4: NFB Business Session
Tuesday, July 5: NFB Banquet Day and Adjournment
by Carla McQuillan
Children between the ages of six weeks and twelve years are invited to attend child care during convention sessions this summer. The children will be divided into groups by age, with appropriate toys, games, and activities available to each. Child care is staffed by qualified, experienced teachers, including Michelle Chicon, a certified teacher of blind children.
Child care will be open during all general sessions of the national convention; the NOPBC Conference on Thursday, June 30; and Division Meeting Day on July 2. It will also be open during the convention banquet on Tuesday, July 5. Child care is closed on Friday, July 1.
Throughout the day, the preschool and elementary-school children in child care will engage in a variety of activities. Additional activities this year will include hikes to the on-site fishing lake. There will be a blind fisherman to help the children learn to fish using alternative techniques. This hotel also has large grassy areas for water play and field games.
For registration information and additional details regarding the program, please visit <http://nfb.org/nfb-camp-registration-form>.
The registration deadline is June 15, or as space is available. See you in Orlando!
* Important: All NOPBC children’s activities take place in NFB Child Care. To take part in the NOPBC children’s activities, your child must be registered with NFB Child Care for that day.
Please visit <www.nopbc.org> for activity updates and registration information.
Thursday, June 30
7:30 AM - 4:45 PM Full-Day NOPBC Transitions Seminar—General Session and Workshops
7:30 - 8:45 AM REGISTRATION
9:00 AM General session begins.
Parents, children, and youth are invited to start the morning together at the “Transitions” NOPBC Seminar. At 10:45 a.m. children preregistered with NFB Child Care will be escorted to the children’s activity in the child care rooms, and youth ages eleven to eighteen will be escorted to the Youth Track activity rooms. Save your NOPBC registration badge for free admission to Family Hospitality in the evening!
9:00 - 9:10 AM Welcome to the 2016 NOPBC National Conference
Kim Cunningham, president, NOPBC
9:10 - 9:30 AM KID TALK! Children are invited to talk with President Mark Riccobono, National Federation of the Blind
9:30 - 9:40 AM NOPBC Presidential Report, Transitions in Parenting
Kim Cunningham, president, NOPBC
9:40 - 10: 00 AM My Educational Journey - Transitioning to Adulthood
Kayleigh Joiner, college graduate, Elementary Education Chris Nusbaum, high school graduate
10:00 - 10:25 AM Transitioning for all ages! Learn about raising blind and low vision children from birth to 18. Hear from a mother and educator’s point of view.
Judy Lehman, para-educator, Watertown, WI
10:25 - 10:45 AM Transitioning to Employment – “BRIDGE” the gap!
Sheila Koenig, transition coordinator, Minnesota State Services for the Blind
10:45 AM CHILDREN & YOUTH ARE ESCORTED TO ACTIVITIES
11:00 AM NOPBC YOUTH TRACK ACTIVITY (ages 11 - 18)
Icebreakers and “What on earth does this convention offer anyway?” Eric Guillory, youth track coordinator; youth services director, Louisiana Center for the Blind.
11:00 AM NOPBC CHILDREN’S ACTIVITY (ages 5 - 12) in NFB Child Care
Music and Movement: Conchita Hernandez, TBS.
To participate, child must be signed up for child care for this day.
11:00 AM - 12:15 PM NOPBC CONCURRENT WORKSHOPS for PARENTS & TEACHERS
Essential 411: How to Optimize Your Convention Experience: This workshop is geared toward first-time convention attendees, but will certainly provide valuable information for all.
Kim Cunningham, president, NOPBC.
Pam Allen, first vice president, National Federation of the Blind, president, National Federation of the Blind of Louisiana.
Norma Crosby, board member, National Federation of the Blind, president, National Federation of the Blind of Texas.
Oh, the Places You’ll Go!: Transitioning to and Encouraging Independent Movement in Young Blind Children
Sheena Manuel, MAT, TBS, NOMC, NCUEB, NCLB.
