E-slates for blind students

The low-cost gadget helps students learn independently

BANGALORE: For 90 per cent of the 191 million blind in India, who so far could not afford education because of expensive software or slow methods of teaching, this could be good news. A cost-effective e-slate called Braille Writing Tutor (BWT) has been developed as part of an ongoing effort to disseminate the technology in developing countries like India.
 
The researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, in collaboration with Mathru School for Blind in Bangalore, have successfully tested the feasibility of the e-slate that was presented at the second International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Development last week. “This particular e-slate costs around Rs1,500 whereas the devices available in developed countries cost between Rs15,000 and Rs1 lakh. And this is a low power and a robust device,” said Tom Stepleton, one of the researchers of the project.

“The e-slate mimics a regular slate and stylus and interfaces with a computer running the software tutor. The tutor monitors a student’s writing and provides immediate audio feedback using text-to-speech synthesis that is tailored to the skill level of the students. It not only introduces the student to new concepts of learning but also enhances existing skills. It can also act as a diagnostic tool to help identify some challenging areas for the student,” explained Stepleton. The student learns dots, practices dots, letters, words, sentences and numbers, and mathematical calculations.

A six-week pilot study was conducted in September this year at Mathru School of Blind in Bangalore which houses 44 students from remote villages. “The 12 students who participated in the experiment showed positive results, with a few hiccups. Lower grade students could not grasp the use of the e-slate, even after training. However, with practice, the instant feedback system was a great aid in faster learning,” he said.
 
“A student can learn through the e-slate independently, as the software introduces a series of exercises on basic Braille writing curriculum. For instance, if a student writes ‘a’ incorrectly, the tutor assigns more exercises to practice ‘a’. If performance drops below threshold level, the voice reminds of how to write that letter by speaking a sequence of dots. This addresses the problem of shortage of trained teachers,” Stepleton described.

In developing countries, Braille is always written with a slate and stylus. Using these tools, Braille is written in reverse, from right to left, so that the page can be read from left to right when flipped over. “For blind students learning to write Braille in the reverse manner can be a formidable process. They must learn mirror images of all letters, which doubles the alphabet letters.

Feedback is delayed until the paper is shorn, flipped over and then read, so it may take significantly longer to identify mistakes and correct them. And the students may not be able to receive individual attention and guidance needed to learn. The e-slate solves all these problems,” he said. 

k_bhargavi@dnaindia.net