American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults
Future Reflections Summer 2024 NEWS
Dare to Be Remarkable
https://nfb.org/programs-services/employment/dare-be-remarkable
Contact: Edward Bell, [email protected], 318-257-4554
Anil Lewis: [email protected], 410-659-9314, ext. 2374
Dates: November 11-13, 2024
Location: NFB Jernigan Institute, Baltimore, MD
The NFB Jernigan Institute will host a three-day conference for education and rehabilitation professionals who work with blind students and adults. The conference will include keynote presentations by leaders in the education and rehabilitation fields, work groups on Structured Discovery training methods and principles, professional think tank work group sessions for vocational rehabilitation instructors, and consumer panels on strategies that work.
Life Launch
https://www.perkins.org/transition-center/life-launch
Contact: 617-972-7573
Scheduled to begin in July 2025, Life Launch is an innovative, multi-faceted program that prepares young adults who are blind or visually impaired and have additional disabilities for independent living through hands-on work experience, concrete skill development, and real-world community engagement. Life Launch teaches young adults to develop independent living skills, prepare for meaningful employment, and actively engage in their communities. It is an immersive two-year program that includes mentoring, job shadowing, and internships. It also involves transition support and counseling in the years after graduation.
Swell Form Pro
https://americanthermoform.com/product/swell-form-pro-machine
800-331-3676
Zychem Technologies Pty Ltd, in collaboration with its parent company American Thermoform, is excited to introduce the Swell Form Pro, a state-of-the-art tactile graphics machine used to create educational products for the blind and visually impaired. The Swell Form Pro is specifically designed to improve and enhance the tactile graphic production capabilities for large-scale publishers. At speeds up to seven times faster than the standard swell form machine, this increase in efficiency can enable producers to expand their output rapidly and reach customers more quickly than ever before. The Swell Form Pro reduces the need for extensive human resources, thereby allowing publishers to redirect their efforts to other critical areas of development, production, and service.
Braille Word Builder Game
National Braille Press
https://shop.nbp.org/products/braille-word-builder-game
Use your Braille skills to find the most words! Includes Braille and print game boards and instructional pamphlet. Practice your Braille skills by finding as many words as possible in these five-by-five grids of letters in a set amount of time. The game contains twenty-five regular boards for uncontracted Braille and five challenge boards containing contractions. Each game board has five copies (four cards in SimBraille and embossed Braille, and one card in SimBraille and large print), so up to five people can play at once.
64 Ounce Games
https://64-ounce-games.myshopify.com/
64 Ounce Games accessibility kits allow blind and sighted players to play together with a retail product. What is included in an accessibility kit can vary from game to game, depending on the needs of the game. Most kits consist of a printout with all of the text of the cards. Included are instructions on assembly. The majority of the kits require a blind and sighted person to work together for initial assembly. A few kits can be used without knowledge of Braille. Some cards with a lot of text may include QR codes to be used with a reader such as the iPhone. This allows players to read their cards without assistance. All of these kits are clearly labeled. Other kits may include custom dice or tokens specific to the game. All kits require the original retail game, and a link to an online retailer is provided. Some kits listed as combo kits come with both the game and the kit, but they are not yet assembled. Games include:
Exploding Kittens
Apples to Apples
Bananagrams
Taboo
Ticket to Ride
Five Crowns
Catan
Scattergories
Voice of the Ancients
https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1142099795?pt=1173208&ct=bc&@mt=8
Peter Sallai, a mobile game developer, specializes in creating games for blind and low-vision players. Voice of the Ancients is an adventure game that can be played on an iPhone. You are in the French Foreign Legion in the Sahara when a dying teammate gives you his father's diary. The diary contains clues to a long-lost temple full of treasures. After you set out on the temple's trail, you realize that a secret organization, the Society of the Ancients, also is searching for the temple. In addition to solving the diary's mystery, you must escape from the Society. The game is controlled entirely by voice, so playing it is like having a conversation, with no need to touch the keyboard. The first episode is free.
Barbie Fashionistas
Barbie® has introduced the first blind Barbie fashionista doll and the first Black Barbie fashionista doll with Down syndrome, allowing more children to tell stories through play. As part of this year's global fashionistas lineup, Barbie partnered with the American Foundation for the Blind and the National Down Syndrome Society to ensure doll designs that accurately reflect the community they are designed to represent. These dolls allow even more children to find a doll that represents them and inspire all children to tell more stories through play. Barbie partnered with the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) to ensure details of the blind Barbie doll, including face sculpt, fashion, and accessories. The doll comes with a white cane with a marshmallow tip and includes stylish yet functional sunglasses, as worn by some individuals sensitive to light. The name "Barbie" appears in Braille on the package.
2024 Touch of Genius Award
Talking Tactile Tablet
https://www.touchgraphics.com/store/p/t3-games-book-new-for-2022
National Braille Press (NBP) has honored Touch Graphics, Inc., for its latest classroom aid, T3 Games, an educational product that includes a set of plastic overlays that can be placed on a large touchscreen tablet. Players follow the T3 narrator's spoken instructions as they work through forty puzzles and mazes, using their fingers to interpret the raised-line and textured graphics. Playing T3 Games builds tactile literacy, the ability to perceive and decode figures through the sense of touch. Starting with basic shapes, T3 games introduces concepts and vocabulary, then challenges players to demonstrate their skill by finding and pressing on features of the increasingly complex and detailed tactile game boards in response to T3 Narrator's questions. T3 games was developed by a team including a graphic designer, an interaction designer, a programmer, and a teacher.
Innovation by Design Awards
APH’s Monarch has been named a finalist in Fast Company's 2024 Innovation by Design Awards. Celebrating thirteen years of innovation by design, the 2024 honorees include nearly five hundred projects, products, and services that solve the most crucial problems of today and anticipate the pressing issues of tomorrow.
The Monarch is a refreshable multi-line and tactile graphics device that, for the first time, delivers Braille and tactile graphics simultaneously. The Monarch has the capability to connect with a visual display for collaboration with sighted teachers and peers.
Educational Technology Survey
https://nfb.org/legal/surveys
The NFB is gathering information regarding the accessibility of educational technology used in our nation's schools (kindergarten through graduate level). If you are a student, parent, teacher, or administrator who uses screen access software or other accommodations to participate nonvisually in educational programs or services, or if you are the parent, teacher, or administrator of someone who does, please complete the Education Technology Survey once a semester and contribute to this important research.