Unknown Speaker 0:05 Recording started. Welcome to emote PBC fabulous Fridays we have chancy fleet, the president of the NFP assistive technology trainers division and jack Menendez Unknown Speaker 0:23 technology trainer at Louisiana Center for the Blind. We also have Georgie sydnor. And I think Melissa also Unknown Speaker 0:32 presenting I'm not sure so I'm going to be quiet now. And Georgie would you finish the introductions and make everything go. Unknown Speaker 0:41 Off course I love making things go. So, um Hi I'm Georgie. I'm a currently a student at Louisiana Tech becoming a teacher of blind students, which if you're a parent out there is very very similar to a teacher of the visually impaired or a vision teacher and Yeah, we're all here today to talk about no takers, braille displays and how our kids need them and how our kids are going to use them. And it's really for mostly parents and teachers of young kids, but you know anybody since we're recording this anybody who wants to listen in I'm sure there's a lot you can learn. So we've got chancy and jack, we're both Braille display note taker pros, and they're going to share with us some of their thoughts on displays a note takers. So do you want to start off fancy? Unknown Speaker 1:34 Sure. Hey, hello, my name is Chelsea fleet. I am the assistive technology coordinator at the New York Public Library, Andrew Haskell Braille and talking book library branch, longest branch name ever and so I coordinate individual one on one technology coaching and group workshops that are library and we work with both adults and youth. And I also identify as blind and I have been a Braille display user for a pretty long time. I think I ran across many First Braille display when I was in middle school in eighth grade when I went to the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind for a couple of years, and I became a full time Braille display user as a freshman in college and Braille display is is a really important part of my toolkit. So what I'll be sharing with you today after jack has a chance to introduce himself, I really want to be able to talk about why braille displays need to be introduced, why Braille digital technology is relevant when we have so much other technology out there. Some of the applications of braille displays and then things to think about when you're choosing which Braille display or full featured Braille note taker you or your child is going to use. Unknown Speaker 2:48 Do we want to introduce jack maybe? Sure I can. Unknown Speaker 2:53 Hi, I am jack Mendez. I'm director of technology at Louisiana center for blind and I like Shanti Use braille displays very actively in my work and my home life. I've been a Braille user for quite some time, both as a software developer and as just Unknown Speaker 3:17 a general user. And Unknown Speaker 3:20 what I want to talk about is the decision making process and some thoughts around helping you as a parent, or student determine where Braille might be useful to you in applications where you might not think about. Unknown Speaker 3:40 Okay, great. So the first thing that I want to talk about is, you know, inevitably when you work with your IEP team at a lot of schools, you might get pushed back on having a Braille display available for your child or your team. And if you're an adult vocational rehabilitation student or An adult in an employment situation you might get that same pushback about a Braille display. We have digital technology, we have iPhones and Android phones and screen readers. Why is it so necessary to have a Braille display and I wanted to put a few things out there. From my work with my patrons, both youth and adults and from my personal life. When when you when you set out to acquire Braille technology, it's really important to go in with a clear head, whether it's for someone you're supporting or yourself and have a really solid justification. And so if you spend some time thinking about all the applications where braille displays make a big difference to success, I think you'll be better equipped to get the Braille display that you need. So, braille displays if you are learning to read, or if you're learning to read in a new way. So for me, that might mean learning Spanish, it might mean learning mathematics, musical notation, or code, or even learning to understand a new word that I haven't seen before and don't know how to pronounce. In all those situations when you're encountering new content. braille displays provide you the wonderful precision of knowing letter by letter symbol, symbol by symbol. What it is that you're coming across. When you listen to something like a line of code or mathematical equation, or something in another language or an unfamiliar word, using your screen reader with text to speech, you have to move letter by letter to really parse that out. Whereas with a Braille display, you have immediate access. And you can review it as many times as you like. And you can say it out loud. And you can copy it easily. And it just provides you this wonderful precision. So I think for early readers, and we'll talk more about early readers later, I think to Jordan and Melissa work well, for early readers and people encountering new things. braille displays are so important. One of my favorite things to do with early Braille readers who might be using Braille and text to speech In conjunction is if they come across something they don't recognize in Braille, and