Unknown Speaker Well, everybody, welcome to our Slayton stylist. It's all about the Braille session. And Jennifer will be presenting for us today and Nick and I are co hosting. And we would love for you to be able to raise your hand, I am the chat and ask questions as we go. That will kind of take pauses throughout the session. And this is being recorded and will be available on the inner pbc.org website, hopefully within the next couple of days. So if you want to go back and refer to it or share it with other people you are welcome to but Jennifer, why don't you start off by telling telling us a little bit about yourself and then you can jump in and talk to us about the fleet and stylist? Unknown Speaker Sure. Well, my name is Jennifer Wenzel. I am the admissions coordinator for blindness learning and new dimensions Incorporated, which is our training center in Minnesota. I'm also I've been blind since birth, and I am the mother of three sighted boys and have a blind husband. We live in Bloomington, Minnesota. And now I love to cook read, go to plays and concerts when they exist. Although now I've been doing them virtually. So I learned Braille. As a child I learned when I was five, it was my four I guess I started. It was my only reading option, there was no question because I could not see it all three printed just have light perception. But I didn't learn slate and stylus until I was nine. I loved to read and I love to write and I loved Braille. But I had a Perkins parlor and I had to lug it all over when I wanted to write things and that was okay. But I was kind of lazy. And I didn't always like to do that. So sometimes I would get paid things to people or, you know, not really write them down. So when I was in fourth grade, I got a new teacher blind students. And she was fresh out of school and really enthusiastic about the site and stylus. But she taught me with a board slate. So it was a kind of like a quick board. I don't have one to show. Unfortunately, I have some other things to show later. But it was like a clipboard where you clip the paper at the top and then it had grooves on the sides and you moved the slide down. Each time you wrote four lines and then moved it down into these groups with holes. The slate had little pegs that went into little holes on the sides of the board and we moved it down the paper. And I liked writing with the sight in silence Okay, but I didn't really understand what she was so excited about because it wasn't much more portable than the verb writer was big and kind of clunky. And I didn't really care. But luckily, she told my mom to buy one for me to practice with. And my mom who loves a bargain. As to why she was looking in the catalog. My mom loves a bargain, which doesn't always check things out carefully when she's looking at a bargain. So she saw this cheaper option and she didn't really read about it. She just thought Oh, well this is a better deal. And she bought back. And it turned out to be a four line metal slate kind of like this. This one's made of nickel, the one I had was just made of aluminum but but in good camera camera view. I'm not used to doing video rotation. So thank you to Kyle who's doing camera work for me today. Um, anyway, this slate is four lines. And it's just something you can hold in your hand. You can put it in your purse, you can carry it in a backpack. And that's what really got me excited about using this lady. Luckily, her mistake was something that got me really into it because it's it's something I can carry or carry around. And I could use it in all kinds of different ways. When I was learning Braille, and I went to school, I went to school with sighted kids at public school in Watertown, Wisconsin, I was the first one student to go to school in that school system. And everybody had all these pens and pencils, and they could write wherever they wanted to, they could write on their hand and they could write you know, on paper anytime, anywhere. And that always made me kind of jealous. Now, I still couldn't write on my hand haven't figured out how to do that yet. But I could write anywhere and everywhere like they put this was sort of my equivalent of a pencil. So I got really excited about it and started using the slate all over. Are there any I guess I'll pause here for a second and see if there's any questions and then I'll go on. Unknown Speaker On any questions that I see right now? Not yet. Okay. So, um, there are a lot of different types of slaves. And the slave is essentially a hinged thing. Oh, you know, showing up backwards. So each rectangle on the slide is a Braille cell. And on the back, you kind of feel like full When you're writing with a slate, you're writing right to left, so that your text comes out left to right when you read it. A lot of kids or adults, when they're trying to learn the slate get really confused because people talk about it being backwards, I'm just a piece of paper. Um, and, and that can be confusing and frustrating. I've talked to some people like your writing, but really, especially if you're teaching a young kid, I just say, you know, you're gonna be writing right to left and your your stuff comes out on the other side of the paper just like you want it. And talk about kind of, I don't know, sometimes I'll talk about the code, like you're doing it on one side and not on the other. And it gets kind of fun. So you put the paper in the hinges of