BA Teen Cast: Recent Episodes

BA Teen Cast

BA Teen Cast is an AudioBoom Channel produced by Blind Abilities for State Services for the Blind of Minnesota. the BA Teen Cast promotes the sharing of information, news and audio interviews of stories, testimonies and successes.

Send an email to BATeenCast@comcast.net (mailto:BATeenCast@comcast.net) and you too can contribute, share your experiences so that others can learn and have a resource for the transition from High School to College/University and the Work Force.

Sometimes you come across a person who is doing some remarkable work and facing challenges that would throw a person off coarse, Antyenette Walker, AKA Young Ant, is taking on all her challenges and enhancing her opportunities by doing the tough work of adjustment to blindness. Her words, lyrics and music is her way of coping and sharing her story while lifting up the spirits of her listeners and supporters. She calls Team Ant. Young Ant talks about her journey, her story and how her music has come to be. How she uses her music to inspire others and all this when just over a dozen months ago, Antoinette lost all of her vision. Join us as Young Ant surrounds us with beats, lyrics and words of inspiration.

You can find Young Ant’s music on Soundcloud . https://soundcloud.com/young-a-n-t You can follow her on Facebook at TeamAnt1121 https://www.facebook.com/TeamAnt1121/ Follow her on Twitter @YoungAnt1121 https://twitter.com/youngant1121 Check out Young Ant’s YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq6eCl6LXxn6nVM8zRItJCQ

Thank you for listening. You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities http://www.twitter.com/blindabilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com http://www.blindabilities.com

Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store. https://appsto.re/us/demUab.i

Earle Harrison sits down with Blind Abilities to introduce the newest Braille Notebook from Handy Tech. The Actilino is a 16 cell notetaker with ATC technology. That is Active Tactile Control which senses your touch and knows just when to refresh your next line, thus, no buttons to push to advance! The Triumph Technology Team is all packed up and down in San Diego for the CSUN show so if you get the chance, stop by booth #515 and check out Handy Tech and Triumph Technology. You can also go on-line and find out more at www.ATTriumph.com Thank you for listening. You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities http://www.twitter.com/blindabilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com http://www.blindabilities.com

Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store. https://appsto.re/us/demUab.i

lopers and improving accessibility for all. I admire that and it was a pleasure Talking to Nimer about his devices and what his team at the Lighthouse Center for Vision Loss is doing for Transition age students, their parents and how they keep connected, informed and educate in rural Minnesota. Where distance and proximity makes for creative solutions. Join Nimer Jaber as he sits down with Blind Abilities and talks about Google devices, the LG Sport Watch and it’s accessibility, ChromeBooks and Amazon devices. you can follow Nimer on Twitter @nimerjaber Thank you for listening. You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities http://www.twitter.com/blindabilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com http://www.blindabilities.com Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store. https://appsto.re/us/demUab.i

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. (music) Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind brings you this announcement. Are you a high school or college student who is blind, has low vision, or is deafblind? State Services for the Blind is hosting an opportunities Fair on February 25, from noon to 4 p.m. with information about summer programs and internship options you might be interested in. Connect with your summer program options and hear from students, parents, and employers about how to have a successful work experience. The Opportunities Fair will be held at the Fairview Community Center, 1910 County Road B (as in boy) West, in Roseville, Minnesota, from noon to 4 p.m. on Saturday, February 25. To register and request accommodations, please visit our website at mn.gov/deed/events/opportunities.jsp – again, that URL is MN dot GOV, forward slash, D-E-E-D, forward slash, EVENTS, forward slash, Opportunities dot J-S like in Susan- P like in Peter - or, if you have any questions, please email Sheila Koenig at Sheila.Koenig@state.mn.us , that’s S-H-E-I-L-A dot K-O-E-N-I-G at state dot MN dot U-S. (music)

This podcast is produced by the Minnesota Radio Talking Book Network, part of State Services for the Blind, and it is recorded for people who are blind or have reading disabilities. You can register as a customer of State Services for the Blind to access many other services that they offer by going to www.mnssb.org. Complete programming of the Radio Talking Book is available at www.mnssb.org/rtb and the password is rtb. (music) The AFB VisionConnect™ App The American Foundation for the Blind is pleased to announce a free, accessible app now available in iOS, and in Android versions. VisionConnect™, a prescription for independence for patients who are blind or losing vision, provides a searchable directory of services available in the US and Canada for children and adults who are blind or visually impaired. Find services such as computer and technology training, daily living skills training, braille and reading instruction, dog guide training, employment services, low vision services, and more. Individuals who are blind or have low vision can use this accessible app themselves to find resources and tips for living independently with visual impairment, including information on products and technology, personal stories about how people live everyday with macular degeneration or glaucoma, and advice on maintaining employment. Health care providers can use the app to create customized lists of rehabilitation service providers that they can email to their clients, and provide their patients with home survey checklists, ideas for managing their medications, and more. Key "Search" Features: • Select an age group: all ages, children, or adults (including seniors) • Select a service category (advocacy, assistive products, braille and reading instruction, etc.) • Select a state, zip code, or distance from service • Or select an organization by name • Customization: save your search results as lists (for example, “Children’s braille and reading instruction in California”), and e-mail them to yourself or clients. Key "Resources" Feature • Select an audience: information for doctors, children, adults, seniors • Drill down into resources such as tips for modifying your home, accessible products, medication management, a Getting Started Kit, information for veterans, stories about people living and working with visual impairment, and more (music)

This podcast is produced by the Minnesota Radio Talking Book Network, part of State Services for the Blind, and it is recorded for people who are blind or have reading disabilities. You can register as a customer of State Services for the Blind to access many other services that they offer by going to www.mnssb.org. Complete programming of the Radio Talking Book is available at www.mnssb.org/rtb and the password is rtb. (music) The Washingtonian, September 2016 Meet an Amazing Blind Man Raising Blind Triplets Ollie Cantos was a workaholic lawyer—the highest-ranking blind person in the federal government. Then along came Steven, Leo, and Nick: blind triplets who needed a dad. What happened next changed their lives.

By Sherri Dalphonse on September 7, 2016

On May 22, 2010, Leo, Nick, and Steven had pancakes for breakfast. The date is as easy for the triplets to remember as their birthday. Because on that particular Saturday, a visitor was coming, a man named Ollie Cantos. Ollie had something in common with the brothers. He was also blind. A government attorney, Ollie had learned of the family through a friend from church. The boys—born in Colombia three months premature and weighing about a pound each—were ten at the time and being raised in South Arlington by their mother and grandmother. Their father, who had come to the States to work for the Colombian Embassy, had moved back home when the boys were four. They hadn’t seen him since. Ollie’s friend believed that the brothers—who were being bullied by other kids and getting into fights—should meet him. Ollie had mentored children for years, and the triplets’ mother welcomed the visit. “I had heard that Leo was Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky but yearned for friends,” Ollie recalls. “Steven was very serious and, again, didn’t have a lot of friends. Nick was the one, I heard, who was the most angry.” Ollie, then 39, was confident he could make a connection, because his own childhood hadn’t always been easy. He had tried to hide his blindness for years, forgoing a cane and the use of Braille until he was an adult. “I was in denial,” he says. “I thought blindness was a bad thing. I thought it meant you were helpless and couldn’t do anything.” When Ollie arrived, the boys were playing a made-up game show on their Casio keyboard. They immediately made him a contestant. “The next question goes to Mr. Ollie,” Leo said. “Mr. Ollie, do you like candy?” The brothers fired off more questions. They wanted to know: What had Ollie’s childhood been like? Ollie told of the troublemakers who’d tripped him in the school halls or waved hands in front of his face and teased: “How many fingers am I holding up?” As intrigued as the boys were, says Leo, “the first feeling I had was that it was probably going to be one of those one-day relationships and then he’d be gone. “And then,” Leo goes on, “he introduced us to this thing called a shoulder ride.” One by one, Ollie hoisted each boy onto his shoulders, then spun in circles and flipped them down and around. It was terrifying and intense and amazing, but most of all confusing: How was a blind man doing this? • • • The triplets’ lives had been extremely sheltered: school during the week, church on Sunday. Teachers and Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind volunteers took turns helping them have experiences common to others their age, such as ice-skating and trick-or-treating, and they went to a weeklong CLB day camp five summers in a row. But by and large, Leo, Nick, and Steven didn’t stray much from their routine. Their mother, Ceila Gracia, says she was working two jobs and had little time. She was also cautious: “My mother and I, we wouldn’t let them do some things like go outside alone. Always in order to protect them.” The tedium wore on the boys. They say they could hear other children laughing outside the apartment windows—including their older, sighted brother—but weren’t allowed to join in when kids were playing in the snow or kicking a soccer ball....

This podcast is produced by the Minnesota Radio Talking Book Network, part of State Services for the Blind, and it is recorded for people who are blind or have reading disabilities. You can register as a customer of State Services for the Blind to access many other services that they offer by going to www.mnssb.org. Complete programming of the Radio Talking Book is available at www.mnssb.org/rtb and the password is rtb.

When You Don't Feel Worthy of Employment (or Relationships for that Matter) As an Individual Who Is Blind or Visually Impaired This was posted on AFB website on 8/29/2016 by Shannon Carollo

Listen, this is a hard topic. I know it will not apply to all readers; many of you are already confident (or as I like to say, “ humbly-confident”). But it will apply to some; if it applies to you, it was worth every word. Don’t know if it applies to you? Take the three examples and see if any describes you. • You don’t want to pursue training in Orientation and Mobility or Assistive Technology because you don’t think you’d be hired or perform well regardless. • If you were told by your boss that you are an exceptional employee, you would not believe her. • You would apply for a leadership role or other more senior position if you thought you were qualified. (Did I mention you have worked in your field for years with positive performance evaluations?) Any of these statements sound like the war that wages in your mind? The war of worth. You struggle with a sense of worthiness. You know me, always listening to TEDtalks. Of course I heard a fantastic one yesterday: "The Power of Vulnerability" by qualitative researcher Brene Brown. Ms. Brown studied adults who feel worthwhile and those who don’t. She wanted to know what makes people feel “worthy”, and if those who lack a sense of worthiness could utilize strategies to begin feeling “worthy”. After years of research, she concluded, “A sense of worthiness comes from a strong sense of love and belonging.” So I wonder if you have a “tribe” in which you belong. Do you have a core group of friends? Alternatively, have you been feeling socially isolated? Ms. Brown would tell you that belonging to a group is imperative because it will give you: • Courage to be imperfect • Compassion to yourself and others • Connection as a result of authenticity, and • Vulnerability. Out of this safe and comforting place will rise, according to Ms. Brown, “a birthplace of creativity, belonging, love, joy.” Here are my suggestions for plugging into a group and finding your “tribe”: • Utilize AFB’s directory of services to find a local peer support group with others who are blind or visually impaired. • Volunteer in an area of interest and get to know those who you work alongside. • Get involved in the activities suggested in "How to Beat Work-Related Stress", such as joining a social club, hobby group, exercise team, etc. • Invite your neighbors to dinner. You’ll have to interact with a dozen or more social groups, I’d guess, before finding one that is a perfectly imperfect match with you. But do it anyway; Your mental health will thank you. After you are well-connected, I think you’ll see you were already worthy. You can be successful in the right workplace. You can get a job; you can be an exceptional employee; and you can advance in your career.

This podcast is produced by the Minnesota Radio Talking Book Network, part of State Services for the Blind, and it is recorded for people who are blind or have reading disabilities. You can register as a customer of State Services for the Blind to access many other services that they offer by going to www.mnssb.org. Complete programming of the Radio Talking Book is available at www.mnssb.org/rtb and the password is rtb. (music) Vision Aware – American Foundation for the Blind Dealing with Workplace Bullying When You Are Visually Impaired Posted on 10/19/2016 by Empish J. Thomas When I hear the word "bullying" I tend to envision a big size kid physically and verbally harassing a smaller size kid on the playground at school. Although this vision of bullying is not incorrect it is not the only kind of bullying that occurs. Bullying can also occur on the Internet via social media like Facebook. Additionally, I am coming to understand that bullying does not only happen to children at school but to adults as well. When bullying happens to adults a popular location is at work. You can experience bullying in the workplace and not have the tools to protect yourself. Or you can be bullied and not even know it because it can be subtle and not very obvious. But for those that are reading this blog post take courage. Below we will share useful tips, suggestions, and what the law says about protecting yourself as a person with a disability from workplace bullying. Definition of Bullying First let’s define what is bullying so that you are clear on exactly what it is. According to the Texas Council on Developmental Disabilities, "bullying in the workplace occurs when one or more people are hostile or mean toward another person on an ongoing basis. Bullying is not typically considered acceptable adult conduct. Workplace bullying is an effort to undermine and harm another person by threatening that person’s professional status, self-confidence, and/or ability to perform. Bullying is harassment and in severe cases can even be verbal or physical abuse and/or assault. Harassment involves annoying and continued actions, which can include threats and demands, as well as uninvited and unwelcome verbal or physical conduct. Verbal or physical bullying that is abusive is considered assault and there are criminal laws that can lead to the arrest and prosecution of a bully." How Do You Know that You Are Being Bullied? Now that you have the definition of workplace bullying; the next step is to figure out if it is happening to you or not. Sometimes it is hard to accept that bullying is taking place. A person might think they are over reacting or blame themselves for what is happening to them. People might mistakenly think that bullying comes only from their supervisor; but it can also come from co-workers, customers and clients. Here are some examples of what bullying actually looks like: • Uses abusive, insulting, or offensive language toward you. For example talking about your visual impairment in a negative or derogatory way. • Leaves you out of important work meetings. • Leaves you out of social circles or functions at work. • Gives you amounts of work that are not realistic. • Gives you jobs that are impossible to be performed in the time given. • Does not give you information you need to do your job. • Changes your hours or schedules your hours so that they are difficult to meet. • Gives you pointless tasks that have nothing to do with your job. • Unfairly denies personal leave or training. • Regularly threatens to reprimand or fire you. • Yells at you or criticizes you in front of others. • Uses or threatens physical violence toward you. • Pushes, shoves, trips, or grabs you in the workplace. • Requires you to do humiliating or inappropriate things. by Neva Fairchild What Can a Person Who Is Visually Impaired Do to Combat Bullying? Don’t be silent. Bullies control through intimidation, and they count on you to stay quiet. Talk to ...

This podcast is produced by the Minnesota Radio Talking Book Network, part of State Services for the Blind, and it is recorded for people who are blind or have reading disabilities. You can register as a customer of State Services for the Blind to access many other services that they offer by going to www.mnssb.org. Complete programming of the Radio Talking Book is available at www.mnssb.org/rtb and the password is rtb. (music) The Gadgets that Enable Blind People to See Inventions using sound and touch soon to be commercialized from Israeli professor’s lab will give unprecedented abilities to people with visual limitations. By Abigail Klein Leichman September 12, 2016, 9:40 am

In Prof. Amir Amedi’s world-renowned Lab for Brain and Multisensory Research at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, people with vision impairment can “see” their environment with the aid of sensory substitution devices (SSDs) that provide visual information from sound and touch. Now, two of the lab’s groundbreaking inventions are being readied for the mass market in Brainnovations, Israel Brain Technologies’ four-month accelerator program. EyeCane, a flashlight-like orientation device, emits infrared rays to translate distance into auditory and tactile cues enabling the user to sense objects within an adjustable range of up to five meters. After brief training, EyeCane users can estimate distances, avoid obstacles and successfully navigate in simple environments. EyeMusic is an app and mini camera system that conveys colors, shapes and location of objects by converting images into “soundscapes” for the brain to interpret visually. Blind individuals can be trained to recognize the letters of the alphabet, “see” pictures of animals, and even find an object or person in a complex visual landscape. A version of the app is available free on the Apple App Store and Google Play. Commercializing and eventually combining EyeCane and EyeMusic could give unprecedented self-navigation capabilities to blind people, says Daphna Rosenbaum, CEO of RenewSenses, a pre-startup based on Amedi’s research in the medical neurobiology department of the university’s Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada. “The white cane is from 1921,” Rosenbaum tells ISRAEL21c. “The 21st century high-tech world hasn’t effectively answered the mobility needs of blind people.” Amir and his team have exhibited the EyeCane prototype at global conferences and exhibitions, and testers in Israel have given enthusiastic testimonials, she says. “What we offer is independence in understanding and interpreting one’s surroundings using the natural brain processing of interpreting the landscape and objects,” says Rosenbaum. “No machine is as sophisticated as the brain and our solution is based on its elasticity and sensory substitution abilities.” Amedi received a European Research Council grant to develop the SSDs, whose patents are owned by Yissum, the technology transfer arm of the Hebrew University. Yissum has spun out 110 companies including superstars such as Mobileye, BriefCam, OrCam and Betalin Therapeutics. Challenging conventional notions Yaacov Michlin, CEO of Yissum, says the Amedi lab’s “amazing” research challenges the conventional notion that the brain is divided into distinct sensory regions. “They demonstrate that people have the ability to take information from one sense and present it in another, thus enabling blind people to ‘see’ by using other senses such as touching or hearing,” he said. With the encouragement of Yissum, RenewSenses entered Brainnovations in May to build a business model and get the products to people who are waiting for them, Rosenbaum says. The initial version of EyeCane could be available within three or four months of raising production funds. “The Brainnovations accelerator helps us understand the medical ecosystem, including reimbursement and regulation, and governmental programs like the Innovation Authority [of the Ministry of Economy and Indust...

This podcast is produced by the Minnesota Radio Talking Book Network, part of State Services for the Blind, and it is recorded for people who are blind or have reading disabilities. You can register as a customer of State Services for the Blind to access many other services that they offer by going to www.mnssb.org. Complete programming of the Radio Talking Book is available at www.mnssb.org/rtb and the password is rtb.