Where Do I Fit In?: Transitions and Tools for Children with Low Vision and Their Parents
Terri Rupp, board member, NOPBC.
Paired with a Para?: Suggestions on Paraprofessional Training, Roles, and Transitioning from Direct One on One Assistance to Child Independence.
Judy Lehman, paraprofessional, Watertown Unified School District.
The New Fangled or Old Fashioned Way?: High Tech Reading Technology, the Human Reader, and Transitioning Between Them
Candice Chapman, LSC, first vice president, National Association of Blind Students, treasurer, NFB Human Services Division.
Chelsey Duranleau, communications instructor, BLIND Inc.
12:15 PM LUNCH on your own.
Please pick up children from NFB Child Care and Youth Track activities.
1:30 PM CHILD CARE REOPENS
2:00 PM NOPBC CHILDREN’S ACTIVITY (ages 5 - 12) in NFB Child Care
To participate, child must be signed up for child care for this day.
2:00 - 4:45 PM NOPBC YOUTH TRACK (ages 11 - 18)
Feeling Good and Looking Good: Self Confidence, Fashion, and Style
Eric Guillory, youth track coordinator; youth services director, Louisiana Center for the Blind.
2:00 - 3:15 PM NOPBC CONCURRENT WORKSHOPS for PARENTS & TEACHERS
Pre and Early Literacy: Encouraging the Young Braille Reader through Touch and Play
Melissa Riccobono, board member, NOPBC.
It’s Here!: Transitioning to Fully Implementing Unified English Braille
Krystal Guillory, M. Ed., NCUEB, teacher of blind students.
I Don’t Like That!: Encouraging the Reluctant Blind and Low Vision Child to Use all Senses
Casey Robertson, M.Ed., NCLB, NCUEB, teacher of blind students.
Preparing for Work Starts in Preschool: Community Involvement, Volunteer Opportunities, and Work Experiences from Preschool to High School
Brent Batron, director of youth services, Colorado Center for the Blind.
Education in Action: A Look Inside a Working Inclusive Model Classroom – High School Level
Members of the Professionals in Blindness Education (PIBE) Division
3:30 - 4:45 PM NOPBC CONCURRENT WORKSHOPS for PARENTS & TEACHERS
NOPBC and NFB, Ages and Stages: How to Capitalize on the Network and Resources of the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children and the National Federation of the Blind
Carol Castellano, board member, NOPBC
Access Technology: What’s Out There, and When Should My Child Learn to Use It?
Martha Harris, communications instructor, BLIND Inc.
So Many Changes: Helping Your Blind Child Transition during the Stages of Puberty.
Mika Baugh, M.ED.
You Too Can Be a Lazy Parent: Helping Blind Children Learn Skills for Independence Now So They Can Take Care of Themselves (and You) Later
Jessica Beecham, M.S., CTRS, program director, WE Fit Wellness.
Education in Action: A Look Inside a Working Inclusive Model Classroom– Elementary/Middle School Levels
Members of the Professionals in Blindness Education (PIBE) Division
By 5:30 PM Please pick up children from child care and youth track!
5:30 - 7:00 PM NOPBC FAMILY HOSPITALITY
Relax, snack, chat, meet new families and teachers, and connect with old friends. Veteran attendees will be on hand to welcome you and provide information.
Admission is free with your 2016 NOPBC Conference name badge; $15/adult and $5/child without badge. Pizza and lemonade will be served. Co-sponsored by Professionals in Blindness Education (PIBE).
8:00 - 11:00 PM National Association of Blind Students Social (ages 14 - 18)
Friday, July 1
Child Care is CLOSED on this day.
8:45 - 10:30 AM CANE WALK Session I
Wondering if your child should use a cane? Curious about how a cane works? Learn and experience the Structured Discovery Method of travel at these special workshops. Parents, teachers, blind/VI children, and siblings are welcome.