the slave, and then you have yourself and there's also, so there's different sizes of slaves. So that's one, then there's a note card slate, which actually, you can write on either side, you can do inter point Braille with it. And I just learned today that's actually got a name, it's called a Janice slate, and do that. So that's for like index cards. And then there's even a case to carry sleeves in, I guess it's called a slipped mate, one of my co workers have one. And in there is a plastic site, which is the cheapest option. And most portable and especially if kids are kind of hard on things. It's it's got pros and cons, it breaks easily. But it's also cheap to replace. So I don't personally love them, but they're there. And they're definitely a good cheap option. And then there's also a one line labeling slick, which you can use with demo tape, which I'll talk more about. Meanwhile, there's also different types of styluses. Some people call this one the Saddleback stylus, I think it looks like a don bone, personally, but so what I've always kind of call them. And there's also, I used to have a stylist in the shape of a pen. I don't own it anymore, but it actually had a stylist that screwed off, and you could turn it over and it was a barely racer. So that's made, I'm now gonna have a little clip. Oh, oh, under my Braille display. There's also this one kind that has a little flat edge for so that it does not roll. These are I like these a lot. I also like they don't really make the one that I really love, which is a completely round one that's more like a knob without the flat side. But I'd have trouble finding those. Now. They're kind of fat, and they're my personal favorite. You want to experiment with different ones see what works? Well. I will tell you that in a pinch, when I have not had my stylus, I have used an actual pin, you can do it. It's not ideal, but it does work. I've also used an earring, which again, I don't recommend, but it is you need something sharp and small. So sometimes you just are flexible and you use what you have. Unknown Speaker So I don't know, Unknown Speaker writing on paper. So when you are learning to slate, you want the person to explore the little Braille cells with their stylus. If you're moving your stylus down, you can feel little I don't know how to some groups, I guess where you're where you're Silas clicks into place, and those are the gods so dot one is now on the right, that's where your a is. And B is in the middle and the right so you have 123456 I don't personally care what order people go and some people are very hung up on you know, you have to go in a certain order, you know, right and then left. Whatever works, some people think different ways. Um, I guess for speed, I think I generally stick to the right side first and then move over to the left. But especially when someone's first learning, I wouldn't get too hung up on like the order they're going in or how they're doing it. I would just make it fun. Like any other Braille thing that you're doing, make it fun, make it a game. I think that young kids should be able to scribble with their slate just like people scribble with a pen or a pencil. They should just be able to experiment and play with it and try to get things right and see what kind of letters they come up with and just play around with it feel good about pushing that stylus through the paper. Now there's all kinds of different paper you can use to I have right now this eight and a half by 11 actual Braille paper. But you can slate the beauty of the slate is you can slate on any paper. You can use spiral notebook paper, you can use index cards. You can Use some index cards, you can buy them in like a spiral binding. And I've used those for a lot of things like appointments. When I was a younger kid in middle school in high school, I did work on my assignments on those little note cards. apch now makes this handy little pocket notebook. With cards, it's got a lot of little rings, and you can have the card inside here. So you could actually take it out of the slate on it, and then put it back in here to keep track of it. Um, you can also sleep on playing cards on birthday cards, Christmas cards, Valentine's Day cards, it's very versatile can use it on lots of different surfaces. The thing that will change is how long your Braille last. If you use spiral notebook paper, just regular like printer paper, it's easy to punch through, but it will hold up for a real real long time. So it just depends what you do if you just scribbling you know you're at a doctor's waiting room or a dentist's waiting room or sitting in your car. Now that everything's virtual waiting rooms, and your kid wants to scribble with a slate, just give them a hard surface to write on like a book or something that could with a hardcover or book books, books work really well as a firm is a three ring binder, something with like a firmer surface. And then you know, use the slate with the paper. And if they're just scribbling for fun, it doesn't matter the light paper will be just fine. Um, if they want something that's going to hold up a little longer, then give them something a little thicker. One kind of paper I really like his sketchbook paper, it's you can buy it in like Target and Walmart, arts and crafts stores. You can buy them in like pads that are bigger where you can rip them off from the top. Or you can buy spiral sketch