At the Gateway to Blindness, by Maribel Steele

8 Threads to Weave into the Garment of Change , June 16, 2014

When I began to lose my eyesight, it was natural to fear losing so many other aspects of my life that I treasured. Becoming an artist and failing to see colour was one of them. But the hardest hurdle to overcome was knowing how to weave positive threads into the garment with the label of disabled.   Did you know that the dictionary defines disabled as: to make unable, weaken, destroy the capability of, to cripple, to have a lack of competent power or strength in either physical or mental abilities, to be disqualified and to make legally incapable: to be deprived of the right to engage and, lucky last, to be rendered unfit.   Hmm, a pretty disturbing label to be given to anyone. No wonder, as an adolescent, it didn’t appeal as an image I wanted to aquire: but it seemed that Miss Puberty had other plans…  No one had warned me about the sneaky tactics of Miss Puberty, the way she could change the life of a perfectly normal teenager when she brought an exclusive offer to our household.  There she stood on the doorstep, bearing the garment of change, insisting I wear the new label of disabled.   ‘Sign on the dotted line,’ she said, holding out an invisible pen. Miss Puberty worked with such authority, there was no option but to agree to the hidden terms and conditions of a membership I didn’t want but had to accept.   ‘Welcome and congratulations,’ she said. ‘As you now have Retinitis Pigmentosa, whether you like it or not, you can spend the rest of your life freely indulging in any of the labels we proudly stock in our Blind-Bat Boutique. Please take your time to browse and choose carefully from our huge range of richly textured stigmas.’   I didn’t want a new image, or one of their ugly designer garments exclusive to Mademoiselle Black: Itza Shame: X-clude: Inferior Design: Kybosh: De Prive De Paris. I wanted to yell at Miss Puberty, “Take your unfashionable garment elsewhere and drape your labels over someone else’s life. I think you have the wrong house.”   She thrust the package into my hands. “Too late. Like it or not, it’s your designer image now, you have to wear it.” Fashion the garment  Over many years of trying to cut the cloth to suit my image, with the label of disabled firmly secured to the fabric of my life, it has taken 8 qualities to thread the garment I can now wear with pride.   If you find yourself having to wear a particular label you consider quite unfashionable, let me introduce you to 8 colourful qualities essential to transform your dreary cloak of despair with chic threads of elegance.

Attitude is the key to accepting change in your life. Cultivate a positive attitude and be aware of the choices you are making. Often it is fear and self-pride holding back your progress. When you take control of your attitude in a positive way, you begin to infuse your life with possibility.  Thread the colour RED into your new garment: it is the shade of glowing embers that will keep your fire alight.
Gather your support team    Don’t be afraid to gather around you a support team of loved ones, friends and colleagues and let them know how best they can assist you. In all truth, they really want to know how to co-operate in creating a balance in letting you take charge of your own life.   Asking for help when you could honestly benefit from their genuine support is not a sign of personal weakness but can boost the morale of the entire team. With balance and flexibility...

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. (music) Netflix to Enhance Access for Customers Who Are Blind For Immediate Release April 14, 2016  In a first-of-its-kind settlement, advocates for people who are blind have reached an agreement with Netflix to make accessible the movies and videos offered through the Netflix video streaming and DVD rental subscriptions. The settlement provides that Netflix will make its video content accessible by adding a new technology called “audio description” as a feature that blind customers can activate so they can more fully understand and enjoy the movie and video experience. The settlement was reached between Netflix and the American Council of the Blind (ACB). The Massachusetts-based Bay State Council of the Blind (BSCB) and Robert Baran, an individual who is blind, were also parties to the settlement. These blind advocacy organizations and Mr. Baran were represented by Disability Rights Advocates (DRA), a national non-profit legal center. Netflix provides one of the nation’s most popular online streaming and DVD rental services, offering convenient and affordable video entertainment, including original content, to millions of Americans. Under the agreement, Netflix will provide audio description for many popular titles in its streaming and disc rental libraries. Audio description technology lets blind people know what is happening in scenes without dialogue or scenes with significant visual elements via an audio description track that contains narration of the visual elements that is synchronized with the show or movie. Television and movie studios will create the audio description tracks and provide them to Netflix. Without audio description, blind individuals do not know what is happening in scenes without dialogue and can misinterpret the meaning of other scenes. Under the settlement, Netflix will also provide audio description for the “Netflix Original” shows that Netflix has begun distributing such as House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. Under the agreement, Netflix will also make its website and mobile applications accessible to individuals who are blind and use screen-reading software to navigate websites and apps. Screen-reading software is an interface between people who are blind or low vision and computers and/or mobile applications. The software creates an audio version of text and images that appear on a screen that it reads aloud to a user. The user then controls the computer or mobile device by pressing keys or tapping on a mobile application. With the changes Netflix is making, users who are blind or low vision will be able to independently use the Netflix website and mobile applications. This agreement is the first-of-its-kind to provide screen-reader and audio access to users who are blind or low vision. These improvements will provide people who are blind or low vision with unparalleled access to online video entertainment services currently enjoyed by millions of Americans. Millions of Americans identify as having a visual disability. Kim Charlson, President of the American Council of the Blind, commented, “We applaud Netflix for working with us to enhance access to its services for people who are blind. Our goal is to expand the availability of Netflix’s services to the blind community and to increase the availability of audio described film and television programming. Movies and television are a central pillar of American culture. As television and movies are increasingly delivered through streaming and home delivery services, ensuring that the blind community receives access to this content is critical to ensure that people who are blind are integrated into modern society.” Attorney Rebecca Williford of Disability Rights Advocates explains, “This is a gre...

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. (music) From the AFB – American Foundation for the Blind Is Low Vision Driving an Option? Chelsea is an active 16-year-old high school junior who's treasurer of her class. She also volunteers at the local animal shelter. She was born with albinism; her corrected visual acuity is 20/200 in both eyes; and she has near normal visual fields. Even before she started high school, she and her orientation and mobility (O&M) instructor began talking about the possibility that she might be able to get a driver's license. Last year Chelsea and her parents traveled 200 miles to see an optometrist who specializes in working with people who have low vision. That was the first time she had a chance to try a bioptic telescope. She was amazed when she looked through the telescope lens and could read the small print on a poster across the room! Now she has a pair of bioptics and is working with a driving school instructor to learn how to use them efficiently and safely. What Are Bioptics? Bioptics are specially designed eyeglasses that contain carrier lenses, in one's regular distance prescription, which have been modified to "carry" a miniature telescope. Not everyone with low vision can use them. The telescope enables users to see objects in the distance by tilting their heads slightly downward to switch from the view through their regular eyeglass lenses to a magnified view through the telescope. The telescope is used for less than 5 percent of driving time and only for a few seconds at a time. If your teen's visual acuity is between 20/50 and 20/200 and she has near-normal visual fields, she may be able to learn to drive using bioptics—also referred to as a bioptic telescopic system (BTS). The first step is to consult an ophthalmologist or optometrist who is a specialist in low vision. If it's confirmed that her vision is sufficient for low vision driving, she'll need a lot of instruction and practice to learn how to become a safe driver using this special device. The following suggestions can help prepare your child to be a low vision driver. • Have your child contact your state's Department of Motor Vehicles to learn about the requirements in your state for low vision driving. • If your teen uses a handheld telescope or monocular, encourage her to use it more often—for example, when she's on her way to school or out shopping—to read signs at a distance or watch out for oncoming traffic. The more skilled and familiar she is with a handheld telescope, the easier it will be for her to learn to use a bioptic telescopic system. • Talk with your child's O&M instructor to get ideas on how you can help her become a more aware traveler. The O&M instructor may be able to suggest ways for her to sharpen concepts related to travel, such as blocks, cross streets, traffic flow, types of intersections, and highway driving versus local travel. • When you or another adult is driving, have your child sit behind the driver and describe what she's seeing. Help her become more aware of how a driver needs to shift perspective to know at every moment what's happening in front of the car, far ahead, on either side, and behind. • Encourage your teenager to talk with other low vision drivers about how they learned to use bioptics and perhaps get some helpful tips that a driver with normal vision wouldn't necessarily think of. Many young people are eager to overcome the limitations of low vision and become licensed drivers. It takes dedication to develop the skills needed to accomplish that. Work with other members of your child's educational team to help her explore and prepare for driving. If, in the end, she decides the demands of low vision driving are too hard, she may still benefit from her experiences. The sk...

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. (music) Denny’s Introduces Newly Enhanced Website and Mobile Application

Upgraded Platforms Offer Enhanced Accessibility and Functionality for All Users    SPARTANBURG, S.C., January 6, 2016 - Denny's Corporation (NASDAQ: DENN), franchisor and operator of one of America's largest franchised full-service restaurant chains, today announced its newly upgraded website and mobile application offering an enhanced user experience and greater accessibility for all consumers. Denny’s web site (link is external) and mobile application (link is external) have been redesigned to meet new guidelines issued by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), making each platform available to, and usable by, all patrons, including those with disabilities.   “We congratulate Denny’s on upgrading its mobile app and website and making them accessible to all customers,” said Kim Charlson, President of the American Council of the Blind (ACB). “Our members value Denny’s pricing, food and service and applaud the company on recognizing the diversity of its customer base.”   Denny’s worked with the ACB and consumers with visual disabilities to gain functionality feedback that would impact the improved website and mobile application. Using critical user response, Denny’s was able to tailor the functions of each platform to ensure they are readily accessible and useable without assistance.   “The recent updates to our website and mobile application are designed to offer enhanced functionality so that all of our guests can have access to Denny’s wherever they are,” said Erik Jensen, Sr. Director Brand Engagement at Denny’s. “Both of these platforms are designed to enable us to engage with our consumers even when they’re not in our restaurants, so it was crucial that this applied to all users, whatever their needs or requirements may be.”   Lisa Irving, a long time Denny’s patron in Southern California, was involved in the effort. “I appreciate improvements the company has made to its website and mobile app,” says Irving. “As a result of Denny's upgrades I am now able to read the menu without assistance and to make healthy choices, something I really value.”   The guidelines issued by the WAI are designed to keep the aesthetic nature of the content intact, while ensuring that the information is readily accessible to persons with visual and other disabilities. The implemented guidelines are of particular benefit to visually impaired computer and mobile app users who rely on screen reader voice output or magnification technology and who, like others, rely on a keyboard instead of a mouse for computer navigation.

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. (music) Vision Aware – American Foundation for the Blind Safe Cooking Techniques for Cooks Who Are Blind or Have Low Vision Safe Cooking Tips • Wear short sleeves or roll your sleeves above the elbow when working at the stove. • Wear oven mitts to handle pots and pans. • Set a timer to remind you when to turn off the stove and electrical appliances. • Make sure all your appliances are in good working order and avoid overloading circuits. • Use a vegetable peeler instead of a knife for peeling fruits and vegetables. • Consider using a pizza cutter rather than a knife for cutting, or try out a pivot knife that is connected to a cutting board. • Don't store spices on a shelf above the stove. • Don't remove a pan from the stove before you turn off the flame. • Don't wear anything with long, loose sleeves when cooking. Cutting and Chopping • Remember to use plastic trays or cutting boards in colors that contrast with your food. For example, keep a white cutting board for slicing red apples or carrots, a dark colored board for onions, etc. • Try a pizza cutter instead of a knife for slicing sandwiches, or try an adjustable knife attached to a cutting board. Measuring • Hold a light-colored measuring cup against a dark background when pouring water, flour, sugar, and other light-colored ingredients. • Use a measuring cup with raised numbers on the side or mark the cup tactilely with a 3-D pen. • Use individually sized or stacking measuring cups to scoop desired amounts. • Measure spices into your hand first to avoid pouring into a spoon (some spice containers have a wide opening to insert a spoon), or use measuring spoons with large numbers. Pouring Cold Liquids Again, use color contrasts: Dark pitchers and servers for milk and other light-colored liquids, a white pitcher for dark liquids such as iced tea. When pouring into a glass: • Locate the pitcher by trailing your hand along the table. • Locate the spout by moving your hand up the pitcher, and then turn the pitcher until the spout faces the glass. • With your other hand, move the glass toward the pitcher, keeping your index finger on the spout of the pitcher. • Lift the pitcher slightly and touch the spout to the rim of the glass. • Now hook your index finger partway over the rim of the glass so that just your fingertip is inside the glass. • Pour until you can feel the water or other liquid reach your index finger. Also, listen for sound changes as liquid reaches the top of the glass. Try practicing with empty containers first, and pour over a tray to catch any spills. Or … You may prefer to use an electronic liquid level indicator, also known as a "Say When." This battery-operated device is placed at the top of a cup or glass and beeps when the liquid reaches the top.

Hot Liquids Pouring hot liquids can be dangerous, especially for someone with neuropathy (loss of sensitivity in the fingertips). It is safer to use an electronic liquid-level indicator for pouring hot liquids. Peeling • Use a vegetable peeler rather than a knife. Hold the fruit or vegetable in one hand; the peeler in the other. • Grasp the handle with your thumb on one side and your fingers on the other. Don't touch the moving rod inside the peeler. • Hold the item at a 45-degree angle and, working on one half of the fruit or vegetable, start to peel on the surface, away from your body. Once the peelings have been removed, check the section with your index finger to feel if it is smooth. • Peel until the half you're working on is finished. Then turn the item upside down and continue. • To determine whether you have any peel left, run cold water over the fruit or vegetable. Placing Pans on a Burner ...

Cheryl McIntosh, Jeff Thompson and Pete Lane chat with their guest, Dr. Denise M. robinson, PhD and Educator of the blind. Dr. robinson provides a wealth of services, including one on one “applicable” instruction to students remotely using Skype. She employs innovative and proven techniques for teaching students countless subjects in conjunction with the public school systems using multiple tools. Check out Dr. robinson’s numerous videos on her Youtube Channel, her “Applicable” learning modules on her web site: www.YourTechVision.com andjoin the Blind Abilities team for this in depth discussion with one of the most esteemed names in blindness education in this 55-minute podcast: A Chat With Dr. Robinson. Follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities Cheryl @MoeLucie Pete @Lane7625 Jeff @JThompson6835 And get the Free Blind Abilities App in the App Store!

Welcome to the introduction of a Brand new series Called Practical Podcasting: Capturing a Thought Bubble on Audio. In this series we will cover a large number of topics surrounding the art of Podcasting and recording Audio. In this introduction Jeff Thompson, from the blind Abilities Team, lists the topics and the wide range of areas that make a Podcast what it is. Each episode in this continuing series will highlight a specific hardware, software, technique or process. Guest content providers will give demonstrations, comparisons, and suggestions related to the Practical Podcasting experience. This introduction is just that, an overall introduction and the highlight of a microphone comparison provided by Dan Brown is a 4 mic showdown allowing one to hear and consider some of the highly used microphones in the podcasting field. Dan introduces us to the Beringer XM 85 dynamic, the AudioTechnica AT 2100 Dynamic, the Blue Yetti Condenser and the MXL 5000 Condenser microphones.

Music for this Podcasts was produced and performed by Rene Russell @Logical_Woman on Twitter.

Next episode will center around the idea of podcasting with the devices you may already have! Whether it be a Mac, PC or your smart phone, podcasting is not that far from your reach.

When capturing Audio on the go,The best recorder is the one you have on hand! Thus, I find my iPhone is always on me and nearly ready to go when I need it. With the addition of my Apogee or Shure MV88 microphones and either the BossJockStudio App or the Motiv App from Shure, I am safe to say that I can get the audio quality I want at a drop of a hat. That’s not to say that one needs to spend $150 or $225 for one of these microphones for the iPhone, with a bit of post editing the iPhone mic can work in a pinch. And taking advantage of the BossJockStudio App’s recording capabilities especially the ability to shut off the IOS processing in the mic circuitry, your iPhone now becomes a mean and lean recording machine. With the Sure MV88 multi-capsule lightning port microphone taking the industry by storm, the versatility and accessibility to the Motiv app from Shure has been a real game changer for me in how I record while on the go. Jeff Thompson from the Blind Abilities Team shares his experience and clips of audio using the Apogee, MV88 and the iPhone microphones using the BossJock App on the iPhone 6. CheeChau lends a tip in reducing background with noise reduction and Jeff includes a demo of the Shure Motiv app and it’s accessibility with VoiceOver. Once again, a big thanks to Renee Russell @Logical_Woman on Twitter for the music she produced and composed using LogicPro on her Mac. Such a creative musician. Thanks Renee. You can find the BossJock App in the App Store and the Shure MV88 in the Apple Store, on Amazon, Guitar Center, MusiciansFriend as well as the Apogee Microphone. The Shure MV88 retails for $149 The Apogee Mic retails for $225 and the BossJock App sells for $9.99 while BossJockJr is a free edition.

Pete Lane reviews the new and simplified method of selecting, copying and pasting text brought about in IOS9. He demonstrates a process he uses to notify his iAccess Team members of upcoming meetings and assignments. Pete also points out a quirk which prompts a simple work around. Join Pete for this, the latest iAccess Demo from Blind Abilities

iAccessDemo #BlindAbilities #Lane7625

Blind Abilities presents two wonderful new correspondents: join doug Hansard and Toni burrell as they celebrate along with dozens of alumni of the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind. In this, the first in a series of reports, Doug and Toni enjoy a cruise around the St. Augustine, florida coastal area and share their experience. Enjoy this musical experience with Doug and Toni, and come again as they share other events from the celebration over a four day weekend event! #FSDB #Doug&Toni #blndAbilities

Join Jeff Thompson and Pete Lane and their guest, Suman Kanuganti, Co-founder and CEO of AIRA. AIRA leverages smart glasses, such as Google Glass to provide a dynamic service to blind users. Beginning with the Explorer program slated to begin in September and October of 2016, this device and the service associated with it promises to be a viable benefit with infinite potential for the blind for years to come.

Listen to Jeff and Pete as they engage in a detailed and fascinating look at AIRA in this 47 minute interview, complete with inserted audio from the AIRA.IO web site. Settle-in and hear about the trial, the trained agents, facial recognition and the artificial intelligence that will shape this experience over the next few years. And enjoy the wonderful music of Andre Louis @Freakyfwoof Thank You Andre!

You can find AIRA on Twitter at @AIRAIO

Jeff Thompson @JThompson6835

Pete Lane @Lane7625

Subscribe to our Feed at BlindAbilities.com/feed/podcast/ and check out our web site BlindAbilities.com Download the Blind Abilities App on the App Store.

Cheryl macintosh A.K.A. @MoeLucie talks about her passion for sharing her experiences and her knowledge of Nutrition, College Education, Accessibility and how important it is for us to share what we have experienced. Jeff Thompson interviews fellow Blind Abilities team member, Cheryl, finding out what drives her to reach her goals and how she likes to give back to others what she has learned and experienced. She is finishing up her Masters Degree at an On-Line University, raising kids, writing blog posts, researching topics of interest and always keeping us at Blind Abilities posted on the latest news. And by the way, when it comes to nutrition, sit back because she is going to take you to school. Cheryl has a lot of experiences and loves to share as you will find out in this podcast. You can find Cheryl on Twitter @MoeLucie and she is the Admin on the Blind Abilities Facebook group. You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities Jeff Thompson @JThompson6835 Get the Free Blind Abilities App from the App Store.

