04 Apr

Visually Impaired & Assistive Technology

Let’s understand the term ‘Assistive Technology’ is an umbrella term that includes assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices for people with disabilities and also includes the process used in selecting, locating, and using them. AT promotes greater independence by enabling people to perform tasks that they were formerly unable to accomplish, or had great difficulty accomplishing, by providing enhancements to, or changing methods of interacting with, the technology needed to accomplish such tasks.
Assistive Technology provides Unique Independent Living Solutions to people those are having physical barriers in carrying daily life activities. Here I’m going to talk about Visually Challenged people.
It was a time when Visually Challenged people were not participating in the actively in mainstream society. They had less job opportunities in the public sector. They were fit for the only telephone operator post if not highly educated. Later on situation has completely changed after the invention of screen reading software’s like Window Eyes, JAWS, NVDA and so on.
These days in the developing country like India Visually Challenged people are working in various TOP IT companies as well as banks including public sector and private sector.
Let’s have a look on role of Assistive Technology in education: today Assistive Technology is playing significant role in creating Inclusive Education system across the world. Braille note take, Braille display, smart mobile phones, MP3 recorders, talking calculator and other talking devices has made education easy.

Concerns:
In a country like India, having the large number of Visually Challenged people, the entire section has not benefited from this due to lack of awareness, negligence and poverty.

05 Mar

Self – Learning

Wither you are visually impaired or sighted person, self-learning has become essential in this competitive era. Although there are repetitive coaching classes available in metro cities like, Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore Chennai and so on. Due to high price only financially sound people can enjoy these facilities. To some extent even middle class people. What about those people who don’t have enoughamounts to pay and learn in these institutes? Especially if you are visually impaired person and want to proceed in life to achieve something let’s consider if you want to become an IAS officer what will you do in this case? Or if you want to excel in technology what will you do? Yes there is a proverb in English “there is a will, there is a way”. Let’s find the remedies to redress our grievances here.
Join various mailing lists and get connected with social networking sites. From social networking sites you can learn so many uncountable things apart from chatting all the time there if you utilize your time properly. Find good friends those who will guide you. There are various national and international mailing lists and website on internet to fulfill your desire. Initially, try to get familiar with the use of various search engines like google.com, webcrawler.com, ask.com and any other which you like. After that take the next stapes.
Interested readers can send me email at [email protected], [email protected] or you can join me on face book https://m.facebook.com/minar.singh?v=info&refid=17 and join my Facebook group “Knowledge the power of 21st century!” to learn about various topic I will be introducing to you national, international mailing lists and useful Facebook groups and websites to achieve your specific goal.

05 Jan

Importance of Braille in my life

Braille is a tactile writing system used by the blind and the visually impaired. It is traditionally written with embossed paper. Braille-users can read computer screens and other electronic supports thanks to refreshable braille displays. They can write braille with the original slate and stylus or type it on a braille writer, such as a portable braille note-taker, or on a computer that prints with a braille embosser.
With New Technologies, Do Blind People Lose More Than They Gain?
Technology is a great thing; I think many of us can agree on that statement. Unfortunately, technology is also being used regularly as a substitute for braille, which I cannot condone.
My Experience with Braille
When I was six years old, I learned to read and write braille, the ingenious system of dots representing letters and numbers.
Braille and My Everyday Life Not to be redundant, but braille is my print, and I use it in my everyday life. A few examples include reading books, braille notes. I don’t want this generation of children to grow up without knowing how to spell, with no knowledge of vocabulary, or not understanding concepts like paragraphs, tabs, and margins.
No blind person should deprive of knowing what a comma is? What are other punctuation marks available and how they play an important role in reading, writing and communication skills?
From my experiences, I can tell you that I personally use braille for certain types of materials but not for others; for example, braille is almost a necessity for foreign languages, mathematics, sciences, and music. I don’t intend to take a negative stance on technology because I really do enjoy it. In fact, I use the www.manybooks.net website and other websites of newspapers to enhance my skills.
Audio or Braille?
However, I am simply puzzled by the following question: “Do you use audio or braille?”
OR?
I’m sorry, but … really? Were we supposed to make a choice about that? Since when were audio and braille mutually exclusive?
Even the exponential increase in the use of technology among the blind does not indicate that we must eliminate the amazing braille system. If this were a multiple-choice question, I would circle “all of the above.” In other words, technology is excellent, but don’t let braille die!
We can’t lose Braille because without it, blind people cannot be truly literate. I would say that, today wherever I’m standing it couldn’t be possible without braille.

Concerns: In a country like India, having the large number of Visually Challenged people, the entire section has not benefited from this due to lack of awareness, negligence and poverty.

Concerns:
In a country like India, having the large number of Visually Challenged people, the entire section has not benefited from this due to lack of awareness, negligence and poverty.