they're using it with a screen reader, like a digital Braille display or a note taker, they can read the Braille and have their text to speech, their screen reader. also read the word out loud. So it kind of lets you have the best of both worlds. Maybe you're going to skim something with text to speech. But when you find what you're looking for, you're going to zero in and read the line in Braille. Or maybe you're going to read something in Braille and you're having a hard time with a line, you might, you might try that line out with text to speech. Braille is important in a lot of other contexts, though, from the early grades all the way through career, it's really important that we be able to present on I almost said present online because I'm in zoom world down but present out loud, or do public speaking, or do class projects, group projects where you have to refer to your notes, maybe you have to refer to PowerPoint slides. And all those situations. Having Braille under your fingertips is so important. If you want to be able to take notes subtly and silently. Having Braille is important. If you want to be able to read to a friend or a sibling, or your child, Braille is so important. And so I think having a Braille display is no more negotiable for our kids and teens and adults who are blind, then it is negotiable for a sighted person to have a screen. And I think having that justification ready to go is one of the most important things that we can do is we enter into the assessment and acquisition process. JACK, is there anything you want to add to that? Unknown Speaker 7:34 Yeah, you mentioned quite a few of the issues I had planned to talk about. But one other scenario that that I can mention from my own life is we were building array microphones from elements and using in the field to capture hardware recordings. And I had to refer to technical documents to to look at the frequency ranges and what they called the reflection parameters when you build these array microphones. And without rail, I really would have had a very difficult time conveying those precise details to the students under my supervision, because otherwise I would have been using text to speech and I could have done that. But it was much easier to deal with that. When you're having to convey information with precision. Unknown Speaker 8:29 Yeah, in my experience, anytime something is kind of a cognitive lift. So for me, it's origami models. I like to take notes and learn to do origami, and boy is it hard for me to parse that stuff with text to speech, but if I can do it one line at a time with Braille, it makes such a big difference. And I forgot to mention one that's obvious, which is proofreading. You know, we've got spell check and grammar check. But we all know it makes mistakes. We have dictation, but boy do we know that makes mistakes. So just being able to proofread your own work or be a great help to someone else and prove for their work, finding those little punctuation issues and sound lakes and spaces, proofreading is so important. So now we know why we need a Braille display. JACK, do you want to start us off with a? So usually when I talk about this, I started by talking about the difference between standalone braille displays and like quote unquote, full featured note takers and then I go into like, criteria for choosing one do you want to start out there and I'll chime in this time. Unknown Speaker 9:27 Happy to do that cool. Um, so Unknown Speaker 9:31 when we talk about the the to Braille display, display or note taker, the biggest difference really, in my mind is how you intend on using the device. So our Braille display and a note taker can seem like they do similar things, but they're very different because of the form factor for one form factor. Just fancy word for the dimensions of the device, all those sorts of things, the ergonomics Unknown Speaker 10:09 and then Unknown Speaker 10:12 what the device can do so note takers have a proprietary operating system Unknown Speaker 10:22 or, and all Unknown Speaker 10:25 right so like maybe Unknown Speaker 10:25 it's Unknown Speaker 10:27 Android or it's windows but it's usually got some customizations that are supposed to make things easier. Unknown Speaker 10:31 Yeah, you know, Unknown Speaker 10:33 there's so the particularly on the human were products, there's so much modification, given the overlay, I would say. I'm less happy with ish and more happy to stay because the spirit is there, open source all that adoption, but I, in a lot of ways, there's a lot of drift, especially if you start we're going to get a little geek You hear but especially if you, if you get apps that are outside Google Play, it really tends to drop off. Unknown Speaker 11:07 Can I roll it back to like a wireless technical place for a second, just in case some people haven't heard these concepts before at all. So basically, guys, a Braille display is it could just be refreshable Braille and Braille input without a whole lot of extra features without a whole lot of its own brain, if you will, or operating system if you will. And it gets its power, just like a keyboard and a screen get their power from being connected to something else. So a Braille display you might connect to your iPhone, your Android device, your Mac, your PC, braille displays that don't have much of their own brain tend to be smaller. They tend to be less expensive than quote unquote full fledged note takers. They