CareerTrack focuses on the track towards gaining a career from high school to College to Employment. Highlighting specific areas of importance for you to enhance your opportunities, make good choices and get on the right track towards your career. Join Lucie as she navigates the CareerTrack showing you and demonstrating some of the best practices, resources and sharing the experiences of others to best give you the tools you will need in your own CareerTrack.

Let Lucy know what you think and if you have some great ideas and suggestions, please share and Lucie will spread the word. You can contact Lucy on Twitter @MoeLucie

You can find more Career podcasts with a Blindness perspective at BlindAbilities.com/category/career/

Join the Blind abilities Team of Pete Lane and Jeff Thompson as they talk to Dan Parker about his life changing racing accident and how he has set goals to overcome the challenges from losing his eye sight and more than anything, not losing his vision of racing again. Dan is the 2005 World Champion racer who now uses his skills and confidence to re-invent himself as the World’s Fastest Blind Man. Racing is a family tradition and getting back into the shop and building racing components for cars and motorcycles has given him success and accomplishments that he only dreamed about as he recovered from his near death racing accident in 2012. By 2013 he was racing across the Salt Flats and in 2014 he attended the Louisiana Center for the Blind to gain the skills and confidence he knew he needed to enhance his daily life skills and competency in his tech skills. With goals of becoming the World’s Fastest Blind Man and enjoying doing what he has done for years, Dan Parker is inspiring others and racing ahead with goals and dreams he now knows he can achieve. You can reach Dan Parker @Questfor Salt on Twitter and Facebook.You can also find YouTube Videos by searching for Dan Parker.

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. (music) This blind Apple engineer is transforming the tech world at only 22 By Katie Dupere, Jul 10, 2016, Mashable.com Apple engineer Jordyn Castor has never been one for limitations. She was born 15 weeks early, weighing just under two pounds. Her grandfather could hold her in the palm of his hand, and could even slide his wedding ring along her arm and over her shoulder. Doctors said she had a slim chance of survival. It was Castor's first brush with limited expectations — and also the first time she shattered them. Castor, now 22, has been blind since birth, a result of her early delivery. But throughout childhood, her parents encouraged her to defy expectations of people with disabilities, motivating her to be adventurous, hands-on and insatiably curious. It was that spirit that led to her interact with technology, whether it was the desktop computer her family bought when she was in second grade, or the classroom computer teachers encouraged her to use in school. "I could help make technology more accessible for blind users." She says the adults in her life would often hand her a gadget, telling her to figure it out and show them how to use it. And she would. "I realized then I could code on the computer to have it fulfill the tasks I wanted it to," says Castor, whose current work focuses on enhancing features like VoiceOver for blind Apple users. "I came to realize that with my knowledge of computers and technology, I could help change the world for people with disabilities. "I could help make technology more accessible for blind users." Bringing a personal perspective to Apple innovation There's an often overlooked component of "diversity" in workplace initiatives — the need to include the perspectives of people with disabilities. Keeping tabs on the needs of the blind and low-vision community is a key component of Apple's innovation in accessibility. Castor is proof of how much that can strengthen a company. She was a college student at Michigan State University when she was first introduced to Apple at a Minneapolis job fair in 2015. Castor went to the gathering of employers, already knowing the tech giant would be there — and she was nervous. "You aren't going to know unless you try," she thought. "You aren't going to know unless you talk to them ... so go." Castor told Apple reps how amazed she was by the iPad she received as a gift for her 17th birthday just a few years earlier. It raised her passion for tech to another level — mainly due to the iPad's immediate accessibility. "Everything just worked and was accessible just right out of the box," Castor tells Mashable. "That was something I had never experienced before." "I'm directly impacting the lives of the blind community." Sarah Herrlinger, senior manager for global accessibility policy and initiatives at Apple, says a notable part of the company's steps toward accessibility is its dedication to making inclusivity features standard, not specialized. This allows those features to be dually accessible — both for getting the tech to more users, as well as keeping down costs. "[These features] show up on your device, regardless of if you are someone who needs them," Herrlinger tells Mashable. "By being built-in, they are also free. Historically, for the blind and visually impaired community, there are additional things you have to buy or things that you have to do to be able to use technology." At that job fair in 2015, Castor's passion for accessibility and Apple was evident. She was soon hired as an intern focusing on VoiceOver accessibility. As her internship came to a close, Castor's skills as an engineer and advocate for tech accessibility were too commanding to let go. She was hired full-time as an...

So often Blind Abilities interviews blind individuals, or organizations or businesses who cater to the blind. Today, we feature a sighted individual who has devoted a large part of her life, both working and volunteering to enrich the lives of the blind. Pete interviews Mandy VanCleave: n Assistive Technology specialist, and a volunteer for various blindness apps including BeSpecular, Be My Eyes and soon, the new camera glasses, AIRA. Join us and meet Mandy!

Caitlyn is setting out to transition from High School to College and to a career and is getting all the skills and training to enhance her opportunities. Jeff Thompson of the Blind Abilities Team interviews Caitlyn about her plans, goals, objectives and most of all, the connection with State Services and her peers to ensure her journey succeeds. From camps to training Caitlyn is getting it done.

Live from ACB16! This time Lori takes the mic and interviews Jeff about Blind Abilities: the vision, the growing network and the community participation that makes it so successful! Jeff also interviews the team of developers of the fantastic new Bespecular app, now free in both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. Check out Blind Abilities demo of the app from the last week in June, 2016.

ACB16 #Bespecular #BlindAbilities

Jeff ventures out on the convention floor despite working hard in Booth #41. Catch these interviews with some great guests and interesting products!

ACB16 #BlindAbilities

Jeff Thompson talks with Lucy Macintosh and Raquel Gomez about Accessible Formats, Textbooks and resources that are available to high school and college students.

From places to get books such as BookShare, Learning Ally, BARD or accessing them through an app such as the KNFB Reader. Using the Disabilities Office and how to stay ahead of the game and how to keep as many tools for success in your toolbox so you can become independent from Disability Offices as you surely can’t take that office to your workplace.

Here are a few links mentioned in the podcast:

Learning Ally https://www.learningally.org

BARD https://nlsbard.loc.gov/login//NLS

BookShare https://www.bookshare.org/cms

KNFB Reader http://www.knfbreader.com

Pete Lane and Jeff Thompson asked members of the community what they liked about the award winning and life changing technology of the KNFB App. With such a positive response we thought we had to share. Join members of the Jacksonville iAccess group and members of the blind abilities community as Pete and Jeff talk KNFB Reader. You can get the KNFB Reader from the App Store for IOS and in the Google Play for Android.

Follow Blind Abilities on Twiter @BlindAbilities and get the Blind Abilities App from the App Store. soon to be released on Android.

Jeff Thompson interviews the BeSpecular App developers celebrating the new launch in the app Store and the Google Play store. Jeff and Pete also test the app and the additional functions on the new release. Follow @BeSpecular and download the App today!

Blind Abilities Presents: Christopher Venter, A.K.A. Blind Scooter Guy. Christopher journeyed from Cape Town South Africa to Dublin Ireland on a scooter motorcycle, one of the smaller styles of cycles and traveled over 20,000 miles just to get a Guinness beer, well, kind of. Christopher contracted a virus that eventually took his eyesight. And Over the next two years Christopher did not stop pursuing the life he always dreamed of... being a writer. Join Pete and Jeff along with their gassed Christopher Venter, the Blind Scooter Guy as he talks about his outlook, philosophy, and determination to eat that elephant one bite at a time.

You can follow and subscribe to Christopher’s Blog at BlindScooterGuy.

On Twitter @BlindScooterGuy and on Facebook at Blind Scooter Guy

You can find more podcast with a blindness perspective on the web at www.blindabilities.com, follow us on Twitter at blind abilities and download the app from the app store, blind abilities, that's two words. And you can email us at info@blindabilities.com

Jeff Thompson interviews the Directors from Camp Abilities-St. Louis who are excited about the grand opening of Camp Abilities in the St. Luis area. Join them at the ACB Convention and learn about Camp Abilities.

Blind Abilities Presents an interview with Leonard Olijar, Director, Bureau Of Engraving & Printing, an agency of the U.S. Treasury Department responsible for the printing and safeguarding of the United States currency. Mr. Olijar talks about the Currency Reader Program featuring the iBill Money Reader, the EyeNote and IDEAL Money Reader smart phones apps available free in the App Store and Google Play Store respectively. He also offers an update for the much publicized Currency Redesign program which will see durable tactile markings on US paper currency. We should see this reach fruition sometime next year. * To receive a currency reader, individuals must submit an application form, which requires verification of a visual impairment signed by a certifying authority, such as a doctor or other medical professional. The * completed application should be mailed to: U.S. Currency Reader Program, 14th & C Streets, S.W., Washington, DC 20228. * The form-fillable application is available to download from http://www.bep.gov/uscurrencyreaderform.html * If you prefer, you can call the U.S. Currency Reader Program Information Line toll free at 844-815-9388 and ask for an application to be mailed to you.

Join Pete Lane and his guest, Leonard Olijar for a brief and informative discussion of the services provided by the Bureau Of Engraving & Printing.

iBillMoneyReader #EyeNote #IDEALMoneyReader #BlindAbilities

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. I’m Stuart Holland. (music) Accessible images for everyone Tuesday, March 29, 2016 | By Todd Kloots (@todd), Staff Engineer [13:00 UTC]

Photos have been at the center of some of the biggest moments on Twitter. As a core part of the Twitter experience, it’s important that images shared on our platform are accessible to everyone, including those who are visually impaired. Starting today, people using our iOS and Android apps can add descriptions — also known as alternative text (alt text) — to images in Tweets. With this update, we’re empowering everyone to ensure content shared on Twitter is accessible to the widest possible audience. Enable this feature by using the compose image descriptions option in the Twitter app’s accessibility settings. The next time you add an image to a Tweet, each thumbnail in the composer will have an add description button. Tap it to add a description to the image. People who are visually impaired will have access to the description via their assistive technology (e.g., screen readers and braille displays). Descriptions can be up to 420 characters. To ensure publishers and third-party clients also have the capability to add alt text to images, we’ve extended our platform products to both the REST API and Twitter Cards. We know this is especially important for specialized Twitter clients for the visually impaired such as EasyChirp, Chicken Nugget, and The Qube. We’re excited to empower our customers and publishers to make images on Twitter accessible to the widest possible audience, so everyone can be included in the conversation and experience the biggest moments together.

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. I’m Stuart Holland. (music) Blind Trader at StanChart Grooves to Currency Moves in His Ear 16 / 26

Bloomberg Anto Antony (Bloomberg) -- Feeling his way with a white cane, Vishal Agrawal, 29, reaches his foreign exchange trading desk on the fifth floor of Standard Chartered Plc’s office in Mumbai’s business district each day by 8:00 a.m. While his eight other colleagues watch blinking screens to make trades, Agrawal listens to price movements on the trading terminal via special speech-recognition software feeding into a device in his left ear. “I hear the moves and make trades,” Agrawal, who turned blind nine years ago, said in an interview on the floor where he started as an emerging markets trader in September 2013. “With technology to help me, I don’t find it harder to trade, in spite of my visual impairment.” He’s doing as well as many of his fellow traders and has potential to grow further in the company, said Gopikrishnan MS, Agrawal’s boss and the Mumbai-based head of foreign exchange, rates and credit for South Asia at Standard Chartered. Agrawal’s trading limits have steadily increased since he started, Gopikrishnan said without providing more details, citing company policy. But that’s a sign that Agrawal is good at his job. India has more blind people than any in the world, with 5.4 million, and the visually impaired are often stigmatized by employers who fear the disability will impede their work and won’t hire them, said Bhushan Punani, executive secretary at the Blind People’s Association in India. Successes like Agrawal’s “are few and far between,” he said. “Till the stigma that society attaches to the blind is done away with, it is a tough battle for them to do well in a career,” said Punani. Standard Chartered aims to be the employer of choice for banking professionals with disabilities, and has hired some visually impaired people in senior roles around the world, a Mumbai-based spokesman said, without specifying how many. Additionally, the bank has hired disabled people for entry-level sales jobs in nine countries, he said. Other Traders There are only a handful of known blind finance professionals in the world. Wall Street has at least two blind women: Laura Sloate, who co-founded Sloate Weisman Murray & Co. and manages the Strong Value fund; and Lauren Oplinger, who works in municipal bond sales at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York. A blind money manager at BlueCrest Capital Management, Ashish Goyal, who had previously been a London-based portfolio manager at JPMorgan, left BlueCrest in May. He served as a mentor to Agrawal when he was looking for a job, he said by telephone from London. “I told Vishal that all he needs to find is a person who is willing to take a chance on him,” Goyal said. “Once you find that person who will give you a break, then knowledge is going to be the key and performance is the only thing that matters, whether you have an impairment or not.” Agrawal was diagnosed with the degenerative eye disease retinitis pigmentosa in 2004 as he was preparing to leave for undergraduate study in the U.S. Constrained by the diagnosis, he settled for studying accounting close to his home in Mumbai. Agrawal, who had been planning to follow his father into his diamond trading business, started to read voraciously using a Kindle after his diagnosis. With his Kindle’s screen reader, which provides audio reading the text aloud, Agrawal spent hours a day learning about finance and technology. He also listened to business news channels. No Job By the time he graduated in 2008, Agrawal was unable to see. Still, he had his mind made up about making a career in trading and investing in capital markets. But he found that none of the local brokerages or tra...

Career Corner is a program produced by the Minnesota Radio Talking Book Network, part of State Services for the Blind, and it is recorded for people are blind or have reading disabilities. You can listen to the stream of the Minnesota Radio Talking Book Network at www.mnssb.org/rtb, and the password is RTB. Your host, for Career Corner is Anne Obst.

Music Working Strategies: You want a part-time job, now go get one • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) • • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) • Submit to Stumbleupon (Opens in new window) • • By Amy Lindgren PUBLISHED: June 11, 2016 Last week I looked at part-time work in the abstract sense while noting that a partial work schedule seems to garner less respect than a full-time position — a fact I acknowledge but really don’t understand. This week I’ll get down to brass tacks on how to get a part-time position and what to negotiate for. Let’s start with definitions. When I say “part-time work,” I’m talking about the schedule, not the scope or duties. So even though you might think of retail or warehouse positions, remember that those jobs make up just a portion of the part-time landscape. Indeed, you can do just about any job on a part-time schedule, including high-level or professional positions. I have known part-time marketing directors, accountants, attorneys, truck drivers, nonprofit leaders, nurses, school teachers, production line workers, software programmers, lobbyists, carpenters, sales representatives … have I hit your field yet? Unless you’re just starting out in the work world, identifying your field will be critical for finding the part-time position you want. Although new workers can approach potential employers with an “I’ll take anything” message, the same strategy from an experienced worker is almost certain to backfire. Rather than seeming flexible or teachable, experienced workers with no focus may look unmotivated or possibly a little desperate — definitely not the messages you want to send. Defining your work goals also is important because part-time positions are not as likely to be advertised. When you know what kind of work you want to do, it’s easier to identify the companies that could likely use your services. And you’ll need to do that in order to make direct outreach to employers who aren’t advertising for part-time help. It’s worth exploring why part-time jobs are less often advertised than full-time positions. One simple reason is return on investment. It’s just as difficult to recruit for part-time workers as for full-time, but the resulting “win” may be less critical to operations. This is especially true for white-collar or professional positions where the current team can probably cover the extra duties indefinitely. It’s not ideal, but inertia is strong, leading managers to maintain status quo rather than initiate a lengthy hiring process. Hence, if you were to judge the market by the ads alone, you’d think there were no opportunities. In truth, managers often find it easier to allocate resources for part-time workers; they may also appreciate that they can delegate defined projects or tasks to someone on a part-time schedule. Here are decisions you’ll want to make before initiating conversations with potential employers: • Which skills do you want to use, or which tasks do you want to perform? • Do you want a permanent part-time job or something short-term? (If the latter, ask for a contract role, rather than joining the company as an employee.) • What work schedule are you hoping for? • What’s your level? That is, can you step in with little or no training, or would you need to ramp up while you gain experience? You’ll also need to hone your story for why you want a partial work schedule. Good answers to this question include other responsibilities (such as school or caretaking), or the desire to ramp down from a full-time s...

Career Corner is a program produced by the Minnesota Radio Talking Book Network, part of State Services for the Blind, and it is recorded for people are blind or have reading disabilities. You can listen to the stream of the Minnesota Radio Talking Book Network at www.mnssb.org/rtb, and the password is RTB. Your host, for Career Corner is Anne Obst.

Music Working Strategies: Finding the right words and how to use them • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) • • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) • Submit to Stumbleupon (Opens in new window) • • By Amy Lindgren PUBLISHED: April 23, 2016 at 12:00 pm I’ve always been a smooth talker. As a child, I could talk circles around my peers and family. Ironically, being somewhat introverted, I didn’t often display my secret super power. If I’d had a special costume to wear under my school clothes, it might have featured a big pair of lips and a microphone as part of the logo. Hah! Take that, Wonder Woman! That costume never materialized, but I did manage to stumble into a career where my super powers can be used for good, in at least two ways. First, I’m able to put ideas into words that help others understand the complexities of job search and career development — hence, this column, as well as books, workshops, and other word “products”. And second, I’ve found that I can provide the words, or at least the framing for the words, that others can use themselves. That is, I can coach job seekers on what to actually say when they’re meeting with employers or asking networking contacts for a meeting. As it turns out, job seekers appreciate this service more than I would have expected. For someone who takes words for granted, it was a learning process to see the lengths others will go to avoid saying the wrong thing or feeling foolish. Indeed, I eventually discovered that being at a loss for words — or fearing that possibility — inhibits people at just about every stage of a career or job search. For lack of words, I’ve found people hesitating to request projects, promotions or salary increases; declining to make outreach to employers to discuss job opportunities; holding back from attending networking functions or from contacting people they don’t already know well. There’s almost no career development task, it seems, that isn’t impacted when someone feels un-confident about the wording to use. Understanding this truth has led to multiple “aha” moments for me. For example, now it makes more sense (although it’s still not good strategy) that job seekers might prefer completing online applications over composing emails or calling department managers directly. Likewise, I can grasp now why networkers find comfort in memorizing “elevator speeches” instead of trusting themselves to converse naturally, and why interview candidates seek answers online for common questions rather than simply identifying the message they want to impart and adapting that message to suit the questions. If I’m describing you, then thank goodness you’re reading this column today. It’s time to break the tyranny of wordlessness and move forward with confidence. The first thing I want to tell you is that personalized, direct communication is always better than the alternatives, even when it’s delivered in a halting or hesitant manner. You will get better at the delivery but only by repeating the exercise multiple times. This isn’t a game you can play in your head, so you will have to commit to jumping in, despite your discomfort. The next thing you should know is that even smooth talkers have processes to help them along. In my case, it’s a series of what-if scenarios and a short list of prioritized talking points. Believe it or not, I follow these steps for nearly every planned communication. Whether it’s a short voicemail I’m intending to leave, an email I’m writing, or a face-to-face meeting I’m headed into, I...