notebooks. That's what I really liked. I use those a lot when I was younger to do journaling. I used them in college to actually take notes because I didn't have a Braille note taker for part of my time in college. So I use that. So it gives you the paper the sketch paper holds up really well. And it with the spiral if you can keep track of it super easily. Because everything is together in a book. It having a bunch of loose paper was always a real problem for me. Um, you can of course take Braille paper that's hole punched, or you can hole punch it and put it in a binder two, that's another horror folder. But I had a real problem when I was younger, I would you know, slip things or Braille things on papers. And then I would just sort of leave them all over the place that my mom crazy. And now it drives me crazy. So I like to have things organized into folders or binders or something. Does anyone have questions before I go on to some labeling stuff? Unknown Speaker Jennifer, I Unknown Speaker have Unknown Speaker in the chat box. One question and one comment. The comment first is from Miriam diction, where she says that she does tell her students to remember that you read using the left and that you write using the right. Yes. Unknown Speaker That's a good, good memory track. Unknown Speaker And then a question from Kayla Bennett was how old were you when you first started using a slate Unknown Speaker and stylus. Unknown Speaker When I started using it, I was nine I wish I would have started earlier, I think younger kids can start grasping the concept and can start thinking of it as a fun way to write Braille and affordable way to write Braille. Because browsers are heavy, and sometimes they're hard to push down all those keys. Now, of course, styluses can be hard to punch through. But if you use lighter paper that kind of goes away. And I just think the more Braille is under kids hands and in kids hands and part of life, I think that's better. And so if I had a younger kid that needed to learn Braille, I would I would introduce a slate earlier. But I use it from when I was nine on. And then when I went to training, I went to training at planning Incorporated, actually, I used it a lot more there and got a lot faster at it. And that's when I did a lot of notetaking actually in college with it because I was fast enough to do that. So I think that's the other thing about learning it young is you become faster and more accurate with it. And there's just so much portability. And I'll go more into some of the ways I've used it. And I know it's a very low tech tool. You know, there's all kinds of tech out there. And you know, kids are using tech younger and younger. But I think it's always good to have low tech options because your battery can die. And I've been in situations where my I'm using a Braille I run again using a Braille notetaker. Right now, we're for my notes for this presentation. But if the battery was dead, I could have jotted down some notes really quickly without it or if I would have left it at home or you know there's so many reasons that sometimes you don't want that tech. If it's going to be rainy that day. Maybe you don't want to bring your tech in you need a different option. My slates always in my purse and it's amazing how I still pull it out to do quick fix. phone messages. information. I used to be really heavily involved in PTA when my kids were younger and I was the PTA secretary. And I would often just take notes with my sleep because I didn't want to log my and I for a while I didn't even have a brother ticker that I got one, but I didn't always want to bring it. So I use my slide to take notes we come in, we did popcorn day, we counted money, and I had to write totals, that I actually got to someone else. But my totals, I always jotted them down on a note card with my slate. So it's just always good to have those portable, low tech options. Because tech is great, but you know, it has its drawbacks. If you forget your charger one day that tech is a brick, it's nothing for people. So one thing I've always really liked to sleep for is labeling. I like to use dymo tape. And there's different kinds of tapes. So I'm Oh tape is clear. And I believe the independence market sells that you can get other spices, you can also get a version of this kind of tape, the actual office supply places sometimes because I can go in like those labelers that people have that you dial and squeeze the trigger in it makes labor, I think you still can get him I haven't tried for a while. But some of that tape is colored, which it doesn't always matter. But if it matters in my house, because a lot of the labels I make people have to be able to see underneath it. So we try to stick to the clear at my husband we did when I was younger, where I had some colored because a lot of cassette tapes that I want to organize size and color labels are no specific really. Um, the way you use the diamond shape. Now the plastic sleeves don't have the slots, but most metal slates do, some of them are on the back like these, there's a one long slot here and one here. Um, so on the front, I think there's still make that's what the very first one I ever had with slots was like, crushed. But either way works. And I'll just show you. So the roll of diamonds tape, when you're reading the diamond tape, make sure the side that feels that sticky, is facing upward, or Yeah. Because otherwise, you're