11:00 AM - 12:45 PM CANE WALK Session II
1:00 - 4:00 PM NOPBC YOUTH STYLE SHOW
(Rehearsal 1:00 – 2:30 PM: Style Show begins at 2:45 PM)
Watch our young blind and low vision models strut their stuff on the runway. Come enjoy the fashions and music and support NOPBC. Tickets $5 at the door. Coordinators: Frances Hammond, board member, NOPBC, and Kim Cunningham, president, NOPBC. For more information, please call Kim Cunningham at 713-501-9659.
4:45 - 6:00 PM (Begin Gathering at 4:30 PM) NOPBC Laps for Literacy! Fun family event!
Swim and walk laps for literacy! Everyone is invited to attend and help raise money and expectations at the same time! Tickets are $5 individual, $10 for family, or raise money at home for free entry! See <http://www.nopbc.org> for more information about raising money for this event before convention. Participants will meet at the lap pool outside of the hotel. For more information call Holly Miller at 732-610-5478.
7:30 - 9:30 PM PARENT LEADERSHIP PROGRAM—PLP
Has the NOPBC helped you and your family? Would you like to get more involved? Come learn about leadership opportunities in your state. Coordinator: Carol Castellano, board member, NOPBC; 201-400-1101.
Saturday, July 2
Child care is open in the morning and afternoon. You can drop younger children off at child care in the morning, or take them with you for a visit to the Exhibit Hall and the Independence Market. You might also consider attending the NFB Board of Directors meeting—it’s open to all. In the afternoon, drop the kids off at their activities early and come to the NOPBC Annual Meeting!
10:00 - 11:45 AM NOPBC YOUTH TRACK ACTIVITY (ages 11 - 14)
Scavenger Hunt!
(Youth ages 14-18 are encouraged to attend the NFB Board of Directors meeting.)
12:45 PM CHILD CARE WILL BE OPEN EARLY ON THIS AFTERNOON
Give your child lunch, then drop child off early at child care on this day—so that you can attend the NOPBC Annual Meeting which begins at 1 p.m. NOPBC CHILDREN’S ACTIVITY (ages 5-12) in NFB Child Care takes place during Child Care afternoon session.
To participate, child must be signed up for child care for this day.
1:00 - 4:00 PM NOPBC YOUTH TRACK SESSION (ages 11-18)
Hands On Science Exploration!
1:00 - 4:00 PM NATIONAL ORGANIZATION OF PARENTS OF BLIND CHILDREN ANNUAL MEETING
Attention parents and teachers! Be sure to attend this important meeting featuring the 2016 Distinguished Educator of Blind Children; NFB Writer’s Division Youth Contest Winners, Parent Power, Kid Power; NOPBC business, elections. Special bonus: meeting attendees receive priority entrance ticket to Braille Book Fair!
5:00 - 7:00 PM BRAILLE BOOK FAIR
A book lover's dream! Browse tables of Braille and print/Braille books. Volunteers will box your books and deliver them to the post office for Free Matter shipment to your home. Books are free; donations are encouraged to support our Braille programs. Contact Krystal Guillory for more information at 318-245-8955.
7:30 - 9:00 PM DADS’ NIGHT OUT
All dads, sighted and blind are welcome at this NOPBC-sponsored event. Call Bill Cucco at 201-602-6318 for location.
Sunday, July 3
7:30 - 9:00 AM NOPBC BOARD MEETING
9:30 - 12:00 PM NFB CONVENTION OPENING General Session
Be there for the bang of the gavel and the roar of the crowd! See the NFB Convention Agenda for program details. NFB general sessions take place all day Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Many additional events and meetings take place before the morning session, at lunchtime, and in the evenings.
1:00 - 5:00 PM NFB CONVENTION General Session
7:00 - 10:00 PM NOPBC CHILDREN’S CRAFT & GAME NIGHT (ages 5 - 12)
This activity will be available for children of families attending workshops during this time. NFB child care will not be open!
