Producing braille textbooks demands substantial time and funding, frequently resulting in delayed delivery of information to the students’ fingertips. Andrew Flatres, Braille Product Manager at HumanWare, has visited many schools and points out that blind students lack the necessary tools to effectively complete tasks that involve tactile information.
One instance stood out: a young, blind student working on quadratic graphs was attempting to plot coordinates to create a graph with tactile bumps and wiki sticks. By the time he finished, his classmates had moved on to another topic. The blind student was extremely disappointed. The wiki sticks and bumps were falling off, hindering his progress considerably.
This scenario is painfully familiar to many students and Teachers of the Visually Impaired (TVIs). The result? Blind students without appropriate resources falling behind, as well as TVI’s having to invest valuable time to create or revise educational content.
Watch this video to learn about the significance of innovative braille technology in schools and how it can positively impact student education.
Together with our close partners at the American Printing House for the Blind (APH) and the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), HumanWare is working to create and develop the Monarch, a multipurpose, multiline, tactile braille device that can download digital textbooks and access tactile graphics from APH’s TGIL library to significantly reduce the information time to fingertips for blind students. HumanWare and APH have an equal hand in setting the specifications and designing the user experience requirements for the Monarch. HumanWare manufactures the hardware and builds the software base, while DOT Inc. is providing the innovate braille cell technology.
In addition, the NFB (the world’s leading membership organization representing the blind), has played a critical role in ensuring that the customer’s voice has informed every step of this revolutionary project.
The Monarch, formerly known as the Dynamic Tactile Device (DTD) is the size of an average gaming laptop and weighs a modest four-and-a-half pounds. It features an 8-dot braille keyboard, zoom in/out buttons, direction pads, up/down arrow buttons and an unheard of 10 lines by 32 cell refreshable braille display that can render multiple lines of braille and tactile graphics using equidistant pins.
This highly innovative technology along with the development of a new dynamic file type that will bring braille and graphics together in a navigable file, will bridge the existing educational gap for all blind students.
The massive investment in R&D makes the Monarch a game-changer, but it is our firm belief that this powerful device alone will not be enough to make our dream of instant and efficient access to braille a reality without the file types to support it.
APH, with the support of the DAISY consortium, is working to accelerate the conversion of regular Braille Ready Format (BRF) files to a digital format, known as eBRF or eBraille.
We feel incredibly fortunate to have the support of our pioneering community, consisting of users, software developers, educators, professionals, and parents.
Their collective efforts will play a crucial role in fulfilling our mission of establishing a collaborative international network that will deliver robust, relevant and dynamic content. Together, we can reach great heights in our journey.
Key partners of the Monarch projects are:
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