going to get it written on the appealing side which won't work. So you want the side that you're going to be wanting the Braille to be on downward into the metal slide, pull it through. Hopefully this works visually, okay. And then you have it. So you have one line, it's a second line of the slate. And you can write on that one line. I use this all the time. I label appliances, I label movies, although now we've been by making more of our movies digital, but when we had actual blu rays and DVDs that label the cases, and now it's mostly for like appliances or canned goods at home sometimes Unknown Speaker boxes. Anything that I need to mark we've adapted board games using this. My we've also just written directly on game cards with a slight but we've often done dymo tape labels. My youngest son is the only one that was really interested in learning Braille, and so he knows Braille and can use the slave. And he's helped me adapt a lot of games for myself and even for our training center here. So we often use demo tape for that. Um, it hasn't been done on my home appliances. Often sometimes after we do the Oh spices. I've done a lot of my spices with demo tape. So it's just really handy, really easy to be able to write. And then you can cut your labels with a scissors. You can also use a slave on the clear perma burl, bigger sheets that have the sticky on the back. That works great too, if you happen to have them, but demo tape is cheap. And it's another thing that's portable. Another thing that I always sort of have in my purse, and I might need to mark something at a hotel and might need I used to sometimes mark the shampoo and conditioner. Now I've gotten kind of lazy because I run I just checked that way. But when I was less lazy and more into labeling, I would mark things at hotels too. Unknown Speaker So Unknown Speaker it's just a really handy labeling tool. And the one line slate is great too, because then you just have that one line you never get confused as to where to write. But if you don't have just the one line, when you're writing, you can feel with your stylus that you're actually writing on something it does not push through. Like when you're writing on paper, you can actually kind of hear it and feel it pushing through. When you're on diamond tape. You don't get that quick, but you can feel that there's something solid under there but you're writing and so you can you can do it. And you can just do a line at a time or a couple words at a time and they're really easy to cut. Are there any questions about labeling with a slate Unknown Speaker I do have one question here. Sorry, in the chat. Okay, from Donna Jenkins where she asks, Can you show again how you inserted the demo tape? Unknown Speaker Oh, absolutely. Unknown Speaker I can find my Okay. Yes. Because considering if I can find my diamond shape, but I did find it. So yes. So I have the two slots, and I start from the left. Well, the way I'm holding it, I generally have the slot that is closest to the hinge on the left. And then I thread the dymo tape making sure the side that is going to be peeled, is upward. Pull it through Unknown Speaker footage you want to show before you close the lid here. So you have Unknown Speaker Yep, so you have the line, and then they close it. And then I pull, so that I have as little of the end showing as possible. Because otherwise that's wasted tape. You can't write on that. And you have to be careful with that. Because you poke too hard, you're going to have your end come into it, and it won't stay. But you also don't want to waste a bunch of tape. Which, you know, I mean, you can get more tape, but I'm just kind of funny about that I don't like pat on a bunch of wasted stuff. So that's how I do it. And then you can just use it and and make your labels. And then you open it and you can pull it out. And then if there was Braille on here, you would just use a scissors. I really like there's these folding scissors that you can get at convention every year from Iowa. And they're great for cutting tape and having. Yeah, okay. Oh, yeah. So they're the folding scissors like this. And they're great for cutting the diamond with any scissors will work. But these are just nice customers small. The kid the kid safe scissors with the rounded ends. It can be done. It's tough. I did it in a pinch. So some of the ways that I've used sleep when I was younger, that still might be appropriate today, I don't know. Because there's so much tech and kids are different. But when I was in school, it was a big deal to have notebooks especially for girls, were you I probably only for girls, because when I told my son about this, he said it was so dumb, but but girls have these notebooks that you wrote gossip in and you pass them back and forth, and read each other's notes and stuff like that. So a couple of my friends wanted to learn Braille. And one of the reasons they wanted to do it was that one of my friends, somebody found her notebook and the boy she liked, I got to read all about how much she liked him and it became this big deal. So she said, you know, if I had Brown, nobody would have been able to read that. And so became this cool thing. So three of my friends learn Braille, essentially, they learned it visually, and it was pretty quick. They had an alphabet card, and they learned it. And then we got the cheap plastic sleeves and styluses for them. And we did notebooks