7:00-10:00 PM Deal Me In: A gathering for youth ages 11-18
Learn and practice various card games. Socialize with other young people. This activity was so popular last year that it is back and will be better than ever! You won’t want to miss it!
7:00 - 9:45 PM NOPBC CONCURRENT WORKSHOPS
7:00 - 9:45 PM Adaptive Games
A make-and-take session for families to learn how to adapt store bought games to include blind and visually impaired children in family fun. Ideal for parents of blind children, and also blind parents of sighted children, blind educators, or anyone else who likes to play games and include everyone.
Judy Lehman, paraprofessional, Watertown Unified School District.
7:00 - 8:15 PM IEP’s – What does a good IEP look like and how do I get there?
Learn how to advocate for your child in school. What are smart goals? What types of assessments are available? Learn what the law says about educating blind and low vision students.
Carlton Anne Cook Walker, manager of Braille education programs, NFB Jernigan Institute.
8:30 - 9:45 PM Basic IEP Advocacy Training
For NFB members and families who wish to help other families learn to advocate effectively at IEP meetings. How do you ask for things and get results? How do you stay calm?
Sharon Maneki, IEP advocate; president, National Federation of the Blind of Maryland.
Monday, July 4
9:00 AM - 12:00 PM NFB CONVENTION General Session
12:30 - 1:45 PM NOPBC BRAINSTORMING SESSION
Please come to share your knowledge and ideas with us. What did you like at this convention? What resources would help you stay connected throughout the year? What workshops might you like to see us offer next year? Be a part of this valuable conversation.
Kim Cunningham, president, NOPBC.
2:00 - 5:00 PM NFB CONVENTION General Session
6:00 - 7:30 PM PARENT LEADERSHIP PROGRAM—PLP
Has the NOPBC helped you and your family? Would you like to get more involved? Come learn about leadership opportunities in your state. Coordinator: Carol Castellano, board member, NOPBC.
Tuesday, July 5
9:00 - 12:00 PM NFB CONVENTION General Session
2:00 - 5:00 PM NFB CONVENTION General Session
7:00 PM NFB Banquet
The NFB National Convention is a complicated week of events. We hope the information provided above will help you stay organized and make the most of your convention experience. The most confusing part of convention for families is often our registration system, so this information bears repeating. The NOPBC conference, the NFB convention, and NFB Child Care have separate registration forms and fees. Links to these three registration forms are provided above. To receive our special hotel room rates, you must register for the NFB convention.
For the first time this year, the NOPBC is pleased to offer our Convention 411 workshop for families attending convention for the first time, or those families who would like to get information and advice from veteran convention attendees. Please take advantage of this workshop Thursday, June 30, from 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
The information above highlights all of the wonderful special activities for families brought to you by the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children.
Other activities that you and your child might want to attend are listed in the NFB Convention agenda (this is a separate document available at <https://nfb.org/convention>).
Many activities will be going on at the same time. You and your child might have to make choices! Read both the NOPBC agenda as well as the NFB agenda so that you don’t miss out! For example:
We hope to see you in Orlando!
Books Needed!
2016 Braille Book Fair
National Federation of the Blind
200 E. Wells St. at Jernigan Place
Baltimore, MD 21230
It's that time again--time to sort through all those boxes and donate your gently used but no longer needed Braille books to the 2016 Braille Book Fair sponsored by the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children. Our primary goal is to get more Braille books into the hands of children, youth, and beginning adult readers. Most needed are print/Braille storybooks (also known as Twin Vision books) and fiction or nonfiction leisure reading. Children are so hungry for their very own books that every year, despite generous donations, most of the books for young children are gone in less than an hour. So begin your search through the boxes in your basement and spare room, and get those books shipped to us in time for convention!