tend to require fewer software updates, and they tend to connect to more than one Bluetooth device or USB device. So that's the pro on those. Then there are some braille displays that are somewhere in the middle. And personally, I love the ones that are somewhere in the middle, I happen to use a cue Braille. Before that I used a vallario Ultra, which is no longer being made. I've used a Braille edge. And so some braille displays aren't full featured note takers running a full operating system, but they have some not internet connected tools that you can use when they're not connected to another device. So for example, my cue Braille or a Braille edge has a notepad. So you can do basic reading and writing. A book reader might happen to have a daisy reader, some of them have a basic calendar, not one where you can collaborate with other folks but just to keep yourself straight, basic time basic stopwatch, basic calculator, things like that. And then in addition, to do other things to be cloud connected to be online, they connect as a screening Keyboard would connect to some other digital device. I really love this category, they're still usually not as expensive as note takers, they tend to last a long time on charge, they tend not to need really frequent software updates. But when I'm writing or reading or giving a speech, I really don't want to be connected to the internet because I don't like surprises. And I don't like distractions. I like to be in kind of a walled garden, if you will, doing the simple things that I do in terms of reading or writing without a lot of interruptions and also, if you're in an exam or testing situation, these devices give you the peace of mind that you know, you can have them and they can do basic things for you. They can load word documents, and they can let you save Braille documents from a USB or flash drive depending on what the devices and you know that you can have a testing situation or an undistracted writing situation where you're not connected to the Internet, and then full fledged Braille note takers and you'll hear You know, Braille note taker, sometimes once in a while if you're a Braille tablet, there's the Polaris from hims. And that one runs a modified version of Android. That's all reliant on Braille cords and it has a teeny, weeny little LCD screen and no touchscreen. There is the L Braille from what are they right now the sparrow that runs Windows 10. And it's a focus 40 Braille display strapped into a purpose built computer that they call the L Braille. And it's a pretty unmodified version of Windows 10 with a special Justin case restart and a small suite of very simple apps like a notepad and a couple of other things that you can use kind of separate from Windows 10. And then we have the Braille note touch plus out from human where that is a modified version of Android. I think that they're on. Are they on Android P. I think they're on Android. P, Unknown Speaker 15:00 I found you, they just moved there. Unknown Speaker 15:02 Yeah. And so the and that one has a touchscreen tablet so you can type Braille on the touchscreen. And you could also use the touchscreen to explore as you would with a standard Android tablet using talkback dusters. So those are pretty. That one comes close to us to a full Android experience, but it is always going to be maybe one or two Android versions behind. And the good thing about these in my mind is they provide increased Braille support. So they do both Polaris and l Braille and Braille note touch, do a lot to make the Braille translation experience really seamless and let you use contracted Braille on lots of places. The Polaris and Braille note touch notably provide improved support for mathematical Braille. But the thing is because the the modifications are so heavy, they do have a tendency to fall behind the industry pretty quickly. And that's just a trend in the industry. So they might give you in the early years. They early grades, more ease of use and more stability when you're using Braille. They're also smaller than using in combination with a full fledged tablet. And they're also pretty instant on in in, in comparison to a full fledged tablet. But they are super more expensive and they are going to tend to lag and have certain divergence from mainstream operating systems. Unknown Speaker 16:22 Yeah, my favorite are the are the middle road devices? Well chancy? I would say to that. In terms of smaller, you know, you can get some incredibly light computers. In fact, my own setup with a Braille display and a very thin laptop is lighter in weight, then the brown note touch plus. It's not quite as light as the Polaris that's sort of a unique piece there but in terms of waiting And speed. Now you do have to pay for the specs on a laptop. So but in terms of instant on, if you configure it right, it's just as fast or faster, especially with the modern devices. The I would say that the apex and the Braille sense products were closer to that instant on experience that you refer to because I, you know, I don't I don't get that with with either the Polaris or the No, I don't have the plus. Unknown Speaker 17:34 That still takes a while to try not to charge up but to power Unknown Speaker 17:38 up. Yeah, so that that was my experience. So we Unknown Speaker 17:42 probably want to go through all the kind of nuts and bolts of things that you might pay attention to in an assessment, but maybe before we do that, should we take some