Some folks were commenting that they would really appreciate a Do Not Disturb function that really works. Pete reviews some of the settings in the DND function that we might neglect.

Blind Abilities Presents Daniel Bernstrom Author, Diversity Officer, Learning Resource Coordinator, Father, and Blind, Inc. graduate. Join Jeff Thompson as he interviews Daniel about his first published book, “One Day in the Eucalyptus, Eucalyptus Tree” now available on Amazon. How his vision loss challenged his fears and how he wrestled with the realities he had to face head on. Daniel shares his deepest thoughts, struggles and talks about his new book and the 2 more on the way.

Blind Abilities presents Erica Turner: Mom And Daughter, Persevering: An interview by Pete Lane. Erica has suffered her entire life with Albinism, hearing loss, and eventually total blindness. Listen as Erica tells of how Albinism and blindness impacted her childhood and how she overcame these obstacles, gained her college degree and how she is currently pursuing her Masters. Erica will inspire you with her perseverance and willing spirit, and her love for her family: her three children and her Mom. Don't miss this totally entertaining interview. This podcast is broken into chapters for ease in listening. #BlindAbilities #Albinism #Hearing Loss

Pete shares Garth Humphries' suggestions for cool, time saving IOS Gestures, that he made in response to Pete's original episode entitled: Fast Five IOS Gestures. Pete demonstrates Garth's recommendations and determines whether or not they actually work! Be sure to tune to see if Garth is correct or totally wrong! #BlindAbilities #iAccessDemo #iBlindTech

In the interviews with Bradley Snyder conducted by Jeff and Pete, the focus was on his present and his future. This short video summarizes Brad's story: his injury, his winning Gold in London and how he rose above the tragic events to thrive as a blind person. It also outlines the story of the Bradley Time Piece: a stylish and artistic time piece inspired by Brad Snyder. Enjoy this video, and stay tuned as Blind Abilities follows Brad to the Paralympic Trials in late June, and Paralympic gold in Rio in september!

George is a blind artisan and teacher working at Enchanted Hills Camp in Napa - a 300 acre summer camp for the visually impaired that’s nestled in the red wood forest above Napa Valley. Here George teaches others, through example, how to use the tools necessary to become artisans. Currently, George is converting an old grape crushing barn into a Tactile Art Center. The top floor of the building is his 1900 sq. ft. woodworking shop. The bottom floor will be a tactile gallery space where visually impaired can experience and sell artwork. We fell in love with George and his mission and wanted to support his new tactile art gallery. Working with Andrew Myers, we surprised George with a tactile portrait of himself - the first portrait he was able to feel and recognize. This sculpture took about 2 months to complete. It has roughly 4,000 screws in it. We carefully packed the sculpture and started the long drive from Andrew's studio up to the mountains above Napa. Then, we snuck into George's future gallery and hung the portrait for him to discover. As he experienced this for the first time (and between bursts of laughter) he kept repeating the phrase, "Mind boggling." Not every piece of art needs to or should be touched... But perhaps it’s time we took a look at how pervasive and mandatory our "no touching" rules really are - it might help everyone see artwork a little differently.

You can watch the entire video on the web at https://vimeo.com/1661498981

You can find out more about Cantor Fine Art Gallery on their web site at: http://www.cantorfineart.com

Here is a link to an Huffington Post article on Cantor Fine Art Gallery: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samantha-matcovsky-/father-and-son-duo-bring-_b_9723348.html

Pete does a very quick review of five gestures that save him time and increase his efficiency on his iPhone. check out these Fast Five, and then share a few of your own! The fast Five gestures covered in this Demo are: Two Finger Double tap - AKA The Magic tap Three Finger Swipe Left/Right Three Finger Quadruple tap Three Finger Swipe Up/Down Four Finger Single tap

Here is a Bio of Stephen Guerra: Stephen Guerra President, Guerra Access Technology Training LLC Stephen Guerra is a New Yorker who moved to Minnesota in 2008 to start a family. He is the president of Guerra Access Technology Training LLC, and provides training across the state of Minnesota to individuals with vision and/or hearing loss. An avid sports fan, Stephen has played beep baseball (an adapted version of softball) since 1988. He currently plays with the Minnesota Millers. In his free time, he loves spending time with his daughter, Kaylee. to find out more about State Services for the Blind of Minnesota and the services they provide, you can find them on the web at www.MNSSB.org

Blind Abilities team member Jeff Thompson was invited to the 2016 Career Expo and took up some conversations with a variety of people who Transition age students could chat with about careers, jobs, and the tools they used to do their job or complete college. Minnesota State Services for the Blind hosted the Career Expo and the turnout was fantastic. Meet Bobby, a package handler from FedEx.

Robert Binns Package Handler, Fed Ex Smart Post Robert was walking to a college class when he lost his sight in 2012. He fell into a depressed stage, believing that the only thing left for him was channel surfing and listening to television shows. One day he realized that he didn’t want to just sit at home for the next 40 years. He wanted to live. Because he was a new United States citizen, however, Robert had to wait for an extended time before receiving services. He ended up in a homeless shelter. All he has accomplished since then shows how high expectations and adjustment to blindness training can open many doors for him.

Blind Abilities Presents Trevor Thomas, the only professional hiker and has a guide dog named Tennille as his partner on some of the longest hiking trails in the states. From the Appellation Trail (AT) to the pacific Crest Trail (PCT) Trevor and Tennille have done it all. And yet, there is so much more to come from this hiking team. Mount Whitney is up ahead and Colorado is just a warm up for this record setting attempt. Join Blind Abilities Team member Jeff Thompson as he talks with Trevor Thomas about his journey and the trails to come for this dynamic duo hiking team. Trevor’s foundation, Team Far Sight Foundation can be found on the web at http://www.farsightfoundation.org Team FarSight Foundation's Mission is to empower blind and visually impaired young adults while challenging the misconceptions the sighted community has toward the blind. We are doing this by developing partnerships between service organizations, Boy Scout troops, and youth groups with schools for the blind, their outreach programs, and with Orientation and Mobility instructors. We would love for you to get involved.

See Bios for Randy and Ryan below. State Services for the Blind of Minn esota put on a Career Expo at a local college in Minneapolis with over 25 representatives from companies who themselves are Blind or visually Impaired. They shared their experiences from transitioning from high school to college and to the work place. Be sure to check with your State Services for a Career Expo as this is a great opportunity to learn, network and meet some really interesting people.

Randi Strunk Lead Accessibility Consultant, Target Randi has worked for target for nearly 5 years, helping to ensure the accessibility of target.com and other digital assets. She works closely with project managers, developers, designers, and user experience professionals. She also helps to oversee the testing of Target products using assistive technologies. Randi is an athlete who has competed in both the Twin Cities Marathon and St. Croix Valley Triathlon. Ryan Strunk Accessibility Consultant, Target Ryan holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Nebraska where he studied music education. He has since worked in a number of fields including political fundraising, marketing, computer and Braille education, and accessibility consultation. He is the president of the National Federation of the Blind of Minnesota Metro Chapter. Additionally, Ryan is an improviser who has performed at various venues in Minnesota and neighboring states.

Pete offers another iAccess Demo, this time on the native Apple Clock app. This deceiving simple app really consists of four separate and powerful apps within its confines. Check out the features hidden inside this seemingly simplistic clock app. #iAccess #Lane7625 #BlindAbilities

Pete Lane and Jeff Thompson bring us more podcasts with a Blindness perspective. Listeners sent in lists and we put together another cast of content providers that we feel you will enjoy and learn from their productions. Below is a list of the podcasts, their web link and the feed to subscribe to the podcasts using your pod-catcher of choice. We hope you enjoy. The blind Abilities Team

Maccessibility » Podcast: http://maccessibility.net Touching the Future… Subscribe: feed://maccessibility.net/category/podcast/feed/1 Maccessibility provides news and commentary, podcasts, and online communities, and more to low and no vision users of Apple products.

Cool Blind Tech: https://www.coolblindtech.com Latest In Assistive Tech! News, Reviews and Interviews Subscribe: feed://www.coolblindtech.com/feed/podcast?format=rss Cool Blind Tech endeavors in maximizing the independence, productivity and participation of the blind and low vision community, to empower the blindness community through the acquisition and Enhancement of skills in using adaptive technologies.

Digital Accessibility Made Simple with Lyndon Dunbar: http://www.lyndondunbar.com Digital Accessibility Made Simple with Lyndon Dunbar is a weekly podcast dedicated to digital accessibility. The goal is to bridge the gap between technology and digital accessibility so that persons with disabilities can engage in fulfilling work and lead a life of independence with confidence. Subscribe: feed://www.lyndondunbar.com/feed/podcast

Assistive Technology Update with Wade Wingler: http://www.AssistiveTechnologyUpdate.com Assistive Technology Update – A weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist people with disabilities and special needs. Subscribe: feed://feeds.feedburner.com/AssistiveTechnologyUpdate

Blind Bargains Audio: Featuring the BB Qast, Technology news, Interviews, and more: http://www.blindbargains.com/audio The biggest names, the latest news, and leading insights from the field. Weekly Podcasts, interviews, technology demonstrations, and commentary from industry experts. Get more at blindbargains.com. Subscribe: feed://www.blindbargains.com/rss/audionoads.xml

Mystic Access Podcast: Where the Magic is in Learning: http://www.mysticaccesspodcast.com we record podcasts and write about products and services we find of interest. We specialize in providing the tools for people who are blind and visually impaired to learn how to maximize their access technology. Subscribe: feed://www.mysticaccesspodcast.com/?feed=podcast

Freedom Scientific FSCast: http://www.freedomscientific.com/FSCast/ FSCast is Freedom Scientific's podcast. Hosted by Jonathan Mosen, FSCast features news, interviews, and product demonstrations relating to Freedom Scientific products. FSCast is a great way to make the most of the products you have as well as learning about what's new and what's around the corner. Subscribe: feed://www.freedomscientific.com/FSCast/rss.xml

Eyes On Success with hosts Peter and Nancy Torpey: http://podcast.eyesonsuccess.net A weekly, haf hour radio show / podcast covering a wide variety of topics of interest to the visually impaired Subscribe: feed://podcast.eyesonsuccess.net/feed

iBlindTech - Accessible Workflows with Apple’s Mac, iPhone, iPad and Watch: http://www.iblindtech.com/democast/ This podcast is designed to help Blind and Vision Impaired people get the most from their Apple products. We will look at how to get started and expand on this so that the iDevice or Mac becomes efficient and fun to use with Voice Over. Subscribe: feed://www.iblindtech.com/democast/rss.xml

Seminars@Hadley - Accessibility and Technology: http://www.hadley.edu Seminars@Hadley - Accessibility and Technology Subscribe: feed://feeds.feedburner.com/hadleypodcasts-AT

tffp: http://tffppodcast.com/listen A podcast of fun and technology. Join us as we explore both b...

blindabilities #fitness Lisa reads BlindAlive blog for this week.

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. (music)

Blind medical student earns M.D. 'Things are only impossible until they’re done'

4/5/2005 MADISON, Wis. — The young medical student was nervous as he slid the soft, thin tube down into the patient’s windpipe. It was a delicate maneuver — and he knew he had to get it right. Tim Cordes leaned over the patient as his professor and a team of others closely monitored his every step. Carefully, he positioned the tube, waiting for the special signal that oxygen was flowing. The anesthesia machine was set to emit musical tones to confirm the tube was in the trachea and carbon dioxide was present. Soon, Cordes heard the sounds. He double-checked with a stethoscope. All was OK. He had completed the intubation. Several times over two weeks, Cordes performed this difficult task at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics. His professor, Dr. George Arndt, marveled at his student’s skills. “He was 100 percent,” the doctor says. “He did it better than the people who could see.” Tim Cordes is blind. He has mastered much in his 28 years: Jujitsu. Biochemistry. Water-skiing. Musical composition. Any one of these accomplishments would be impressive. Together, they’re dazzling. And now, there’s more luster for his gold-plated resume with a new title: Doctor. Cordes has earned his M.D. Many barriers to overcome  In a world where skeptics always seem to be saying, stop, this isn’t something a blind person should be doing, it was one more barrier overcome. There are only a handful of blind doctors in this country. But Cordes makes it clear he could not have joined this elite club alone. “I signed on with a bunch of real team players who decided that things are only impossible until they’re done,” he says. That’s modesty speaking. Cordes finished medical school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the top sixth of his class (he received just one B), earning honors, accolades and admirers along the way. Without sight, Cordes had to learn how to identify clusters of spaghetti-thin nerves and vessels in cadavers, study X-rays, read EKGs and patient charts, examine slides showing slices of the brain, diagnose rashes — and more. He used a variety of special tools, including raised line drawings, a computer that simultaneously reads into his earpiece whatever he types, a visual describer, a portable printer that allowed him to write notes for patient charts, and a device called an Optacon that has a small camera with vibrating pins that help his fingers feel images. “It was kind of whatever worked,” Cordes says. “Sometimes you can psych yourself out and anticipate problems that don’t materialize. ... You can sit there and plan for every contingency or you just go out and do things. ... That was the best way.” That’s been his philosophy much of his life. Cordes was just 5 months old when he was diagnosed with Leber’s disease. He wore glasses by age 2, and gradually lost his sight. At age 16, when his peers were getting their car keys, he took his first steps with a guide dog. Still, blindness didn’t stop him. He wrestled and earned a black belt in tae kwon do and jujitsu. An academic whiz, he graduated as valedictorian at the University of Notre Dame as a crowd of 10,000 gave him a standing ovation. Cordes finished medical school in December but still is working on his Ph.D., studying the structure of a protein involved in a bacteria that causes pneumonia and other infections. Advertise Advertise Advertise Though he spends 10 to 12 hours a day in the lab, Cordes also carried the Olympic torch when it made its way through Wisconsin in 2002 (he runs four miles twice a week) and has managed to give a few motivational speeches and accept an award or two. He’s even found time t...

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. (music)

The Hiker and Tennille: Trevor Thomas on The Trail Deborah Kendrick, for AFB Access World Magazine

When Trevor Thomas lost his sight 10 years ago, he heard a lot about all the things he could no longer do. Most of those "can'ts" involved the activities he had loved best all his life. Since boyhood, Thomas had immersed himself in what he calls extreme sports. At age 3, he started skiing. Over time, his activity dance card included hiking, mountain biking, racing Porsches, sky diving, and more. Sometimes, he pursued the sports he loved in the company of others, sometimes not. The constant was his love of risk-taking and testing limits, particularly the limit of his own physical endurance. Then, a rare autoimmune disease changed the game. Overnight, he was significantly visually impaired. At the end of eight months, he was totally blind. He had finished law school with the dismaying albeit crystal clear recognition that he had no desire to practice law. He had embarked on that educational journey with a fascination for our legal system, but finished his law school education with a certain disdain for corporate practices and billable hours. "I never took the bar exam," he explains. "And I never will." He had lost his sight, lost interest in the career path that had taken years of study to complete, and now had naysayers apprising him of his new options, which ranged from limited to nonexistent. A blind guy, ran the conventional wisdom, could forget about all those outdoor sports activities. Some 20,000 miles later, those who believed Trevor Thomas was no longer a hiker were obviously mistaken. Since losing his sight, he has hiked more than 20,000 miles, including all 2,175 miles of the Appalachian Trail and the 3,000 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail. Before losing his sight, he says he was barely a recreational hiker, camping in the back country for a weekend here or there. Today, the shorter spells are the ones he spends off the trail. The first several thousand miles Trevor Thomas hiked with a sighted partner. But his partner failed to show one day in Colorado, and the idea of getting a guide dog began to take shape. If he intended to continue rigorous long distance hiking and intended not to turn over the control of when and where he could do that hiking, Trevor concluded that a trained guide dog was the only reasonable solution. He needed eyes to see what lay ahead on unpredictable trails, and his own eyes weren't working. His background in corporate sales gave him plenty of confidence and conversation so, thinking it was a matter of signing up, he picked up the phone and began calling guide dog training schools. Living in North Carolina, it only made sense that he began with schools nearest the east coast. One after another, the schools rejected his plan. A guide dog, they told him, could not handle the kind of stress and terrain he was describing. His plan, they said, was dangerous and irresponsible. They weren't in the business of training dogs for hikers. Then he called Guide Dogs for the Blind. He explained again his love of hiking and his desire to use a guide dog to help him navigate the trails. The reaction, a novel one by now to his ears, was one of challenged curiosity. They didn't know if it would work, but they were almost as interested as Trevor to find out. In October 2012, Trevor Thomas returned home with his new hiking partner, a black Labrador named Tennille. While in training at the Guide Dogs for the Blind school in San Rafael, California, Trevor and Tennille completed the same coursework typical students complete. He learned to command Tennille through town and across streets, to make turns without encountering obstacles, and to locate doorways and ...

As part of the Podcast: series “What are you… Listening to?” Lucie puts fourth a few of her own. Not so Techie, however, great content makes for a great listen. Lucie starts out with correcting the background music and then into her list of casts. The Story Core Podcast from NPR, Embedded also from NPR, The Planet Money Podcast, and Somebody Knows Something. Join Lucie as she brings her picks to life. What Podcasts are you listening to? Send us an email at info@BlindAbilities.com or leave a message in the comments on the web page Http://www.BlindAbilities.com

Jeff Thompson from the Blind Abilities team talks to us about the Facebook new feature, Automated Alt Text, and what it means as a start to something big coming down the road. Included is the audio from the Facebook Live Video Mark Zuckerberg posted on Facebook talking to Matt, who happens to be Blind, and is an engineer in the Artificial Intelligence department at Facebook.

Blind Abilities offers another in its series From The Pocket, using thePocket app and Voice Dream Reader to share articles from the web. This article comes from medium.com Enjoy!

Check out the New BlindAbilities.com web site on your iPhone or smart phone, tablet or computer. the accessibility and responsiveness to any size screen is simply put, Brilliant. You can save the BlindAbilities.com on your Home page by clicking on save in your menu bar and save to desktop as an icon for fast access. Check out the BlindAbilities.com web site and let us know what you think or what you would like to encounter on the pages.