Please note that you do not need to pay shipping costs for Braille items. Handwrite, stamp, or affix a label to the upper right-hand corner of the box stating FREE MATTER FOR THE BLIND, and take your packages to the local post office.
Volunteers Needed!
Contact: Sandra Oliver, (713) 825-4573
[email protected]
Where: NFB Convention, Orlando, FL
When: Saturday, July 2, 2016
Setup: 10 AM-12 PM, 12-2 PM, 2-4 PM
Event: 4-7 PM
Clean-up: 6:30-8 PM
Location: See the NFB Convention agenda
The Braille Book Fair has become one of the highlights of the NFB convention for many teachers, blind and sighted parents, blind kids, and adult beginning Braille readers. The event could not take place without the help of dedicated, talented volunteers. That's where you come in! As a past worker or simply as an interested supporter of the Braille Book Fair, you can volunteer or provide the contact information of someone you recommend. You do not need to work for the entire afternoon or evening, but we do ask that you work for a complete two-hour shift. We need people who help customers to arrive before the doors open at 5 p.m. and commit to stay until 6:30 p.m. Book lovers are great for this shift, as they will assist visitors in book decisions/selections.
BELL Academy (Braille Enrichment for Literacy and Learning)
<https://nfb.org/bell-academy>
Contact: Carlton Walker, (410) 659-9314, Extension 2225
[email protected]
Why do birds sing in the spring?
Because they don't have any BELLs to ring!
While cold winds blew all winter long, we enjoyed preparing for summer activities. One of our favorites is NFB BELL--the National Federation of the Blind Braille Enrichment for Literacy and Learning. This summer, in more than thirty states across the country, NFB BELL Academy will provide Braille and nonvisual skill instruction to students ages four to twelve in forty programs or residential settings. BELL instructors use time-tested lessons and proven techniques to build the self-confidence, positive attitudes, and essential nonvisual skills that will allow students to live the lives they want. For information about a BELL Academy near you, contact Carlton Walker by phone or email. The website contains links to information about individual sites and application forms.
Envisioning Youth Empowerment (EYE) Retreat
<www.eyeretreat.org>
Contact: Alan Chase, (919) 813-0393
[email protected]
Location: Governor Morehead School for the Blind, Raleigh, NC
Dates: July 23-30, 2016
“I Retreat from No Challenge” is the motto of the Eye Retreat, a summer camp that teaches blind/visually impaired youth to prepare for college. Since 2009, the Eye Retreat has grown from serving fifteen students from North Carolina to including fifty-one students from eight states and two countries in 2015. Applications are open for both students and mentors. The Eye Retreat works on skills such as college readiness, use of public transportation, and dorm living, and includes job shadowing.
2016 NFB EQ Teacher Seminar
<www.blindscience.org/nfb-eq-teacher-seminar>
NFB Jernigan Institute, Baltimore, MD
Dates: August 2-6, 2016
Application Deadline: June 7, 2016
Are you interested in learning more about how to support your blind and visually impaired students in STEM subjects? Join the National Federation of the Blind for the 2016 NFB EQ Teacher Seminar for a STEM-focused professional development opportunity for teachers who work with blind and low-vision high school students studying STEM subjects. You will learn about various tools and techniques blind students can use in the STEM classroom. The program is open to teachers of the blind/visually impaired, STEM teachers working with blind students, and students enrolled in teacher preparation for teachers of the blind/visually impaired.
Envision 2016
<www.envisionconference.org>
Contact: Angela Cato, work, (316) 440-1518; cell, (316) 641-6844
[email protected]
Location: Grand Hyatt Hotel, Denver
Dates: September 7-10, 2016
The Envision conference is a multidisciplinary conference where optometrists, rehabilitation therapists, special education teachers, and government policymakers receive updates and collaborate on the latest ideas in vision rehabilitation, research, practice, and technology. Dr. Joshua Miele, founder and director of the Video Research and Development Center and associate director of the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in San Francisco will deliver the keynote address.