questions if there are any. Unknown Speaker 17:56 Going once, Unknown Speaker 17:58 going twice Unknown Speaker 18:01 Okay, I think we can go on. Unknown Speaker 18:03 So Unknown Speaker 18:04 I have a whole laundry list of things that I like to tell people to look out for when they're doing an assessment. But what I want to say first and foremost is, this is a big decision. I like to compare it to buying, it's not as expensive as a car, but it is as expensive as a really good mattress and like a mattress, you might be using it for the next five to 10 years. So you really have to think hard about it. So, you know, we're in a pandemic right now, and things are a little different. But generally speaking, what I say is, please don't make a buying decision until you've had your hands on the product. That might mean going to the National Federation of the Blind exhibit hall, or our information, our international Braille and Technology Center, or some other place where there's lots of different kinds of braille displays to get your hands on and if you have kids, kids love those types of field trips and it's really useful. If not, you can usually get dealer representatives to come to your home or your school and do demos. And when they do demos, make sure that the your your child or teen, or if it's you, yourself as an adult, have a chance to work with the device hands on and really put it through its paces. And when you do make a purchase, make sure you understand a few things, make sure you understand what the return policy is, how long you have to make sure you're satisfied. And what that is window is within which you have to send something back. If there's something you discover that you really don't like. You also want to make sure that you really understand what the warranty is, how much is the warranty exactly what does it cover? What doesn't it cover? When repairs need to be made? Where does the device go? What's the turnaround time going to be for the device to come back? Is there a loaner program so that you're not left without Braille while your device is being repaired? And just really understand maintenance and upkeep because as much as we want to think about these devices performing at their best, we also really have to think about what happens when they don't. What do you have to add to that jack? Unknown Speaker 19:57 For braille displays a note takers remember today They do require cleaning. And generally the companies do offer a cleaning service. And particularly if you're in a school setting, I recommend that you try and take advantage of holiday breaks to do that. And so and just schedule it into the maintenance part of your scenario and build that into whatever fee structure you have for, for maintaining the technology. And that can be a part of the process for IP as well talking about those expenses. Unknown Speaker 20:35 That's right. So I like to think about size and ergonomics. So braille displays can be as small as I think, the smallest I've ever seen. There's one that's 10 cells, I'm not sure I would recommend that for most educational uses. There are small braille displays that are 1418 or 20 cells in length. Be aware that the shorter your line is, the more often you're going to have to press the Pan button. However, some people do find that when they're working on a shorter line, they like it because they don't have to move their hands or arms as much. They can just kind of access the Braille under their fingers without a whole lot of movement. But I would say for education, we're we're really looking at mathematics and code and proofreading and all that and full length books. You know, what my heart tells me, you know, you should do your assessment, you should make your own choice. But what my heart tells me for education is that a 32, or a 40 cell is good. Because if you're reading a lot of textbooks and you're building up Braille proficiency in big building up speed, and you're doing proofreading, I really think it's advantageous to have a traditional full line. JACK, what do you think about that? Unknown Speaker 21:46 Absolutely, absolutely. 32 is the minimum I can. Unknown Speaker 21:52 There are smaller displays and I actually have Unknown Speaker 21:57 a couple of those smaller displays and I do use them If I am truly in need of a compact solution, but for someone reading and learning, you really need to have as much Braille in your fingers for as long as possible. Unknown Speaker 22:11 I think that's right. So most braille displays have cursor routers and a cursor router is just a little tiny key above the Braille cell. And when you touch that tiny key, the cursor goes right there. And it's immensely helpful with proofreading and also selecting text. There are a couple braille displays out on the market that don't have cursor routers, I would say for educational uses. Steer clear because being able to route your cursor to where you need it for selecting text or proofreading is really important. Another thing we have to keep in mind is ergonomics. No to Braille keyboards are created equal. I really love my cubot q Braille keyboard because it has a deep travel it really feels like I'm typing. It's not the quietest or the loudest, but it feels really solid to me. The focus 40 Braille display keyboard is a much lighter touch. You don't have to put as much pressure on it to get the keys to move. I think the orbit reader has a little bit of a firmer key. The brilliant series has