Blind Abilities presents the second installment in its series, Brad Snyder - On The Road To Rio, the 2016 Paralympics. In this episode, Brad shares more about his swimming training routine, his technology, and his passion around his commitment to excellence, not only in his sport, but with everything he does. Learn about his speaking techniques, his room mate and his imminent movie. Stay tuned for our next installment, a chat about the Bradley Watch, an artistic time piece. Join Jeff and Pete, along with their guests, Brad and Hyunsoo Kim, the creator of the watch. This promises to be an interesting discussion!

Blind Abilities is extremely proud to present this new series, Brad Snyder: On The road To Rio. This multi-part series delves into the life of Bradley Snyder, blinded in a tragic IED explosion in Afghanistan. Brad set his mind to compete in the Paralympics, and did so, winning two Gold and one Silver Medal precisely one year to the day following his injury in the 2012 London Paralympics. In this episode, we explore Brad's extreme training regimen in preparation for the Paralympic Trials in Charlotte, NC in June, and his ultimate goal of the 2016 games in Rio De Janeiro in September. Stay tuned to future episodes and learn about Brad's handling of technology, his involvement with the Bradley watch and many other aspects of his life as a blind person and a blind athlete. We are very pleased to have this opportunity to present to you this remarkable individual!

Pete and Jeff, part of the Blind Abilities team toss out a few Podcasts that they listen to on a regular basis. This is not a complete list and there will be more to come. Podcasts mentioned You can open your Podcatcher of choice and search for the titles. the Podcast titles are as follows:

iAccessVO NoSillaCast Eyes Free Fitness (BlindAlive) Main Menu (ACB Radio) Blind Abilities Mac break Weekly on The TWIT Network The Tech Doctor Blog and Podcast The Audacity to Podcast School of Podcasting Applevis podcast Abilities Stories iSee

We hope you like our short list and if you have a Podcast or if you have a list of Podcasts send us an email at info@BlindAbilities.com and share your gems.

Pete and Jeff, along with new team member, Jeff Young chat with Tomek Wardega, creator of the FopyDo scanning stand for the visually impaired. This tough, corrugated plastic stand works in conjunction with your favorite IOS OCR app to provide a sturdy and very effective scanning solution for your iDevice. Priced at only $12, FopyDo possesses many features which other stands don't offer. Join Blind Abilities for this 34 minute interview about Fopydo, a funny name for a very serious scanning stand! This podcast contains chapter markers for those podcast apps that support chapters, such as Downcast or Overcast. #BlindAbilities #FopyDo

Facebook just launched the new feature that automatically gives an uploaded photo an alternative text description. Known as Alt Text, Facebook engineers have just launched the new feature enabling Visually Impaired users of the Facebook app a glance at the images everyone is posting.

Matt Kim is the first blind engineer working for Facebook. Check out this article from Mashable.com telling about his journey to Facebook and what is happening to accessibility in Silicon Valley.

Unique, Not Different by The Century Times · March 8, 2016 Century College, white bear lake, MN Hannah Harriman | Staff Writer I am a student who happens to be blind. As the first of soon-to-be several blind and visually impaired students attending Century College, I want to make the student body aware of what blind people are capable of and the minor adaptations that we use. I navigate the halls using a cane, read Braille, and do homework on a laptop that has screen-reading software. I can do anything you can, with minor adaptations. That makes me unique, not different. I am totally blind, have some hearing loss, and mild Cerebral Palsy, but with minor accommodations, I can do anything you can, except perhaps drive a car. Although this campus is hard for anyone to get around, I have had much practice and training learning my way around here. Now, I can get anywhere on campus, although sometimes I will ask for assistance, mainly because my Cerebral Palsy has caused me to veer. Like you, I don’t know my way everywhere. When I need help, I’ll ask for it. Please don’t assume I don’t know. That being said, I know most people have great intentions, and I really appreciate that. I read Braille, a system of raised dots arranged to form letters and words. There are many levels of Braille: literary, contracted (shorthand), nemeth (math), computer, music, and even Braille for other languages. For this reason, Braille is considered a code, not a language. This doesn’t mean that I am fluent in all of these forms, because I certainly am not; I know literary, contracted, nemeth, music, Spanish Braille, and very little computer braille.

There is a wide debate in the blindness community—Braille verses digital technology. Although technological advances allow for documents and books to be read audibly, Braille is just as important. In my public speaking class, for example, I want to be able to read for myself what I have written and not have to translate over a screen-reading software talking to me. To solve this problem, I use a Braille Edge, a small device in which I can type things, but where the screen would be is Braille. Another form of technology I use is a standard laptop. It has a software called JAWS (Job Access with Speech) that reads anything from word documents to emails to the Internet. One final piece of technology that I use is an iPhone. I know what the obvious question is: “But that is touchscreen!” I know, but with the combination of Siri, and a program called Voiceover, I can do anything you can do: texts, email, make phone calls, and use social media. I can even use apps that identify colors of objects and denounce money currency. Sometimes, I use a combination of these technologies simultaneously. If I have to send a long email, for example, and I don’t have my laptop with me and I don’t want to manually type on my phone, I can wirelessly hook my Braille Edge up with my phone and send the email that way. I do have a social life. I write for the Century Times and am involved in campus life in other ways as well. I, like any other college student, desire to get to know those around me. Don’t let transportation be a setback. I can meet up with people outside of school, taking transportation services like Metro Mobility. Along with this, please don’t be afraid to ask questions. If you have a question or don’t understand something, don’t hold back. You’ll never know something unless you ask first. It’s better to ask and know rather than assume and never know.

Aggie students install wind chimes to help guide blind students to class Kevin Reece, KHOU , WFAA 1:10 PM. CST March 04, 2016

Aggie students install wind chimes to help guide blind students to class. (KHOU News)

CONNECT TWEET LINKEDIN GOOGLE+ PINTEREST COLLEGE STATION, Texas - A simple idea turned reality at Texas A&M University is making a big difference in helping guide blind students to their classes. Kaitlyn Kellermeyer was already a bit overwhelmed and anxious at the thought of trying to memorize and navigate the 5,200 acre Texas A&M campus when she arrived as a freshman.

Her anxiety unquestionably magnified when a genetic condition robbed her of her eyesight during that freshman year.But thanks to a simple idea, and the help of a few friends, she now has a bit of music to help guide her way.

She was born with a rare genetic condition called Incontinentia Pigmenti.

Early in life her eyesight began to fade. Blood vessels burst in her eyes causing her retinas to detach. She endured more than 20 surgeries in an attempt to retain what little vision she had left. She entered her freshman year blind in her left eye and with only limited vision in her right eye.

"I started noticing I was losing visual field, kind of from the bottom up at first and from the left side over,” she said. "It kind of looked like it filled up with ginger ale almost." A final surgery to try saving her sight happened during that freshman year. “And that ended up just completely blinding me. So, I’ve been that way for almost two years now. And I still have a hard time with it. Just still adjusting to not being able to see.”

This Economics major, minoring in French, has managed in the few years since by learning how the Aggie campus sounds.

“Well it’s actually helpful to me, she said of the recognizable sounds of different buildings, fountains, and traffic on campus roads.

“The way that I work with noise is that quieter noises that don’t interrupt each other are more helpful for me.”

But when she went to Guide Dogs for the Blind in Oregon to pick up her new guide dog companion Lunar, she came back with a second guiding idea.

The Oregon campus had numerous wind chimes, specifically located to help the visually impaired find their way to and from buildings on the campus.

“And I just thought it was such a cool idea, Kaitlyn said. And then getting back to campus (in College Station) I realized that this campus is huge and it’s wide open and there are people everywhere and there’s not actually a lot of sound clues within the body of the campus itself.”

“We really worked with the administration to make sure we had the best plan possible,” said fellow student Joseph Hood.

Hood and Levi McClenny, both members of student government at A&M, decided to help make Kaitlyn’s idea a reality.

Months of proposals, meetings, and petitions to the proper campus authorities, resulted in the Wind Chime System being installed at the College Station campus in December.

Ten wind chimes are in place throughout the campus, located following Kaitlyn’s suggestions.

They hang discreetly from large trees in front of places like the Academic Building and Evans Library giving Kaitlyn and other visually impaired students auditory beacons to help them find their way. "Oh my gosh they are so helpful,” she said. "It's almost like ping ponging between the sounds, in a way."   “When I came to A&M that was one of my biggest challenges was getting around. It took so much time and it was so frustrating personally. So the wind chimes have been awesome for that."

“I hear it and I know exactly which building that is, exactly which way I'm facing, and exactly which way I need to go. Almost every time I need them, I can hear them."

"The idea that we can create an inclusive environment at Texas A&M for students with disabilities was something that I really got excited about,” said McClenny.

"We'll get a message from Ka...

Georgie Bullen FRSA Director and founder of Team Insight Limited. GB Paralympian Are we blind to the discrimination of visually impaired people in the workplace? If you were faced with the CV of someone who was visually impaired, would it have any impact on whether you felt you could employ them? Whether it be a conscious belief that blind people are not capable or skilful employees, or whether it is simply the fear of making some sort of ‘Politically Incorrect’ statement that would offend, like ‘See you later’, the simple fact is that visually impaired people are not gaining employment. In the UK, approximately 27% of visually impaired and blind people of working age are in employment. When you compare this to the non-disabled working age population in the UK, where 73.6% are employed, one begins to appreciate the enormity of this issue. Even on comparing the visually impaired population against the general disabled population, there is a huge disparity where 46% are in employment. So why is it that, either consciously or unconsciously, we view visually impaired people as unemployable?  I believe one of the main factors contributing to the unemployment rate, is a general discomfort interacting with visually impaired people; it’s the feared awkwardness of ‘should I go in for a hand shake?’ or should I avoid saying “Nice to see you” for fear of causing offence.  There is no shame in not knowing how to handle a new situation, but we should not let our fear of making a social faux pas affect decisions on whether to give a visually impaired candidate an interview. The best way of dealing with such a situation is to be frank, to ask questions regarding accessibility prior to the interview, for example ‘Do you need any special assistance or requirements’ should not offend. (Side note: Visually Impaired people say phrases like ‘See you later’ all the time, do not make an unnatural effort to sensor yourself!)  Another factor that may be a disincentive to employment are the ‘supposed’ costs associated with employing a disabled person; some visually impaired people require support workers or specialised equipment and employers are under the false impression they would bear that bill. However, there are schemes, such as the Government’s ‘Access to Work’ programme, which exist to fund these additional costs.  There are instances where there will be no ‘direct’ discrimination, but visually impaired people will be blocked from even completing an application due to its inaccessible nature. This can be down to issues such as the application itself being unresponsive to programmes which allow visually impaired people to enlarge and modify resources, or it can be down to the format of the application, as there are some which will not allow them to continue if they fail to meet certain criteria such as being able to drive. Yet in many employment situations a visually impaired person would be entitled to use a driver/taxi through access to work and their other skills may be entirely otherwise appropriate to the position. Employers should consider whether their application process is unknowingly discriminating.  It should be acknowledged these appalling employment statistics cannot necessarily be blamed entirely upon the employer, some responsibility must also be due to the nature of the impairment and it’s affects upon the individual. Many visually impaired people feel undermined by their disability, self-conscious, and suffer from a lack of confidence which may easily deter them from seeking employment. It is important to understand that visual impairment can be a very isolating disability. To actually apply for a job demands the individual may have initially had to overcome many of the barriers that come with their disability.  Getting a job is a very competitive process for everyone and deciding who to hire is in itself a challenging task, there will often be only minor criteria differentiating the applicants, but when considering...

I'm a Fashion Blogger Who Happens to be Visually Impaired Posted: 17/02/2016 23:20 GMT

"But You Don't Look Blind!" Out of all the things I hear on a day to day basis, this is above all one of the most frequent comments I receive. It's a social enigma and one that, for me, seems to be entrenched in a huge amount of misconception that people with sight loss do not have a relationship to fashion or style. My name is Emily Davison, I'm a writer and in my spare time I'm a fashion blogger, who also happens to be registered as severely sight impaired. I have lived with sight loss since birth from a condition known as Septo Optic Dysplasia which damaged my optic nerves causing me to have no vision in my right eye and severe vision loss in my left. I now work with a guide dog by the name of Unity and live a relatively normal adult life. I began fashion blogging in 2012 when I created my own fashion and lifestyle blog under the name Fashioneyesta. I created this blog after I'd received a lot of comments over my fashion sense and that people were so incredulous that someone with sight loss could take a interest in fashion and beauty. I wanted to create an online space to discuss the myths that surround disability, but at the same time talk about things like trends, beauty and style in an accessible way for both those with or without sight could enjoy. I believed and still do believe that the fashion industry does not embrace disability nearly as much as it should and so I wanted to be a presence online and to speak for the visual impairment community in the area of fashion. I wanted to prove that being disabled doesn't define you, I opted to talk about topics like fashion, trends and beauty to highlight that having a disability doesn't prevent you from adopting everyday interests or enjoying similar activities to those who may not have a disability. It's a common myth in society that many of my readers have had similar experiences with that people with sight loss do not have an interest or a grasp on fashion and how to style themselves. "It's as if people automatically think that someone with limited sight is excluded from the fashion and beauty scene," comments one of my readers. "Just because I don't have a lot of sight doesn't mean I can't apply eyeliner or wear a floral print dress. It's important to look good even if you can't see yourself. I want to be able to get a job, go out on dates and do all the things that people with sight do and looking good is part of that process." One of the messages I promote on my blog is that fashion is more than something we perceive with our eyes, it appeals to many of our senses. Fashion is more than a visual concept, it's language and a form of expression and it's tangible. It uses textiles, different fabrics, embroidery, different cuts and stitches. It's something you feel, smell and, in some cases, hear as much as it's seen. I feel the texture of an embroidered jacket, I smell the old smell of vintage apparel bought from a vintage fair, I feel the way a full circle skirt moves as I walk like a strong current of wate and I hear the satisfying tap my high heels make against the floor as I walk. It's a mode of communicating to people who I am as a person, since my teenage years I used fashion as a way to allow people to see a portion of my personality and look past my disability. I believed if I wore quirky prints, bohemian inspired scarfs and striking colours I could allow people to appreciate me for the way I used style to represent the person I stood for and that I didn't allow my disability to mould me. I still adhere to this principal idea, although I use fashion as a way to enhance my confidence I also use it as a way to prove a point to wider society. I believe that through this small act of adopting my own style in my own way I am helping to educate people about sight loss by challenging the stigma that sight loss stops you from having fashion sense. Whenever I write blo...

Berkeley scientist designs tools for the visually impaired By Berenice Freedome • Mar 2, 2016

Dr. Joshua Miele's morning commute to Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute takes about an hour—as long as no one gets in the way. In fact, most people move out of his way when they see him coming, because Miele is blind. He’s one of about 140,000 blind and visually impaired people in the Bay Area. Less than three quarters of those people are employed, and only a few work in tech, like Dr. Miele.

Uncommonly Universal His office in Pacific Heights is full of tactile art, project binders, awards, and audio equipment. On a round meeting table, magnetic building toys sit in a cluster—just something to fiddle with on long calls. This is where Miele does the work he’s uniquely suited to do, designing accessible technologies for the blind. “If you want to design a good boat,” he says, “you don’t ask somebody who doesn’t know the first thing about sailing. Blind people must be integral to the design process, not just as users that do the testing at the end, but as designers and engineers who do the thinking at the very beginning.” Miele says most developers don’t even think about accessibility until it’s too late, because so few are trained in universal design. That’s a design principle that says, ‘find a single solution that will consider the broadest possible spectrum of human ability.’ It’s something Miele strives for every time he takes something on, though he mainly focuses on visual impairment. “I want to build cool stuff for blind people that gives them the ability to do the things that they want to do, and I feel incredibly lucky that I'm given that privilege and opportunity.” He can pretty much choose his projects, too, because Dr. Miele directs his own innovation lab here at Smith-Kettlewell.

The Moment Things Changed But getting to this place in his life wasn’t easy. “I grew up in New York. I was a sighted kid until I was almost five, and then I was burned in a very violent act where somebody threw sulfuric acid over my head.” That’s the chemical that powers car batteries. A single drop can dissolve concrete. Thankfully, specialists at a San Antonio military hospital were able to save Miele’s life. But not his eyes. His left eye is now a synthetic blue-gray, and as he speaks, the shadow of his right eye darts beneath the scar tissue that covers most of his face, all haloed by his thick, curly black hair. “My personal story is shocking and frightening and painful and often it’s difficult for people to get past that, I think.” Although, he says where he lives, people seem to take it in stride. “Difference and diversity is much more accepted, even embraced here. Being a burned, one-eyed blind guy in Berkeley doesn't even get you a second glance most of the time.”

The Pursuit of Science The acceptance he found in Berkeley went inward, too. Coming to study physics at UC Berkeley at age 18 changed his entire outlook. “I met a whole community of cool blind people who I respected and liked and who were creative and smart and funny,” he says. ”I realized that I did want to be a blind person. I could be proud of being a blind person.” Even so, working in accessibility wasn’t Miele’s plan. His dream was space science, so he studied physics and interned at NASA. But every time he took on something new, he struggled. He wasn’t able to do a lot of things that sighted students took for granted, like reading a cafeteria menu, or riding a bike to class. Or, more importantly, being able to use the school’s scientific software, which he had to do, to earn his PhD. “The first thing I had to do as a graduate student in psychoacoustics was to develop a set of sonification and tactile representation tools for this package called Mat Lab. It’s basically like excel on steroids,” he explains. “I needed to be able to look at that data and so I made some software tools that would turn that data into sound and tactile cha...

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org.

(music)

State Services for the Blind and Minneapolis Community and Technical College are pleased to open registration for our April 30th career expo.

Register at http://goo.gl/forms/GrshounE2C for this free event. Adults who are blind, low vision, and DeafBlind from a variety of jobs and careers will showcase the variety of career paths they have taken, and they will be available to talk with high school and college students on an individual basis. It is a wonderful opportunity for students to connect with role models and set high expectations for the future. Optional sessions about college life, career exploration, and parenting concerns will also be offered. The expo is free and includes lunch.

Join us on Saturday, April 30 from 10:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. on the 3rd floor of the library at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. MCTC is located at 1501 Hennepin Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN 55403.

If you have any questions about the expo or have difficulty registering, contact Sheila Koenig at Sheila.koenig@state.mn.us

Jeff Thompson gives a brief demonstration of the Motiv App from Shure giving some demonstrations using the MV-88 Stereo Lightning Port microphone from Shure. The new line of microphone and interface units called the Motiv series is Shure’s response to the popularity of mobile convenience and Shure did not drop their level of quality. The MV-88 is a rugged solidly built metal constructed piece of kit.

