Deborah Kendrick
"Do you have a pencil?"
Chances are good that every person reading those words has asked or been asked that question or some variation of it in the last day or two. A friend is telling you about a fabulous new must-have gadget and you want to note the name and model. A colleague is about to give you his email address for forwarding a shared document. A customer service representative on the phone is ready to tell you your confirmation number.
If you are blind or have low vision, chances are also pretty good that pens and pencils have outlived their usefulness in your personal toolbox, except for having one on hand to lend a sighted comrade, or to add the occasional signature to a legal document or personal check. But the need to "take a note" is just as essential for those of us who are blind—perhaps more so. The tools we use to get the job done, however, are not pens and pencils.
And the variety of tools available to us has grown exponentially in the last few decades.
Personal Writing History
I became blind shortly before entering the first grade, and was enrolled in the resource classroom in a nearby public school. My first writing tool, the Perkins Brailler, was a ten-pound mechanical distant cousin of the typewriter. With one key assigned to each of the six dots in a braille cell, words could be rapidly produced on paper. The braille writer is a magnificent tool, and most braille-reading individuals still have one readily available, but it is far from portable.
Fortunately for me, I was taught to use a braille slate and stylus in second grade. My first slate was a board slate. This consisted of a 9 by 12-inch clipboard, fitted with a hinged metal slate. Paper was clipped in at the top and placed between the top and bottom halves of the slate. The slate contained four lines of 6-dot braille cells. A small stylus was used to punch the dots corresponding to desired letters, numbers, and contractions, moving from right to left. As four lines of paper were filled, the slate was moved to a new position on the board. This method of writing braille was precise, orderly—and noisy! I remember a relative teasing me that I sounded like a woodpecker.
When you are nine or ten, this might be funny. When you are entering your preteen years, however, being different is just not what you want to be!
My seventh grade year, my teacher presented me with a hard copy braille book called Keys to Grade Three Braille. This is a highly contracted, shorthand form of braille, used primarily for personal note taking. Instead of ten characters on a page, a word might require only two or three, thus dramatically reducing the amount of time and paper, and punching, required to get words written on a braille page. Around the same time, I also acquired my first "pocket" slate, that is, a slate with no board. Although slates are made in a variety of sizes, the most popular consists of 4 lines, 28 cells each, and clamps itself to the page. Again, as four lines become full, the slate is moved down the page for continued writing. Traditional braille paper is referred to as 90-pound, a thickness similar to card stock. As such, it is somewhat difficult, and noisy, to punch. At 12 or 13, making a racket in a classroom full of kids scribbling with pens and pencils was not what I wanted to do. I soon figured out that if I put a cushion of paper, say, a print magazine, underneath my braille slate and paper, it would help absorb the sound. Before long, I took the next step of using spiral notebooks, the ones purchased in the school supply aisle of retail stores everywhere, allowing the unused pages of the notebook itself to provide the cushion. Of course, since this paper is much thinner, the braille is less pronounced, and might be difficult for some braille readers to decipher, but it worked for me.
Throughout my high school, college, graduate school, and early professional life, this was my primary method for writing everything from class notes, essays, grocery lists, phone numbers, and eventually, interview notes and articles for publication.
I used spiral notebooks with the spiral binding on the left edge most of the time. Sometimes, when I especially wanted the dots to be preserved more reliably, I used sketch notebooks, with the binding at the top, and heavier pages. Sometimes, back in the privacy of my own dorm room or home, I would pound out those notes again with the Perkins Brailler, copying key points from the thin paper onto thicker paper for a longer shelf life. That was a good idea, by the way, that I recommend to you now but that I rarely took the time to do!
How Computer Technology Changed the Braille Writer
Happily for me and thousands of other braille-using blind people, the Braille 'n Speak was born in 1987. It was the first in a long line of products sporting a Perkins-style keyboard, text-to-speech output, and the capacity to store information in files electronically. The first Braille 'n Speak was braille input only, so you typed braille into it, but could only hear your notes read back to you via speech. My own solution in those days was to connect the Braille 'n Speak to a braille embosser, which then produced those notes on tractor-fed braille paper. Here, too, I often used the lighter-weight printer paper intended for ink printers.