2016 Independence Science, Learning a New Direction (ISLAND)
Contact: Cary Supalo, [email protected]
Location: Kurz Purdue Technology Center, 1281 Win Henschel Blvd., West Lafayette, IN 47906
Date: September 16, 2016
The 2016 ISLAND conference will examine innovations and opportunities for blind students in the STEM fields. Submissions for presentations will be accepted until June 15. Abstracts should be no more than 150 words in length, summarizing a presentation of approximately thirty minutes.
PARC and Smarter Balanced Survey
<http://nfb.org/CommonCoreAssessmentSurvey>
Contact: Valerie Yingling, (410) 659-9314, Extension 2440
[email protected]
As students participate in PARC and Smarter Balanced assessments, the NFB asks that parents, students, and teachers take time to complete the NFB's Common Core Assessment Survey online. In particular, the NFB wants to know when and where accessibility failures occurred in order to ensure that problems are fixed.
Professional Development and Research Institute on Blindness
Louisiana Tech University
<www.pdrib.com>
Contact: Edward Bell, (318) 257-4554
[email protected]
Louisiana Tech is excited to announce that it has expanded its training and is launching a brand-new concentration in rehabilitation teaching for the blind. Scholarships are now available for qualified individuals seeking one of the following degree paths:
The Thinkable Motorized Drawing Arm
<http://thinkable.nl/mda>
The Thinkable Motorized Drawing Arm (MDA) is a concept for a computer-driven motorized arm that draws tactile graphics by mechanically moving a ballpoint pen across the surface of a tactile drawing board. It aims to combine the accuracy of the digital tactile graphics from the TactileView software with the versatility of drawing by hand on the TactiPad drawing board. The MDA opens up unique ways of making tactile graphics easily accessible. Teachers, parents, and students are encouraged to explore the MDA website and contribute their ideas as the development of this exciting new product moves forward.
National Center for Blind Youth in Science (NCBYS)
<www.blindscience.org>
Funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation, the NCBYS is a web portal for sharing information and resources to help blind students study and succeed in the STEM fields. The site includes information about materials and equipment, links to articles, links to online resources, and stories about blind scientists and mathematicians.
Independence Science: Science Access Technology for Students Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired
<www.independencescience.com>
3000 Kent Ave.
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Contact: (866) 862-9665
[email protected]
Independence Science envisions a science classroom that exhibits the full integration of students with disabilities. It seeks to meet the needs of educators who assist students with visual impairments and other disabilities. Products break down science barriers by adding speech to data collection and analysis tools developed by Vernier Software and Technology. A free monthly newsletter helps teachers and students stay informed about workshops, conferences, and the latest developments in accessible hardware and software.
Making Science Accessible to Students Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired
Perkins eLearning
<www.perkinselearning.org/scout/making-science-accessible-students-blind-visually-impaired>
Sponsored by the Perkins School for the Blind, this website includes information about teaching techniques, accessible technology, and science camps for blind students. Articles and resources are listed for scientific fields including physical science, earth science, oceanography, biology, chemistry, and astronomy.
Science for the Blind
MDW Educational Services, LLC
<www.sciencefortheblind.com>
1115 Inman Ave., Suite 116
Edison, NJ 08820
Contact: Marilyn Winograd, (908) 565-1802
[email protected]
Lillian Rankel: [email protected]
MDW Educational Services, LLC provides consultation services to educators around the globe with techniques, methodologies, and tools to teach the science curriculum to students who are blind or have low vision. Science adaptation kits have been developed as a cost-effective way for teachers to adapt the classroom. Training workshops are offered to teachers and parents, and fun science learning activities have been developed for blind students. MDW Educational Services, LLC is available for phone or email consultation regarding modifications to fully include blind or visually impaired students in hands-on laboratory activities.
Tactile Maps Training Book
Adaptations, the Lighthouse Store
214 Van Ness Ave.
San Francisco, CA 94102
Contact: (415) 694-7301
[email protected]
The Lighthouse for the Blind in San Francisco is a leading provider of tactile maps, conveying visual or graphical information through raised-line and textural media. While the ability to interpret maps comes naturally to some people, others require teaching and practice. The Tactile Maps Training Book, available in Braille and large print, serves as a teaching aid to help students learn strategies for reading tactile graphics through a variety of exercises around transit, campus, and floor plan maps. Also available from the Lighthouse, The Tactile Maps Training Book: Audio Supplement is intended for use with the audio-tactile maps provided by the Lighthouse. The guide introduces readers to the Smartpen, followed by a series of map exercises.
To learn more about tactile maps produced by the Lighthouse, email [email protected] or call Greg Kehret at (415) 694-7349.
New Group for Teachers and Parents
Adrijana Prokopenko, a teacher of blind students in Macedonia, has created a Facebook group for teachers and parents of blind students and for university students who are studying to become teachers. Anyone else who is involved with blind children is also welcome to join. The group can be found by searching the terms "Teachers and Parents of the Visually Impaired."
Three new books are now available from the Independence Market at the headquarters of the National Federation of the Blind in Baltimore. Each of them is also available in paperback and Kindle formats at <www.amazon.com>.
Crooked Paths Made Straight: A Blind Teacher's Adventures Traveling around the World
by Isabelle L. D. Grant
Edited by Deborah Kent
iUniverse, 280 pages
ISBN: 149177035X
In 1959, two years before she retired from teaching, Dr. Isabelle Grant set off on a year-long journey around the world with Oscar, her long white cane, in her hand. She had been totally blind for the past twelve years. In Crooked Paths Made Straight she shares the story of her journey, during which she visited twenty-three countries from Great Britain to Fiji. In Karachi she traveled the streets by rickshaw and struggled to master the Urdu language. In India she explored the Taj Mahal, and in Burma she slept in a room where lizards raced up and down the walls. At a time when both women and blind people were generally seen as too helpless for solo travel, Grant fearlessly defied conventions. A dedicated teacher with a lifelong commitment to learning, her mission was to learn all she could about education in the countries she visited, in particular the education provided to blind children. Completed in 1965, Crooked Paths Made Straight recounts Grant's journey, a story of dreams deferred that did not shrivel, but sprang to life again and again.
The Power of Love: How Kenneth Jernigan Changed the World
edited by Ramona Walhof
ISBN: 9781491784501, 419 pages
The editor, a longtime friend of Kenneth Jernigan, draws together the distinctive voices of individuals who knew him and whose lives he touched through his work with the National Federation of the Blind. Each reflection begins with a biographical sketch that introduces the chapter's author and ties his or her life to Kenneth Jernigan and his work. The book concludes with a chapter called "Blindness: The Federation at Fifty," a retrospective written by Kenneth Jernigan himself in the last decade of his life. This volume gathers a polyphonic chorus of voices that tell how the power of love, coursing through the life of Kenneth Jernigan, changed the world for the blind, and in so doing changed the world for everyone.
The Future of Disability Law: Presentations from the 2015 Jacobus tenBroek Disability Law Symposium
edited by David Ferleger, Esq.
ISBN: 1491783583, 181 pages
In celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act, nationally recognized disability-rights advocates looked ahead to the next twenty-five years of disability law in the United States. The essays in this book are based on their presentations and cover topics such as the future of disability law, civil rights movements, culture and policy change, the school-to-prison pipeline, aging and disability, and criminal justice and disability.
The Ballyland Magic App
<www.ballyland.com>
The Ballyland Magic App is a fun and educational iPad game specifically designed for children who are blind or have low vision. The game helps children learn and practice a number of touch gestures used for VoiceOver, Apple's built-in screen reader. Supportive and entertaining games enable children gradually to develop touch gesture skills and become confident with this special navigation that is required for the effective use of an iPhone or iPad.
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