back and forth. And even in college, they wrote me letters with my slate with their slates. So it was it was a fun thing to do. We did it through maybe 10th or 11th grade. But I did a lot of journaling with my slate too. With sketchbooks, I tried one of those little cool diaries with a lock that I thought that was really fun and it had very thin paper. And it worked with my note card size slate, I had one that actually had a hinge instead of the kind that I've seen more now where you actually slide the card in. And I think they still make the ones that actually have the hinge that you open up. So I used that. But the problem with it was that the Braille went away too fast, it faded. It was a cool little book, but that everything kind of faded. So now these Pocket Books could be a great little diary, you know, for short things, and the brand will fade because it's on little like note cards. So I think if I was a kid now I'd probably get one of these and do a little journal, but I did it I did it more in sketch spirals and that works too. Um, what else playing cards a lot. And I often will forget my Braille cards and I want to play because my family is very into cards. And so I can buy just any deck the the ones I like the best if they're real sturdy, their bicycle brand, and they're like that holds up the best, but I'm just gonna be playing for a weekend or something even a cheap deck will do and you can easily use your slate make playing cards. I do a lot for birthday cards. Especially for other blind friends. I signed cards that way for other blind friends that can actually be what I you know, if I write a little message for someone's wedding, things like that, I'll put that in the card. I've used it for playing the game clue. I'm like noting what I have for cards and what I found what items I found scattegories any of the games where you kind of write stuff down I've used my slate. Um, my family used to do like some scavenger hunts, we'd have to find certain items, we can play games like that. And I would keep track of my items on my slate. I definitely did assignments. When I was in middle school, I used to do it as like a calendar, like just a spiral thing of note cards, and I use my slate and had a calendar. Now I do my calendar on my phone, which I think most people would do now. But it's still a good when kids are younger, grocery lists were a big thing, often my mom and I would go to the store, and she bought me to keep track of the list. And so that was one way I practice my sleep, I would do it on paper, I would do it on a note card, depending how much stuff we needed. And then I would get my writing practice. And then I get my reading practice when I was at the store with her. Unknown Speaker What else? There was a question or a question. book the cell about the individual cells See? Will he talk about the little, the little bumps every five cells, but there's a Unknown Speaker Yes, go back to them. So there's like markings on the slide, that's a good point, I did not talk about them, they're a good way to know where you're at. So each rectangle is a cell. And every five, there's a little bump in between the second and third or the first and second line. And in between the third and fourth line. There's also a ridge that runs across that separates the first the first and second lines from the third and fourth lines. But those little bumps are good markers if you have to stop, or Oh, I know another thing we used to use, we played yatse a lot when I was a kid, and I would do the scores on my slate because instead of filling in the little score sheets, when I was my turn with my friends, I would do it that way. And then these little markers were great for that. Because when I was done, you know putting somebody points in, like say they got two on ones or whatever, then I could count how far I was on the little marks. So to keep track of where I was on the line. So I didn't write over something. The worst thing on a slate is if you get off track where you're writing, you're going to write over things, and you will feel that with the stylus. But by the time you feel that with the stylus, it's too late, your print was not as legible anymore. So that is an I don't know. Oh, yeah, they have them in the plastic sleeves to the marks. Let me make sure. I'm asleep snob I don't really like. But I do like it for what you want to I guess the marks are in the plastic plates Do Unknown Speaker you want to open it and then they can see the grooves clear. Mm hmm. Unknown Speaker And the mics, I'm talking about those little, these little dots, little bumps that was like little Braille dots. Unknown Speaker So they're very handy, very handy for tracking. They do make. I've seen them, they're like a whole page slate could be very handy for someone that does a lot of writing on paper. I had a foreign exchange student from the Ukraine, and she had a full page site, I guess it's more common, or at least to her, she thought it was more common in Europe because a lot of people she knew throughout Europe have paced life. And it seems like it was taught at a very young age and your railers were much less common. I don't think she used a brailler till she came to. And she went to a school for the blind. So slates are a lot more common. Unknown Speaker You don't want to show a burglar Unknown Speaker right now. Unknown Speaker Um, Unknown Speaker the thing Oh, another way that