Methods and styles of taking notes among blind people seem to change with generations. Those of us who were students before today's access technology used slates and Perkins braillers. While there were some others who, like me, were reticent to make noise with a slate and stylus punching dots on heavy paper, many attacked that heavy paper with enthusiasm. Still others, who never learned or didn't fancy the slate and stylus, schlepped those ten-pound braille writers from class to class and their fellow students just accepted the clatter as what must be. Then there were those who took tape recorders to class, recorded lectures, went home, and transcribed their braille notes while listening to the recordings. I have to admit that I have deep admiration for the folks in that last category. Listening to every lecture twice must certainly have been excellent preparation. It does, though, raise the philosophical question of why blindness, which was not an elected characteristic, should require listening to every lecture twice.
Generational Differences
This is an article about taking notes, however, not philosophy, so let's talk about the next generation, the kids who filled the public schools after Public Law 94-142, the 1975 law that told schools they had to figure out how to educate everybody. Students of that generation tell tales of dragging a cart filled with braille books, a braille writer, and other supplies from room to room. Or, more cringeworthy, of being followed around by their special teacher who did the heavy lifting/pulling for them.
Fewer people in this generation were taught to use a slate and stylus, but those who did are usually glad of it. The mid 1980s saw the arrival of talking computers and the Braille æn Speak. Typing notes in contracted braille and then reviewing them by listening to that synthesized speech was the next step for students and professionals alike. The thrill for anyone accustomed to the bulk of braille was the miracle of carrying so many notes in one tiny package. Eventually, the Braille 'n Speak had a younger sibling, the Braille Lite, offering the same Perkins style keyboard and synthesized speech, but now sporting a refreshable braille display. You could write your notes in braille and read them that way, too. And of course, in 2001, the parade of beautiful braille technology we see today was launched with the introduction of the first BrailleNote. These products, some with speech and some without, allow users to carry a single device and divide needed information into multiple files and folders.
Another entire article could be written about the evolution of audio recording devices, but this article is focusing on written notes, particularly those written in braille.
In addition to that ubiquitous slate with four lines of 28 cells each, myriad other slates have emerged over time, ranging from a single line for brailling dymo tape to a full page, and every size and configuration in between. My personal note-taking tools have often incorporated one slate or another with varying sizes of tablets and notebooks, usually ones available commercially. I used a series of designer portfolios in the 1990s and early 2000s, 9-by-12 folders with pretty covers and inside pockets, holding a paper tablet, some loose pages, a four-line slate and a stylus. Index cards or small spiral notebooks, accompanied by a slate of similar size, have also made convenient note keepers. My current favorite folder is red leather, about 5 inches across, 8 inches tall, with pockets and a custom fitting tablet inside. I keep a small slate, 4 lines, and a flat wooden stylus inside. Styluses, too, can be found in a variety of shapes and sizes.
Many users of refreshable braille notetakers say they keep an ongoing file of random notes in their refreshable braille devices, a place for jotting down that random order number or email address, and mining later for nuggets of golden information.
The Holy Grail or pencil equivalent isn't quite here for all blind people yet, so compiling possibilities as I've done here and sharing with one another is constantly relevant.
There's still opportunity for the inspired inventor.
From Slate to Slate
Speaking of opportunities for inventors, the newest arrival on the braille note-taking block brings us around in a kind of full circle from where this article began.
The Versa Slate, introduced last year by a South Korean company called Overflow, is a low-tech, ingenious spin on the original slate and stylus. Rather than paper, the Versa Slate offers four lines, of 20 cells each, of recyclable braille and an attached stylus, conveniently nestled in its own niche at one end of the slate. The 80 cells are comprised of mechanical pins that you punch into place as you would with a stylus on paper. There are two rows of buttons, four in each. When you no longer need a line of braille, press the corresponding buttons, and the dots are retracted. I keep it on my kitchen counter for those phone calls when I need to jot a number or book title or salesperson's name. Later, I copy the captured facts to my computer or smartphone and press the button for the dots to be used again later.
The Versa Slate has been adopted by schools in South Korea as a tool for math students, providing a convenient way to keep track of equations in process. The company has also developed a smaller version, only two lines with a lanyard, and is working on a larger one.
Clearly, taking notes is essential for everyone and finding methods as reliable as the pen or pencil is an ongoing process. We'd love to hear what your experiences with note taking have been, and if there's interest, we'll do a future piece on the many varied and unusual ways blind people have captured vital bits of information with sound.
This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.
Related Articles:
- Braille in the 21st Century: How Far Have We Come? by Jamie Pauls
- Braille by Sight: A Guide to Online Braille Workshops from Hadley by Steve Kelley
More by this author:
