eXtensions - Sunday 21 January 2024
By Graham K. Rogers
This week, Dr Zeng Lertmanorat of the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University, demonstrated the affordable Braille Notetaker he has developed to students and teachers at a Braille reading and writing contest. Some students were later invited to a workshop for a more in-depth experience of the device.
Thailand has several schools for the blind around the country, for example at Roi Et, Pattaya, and at Rachadasuda College of Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University which also teaches deaf students.
Educating young people is a difficult task, particularly with the short attention span of young teens, but when the students are blind, those problems are exacerbated. Like all schools, those charged with teaching blind students have competitions as one way of focussing the students' attention. This year, the annual Braille Reading and Writing Contest, organized by the Thailand Association of the Blind, took place at Rachadasuda College.
As he has visited there many times, Dr Zeng Lertmanorat of the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University, was invited to demonstrate the Braille Note-taking device he developed to an audience of students and teachers on Friday 19 January this year. This is more affordable than devices that are imported.
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Dr Zeng had two dozen note-taking devices at hand and distributed these among the students. He explained the purpose of the device and how it should be used to the relatively noisy audience: lacking visual input, touch and oral communication are more important, so so Dr. Zeng had to compete with the students own discovery processes.
Later in the day, students from three schools were invited to the Innogineer Lab at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University. With the help of the Faculty's Engineering for Social Responsibility group, Dr Zeng gave the students a full run down of the Note-taker and was able to expand on some of its features. It was a lively session of almost 2 hours with some of the students demanding instant attention - as is the nature of such learners - some quite loudly. Unlike students who can see, they cannot judge how close a teacher is when they have questions and react accordingly.
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They learned quickly and were also able to pair the devices, which also have USB-C connectors, with their mobile phones using Bluetooth. Zeng did comment that pairing with iOS devices was far easier for the students as Android has other requirements, including for external keyboard settings.
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It was surprising, for those of us who have little experience of such students, to see just how happy they were. Having seen them using smartphones in the past (audio is critical), it was not a surprise to see how quickly they adapted to the touch input of the Braille Notetaker with its audio output. Such assistive devices go a long way to helping those with sight difficulties to adapt and live more easily.
NOTE: Photographs that accompany this article were taken with the ethical point in mind that full face images should not be used without the blind person's permission.
Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs. After 3 years writing a column in the Life supplement, he is now no longer associated with the Bangkok Post. He can be followed on Twitter (@extensions_th)
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