people I want to talk when I've talked to people with sleeping styluses sometimes what's fun, and we could do this in a lot of different ways. But sometimes we've done conversations back and forth. So like somebody will read a couple of sentences, somebody read them and then write a couple of answer. When I when my kids were little we did a lot of continuing stories, we'd say them because there was a way quite honestly, it was a way when we were walking it was just a way to know where all my kids were. But it was also fun. Or when we were waiting at the bus stop or just something again, I knew right where they weren't because they were talking and reacting to the story. But it was also just a fun thing. But it would be another great thing for slate practice if people want to write a continuing story back and forth. Or even if somebody wrote in print and and you know read their part and then the other person wrote in Braille I mean that would work to anything that makes it fun. Some people when I've taught them have copied song lyrics for practice. I've known people that want to get faster that copy as they're hearing an audio book and see how much they Keep up with just a fun way to build your speed. And so I really think that it's a good tool in your toolbox. And when we talk in the training center, we talk a lot about having tools in your tool belt or tools in your toolbox. And having that slave to there is always a thing is is a really great option. You know, as you get older, you may not use it as much because you start using more high tech stuff, but it's always something to fall back on always that great tool. And it just makes Braille. Real is such a great literacy thing. But writing is just as important as reading and it makes that writing easier and fun. And just something that can be done all the time. You know, guys could put a slit in their pocket, women can put it in their purse or backpack, anybody as a young kid can put it in their backpack. You can even keep it in one of those cool little pencil cases or the boxes that kids use for supplies. You know, it's just something that can fit in there. It's your pen and pencil, essentially, I that's what I kind of equated to. Unknown Speaker We had a hand raised by john Miller. If you have a question, check in the chat box. When we talk about the pins versus Unknown Speaker Oh, I was gonna ask that. Unknown Speaker You could also use it like for trivia questions as well. Unknown Speaker Yes, trivia questions is another great idea. Yep. Yep. trivia questions are another fun way to keep track of your answers or your points, anything you're keeping track of points with? Yeah, trivia questions would be fun. Unknown Speaker Was there something else in the chat too? Unknown Speaker We had a couple of chat questions. One was, do you have any tips for keeping track of spacing. Unknown Speaker The best way is with those marks, I'm also just remembering helping. So I when I'm writing with my slate back on paper and show, when I'm with my slave, it's a two handed thing. Oh, perfectly straight, because I didn't bother to align very well. But when I'm writing, I have, I check out where I'm going to go. And then I always have. So my left index finger next to where I'm writing, I move it along. So if I did an A, which I just did, and I want to space, I moved my stylist and my left pan. And and so I'm skipping that cell, and then I do the beat. But I always have my other hand there to help keep me on track. And it gets easier and easier. Adjusting asleep gets easier too. I'm just starting the alphabet Unknown Speaker I have not done Unknown Speaker and and then I can fit into Oh, and so you come to the end of your line instead of a ding like the brailler has hit that there's nothing for my left finger to go to. So I know that I then go to the next line. And when I want to adjust it, you use the little pins that are on the left and right and move your slave down and line up that pin with the top of the little hole that's already been created. I put it on the top pin. And then I push the next pins through. Unknown Speaker Close it up. Unknown Speaker So that's how you can adjust your site now, at first. And even sometimes now, if I'm in a hurry, I go crooked. So if I'm worried that it's going to be crooked, I might adjust it further down, just to make sure everything gets in and it depends what I'm doing for more formal thing that someone else is going to read them a lot more careful. For something quick and dirty that I'm just doing for myself. I still try to be as straight as possible, but I don't worry quite as much I go for more the speed. Unknown Speaker So Unknown Speaker that's how I do and you know that you have four lines when you can move it down? Well, I think it's what 26 or 28 lines, you can move it down six or seven times if you do it correctly. And keep if I'm I have a question or I'm not sure I will often flip it over and check where my top my or my line is of actual dots and then move it down that way. So sometimes I've done that so that I know that I'm not writing over it. Unknown Speaker That's right often. You can always turn it over and look Other questions? Unknown Speaker We have one more question regarding, is there a website or some way to get where parents can get information about teaching their children at home? Unknown Speaker That is a Unknown Speaker really good question. I Unknown Speaker know