easy travel but it's like a shallower key bed and then the new mantas out from a pH that actually has a QWERTY keyboard. So if you have someone that prefers to type using the QWERTY keyboard, maybe they're dual media learner and maybe they they've experienced vision loss later on and they are just already a really good typist. They might enjoy using a QWERTY keyboard although that whole conversation about when they're developed Braille typing skills over typing typing skills is definitely one to have with your, your advisors and your IEP team. But the point is get your fingers on the keyboard or get your kids fingers on the keyboard before you make a decision because there's nothing worse than going through life with an uncomfortable keyboard, you also want to be aware that the key that you're going to press more than more than any is the panning key. So there's usually a forward panning key that goes to the next Braille line and a backpack and key that goes to the previous Braille line. Sometimes like on the brilliant and the Braille note, touch, and the focus, those panning keys are on the front. And there's sometimes called thumb keys. And sometimes they're small or like on the focus, they're, they're prominent, but prominent, but pretty small on the on the Braille note touch, they're pretty large. So your thumbs are advancing and your fingers don't really have to move from the display. Others have their panning keys on the side, my cue Braille or a Braille edge has those panning keys on the side. So my pinkies tend to hit them. So just being aware of those panning keys and how you're going to press them hundreds or thousands of times a day and make sure you're comfortable with where they're located and the reading technique really works for you. So that's what I have to say about ergonomics, what do you have to say? Got them, jack? Unknown Speaker 25:02 Yeah, you've done a pretty comprehensive job. You know, one thing to keep in mind with REL displays particularly is you can customize your experience for what those keys do most of the platforms and so that's why it's important to try to think about what you're going to be doing mostly. And then if you find that particularly with a display, that whatever the manufacturer has set out for you isn't working, know that you can change that and make it better. The spacebar positioning also can really matter. So you can also use your thumb for that and I can tell you that the brilliant products for me, the spacebar is pretty flush with that edge. And I find it to be problematic. I like I like a spacebar that sticks out a little further. Just makes it more efficient for me. So definitely pay attention to the spacebar and then with the if you're considering like the the orbit products, the panning buttons are definitely further away and that can really cause you to lose speed. Unknown Speaker 26:27 Where are they on the orbit? Unknown Speaker 26:30 They are on the very far left and right corners. Oh. Unknown Speaker 26:37 And so that's Unknown Speaker 26:39 that's where they are on the on the cube real right on that they're flanking the Braille display. Unknown Speaker 26:45 Are they but it is it Can you reach easily if you're brilliant. I find it to be a reach on the orbit with Unknown Speaker 26:51 I haven't checked out the orbit in a while. Yeah. Unknown Speaker 26:55 brows is good. I like the Reach for the cube rails. Good. Unknown Speaker 27:00 But the bottom line is like there's no hard and fast right or wrong unless you just don't put your hands on it before you purchased really seriously, whatever you do, make sure that you take things for a test drive. And that doesn't just mean typing for five minutes. Like, maybe an hour of experimentation might be enough. A quick pass in the exhibit hall, I think doesn't do it. So I think if you can work with your local dealers, believe me they want the sale, they'll do home visits, they'll do school visits, you know, it pays to really test things out before you make a commitment. It's kind of like a bicycle. You know, you would make a serious decision about buying a nice bicycle or a nice mattress. You really want to take that time. I would also jack I've been talking a lot Do you want to talk a little bit about specs and how specs impact things like processor and storage and all that jazz. Unknown Speaker 27:49 I can do that. Yeah, I would also add to the the experience. Once you get it home, you have to use it. Like I see so many times where You get excited about a product, this is for me. And also for others making decisions. You get at home, you encounter a problem, you put it down, and I'll get back to it later, whatever. You got to commit to using it. And that's why I mentioned the configurability portion of this because sometimes it can feel like whatever challenge we're having with a device makes that device unusable for absolutely everything. And that just isn't true. You gotta give, you gotta give it a chance. So specs for note taking devices, the CPU and built in memory, and connectivity options are going to be important to look at. You're going to have all the devices whether you're choosing a note taker or a display, have both wired and and wired. Wireless options. So for your note takers, they'll have Bluetooth and USB as well as the Braille display options. So your CPUs are going to be the Qualcomm types usually. Unknown Speaker 29:15 And Unknown Speaker 29:17 you can't really pick so Unknown Speaker 