Six Dots to Success: What Braille Means to Me and Panel (Extra 55)

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The final recording from the recent Six Dots to Success conference held in collaboration with Sight and Sound Technology Ltd.

This episode features:

  • Options in Education with Braille with Alannah Moriarty
  • Panel discussion chaired by Roger Firman
  • Summing up

Six Dots to Success: Braille for Leisure (Extra 54)

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The fourth of a series of recordings from the recent Six Dots to Success conference held in collaboration with Sight and Sound Technology Ltd.

This episode features a recording of one of the breakout rooms.

Six Dots to Success: Braille in Higher Education and Employment (Extra 53)

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The third of a series of recordings from the recent Six Dots to Success conference held in collaboration with Sight and Sound Technology Ltd.

This episode features a recording of one of the breakout rooms.

Meet Hable One: the Portable Bluetooth Controller for your Smartphone (Extra 52)

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Hable One is a powerful, fun and exciting way for you to interact with your smartphone or tablet using braille. As well as being a fully functional braille keyboard, supporting both grades 1 and 2, it also serves as a wireless remote control for every aspect of your smartphone or tablet, from moving around the screen to selecting, playing and pausing music, dialling numbers and changing settings.

For beginner braillists, it is a uniquely satisfying way of putting your braille skills into practice. For more advanced braillists, it is a vital productivity tool. It works in partnership with the smartphone or tablet’s screen reader and supports all popular apps including messages/WhatsApp, Facebook/Messenger, Twitter, Spotify, mail, contacts, calendar, reminders and notes.

On Tuesday 21 February at 7:30 PM GMT, we were joined by representatives from Hable, who told us more about this innovative device. We learned how easy it is to set it up and saw some practical examples of how it works both as a keyboard and a remote control. There was also plenty of opportunity for the audience to ask questions.

Six Dots to Success: Braille at School (Extra 51)

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The second of a series of recordings from the recent Six Dots to Success conference held in collaboration with Sight and Sound Technology Ltd.

This episode features a recording of one of the breakout rooms.

Introducing Git (Extra 50)

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According to Wikipedia, Git is a distributed version control system that tracks changes in any set of computer files, usually used for coordinating work among programmers collaboratively developing source code during software development. Luckily for us it’s far more interesting than it sounds on paper as it was the topic of the third in our series of computer science masterclasses.

We started off by cutting through some of the technobabble typically associated with tools such as this and then got hands on with some simple examples using the popular Liblouis project. We built on our Linux skills from the previous class along the way and even did a little bit of programming before ending the session with questions.

Six Dots to Success: Welcome, Keynote and Braille for Beginners (Extra 49)

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)The first of a series of recordings from the recent Six Dots to Success conference held in collaboration with Sight and Sound Technology Ltd.

This episode includes:

  • Welcome from Sight and Sound CEO Glenn Tookey
  • Welcome from Braillists Chairman Dave Williams
  • Keynote speech from Peter White, Disability Affairs Correspondent at the BBC
  • Greater Indepenndence with Braille: a video by Red Széll

Introducing Linux (Extra 48)

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Linux: it powers everything from laptops to toasters, braille displays to coasters. You may have heard of the world’s most popular operating system if you follow technology related news, but what is it and how do you get started exactly?

In the second of our computer science themed Masterclasses, we explored how to get started using Linux with technologies that you’ll already be familiar with. We started by getting access to a test system to experiment with, then introduced everyone to a few basic commands that allowed us to perform some basic tasks.

For further information please visit the Braillists Foundation Media Page.

Festive Fun: More Christmas Pictures with a Perkins Brailler (Extra 47)

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In our last Masterclass before the Christmas break, we’re delighted that Kim Charlson, Executive Director of the Perkins Library (part of Perkins School for the Blind), was able to join us again. Kim is author of the book “Drawing with your Perkins Brailler”, which includes step-by-step directions for creating 36 different drawings including shapes, animals and subjects with holiday and transportation themes.

In this session, she used Christmas-themed drawings to explain the concepts behind using braille cells to create pictures. Bring a Perkins and some paper and follow along and, by the end of the session, you will have your very own festive pictures made entirely of braille dots!

And don’t worry: if you heard Kim’s excellent session last year, this year’s pictures are brand new!

Battle of the Braille Keyboards (Extra 46)

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There are two well-known braille keyboards on the market today, the Orbit Writer and the Hable One. What are the similarities? What are the differences? Which one would suit your needs best?

On Tuesday 4 October 2022, we were joined by a user of each keyboard. They told us more about how their preferred keyboard works and why they like it, and we learnt how they compare against each other.

For further information please visit the Braillists Foundation Media Page.