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 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: 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

An Evening With George Bell (Episode 44)

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George Bell has been at the helm of Techno-Vision Systems for at least 35 years. In that time, he has brought many blindness products to the UK market, repaired numerous machines which would have otherwise been condemned, and provided countless hours of technical support. He is particularly well-known for his involvement with the Duxbury Braille Translator, not only as UK sales and support but also through his tireless oversight of the documentation. He also enjoyed a very fruitful relationship with Dancing Dots, and imported many of their products including the Goodfeel braille music translator.

As we approach the end of George’s long and established career, we thought it would be fitting to spend some time in conversation with him, picking out the highlights of the past three and a half decades and thinking about what the future might look like.

Six Dots to Success (Episode 42)

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We are delighted to be collaborating with Sight and Sound Technology for our inaugural online conference to mark World Braille Day. Find out more in this episode, and register for the conference here.

The BrailleSense 6 (Episode 35)

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For at least the past 30 years, blind people have been well-served by notetakers: electronic, computer-like devices with a Perkins-style keyboard and speech and braille output. At their most basic level, they’ve functioned as an electronic brailler for composing documents and, of course, taking notes, but they’ve also included functionality such as a calculator, address list, scheduler and, latterly, internet connectivity. Over the past few years, there’s been a steady shift towards vastly increasing the capabilities of these devices, with many moving towards either Windows or Android.

The latest of this newer style of notetaker is the BrailleSense 6 from Selvis Healthcare (formerly Hims). It measures 9.65×5.67×0.87 inches, weighs 1.58 lbs (2.3 lbs with case), and is equipped with a 4590 mAh user-replaceable battery, wi-fi up to 802.11AC, Bluetooth 5.1, GPS and compass, USB C with display port functionality, full-size SD card slot, 13 MP rear camera, microphone and stereo speakers. It’s also just received its first software update.

Stuart Lawler is Head of Digital Content at Sight and Sound Technology Ltd, and Business Development Manager at Sight and Sound Ireland, and he joined me to tell us more about this update and the BrailleSense as a whole.

The BrailleSense 6 retails for £4395 excluding VAT.

Useful Links

Braille Music: Let’s Tackle the Basics, Session 3 (Extra 28)







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After a recap of octave signs and intervals, this session covered:

  • Word signs
  • Ties and slurs
  • Phrase marks

You can follow Stuart on Twittre (@stuartlawler)

Braille Music: Let’s Tackle the Basics, Session 2 (Extra 25)







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In this session, we covered:

  • Rests: quaver, crotchet, minim, semibreve and dotted versions of the above
  • Clef signs: treble (G) and bass (F)
  • Octave signs and their use
  • Interval signs and their use

A mid-month clinic will take place on Monday 14 June at 8:00 PM in the UK and Ireland. The next teaching session will take place at the same time on Monday 28 June and cover hand signs, in accord, ties, slurs, articulation, fingering and maybe tongueing.

Braille Music: Let’s Tackle the Basics! (Extra 22)

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Topics covered in this session:

  • Debunking some myths
  • Notes and note values – quavers, crotchets, minims, semibreves and dotted notes
  • Sharp, flat and natural signs
  • Time signatures and their placement – 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, common time, 6/8, 9/8
  • Key signatures and their placement – D major (2 sharps), A major (3 sharps), B major (5 sharps) and F sharp major (6 sharps)

Resources of interest:

Follow @stuartlawler and @roisindermody on Twitter

Join the next event on Monday 10 May 2021 at 8:00 PM in the UK and Ireland

Join the Braillists Foundation on Clubhouse