29:21 you get what you get, and storage. I think also, I don't believe you can upgrade those with the exception of adding like a microSD card. And the hybrid devices are the not the hybrid devices. But the devices that we talked about those middle range devices also do happen to support adding storage, they come with an SD card in there and the sizes do vary. You do have to check the specifications. The specs will tell you what the maximum capacity of SD storage would be on individual devices. But I can tell you that even if you got like an eight gigabyte card, that's a lot of Braille truly is that I mean even for you, but that's tons and tons and tons of Braille, tons of books, tons of notes. And so and for the note taking devices, they also tend to have additional USB ports so you can plug in USB flash drives, and for those all those connected internet connected devices, they also can support downloading content from Cloud services. And the one of the things that will affect battery life is going to be that processor. So when we think about a student that does need to be mobile all day long, I would argue that, you know, maintaining a straight male display is on It'll be easier Unknown Speaker 31:02 in terms of your battery because there's not all that other brains and Unknown Speaker 31:06 yeah, I find that my well it's not hard and fast it's my very old I had a small battery but I do find that I get a long battery life out of out of my cubicle. And the brilliant infocus 40 also have really long battery lives because they're not connected to the internet. And and that seems to dramatically cut down on on batteries. cloud connected devices are always checking in. When they're on you know, they're checking for notifications in the background, their push notifications, the demands on the processor are higher. If they have a screen, then it's taking battery to power that screen. So I really enjoyed the longer battery life on the simpler devices. So I have about nine more minutes on and then I know at 440 Georgie and I think Melissa are going to Talk about specifically considerations for education for introducing a Braille display. When do we introduce it? What kind of activities do we have? So while I'm still here? Can we open it up for questions? Do our moderators or anyone else have questions? Unknown Speaker 32:27 I have a question. Where's Where are you? Would you say what recommendations do you have for thinking of parents listening back to this? where they can places they can get information about the different displays and no takers? Because I know we've mentioned just a ton of them in passing today, and we've talked about how they're all very different and they have these different features. But is there a place where they can read up on them and like, really get that information? Unknown Speaker 32:52 Oh, yeah. So the NFP has a technology answer line at 410-659-9314. It's one of the extensions. I also recommend our our who, where did I go? I'm sorry, we've got an answer line, sometimes their reviews in the Braille monitor and we have an access technology blog. Plus when you come to convention outside the parents division, if you would come to some of the the showcase sessions that different vendors have, I know most of the major vendors are going to have showcase sessions where they go really in depth, about the advantages of their products and what their products can do. I also think it's really important to network in the community. So for example, there is on Facebook and assistive technology for the blind and visually impaired group, there is a TVI and O and M group. And you can ping those groups and find users and really pick people's brains about what their experiences have been with the pros and cons of a device. You can try AFP access world@afp.org slash A w They're really good. about doing reviews for new products when those products come out. And of course, the developers and vendors themselves have lots of specifications, YouTube videos, free webinars, all that stuff on their websites. And although of course, they're not going to be totally, totally objective. Just like when you would go to a car dealership to see about a car, you know, you can visit all of the websites do a lot of reading, do a lot of comparison. So that when you do come on to to the hands on per, I can't the hands on portion of your buying process. You know what questions to ask and you know what you're watching out for. Unknown Speaker 34:38 And then you got to kick the tires to keep the car. Yes, you really, really got to, I mean, truly, no matter what anybody else tells you. Pending even for your students, you know, a lot of times they've got to get it into their space and commit to using it for particular tasks, and get Good at whatever it is that they're doing because people get frustrated, including myself when using a new technology. And then I say, Well, what I used to do was so much faster. And yes, that's true a lot of time because we're used to doing it. And so it's really key that whatever device you pick, you got to give it time. Unknown Speaker 35:22 Absolutely. Unknown Speaker 35:26 And Melissa, and I would just, I would just echo that. And I would also, I would agree that you want to be careful, especially with kids that you're not getting something. Sometimes you get something for one specific feature, but it turns out to be way more of a tool than you actually need. So for example, we picked kind of