ShurePlus MOTIV App Every operation needs a mission control, and ShurePlus MOTIV is just that. Designed for use with all MOTIV products, the free app provides an arsenal of smart features that will help you optimize your sound on the move. It also lets you share your files via email, text and SMS, and allows for real-time adjustments. Portable Plug-and-Play Designed to capture clear, high-quality sound, MV88 directly connects to any iOS device equipped with a Lightning connector. With the MV88, anyone & everyone can benefit from the stereo quality recording. Smart Technology, Retro Design The microphone element rotates to offer flexible positioning options ideal for video applications. Access five built-in preset modes and make gain, stereo width, and EQ adjustments using the ShurePlus MOTIV Mobile Recording App. System Requirements iOS 7.0 and higher: iPhone 5, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus; iPod touch 5th generation; iPad 4th generation, iPad Air, iPad Air 2; iPad Mini 1st generation, iPad Mini 2nd generation, iPad Mini 3rd Generation.

Jeff and Pete announce the release of a brand new Blind Abilities App which offers a single Podcast feed from BlindAbilities.com This eighteen minute chat covers the objective, features, development and accessibility of this simple new App. They also discuss their efforts to create Podcasts with Chapter markers using a new software program which allows some podcast apps to offer this simplified navigation feature. The new Blind Abilities app is available NOW in the IOS App Store FREE of charge! Check it out and listen to all of the Blind Abilities podcasts and Demo's from 2015 through the present. And enjoy listening to this podcast on the new App, or on the Downcast or Overcast Podcast Apps using Chapter navigation. #BlindAbilitiesPresents #JThompson6835, #Lane7625

Raqi G gives an overview of the canes and techniques that she has used over the years. Not saying what is best for you, but that only you can make those decisions. Experiment with the size, the angle, the sounds, the feel, the weight, the responsiveness for yourself. Get tapping and find out for yourself.

You can follow the Blind Abilities Channel on the Audioboom app by searching for Blind Abilities Channel. We are also at BlindAbilities.com on the web at Http://www.BlindAbilities.com and follow us on twitter @BlindAbilities

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. I’m Stuart Holland. (music)

Deafblind High School Teacher Making a Difference in Many Ways Jim Franklin, Special Education Teacher at Elm Street Elementary, Rom, Georgia, and Creator of Slid-a-Round Math Manipulatives. Dana Tarter, Special Education Teacher at Model High School in Rome, Georgia.

Dana Tarter, a high school life skills teacher at Model High School in Rome, Georgia, continues to put her philosophy of education into action by going to work every day with the belief that all students can learn. Teachers often share various reasons with parents, colleagues, and administrators as to why they chose their profession. Dana, for example, believes that it is a privilege to be a teacher and stresses the importance of setting daily goals to help her students move in a positive direction in life by focusing on important rigorous academic standards. Additionally, Dana focuses on incorporating valuable life skills in her lessons that cannot be taught from old school textbooks and are not included in the Common Core State Standards. At age 18, Dana continued her education and became an interpreter for a high school student that was deaf. To better serve the student and become a more effective teacher, she earned a Master’s in Education degree. For many years, she had been a deaf professional who had taught a wide range of students with physical, emotional, and academic deficits in inclusion, resource, and self-contained settings. In 2011, at age 38, Dana was diagnosed with Usher Syndrome, which is a relatively rare genetic disorder that is a combination of hearing loss and visual impairment. Despite the setback, Dana continued to serve her students despite being legally blind and deaf. In her classroom, Dana has always been proactive in solving her day-to-day professional demands and meeting her students’ physical, academic, and/or emotional needs. Dana’s disabilities are significant challenges that most people will never face. With her vision rapidly deteriorating, Dana voluntarily put herself on the fast track to learn Braille. Many people often say that life is about choices. In Dan’s situation, however, she never contemplated the “wait ‘til tomorrow” approach to learn Braille. There was an extreme sense of urgency to learn Braille for communication purposes AND to still be an effective teacher. In June 2012, Dana attended the 2012 Georgia Assistive Sensory Project Conference in Cave Spring, Georgia. With her friend Barbara, who was also her SSP, Dana attended the conference to help improve her instructional methods as well as find useful assistive technology. Dana and Barbara approached an exhibiter table, which was the first one on the right in the exhibit hall. Barbara began to sign in Dana’s hand to inform her that the math manipulatives for her students to use were also available in Braille. With Barbara’s assistance, Jim Franklin, an inclusion special education teacher from Elm Street Elementary in Rome, Georgia, and creator of Slide-a-Round Math Manipulatives, introduced himself and gave the background information of his math manipulatives. At the beginning of the 2011-2012 school year, Jim’s assistant special education director asked to observe his 4th grade math inclusion class. He welcomed the upcoming visit but wondered if any new strategies/interventions had been successfully implemented by other teachers with the concept of rounding whole numbers. He asked other math teachers in his school and searched for ideas on the Internet. He only saw blocks, dry erase markers and boards, and number lines. Other than those options, paper and pencil were the last resort. The last thing he wanted his visitors to observe were towers being built out of blocks, or off-task drawings o...

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. I’m Stuart Holland. (music) Travelers in the Dark This is written by Eleanor Lew and appeared in the New York Times January 25, 2016

At 5, whenever my mother turned off the bedside lamp, an inexplicable terror catapulted me out of bed. Crawling on the floor, I checked to see that everything still existed. Now it is like that again. Walking into a dimly lit restaurant, I panic when daylight switches instantly to pitch black. Descending a staircase, I fall when the handrail stops short of the last two steps. Emerging into bright sunlight, or confronting a computer screen’s glare, causes me to shield my eyes like a vampire. I was told I had hereditary degenerative myopia at age 8, and now in middle age, I also have macular degeneration in one eye and fast-growing cataracts in both. My ophthalmologist worries about my visual acuity. But because I don’t yet qualify as legally blind, he doesn’t give me a referral for any kind of vision rehabilitation. “But doctor,” I protest, “I’m blind in the dark and bright light, and have lost depth perception.” A year ago I heard about a low-vision immersion program offered by the LightHouse for the Blind. I was reluctant to go at first because, being partially sighted, I could not identify with the word “blind.” A year of tripping and falling has convinced me otherwise. The training camp sits on 311 acres of rolling hills and steep trails about 50 miles north of San Francisco. Eleven blind and partially sighted “travelers in the dark” range in age from 28 to 80 and come from diverse backgrounds. On the bus ride there I speak with another traveler who lives the way I do — in fear because Damocles’ sword hangs over our heads. Like me, he became partially sighted in one second, and we anticipate that the rest of our sight could vanish the same way. Urgency drives us. On arrival I notice how broken and reluctant-to-be-there we look. No time for self-pity. Lessons begin an hour after arrival. When I step outside my cabin an instructor greets me and introduces me to my white cane, the dreaded object I fear will make people see only it and not me. But once it’s in my hand and I’m taught how to hold it, I feel steadier and stronger. We partially sighted folks are forced to face our worst fear right after dinner when we are asked to put on sleeping shades and have our first lesson on coping with daily life in the dark. I’ve often thought about what I would do if I were to drop a sewing needle. The instructor intones the answer in a gentle voice: “Listen for the direction and how far from you it has fallen.” Obvious? Not to me. In the days that follow we marvel at the unimaginably long list of inexpensive, low-tech gadgets that make doing everyday chores easier, from talking clocks and calculators and dollar bill readers to my favorite, the sock lock that keeps a pair of socks from separating in the wash. Together we strategize ways to solve problems, like using a rubber band to differentiate a bottle of shampoo from one of hair conditioner. For the fashion-conscious, a fellow student informs us about a color app that “talks,” able to distinguish black from navy or brown. Sleeping shades on, we clean, cook and shave. I am humbled by my attempt at putting a dab of toothpaste on a toothbrush. I forget to take the cap off. We test an array of brown, red, purple, green, blue goggles — every pair of eyes is different. I find amber ones help me deal best with bright sun, and yellow are ideal for evening, softening the glare of lights and, with the aid of a small flashlight, allowing me to venture out at night. Our four days are filled with lessons, both group and one-on-one. Some of us want more extensive help with assistive technologies, especially those that...

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. I’m Stuart Holland. (music) A campus vision for the visually impaired - Weatherford Democrat : Local News From Weatherford College Special to the Democrat | Posted: Saturday, January 16, 2016 2:14 pm

The meandering walkways and rise and fall of topography on the Weatherford College campus create a pleasing appearance to the eye, but do little to assist visually impaired students like Michael Browne. While Browne described his first visit to WC as disastrous, he and his fellow Phi Theta Kappa honor society members are working on a project to improve the campus experience for others with visual impairments. The students started a project in the fall to create large print and braille maps of the college. Once completed later this semester, maps will be available for visitors or new students learning their way around campus. Additional maps will be located inside each building entrance which will provide detailed information from the person’s current location. So far, the students have produced a prototype map of the bottom floor of the Technology Building with maps of other buildings to come. Each tactile map will go into detail about which entry a person has entered, where storm shelter rooms are located, what classrooms are on what side of the hallway and if there are any stationary objects to be wary of like benches lining the hallway. Phi Theta Kappa member and close friend of Browne’s, Weston Decker, said this campus project was chosen in order to provide a more independent experience for those with visual impairments. “Our decision for this project was to recognize and address issues for those who are far too often overlooked in society,” Decker said. “As a sighted person it’s hard for me and the others to go about our day realizing what it’s like to not see. That’s where Michael played the ultimate role in this project’s success. He has shown every single one of us how to see the world as if we were to never see it again.” Browne, now 24, lost his sight during his sophomore year at Weatherford High School following a head injury. And although he has needed to redirect his life’s path, he approaches life with a robust sense of humor. One of the first stories Browne will share with new friends is how he was a licensed and insured driver for a full year after he lost his sight since his first driver’s license arrived in the mail following his injury. “Why do you think they have braille on the drive-through ATM,” he laughed. Joking aside, braille and a walking cane have become integral parts of his life. “When you lose your eyesight (at a young age) they teach you visual impairment skills for living in elementary through high school,” Browne said. “You also take O&M, orientation and mobility, and that teaches you to travel with a cane. So you are taught through all of those years. But I lost my eyesight my sophomore year in high school, so I only had about two-and-a-half years to learn all of those skills.” During his senior year of high school his O&M teacher brought him to the WC campus several times but told Browne he needed more time to learn the campus layout. Since coming to WC in 2011, Browne has had to be creative in navigating the campus. While he can continue to receive O&M services from the State of Texas, to do so he must maintain a full-time course load which he said is difficult due to the extra study time required when using braille books and re-listening to audio recordings of lectures. “Every time I went full time my GPA dropped,” Browne said. “Many people can’t understand the time it takes a sighted person to study, for a visually impaired person it takes double or triple that time.” Fortunately, the WC campus community stepped in to help Browne navigate ca...

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. I’m Stuart Holland. (music) Chris Murphy Overcomes Disability Through Family Support and Perseverance. This was originally published in the Maple River Messenger, February 18, 2016. It is written by Barb Lake In 1987, in Mansfield, Connecticut, Chris Murphy came into the world three months too early. At the time of his birth, his lungs weren’t fully developed and it was determined that he was partially sighted. He spent the next three months in an incubator receiving oxygen therapy. During that time, as the tiny infant worked to grow and develop while oxygen washed across his body and into his lungs, he lost the remainder of his eyesight, often one of the negative results of oxygen therapy on premature babies. From the time of his birth, it was obvious that Murphy was a fighter. Even though he was not sighted, his parents and grandparents determined that he would live as much like any other child as possible. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Murphy was not kept out of sight. He was not protected or shielded from the world; instead, he was always right out there, experiencing whatever any other child experiences and then some. His family made sure of that. Murphy was a regular kid in every sense of the word, with the only exception being his lack of vison. His maternal grandparents, Pat and Hugo John, of Mapleton, spent summe4rs traveling with him all over the United States in their recreational vehicle. Starting when he was just an infant, the Johns took their little grandson to see national parks, exploring the signs and sounds of the land. As he got older, he would sit up in the front of the RB, his Grandpa Hugo describing to him what everything looked like – all of the geography of the land, giving him the opportunity to experience things first hand. Chris traveled at least 40,000 to 50,000 miles with his grandparents, visiting Yellowstone multiple times, as well as Mount Rushmore, Jackson Hole, the Reptile Gardens and more. He and his grandparents talked about the things they saw tighter. Through their eyes, he viewed the many wonders the country had to offer. When it came time for school, Murphy’s parents decided that he would attend a regular K-12 public school rather than a school for the blind. His parents wanted him to have “real world” experience and, as a result, he was mainstreamed in every class for all 12 years of his education. He was the only blind student in the school district, however his classmates grew up with him and knew him; Murphy related that most of the students were non-judgmental, though there were a few who were, in his words, “idiotic.” In general, he felt that he had it “pretty good.” Students in Murphy’s classroom received training on orientation and mobility for the blind and how to break down a physical task so they would know how to help him and guide him. He was also provided with a paraprofessional to help him during the school day. When other students were learning to print, Murphy and his para were learning Braille. The para transcribed mathematics instruction and problems into Braille for him. Later, he was able to use a Braillewriter and note taker. He had to learn the QWERTY keyboard and was then able to word process. As technology advance, especially in the use of the Apple IIGS, he was able to utilize the talking typewriter and early Echo, which was a voice command programming, much like Apple’s Siri voice command programming. Echo is now available to the general public through Amazon. Murphy believes that he always has to ask himself, “How do I deal with blindness? What can I do to overcome it? What do I need to do to be as capable as I can?” His determined attitude about life is most likely attributed to his family’s determination for hi...

@MoeLucie brings us another College Diaries post focusing on her experiences with locating her classrooms on the college campus. Here are some of the solutions that she came up with as she experienced a few college layouts and systems that once figured out she could independently travel her campus with confidence. You can find more podcast in the College diaries series on the web at www.BlindAbilities.com and look under the College diaries category. You can subscribe to the podcasts and also follow blind Abilities on twitter @blindAbilities

Pete Lane presents this the first in the new series offered by the BlindAbilitiesPodcast Team: iAccess Demo's. This 20-minutes demo covers the IOS Contacts app, a critical tool when sending text messages or Emails, or when making a phone call. This podcast is divided by and linked into Chapters for easy navigation on many Podcast apps, such as Downcast and Overcast, but not with the Apple native Podcast app. For your convenience, here are the markers for each chapter, along with their starting times. 1. Introduction: 00:00:00 - 00:00:40 2. Locating A Contact Using The Table Index: 00:00:40 - 00:01:45 3. Locating A Contact Using The Search Feature - 00:01:45 - 00:04:46 4. Editing A Contact, 00:04:46 - 00:07:46 5. Creating A New Contact, 00:07:46 - 00:12:59 6. Special Tip: Creating Contacts To Deal With Difficult Multi-Option Menu systems, - 00:12:59 - 00:19:57 7. Summary And Closing, 00:19:57 - 00:20:33 * Check out BlindAbilities on the web at www.BlindAbilities.com, on Twitter, #Blind Abilities, and follow Pete #Lane7625 and Jeff, #JThompson6835. Please share your feedback via Email at: Info@BlindAbilities.com

Jeff Thompson from the BlindAbilitiesPodcast Team: brings us another iAccess Demo’. This demo covers the IOS Text Replacement feature in the Keyboard settings. Do you use a common phrase regularly and want to simplify the typing with just a few keystrokes? Save time and be more efficient with the Text Replacement feature located in your General settings under Keyboard. Check out BlindAbilities on the web at www.BlindAbilities.com, on Twitter, #Blind Abilities, and follow Pete @Lane7625 and Jeff, @JThompson6835. Please share your feedback via Email at: Info@BlindAbilities.com

Paulina and Luci talk with Jeff Thompson about the note takers they use and how they take their notes, get their notes taken and from different perspectives. Lucie is getting her Masters Degree at a Public University with on-line courses while Paulina is attending a community college going for her associates degree. Check out more College related podcasts with a blindness perspective on the web at www.BATeenCast.com and at www.BlindAbilities.com and follow us on twiter @BlindAbilities You can also find out more about State Services and what they provide by going to the web at www.MNSSB.org

MoeLucie brings us the #collegeCafe where she will share her experiences with tips and suggestions involving courses, classes, papers, chemistry, math, and all the good stuff. From Science, technology, Math and all the details in between. the Pro Writing series delivers tips and suggestions for writing professional papers, and Discovering a Topic is the first in this series where MoeLucie simplifies the process. Join MoeLucie in the College Cafe and follow her on Twitter @MoeLucie and MoeLucie on audioBoom.

BATeenCast is produced by Blind Abilities for State Services for the Blind of Minnesota and you can find out more about State Services and what they provide by going to the web at www.MNSSB.org

You can find more podcasts with a Blindness perspective at BATeenCast.com and BlindAbilities.com You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities

Radio Talking book Network provides audio versions of the written word. News, articles, publishings and up to date breaking daily news. Check it out at www.MNSSB.org/RTB and the password is RTB

You can follow the Blind Abilities Teen Cast Channel on the Audioboom app by searching for BATeenCast Channel. We are also at BlindAbilities.com on the web. You can find out more about RadioTalkingBook and State Services for the blind on the web at www.MNSSB.org

Pete Lane and Blind Abilities present this epic exploration of the topic of blind people and inadvertent touching. This 37 minute production combines direct audio from members of the blindness community, along with select "Touching" songs to provide a humorous, yet enlightening peak at this awkward and common issue. Special thanks to the following Artists: M.C. Hammer, Cascada, The Who, The Doors, Dan Hill, Diana Ross, Brenda Lee, Benny King, Hall & Oats, and Simon & Garfunkel. Also, thanks to our contributors: Moelucie, Jeff Thompson, HorseLover98 (Daniella), Lisa Salinger, Sabrina McKiernan, B.J. Edwards, TSquires711 (TJ), Dave Dominic, Joe DiNero and Pete Lane. Set aside some quality time, put on your best headphones, and listen to this interesting and enjoyable production. #BlindAbilitiesPresents #Touching #Lane7625 #BlindAbilities.com

Now you can interact with the Facebook app on IOS using VoiceOver and the Rotary gesture under the Actions heading.