there's a free site and stylist program through the NFB. And I think is there information on the NOP bc website about the slate and teaching the slate? Unknown Speaker Did you know you know, if I know of one that I use to check my Braille, like a an app. Unknown Speaker I know the Alexa has some Braille skills built into it, but I have not used it a lot. Unknown Speaker So there's an app called Braille contractions that I will use to like check my work. Oh, Unknown Speaker that's another idea. Braille contractions. And I know, Unknown Speaker there's Unknown Speaker the Louisiana center sells a really good book of all the ground contractions. And I believe it has print and Braille in it when it's Louisiana center that sells it. I've seen those and those are really good. I know. For a while I'm ASB and believe American Foundation for the Blind had a site It was called like the Braille book and it had all kinds of different activities, and fun stuff for parents and for kids to do together. I don't know if that still exists. I mainly work with adults now. So I haven't been as into with all the kid stuff. But maybe Michelle knows more. Unknown Speaker There's actually something back here that, Unknown Speaker but Unknown Speaker but it's like, I think it's what you're talking about. Unknown Speaker There's I mean, there's blocks that you know, you push the cells, there's lots of fun Braille tools, I know APA, some things and so does national broad press. I know there's a book, just enough to know better something like that word, it helps teach. It helps parents learn Braille. But national Braille press used to sell that was really good. Hadley still has courses, too, I believe for parents who want to learn Braille. And it may give ideas for teaching Braille as well. The Hadley School for the Blind, which is mail order or mail, lessons, lessons by mail. I think some online now too. Unknown Speaker Have Any other questions? Unknown Speaker What time is Unknown Speaker 1139? Unknown Speaker Any other questions before we conclude? Unknown Speaker There's one other question regarding tips on timing your speed. Do you have no tip? Unknown Speaker Yeah, so, Unknown Speaker um, Unknown Speaker that's a really good one. I know, when I was learning, and my teacher was timing me, she would have me, she would dictate something to me that I would write. And then I think sometimes she had the words pre counted, but sometimes, well, actually, no, she had me count my words because I had to count. I could only count accurate words. And, and we do like a five minute timing. And then we would divide the number of words I got correct by the time so that's one thing. I wouldn't. I guess I do. I mean, it was fun. But sometimes it was discouraging, especially when I was really slow to see how slow I really was. So I guess I wouldn't I I think I did better. For me personally, like prior, I did try to keep up with like audio books, or I tried to keep up when people were talking to me keep up with a song and writing lyrics. So it wasn't as much time and that was more fun for me. I'm like, I still got faster. But the timing kind of freaked me out sometimes and got me Got me nervous. So I guess it really depends on your kid or your student or and I know it's especially IEP goals to do half the time people. So then of course, that's a whole different thing. But I think at first just making it fun and making it you know, helping them get faster without as much timing as you can might be better because it can be I don't like you don't always like to know how Unknown Speaker important but it is also Unknown Speaker fun I guess at times to know how much you're improving. So like a beginning of the year and end of the year test for beginning of semester end of the semester could be really cool because then you get that that comparison like hey, look how far I've come. So, um, but just practicing getting faster, listen to audiobooks, listening to people. That's for reading too. I used to I used to like to follow along with the same book in Braille and that's hard and then going to church and following along at church got me faster. So I decided to develop my reading speed to just kind of keep up with others. If you have another person that's good at the slate, and you try to do the same thing at the same time, that's good motivation to or even if you and your child are doing slating you know kind of having a slave race, it can be fun. Or if you're a teacher, you and your students having kind of a slave race can be fun thing. Unknown Speaker Great. Well, it looks like unfortunately, Michelle lost her audio. So I'm gonna close this out. All right, I did want to thank everyone for coming. And of course, thank you, Jennifer, for your time, it was incredibly informative. It's almost 1245. Anyway, so we're pretty much right on schedule. And if anyone has any additional questions, just please go to the pbc.org website. And I'm sure that there will be a comment portion for you to receive not only in this recording, but also additional questions. Unknown Speaker Also, if people want to connect with me, I am on the crowd compass attendee app under Jennifer Wenzel so I'm more than happy to connect with anybody that way too. Unknown Speaker Excellent. Unknown Speaker Thanks so much. Unknown Speaker Thank you, you take care Unknown Speaker you tune in. Have a good day, everyone. Transcribed by https://otter.ai