blindly, no pun intended, a Braille note touch for our daughter a little while back because the school uses Chromebooks and uses Google documents and we just thought, okay, that's going to be the best. I was kind of we heard, that's going to be the best thing for Google documents and this and that. And it turned out that she and I both have a blind parent. And I had been a human word user before and really liked their interfaces. And I just found the Braille note touch itself. Now they do have the Braille note touch plus, so you know, different strokes for different folks. But I found the Braille note touch, very clunky, very unused or friendly. And it just had way more bells and whistles and my daughter really needed. And so what we're hoping to do next year, and I've actually gotten my hands on, and we both gotten our hands on a cube rail, and I think that that hooked up to a laptop is going to be a much better tool. For her. It's kind of one of those middle of the road. The thing I like particularly about the cube rail is that it also has the function keys. So alt f4 on a computer is how you get out of things, alt f4, it's also how you can Get out of things on a cube rail. And I think just learning those function keys right from the start with your display and your keyboard are a really nice idea and just gives you a lot of versatility. So just be careful not to just pick what your school has or if your school says, Well, we have this or that it might be old. It might be out of date. I mean, really do that research. And often your teachers have blind students don't know, the new technology. Our future blind students is telling me Please give me information about the cute girl I've never heard about the cue Braille. And it's been out for a while, like I don't know why she hasn't heard of it, but just don't pick something. For one feature. really look at everything and also ask questions about okay. So here's the deal. You know, we need to be able to get and what's really the best way to do that. And by the way, the brown the last one, the better. For the touch itself. It never really worked with the schools firewall or whatever. We could never really get it to work where she Good access to the way that we wanted her to be able to. So just be aware of that and ask those questions, get your hand also know that the dealers are going to obviously be out to sell their products. And so they will make it sound like the best ever. So make sure that you have other people that you can probably something that your child or you will be having for a long time and getting one that you don't like, it's it makes it very hard to learn it because if you really don't like it off the bat, sometimes you can never really get over that even if you want to. It's just like that, oh, I gotta work with this silly thing again, and it never works the right way and I can't figure it out. So Unknown Speaker 38:45 yeah, I mean, I can pretty much say here there's pretty much no reason to choose a notetaker these days, pretty much. I mean, yeah, there's the math. advantages. I get that. Unknown Speaker 38:57 browner touched Unknown Speaker 38:59 on it. And that's why I say pretty much. Unknown Speaker 39:03 I mean, let me just let me just give. Let me just give note takers there do. So note takers do often have enhanced cording systems so that within a range of tasks, you can do things mighty fast, probably faster than you could in a lot of mainstream operating systems. So, particularly for people who were in their earlier grades, were the most important thing is for them to learn reading comprehension, proofreading, responding to an assignment, and they're okay to be in kind of a walled garden. That's not quite the same environment that everyone else is using. And they're not doing like real time document collaboration, and there are a lot of things that they're not doing, but they really need an excellent book reader. And they really need world class Braille editing tools that don't freak out about contractions. They need a very good help structure and tutorial structure. And yes Namath, I think for early grade and in some cases later, there is a case for note takers. I think note takers let you do a certain subset, subset of things very fast and very conveniently, they are purpose built for the Braille coding system to take advantage of commands. For example, it can be much easier to select big chunks of text. The Braille and speech are much more cleanly integrated to work together without a whole whole bunch of bugs. So, I really think that there is a place for note takers in the assessment process and in the decision process. However, I hear what jack is saying and I think when I've seen high school and college students who live in notetaker world and are not simultaneously comfortable with laptops and mainstream web browsers And using mainstream collaboration tools, they can do a subset of things. But when they're asked to collaborate in a college or an office environment, they kind of struggle because they're used to doing things in this very curated way. And I would say if you do have a note taker for a student, it's really important to commit to having that student in parallel, using that note taker as a Braille display with a mainstream laptop and a mainstream tablet because we have to have mainstream workflow confidence so that we can integrate into whatever environment where we find ourselves Transcribed by https://otter.ai