The confusing world of service dogs mnn.com

The term "service dog" is used a lot in public these days. What was once an assistance animal for blind or deaf individuals, highly trained service dogs are now helping people with a wide range of disabilities, acting as seizure alert dogs, PTSD service dogs, alerting a handler with diabetes to when his blood sugar dips, and so much more. However, as an understanding of the broadened range of what a trained service animal can do reaches the general public, and with the important work the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has done to increase public accessibility and privacy for people with service animals, it has become common for people to call their pets service animals even when they don't meet the legal definition. Related reading: 11 things that humans do that dogs hate A lot of people are interested in calling their pet dogs service animals for reasons that have little to do with mitigating the effects of a disability. Maybe it's so they can bring their pet along on shopping trips, bring them on the plane with them during vacation, or get around housing restrictions for pets. Whatever the reason, claiming your dog is a service animal is no small thing. Those who want to have a dog as a constant companion or a working animal need to be aware of everything that claim entails legally — not to mention how it can effect the reputation of trained service animals everywhere. Service dog versus therapy dog versus emotional support animal There can be a lot of confusion about the different titles for dogs, particularly when it comes to public access. However, as Please Don't Pet Me points out, "Differentiating between service dogs, therapy dogs and emotional support animals is not a matter of splitting hairs or political correctness. Each of these dogs has a very different job from the others and the terms are not interchangeable." Service dogs have been trained to perform specific tasks that help mitigate a handler's disability. A therapy dog provides comfort to people, particularly in hospitals, nursing homes and schools. While therapy dogs receive training on how to handle themselves in public and around the people they're comforting, they are not trained to do specific tasks to help with a disability. Emotional support animals (ESAs) are pets that provide a high level of comfort to the owner and do not have to have any training. The only animal that legally can go to any public place the handler goes is a service dog. ESAs have some additional legal protection under the Fair Housing Act; a person whose doctor has recommended they have an ESA can have their pet living with them, even in housing that has pet restrictions. They also have some protection under the Air Carrier Access Act, which allows a person with documentation to have their pet travel with them. However, an ESA is still a pet, not a service animal, and does not have the same public access as a service animal. In other words, while you can have your ESA living with you in a no-pet apartment, you can't bring your ESA to the grocery store or coffee shop. The American with Disabilities Act has an excellent FAQ that helps clarify the differences among service dogs, therapy dogs and ESAs. It can be a bit confusing even for those familiar with the territory, so it's easy to imagine the confusion and frustration of business owners or other service providers who have to deal with people who claim a therapy dog or ESA is a service animal. A working dog helps a vision-impaired handler. (Photo: Cylonphoto/Shutterstock) So how do you know if a dog is legally considered a service animal? Ultimately, it's quite simple: A dog is considered a service dog under the law when that dog trained to perform specific tasks that mitigate the handler's disability. It doesn't matter the type of disability the handler has, or whether that disability is physical or psychological. To be allowed to go everywhere with a handle...

Access to Helpful Tools and Devices There are a wide array of tools and devices available to help make common, everyday tasks easier for someone adjusting to vision loss.The Iowa Department for the Blinds sells many of these useful assistive devices at cost to Iowans in our Aids & Devices Store. It is conveniently located off the main reception area on the first floor of our headquarters building in Des Moines. Customers can make purchases in person, by telephone, email, or through the mail. Payment may be made by cash, check, or credit card (Discover, MasterCard, or VISA; $5 minimum credit card purchase).

IDB Aids & Devices Store 524 4th Street Des Moines, IA 50309 (800) 362-2587 or (515) 281-1357 Store hours: Monday through Friday 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM and 1:00 - 4:00 PM The store is closed on official state holidays. You may download the price list of items available through the store via the links below. This list is published for convenience. Be advised, however, that the price of items sometimes fluctuate and those quoted reflect what the price was at the time the list was compiled and does not include sales tax. Be sure to call or email the store to verify an item's current price and availability before ordering. Contact information is listed below.

Aids & Devices Store Price List (01/08/16) - Adobe PDF Document Aids & Devices Store Price List (01/08/16) - Microsoft Word Document If you have questions related to the Aids & Devices Store or about adaptive devices, contact: Ann Fremont (515) 281-1357 or (800) 362-2587 Ann.Fremont@blind.state.ia.us Other Resources for Helpful Tools & Devices Independent Living Aids www.independentliving.com 800-537-2118 LS&S (Learning Sight & Sound) www.lssproducts.com 800-468-4789 Maxi Aids www.maxiaids.com 800-522-6294

New BlindAbilities Team member, Jeff Young presents an overview of the Apple MusicMemos app which is available free of charge in the Apple App Store. Jeff takes us through the initial recording using his acoustic guitar, he shows how the App automatically adds-in drum and bass tracks, how to make notes regarding time signature, chords and any unusual features such as guitar tuning. Jeff then demonstrates the Share feature by uploading his recording to BossJock. This app is a simple solution for musicians who wish to quickly record an idea about a tune. #BlindAbilitiesQuickHit #Jeff_Young #BlindAbilities.com

a blog from www.BlindAlive.com A Snack or a Treat by Lisa Salinger from the BlindAlive Team where you can find the #EyesFreeWorkouts on the BlindAlive web site. Check out the contact forms and the workouts at www.BlindAlive.com

AudioJo #AudioJo #AudioJo #AudioJo

We are headed to South Dakota for the Ski for Light 2016 Winter Event. We will be there all week so tuen in and see what's happening in Deadwood South Dakota.

Blind Abilities Teen Cast Presents The Life Skills Series: Household Jobs Down and Dirty: Bathing the Bathroom Teen Cast In this 2 part episode Lori Thompson goes through the process that she uses to clean some of the fixtures in the bathroom. In part 1 she cleans the toilet and the sink and in part 2 she takes to the tub and hits the floor. Blind Abilities is a community of Blind, DeafBlind and Low vision members sharing experiences and offering advice when needed. Together we share each other’s vision to bridge the gap between the limited expectations and the Realities of Blind Abilities. Visit and subscribe to our podcasts at BlindAbilities.com or cut and paste this link into your favorite Pod-catcher of choice. http://blindabilities.com/feed/podcast/

Cheryl, @MoeLucie, contributes to the Life Skills Series with some tips and tricks for the Dishwasher. You can find more of the Life Skills Series with a Blindness perspective on the web at www.BlindAbilities.com and check out the TeenCast section and the College category TeenCast is produced for State Services for the Blind of Minnesota and you can find out more about State Services and what they provide by going to www.MNSSB.org

Members and Friends of the Blind Abilities Community contributed their #RandomActsOfBlindness to share how they can see a humorous side to some of the daily situations that most of us come across. We all handle it a bit differently and it appears that humor seems to smooth out the edges of some random acts... of Blindness. Enjoy. Thank You TheFonzaMundo, RaqiG, RockShopDJ, ErranPwns, Sherie, PeteLane, iBlindTech (Garth), and MoeLucie for kicking this Random Acts of Blindness into gear.

fitness #eyesfree #BlindAlive

Blind Abilities gives a special shoutout to Mel Scott and her EyesFreeFitness Company BlindAlive. On this podcast Jamie Pauls sits down with Mel to talk to her about her vision for BlindAlive -- past, present, and future. You'll learn about what goes into producing a workout, and you'll find out what BlindAlive and the Dr. Pepper theme have in common.

We welcome your feedback or questions via the contact form or by emailing support@BlindAlive.com You can also follow BlindAlive on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BlindAlive Subscribe to the BlindAlive Community on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. Lastly be sure to check out the website www.BlindAlive.com to see all our products and subscribe to the newsletter.

Blind Abilities Presents an in depth exploration of the topic of Eating as a blind person. Join Pete Lane as he shares audio input from a number of members of the blindness community around food and eating: the mundane, yet crucial task with which they must cope on a daily basis. You have never heard such a musical and humorous peak into the challenges of this independent living skill, Eating as a blind person, on our Quest For Culinary Competency! Additional training resources can be found as follows: * www.VisionAware.org - Hints for easier eating and pouring * Pitt Vision Studies - 05, Basic Techniques For Eating (YouTube) * www.NFB.org - Pass The Manners, by Barbara Pierce * www.PerkinsELearning.com - Mealtime Skill Webinar * Pitt Vision Studies - Eating Seminar For Rehabilitation Professionals (YouTube)

BlindAbilities.com #Lane7625 #JThompson6835

Blind Abilities is a community of Blind, DeafBlind and Low vision members sharing experiences and offering advice when needed. Together we share each other’s vision to bridge the gap between the limited expectations and the Realities of Blind Abilities. Visit and subscribe to our podcasts at BlindAbilities.com or cut and paste this link into your favorite Pod-catcher of choice. http://blindabilities.com/feed/podcast/

Blind Abilities Teen Cast Presents The Life Skills Series: Household Jobs Down and Dirty: Bathing the Bathroom Teen Cast In this 2 part episode Lori Thompson goes through the process that she uses to clean some of the fixtures in the bathroom. In part 1 she cleans the toilet and the sink and in part 2 she takes to the tub and hits the floor. Blind Abilities is a community of Blind, DeafBlind and Low vision members sharing experiences and offering advice when needed. Together we share each other’s vision to bridge the gap between the limited expectations and the Realities of Blind Abilities. Visit and subscribe to our podcasts at BlindAbilities.com or cut and paste this link into your favorite Pod-catcher of choice. http://blindabilities.com/feed/podcast/

BlindAbilities Team member, Jeff Young interviews Edward Cohen, creator of the EZ2See Calendar. This unique Calendar was designed by Edward as a means for him to have a calendar which he can use with his visual impairment. The EZ2See Calendar has many large-print and bold features which make it easy for many low vision individuals to use. Enjoy this interview! #BlindAbilities.com #EZ2SeeCalendar #JeffYoung_ .

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. I’m Stuart Holland. (music) Students surprise blind classmate with incredible Christmas gift, by Andrew Dodson, The Bay City Times

December 18, 2015

MONITOR TOWNSHIP, MI — Brennan Draves has gone through his entire life unable to see the world in front of him. But it wasn't the 10-year-old's disability that blinded him on Thursday, Dec. 17. It was love. While gripping his white cane and sitting in front of his classmates at Bay City's Mackensen Elementary, the fifth-grade student listened intently as his peers read a prepared script, revealing their big secret. Proving that the holiday season is more about giving than receiving, students at the elementary school raised more than $7,000 in only four days to purchase their blind classmate a BrailleNote computer, allowing him to read, type, email and most importantly, learn. As the news sunk in, Brennan nervously crossed his legs, rested his chin on his right hand and lowered his head toward his blue Converse sneakers and grass-stained jeans. When one of his peers read the school raised enough money to buy his very own BrailleNote that he could bring anywhere with him and keep through the summer and beyond, the students also learned a new lesson. "Do you guys know what tears of joy are?" their teacher Tracy McMartin asked. If they didn't, they quickly learned. Brennan's bright eyes welled up as his best friend Alfonso Ramirez guided him toward his mom Lindsay Goss for a long hug. Disbelief. Gratitude. Excitement. Struggling to express himself, the 10-year-old called it the best Christmas gift he has ever received. His mom and step-father, having been in on the secret, thought they would be prepared for the moment, but emotions got the best of them, too. The cost of the special computer falls in line with a used car, and it's a purchase his family never thought they would be able to afford as their son heads to middle school next year. "We were thinking it was something we could buy when he goes to college," his mom said. "This is just absolutely incredible." The money was raised using the crowd-funding site GoFundMe.com. McMartin said her students wanted to do something kind for Christmas and felt helping one of their classmates out was the best idea. Within minutes of the campaign going live on Wednesday, Dec. 9, a $25 donation rolled in. Then another. And another. When McMartin woke up the next morning, the campaign was at more than $3,000. "I couldn't believe it," the teacher said. "The generosity from this school and community completely blew me away." The campaign also included a heart warming video of Brennan's classmates reading reasons why he's so important to their school. Brennan already is well-versed in using a BrailleNote. The Bay City school district owns the one he uses in the classroom and at home today, but it's limited. He can't really use the Internet on it due to district restrictions and come summer, it stays at the school. Having his own BrailleNote, which is expected to arrive after the new year, will allow him to email, use a planner, play music, read books and type through an innovative word processor. That's a good thing, as the 10-year-old, who reads at a high school level and is into fantasy novels, currently is busy penning his own story. "I've read a little bit of it and it's really good," his friend Alfonso said. "When it's published, I would buy it." The bumpy keys on the bottom of the BraillePad are refreshing constantly with content that Brennan feels. He then moves up and down the braille keyboard to type and communicate. When he's done taking a test for a class, he tells the BrailleNote to print off his answers and hands the copy to his teacher. The campaign actually raised some add...

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. I’m Stuart Holland.. (music) From: AppleVis – www.applevis.com/blog The AppleVis Community Names the Apps and Developer that were its Golden Apples of 2015 Submitted by AppleVis on 28 December, 2015 - 05:44 We are pleased to announce the results of the fourth annual AppleVis Golden Apple Awards. Since their launch in 2012, the AppleVis Golden Apple Awards have afforded blind and low vision users an opportunity to recognize and acknowledge the hard work and dedication which developers have put into making great and accessible iOS and OS X applications during the given year. To be shortlisted for this year's Golden Apple Awards, apps must: • Be fully accessible to blind and low vision users. • Have been launched or significantly updated during 2015. • Be from a developer with a demonstrated and long-term commitment to full accessibility. • Demonstrate excellence in design, functionality and operation. Candidates for Developer of the Year must: • Have a long-standing, exemplary commitment to making their apps fully accessible to blind and low vision users. • Be receptive and responsive to the needs of blind and low vision users in a timely manner. • Have delivered significant new features or updates to their app(s) during 2015, particularly updates which directly benefit blind and low vision users. The 2015 AppleVis Golden Apples consist of awards in five categories: • Best iOS App • Best iOS Game • Best Assistive iOS App • Best Mac App • Developer of the Year For the Best iOS App of 2015, the AppleVis community chose Workflow: Powerful Automation Made Simple. Perhaps not surprising as Workflow has already won an Apple Design Award this year for it’s VoiceOver support and been rated an App Store Best of 2015. 1Password - Password Manager and Secure Wallet took second place, and Overcast: Podcast Player came third. In the closest ever vote in the history of these Awards, Dice World - Dice with Friends! took the Golden Apple for Best iOS Game of 2015. A Blind Legend followed as a very close second, and Blindfold Bowling was just a handful of votes further back in third place. In a landslide vote, the AppleVis community voted KNFBReader Best Assistive iOS App of 2015. BlindSquare took second place, and Be My Eyes - helping blind see placed third. Audio Hijack was voted as the best Mac app of 2015 by a wide margin. 1Password - Password Manager and Secure Wallet came in second, and LaunchBar placed third. Kid Friendly Software (Creator of the ‘Blindfold’ series of iOS audio games) was voted as the Developer of the Year, with MIPsoft (Creator of BlindSquare) and DeskConnect, Inc. (Creator of Workflow - Powerful Automation Made Simple) rounding out the top three. We would like to extend our congratulations to the winners of the 2015 AppleVis Golden Apple Awards and to wish everyone a happy and safe new year and a prosperous 2016. About the Apps and Developer Chosen as the 2015 AppleVis Golden Apples Workflow: Powerful Automation Made Simple Workflow won an Apple Design Award at this year’s Worldwide Developers’ Conference (WWDC). These prestigious awards acknowledge the mobile and desktop apps which raise the bar in design, technology and innovation. In the case of Workflow, the award specifically recognized its accessibility with VoiceOver. According to Apple’s own report on the 2015 Design Awards: Workflow is a powerful automation tool, available exclusively for iPhone and Apple Watch, that connect apps and actions together to automate things you do every day. Selected as an Apple Design Award winner for its outstanding use of iOS accessibility features, Workflow delivers an excellent implementation for VoiceOver with clearly labeled items, thoughtful hints, and drag/drop announcements, all ...

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org.

I’m Stuart Holland.

(music) From: AFB Access World Magazines Learning to Use VoiceOver on the Mac and iOS with Audio Tutorials from Mac for the Blind Jamie Pauls If you are a technology enthusiast, chances are good that you have placed a new Mac, iPhone, or iPad on your Christmas list. As the size of Apple devices continues to shrink, many of them will fit in a decent-sized stocking. Assuming that you are fortunate enough to receive a new Mac or iOS device for Christmas, you now have the thrill of learning to use your new gadget. After all, VoiceOver, Apple's built-in screen reader, is a part of any new product you receive. But is it really that easy? Might there, in fact, be a bit of learning curve when it comes to grasping the concepts of the OS X operating system found on the Mac, or the iOS operating system that comes on your new iPhone, iPod, or iPad? Not only do you need to get up and running with a new operating system, but you need to learn to use a new screen reader as well. There are lots of free resources available to the blind person who wants to learn to use VoiceOver with Apple's product line, but where are those resources located? Even if you manage to find all those resources, you will discover that quality and teaching style varies greatly from one to the other. Fortunately, there is a better way. John Panarese has been a part of the assistive technology industry for years. He has trained many blind people in the use of Apple's products over the years. In fact, Panarese is now an Apple certified support professional and trainer. He recently sat down with Scott Davert and Alex Hall of the AppleVis team to discuss the topic of becoming an Apple certified support professional from the perspective a blind person. Panarese is also the driving force behind the Mac for the Blind website, which offers many free resources, in both text and audio form, for learning to use Apple products. Recently, Panarese decided it was time to release a series of audio tutorials for the Mac and iOS. While not abandoning the practice of placing free resources on his site, he made the decision to charge for this new set of tutorials. Rather than create one mammoth tutorial covering every aspect of using VoiceOver on the Mac and iOS, he decided to create a series of short tutorials that could be purchased separately. It would also be easier to update these tutorials as the need arose. Those tutorials are now available on his website, so let's take a look at the current offerings. Style and Presentation Each tutorial is made available as an MP3 file that can be purchased and downloaded from the site. The tutorials range in price from $30 to $45, with one $70 bundle available for a two-part series on using VoiceOver with Safari on the Mac. Panarese has a teaching style that is warm and relaxed, while avoiding unnecessary chit-chat. Each tutorial has been professionally edited by Patrick Purdue and Derek Lane of P&D Audio, so the quality of the audio is extremely high. The years Panarese has spent training clients privately and for state agencies shows in his tutorials. He makes many references to actual experiences he has had when working with clients, alerting the listener to potential pitfalls and frustrations that may be encountered during the learning process. The thorough but fast-paced style employed in these tutorials allows Panarese to cover a lot of material in a fairly short amount of time. For example, his free Introduction to VoiceOver tutorial available in the "Mac Lessons" area of the tutorial site, runs just under 50 minutes in length, but covers just the right amount of material to get the new user up and running. An Overview of Currently Available Mac for the Blind Tutorials M...

Jeff Thompson gives a little overview of the Pocket and the InstaPaper Apps while using the VoiceDream app for playback. Both apps are free and are available in the app store, google play and Chrome store and maybe more. These apps are free and will bookmark and download the text for your convenience when data and Wi-Fi is not available nor necessary. Check out more podcasts and subscribe to the Blind Abilities feed at www.BlindAbilities.com follow us on twitter @BlindAbilitief.

BlindAbilities presents a very special guest: join Jeff Thompson and Pete Lane as they interview Luis Perez, a true pioneer in the accessibility arena. Luis is an Educator, Presenter an author and an avid photographer. You can find all of Luis' information on his web site: www.LuisPerezOnline.com, including his Blog and a link to his YouTube channel at: LFPerez72. Or, you can just tune in and hear all of that: be sure to set time aside for this special interview. #BlindAbilities.com #JThompson6835 #Lane7625

Jeff Thompson and Pete Lane chat with Fernando Albertorio, CEO and Co-founder of Sunu Inc., creators of the Sunu Band. The Sunu Band is a promising bracelet that will provide Sonar-guided navigation, an article finder, smart watch and much much more! The Sunu Band is in the Beta stage, but you can pre-order the bracelet, as well as help fund their Indiegogo fund-raising campaign now. Just go to www.Sunu.IO and see all of its features and contribute to the campaign. #BlindAbilitiesPresents #JThompson6835 #Lane7625 #SunuBand #BlindAbilities.com

Lisa Salinger @Lisasali brings us a 3 part series called Lisa's life skills. Part 3 is on Socializing and is Blindness the issue or are we making it the issue? Join Lisa as she suggests some ways of mingling and participating in and at social gatherings. Blind Abilities Teen Cast is produced by Blind Abilities for State Services for the Blind of Minnesota. You can find out more about State Services and what they provide by going to the web at www.MNSSB.org You can find more podcasts with a blindness perspective at www.BlindAbilities.com You can follow us on twitter @BlindAbilities

Lisa Salinger @Lisasali brings us a 3 part series called Lisa's Life Skills and Part 2 is all about Kitchen Gadgets from choppers, knives, scoops and slicers. Don't forget the measuring cups and bowls. Join Lisa as she goes through some of the main essentials in the Kitchen drawer. Blind Abilities Teen Cast is produced by blind abilities for State services for the blind of Minnesota. You can find out more about State Services and what they provide by going to the web at www.MNSSB.org You can find more podcast with a Blindness perspective at www.BlindAbilities.com and follow us on twitter @Blindabilities

Lisa Salinger @Lisasali brings us some Life Skills in a 3 part series called Lisa's Life Skills. Part 1 Lisa discusses the restaurant layout and most of this layout is derived from the information she gathered upon entering, sitting and listening. Join Lisa in this interesting situation and the tips and tricks she uses when she needs them. Blind Abilities Teen Cast is produced by blind abilities for State Services for the Blind of Minnesota and you can find out more about State Services and what they provide by going to the web at www.MNSSB.org You can find more podcast with a Blindness Perspective at BlindAbilities.com and follow us on twiter @BlindAbilities

From the Pocket series uses the #Pocket and #VoiceDream Apps to bring you some of the latest news regarding blindness, gadgets and events. Today we bring you an article from NFB.org https://nfb.org/blog/atblog/national-federation-blind-jernigan-institute-research-collaboration-sunu-band they talk about how they are involved in the process of bringing a better product to the consumer by being involved in the development process. Check it out.

Here is the link to the article in text format: https://nfb.org/blog/atblog/national-federation-blind-jernigan-institute-research-collaboration-sunu-band Music by Go Fish "Catch A Falling Star" get this track and more on iTunes at https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/snooze/id380407245

Lori Thompson describes her 2nd set of Braille tactile Measuring cups and Spoons from Maxi-aids. These sets are both black with raised Braille for easy identification. The molded in Braille will not fade away or fall off and the sure grip base ensures a steady and stable measuring cup experience. You can find these accessible gadgets on the web at www.maxiaids.com and search for Braille Tactile measuring Cups black and the same for the spoons. You can find more Kitchen Cafe posts by going to www.BATeenCast.com/kitchencafe/

Good Morning everybody once again we're with Blind Joe. Blind Joe how are you doing this morning?

Doing fantastic and how are you all doing?

Excellent.

Jeff Thompson is with me. Morning Jeffrey.

Ah did we lose him?

Am I here again?

Ah Jeff your back.

[Laugh]

Alright. I am doing good. How are you guys doing?

Excellent Jeffrey.

Great man.

Well we're chatting with Blind Joe after his final performance on the NBC show The Voice.

Yeah I did a little song called ìMama's don't let your babies grow up to be nervous"

[Laugh]

Talk a little bit about how that went and how you feel about it.

Ah man, you know, I think vocally it was alright, differently not my best performance, I was a little under the weather I was having some throat issues and I was definitely nervous as always. I think a combination of being under the weather and the nerves really got to me. You know, I am not proud of the performance but I think Blake made the right decision. Yeah, I mean it's disappointing. You never want something like that to end. Goal for me was you know top ten. I was hoping, but it is what it is. I was pretty upset when it happened initially but things are really looking up for us man. Things are going great I really can't complain about anything you know. We're in a position right now we're able to do things independently and that's always a plus rather than be subjected to the machine, you know. There are ups and downs, pros and cons if you will to being with a label and I am happy where we are at. So life is good. We just started a Go Fundme account what we are doing is trying to raise money to record a professional CD. We've got Rick Beato on board who's an excellent producer. He's done some work with Shinedown and I believe he has done some work with Tim McGraw and Seven Dust just went platinum with Parmalee they are a newer country band. That's awesome now a days you don't go platinum. So he's a he's willing to work with us and we are going to be going out and working with him here in the next couple of months. Getting a real record together and the fans have been very very generous in helping us out with that. We've almost reached $5000 we got a $15000 goal and we are just about up to 5 grand right now and we have only had the Go Fundme up for a couple of days. So that's amazing to me.

[Inaudible]

Sorry Jeff go ahead.

No go ahead.

I am just wondering where folks can go to look at the Go Fundme account?

Sure, itís Gofundme.com/blindJoe. GOFUNDME.COM/BLINDJOE.

And they can contribute in any

In anything else, if you can give a dollar give a dollar, if you can give a thousand I will personally fly to your house and kiss you on the lips. [Laugh]

There's an incentive.

I'm on it, I'm on it.

Yes

I don't even have to fly man youíre in Minnesota.

[Laugh]

Youíre selling out. Youíre selling out up here in Grand Forks.

Way to go.

Grand Rapids. We ah we there are a couple different business. Grand Organics and the Deer River Clinic and Hospital and McBride Chiropractic all got behind us and heard that we were going to record a CD and decided they would do kind of a benefit thing for us. We put the show on sale and yeah we sold out man unbelievable, Unbelievable. We will be at the Saw Mill Inn Friday night which is what's the date? I don't even know what day it is anymore guys.

[Laugh]

Friday night

That's tomorrow.

Tomorrow night yeah. That would be what the 20, 20 something

No one said there was going to be math here.

Yeah I know right.

Right or dates.

So yeah, we are really looking forward to that and that's going to be nice all ages family friendly kind of thing. We are going to have some free food, of course, you know the bar will be there and we are going to do a 10% off a hotel room with your ticket stub. It's just going to be a great time. I am really looking forward to it.

Nice.

Tell us about what's in store for you...

Transcript:

[Music]

Hey everybody this is Jeff Thompson. I am going to talk to you a little bit about the rotor. The rotor setting the most efficient way I have found to set it up. First we go to setting, general, accessibility, then voice over.

General, back button, location accessibility, heading accessibility, heading vision, heading voice over on button.

It says on but you can go in further here.

Accessibility button

Then we will go down to rotor

Rotor button.

So in the rotor section there is a lot of choices that you can choose from to select to have then optimized your navigation abilities using the voice over gesture. I got a list here sometimes when you select all these things they get into the rotor selection and you turn and it all convoluted you don't know where it is, but you can do something here.

Reorder headings button, drag able, double tap and hold, wait for the sound then drag to rearrange.

You can put these in an order. I've got them in somewhat of an order. I know that there is a couple out of order right now. So let see what I have here. And you hear selected if I have that option selected that will show up in my rotor if it's necessary on the page or screen that I'm on.

Selected characters, selected words, selected line, selected headings,

Ok Character words, line, a lot of text stuff right there they are all right in a row, and then you heard headings. Now headings are on our website where it might be a topic or a change of topic, so you might have four or five heading so you can scroll through them by heading instead of swiping through all the other things. Now these particular settings like headings is a single finger up and down and it will move through the page through the headings. So letís keep going.

Selected headings, list, selected landmarks. Now list wasn't selected but I have landmarks. Landmarks are key spots that some developers have marked. Let take a house like a landmark in a house. Front door, back door, bathroom, boom you can get to those places fast. Now headings might be bedroom one, bedroom two, bedroom three, carpeted floor, so you get into the detail like that. But when you're talking landmarks you're talking front door, back door, you know that type of thing.

Selected text selection,

Thatís for editing

Selected speak, selected volume, selected speech rate.

So speech rate,

Selected volume, selected audio docking, punctuation, selected sounds, selected hints,

There you have a few of the things that I also have right in a row stuff that has to do with speech rate, volume, all that stuff is basically in the same category for me. So letís scroll up.

Rows 12-32 handwriting, selected containers,

Now containers is say you're in a Facebook app it will bring you up to the top header and then into the body and that's it. But certain pages you'll jump from one section to another one so you can get right up to the back button possibly by swiping left from there. So there is a useful thing of having this stuff. Now containers I want to move up where all my headings, my landmarks are. So what I'm going to do swipe to the right

Reorder containers button drag able double tap and hold wait for the sound then drag to rearrange.

I heard the sound.

Move the up, sounds, move the up, sounds, move above punctuation, move above audio docking, move above volume, move above speech rate, move below headings, move below landmarks, selected containers, landmarks, selected lists.

When I do move these I notice that my selection doesn't stick with them. It's like it moves the box but leaves the x where ever it falls again. So what I have to do is once I get these all where I want them I will come back and double check to see where everything is. So what I will do I will get out of this, I'll go back

Selected characters, selected word, selected lines, selected headings, list, handwriting, selected landmarks, selected co...

MoeLucie brings us the #collegeCafe where she will share her experiences with tips and suggestions involving courses, classes, papers, chemistry, math, and all the good stuff. From Science, technology, Math and all the details in between. the Pro Writing series delivers tips and suggestions for writing professional papers, and Discovering a Topic is the first in this series where MoeLucie simplifies the process. Join MoeLucie in the College Cafe and follow her on Twitter @MoeLucie and MoeLucie on audioBoom.

BATeenCast is produced by Blind Abilities for State Services for the Blind of Minnesota and you can find out more about State Services and what they provide by going to the web at www.MNSSB.org

You can find more podcasts with a Blindness perspective at BATeenCast.com and BlindAbilities.com You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities

Lori Thompson gets started on Monday's dinner on sunday while looking toward the week ahead. She whips up an easy to make Mexican Hot dish that will be put in the oven the next afternoon ready for heating and eating.

In November AuroraNebulosa posed a question regarding blaming the sighted for some of their actions towards people who are Visually Impaired or Blind. Gathering some of the discussion in this podcast brings together the voices from the channel to show just how our voices can be heard and shared with all. Enjoy listening to this discussion and let's hear your thoughts on the matter. BATeenCast is on AudioBoom and on the web at www.BATeenCast.com Follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities and on the web at www.BlindAbilities.com

Blind Abilities Teen Cast Presents paulina, @Shadowalker24 talking about her everyday life from highschool to a Blindness Training center and how her college experience is going today. The interview started at her home and continued as she walked to her college. Busy people are hard to interview sitting down. Paulina works hard and enjoys traveling so we caught her at her best. Blind Abilities Teen Cast is produced by Blind Abilities LLC for State Services for the Blind of Minnesota and you can find out more about State Services and what they provide by going to www.MNSSB.org

You can find more BA Teen Cast on the web at www.BlindAbilities.com and at www.BATeenCast.com Follow us on twitter @BlindAbilities

We would like to thank kevin MacLeod for his wonderful music arrangement. Long Road Ahead by Kevin MacLåeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100588 Artist: http://incompetech.com/

Alyssa Gourley tells us about her transition from High School to college and the work place. Her days at a Blindness Training Center, Blind, Inc. in Minneapolis Minnesota and her plans for tomorrow. Learn about her journey, obstacles, and successes as Jeff Thompson and Alyssa revisit the trail she has been blazing over the last 5 years.

To find more podcasts related to Blindness and transitioning from high school to college or the workplace you can follow BATeennCast on AudioBoom, on the web at www.BATeenCast.com BA Teen Cast is produced by Blind Abilities for State Services for the Blind of Minnesota and you can find out more about State Services and what they provide, on the web at www.MNSSB.org

An Oatmeal recipe for the crock pot that cooks over-night and is ready for when you wake. Cheryl goes through the recipe and ingredients and offers up some alternative choices that just may fit the needs of your tastes. Join Cheryl and in this recipe cast and you can follow Cheryl @MoeLucie on twitter and MoeLucie on AudioBoom. Blind Abilities Teen Cast is produced by Blind Abilities for State Services for the Blind of Minnesota and you can find out more about State Services and what they provide at www.MNSSB.org

TeenCast News by antonio and you can follow Antonio @Amguima Blind Abilities Teen Cast is produced by Blind Abilities for Minnesota State Services for the Blind and you can learn more about State Services and what they provide on the web at www.MNSSB.org

(Transcript below)

fitness update on giveaways, Newsletter and much more. Http:..www.BlindAlive.com Check us out and sign up for our Newsletter! #EyesFreeFitness

Transcript:

Hey everybody this is Jeff Thompson I want to give a shout out to Blind Alive.com Mel and her team doing such a great job of such a great product. Check it out.

[Music]

Do you have dreams of getting fit and healthy? Only to have them shattered? Blind Alive is here to help. We offer competitive price eyes free workouts with complete descriptions designed for you. Whatever youíre level of health or fitness. You can down load or purchase CD's and if you have any trouble support is just a click or call away. Check us out today at www.blindalive.com and if you like what find be sure to tell your friends. Don't just live be alive.

[Music]

Hey everybody this is Mel Scott and I am excited to announce that the new eyes free fitness Blind Alive Pilates chair with ring workout is out. This workout is totally done in the chair. It's done with a 15î, which is a 15 inch in diameter Pilates ring and a Pilates ring is a ring that has resistance to it. So it takes energy to press it in and it takes energy to press it out. You can you know press it further in or press it further out and it will increase the muscle strength as you do it. In Pilates it's all about the breath and breathing correctly and on the workout we talk a lot about the correct way to breath. Yeah it's a total body workout. It is super gentle, so if you have back issues it's a good workout to strengthen your core and of course as always you need to make sure you are okay by your medical teams to exercise. It is a total body workout. I am excited.

So the voice of the workout is Debbie Hazelton. She has an excellent voice for doing this kind of thing. She really brought her own self and character to the workout. She voiced it; she did not design the workout. A Pilateís instructor Edye Fisher Discount her last name is really Discount designed the workout. Her bio is on the website. Music was composed by Jason Castonguay he did a beautiful job. I love the music, it's kind of a smooth jazz, it keep you moving, it's lively and he through his voice in there occasionally so I love the music. Love it all. I wrote the script and the audio descriptions on the website that can also be downloaded. Lisa Salinger transcribed audio descriptions so there in all different kinds of formats that you can access. The descriptions also on You Tube on the Blind Alive eye free fitness channel. So everything is a whole lot of different places, it's on the website now as a digital download. I am in process of getting CD's made and we're going to offer thumb drives this time. So that's going to be an option too. We will be selling the rings and the thumb drives at the Pennsylvania Council of the Blind conference next week if you are going to possibly be there. We will also be at the National Federation of the Blind conference in November. I may have yoga mats also. I am not sure about that yet. I'll definitely be having a Yoga workout for the November conference also in addition to the Pilates and all of the other ones that we have. I will have back packs, so we're still have the backpack. I think I have one purple one left and then I have a dark gray color sort of green, gray color and a black, solid black. The backpacks are fabulous people love them. I love them. I'm going to be taking my backpack to the conference next week. Blind Alive is percolating along nicely. Come check it out. You know there is a lot there, a lot of information happening on the blogs and podcast, the workouts. I will stop my salesmen pitch right now. It sounds salesmen I am sure it does, but I am really excited about it. It's a real excitement. Anyway I will talk to you later. Leave me a message, come visit Twitter at BlindAlive.com, Facebook at BlindAlive.com, occasionally on Periscope at BlindAlive.com Periscope and I are n...

(Transcript Below) Robin Ennis @Walking_TheTalk tells her story through blindness. Losing her eye-sight and facing her return to college, entering graduate school and facing the largest obstacle of gaining employment. Robin prevales through her determination and her ability to never give up on herself. #BATeenCast #College #Blindness #RobinEnis

Transcript: [Music]

Blind Abilities presents Robin Enis, Overcoming obstacles through blindness. We hope you enjoy.

[Music]

October is national disability employment awareness month. In recognition of this month I want to share with you my story through blindness.

[Music]

It all started in 2002 when I was 18 years old about to turn 19. My vision declined started with me having difficulty seeing the mass on the computer, 4-6 weeks later being barely able to count fingers. My eyesight was rapidly declining and there was nothing I could do to stop it and there was nothing I could do to bring it back. I did not know what future lies in front of me. Would it be one without eyesight? If so what would that look like? How would I be able to carry on with my daily activities? All of these thoughts and then some were twirling around in my head as I was watching day by day my eyesight leave.

[Music]

I was scared to say the least. I was scared, sad, I was uncertain about what was happening to me. Eventually when my eyesight stabilized I received a diagnosis of Optic Atrophy, my optic nerves were a pale white when they were supposed to be a pinkish color. So this Optic Atrophy would result in permanent blindness, permanent. My eyesight was not coming back, so literally one month ago I had it and one month I didn't.

[Music]

I had to figure out what was next. So when my official after 6 months had passed since the deterioration of my eyesight the window of time if you are going to get any eyesight back, when that time had come and gone I bought my first white cane. A symbolism of the new world that I was entering, a world of unknown.

[Music]

I took a year off from school to recuperate and to adjust to my new circumstances. Returning to college the following year was one of difficulty. I started off my freshman year as a person who was able to see the chalkboard, able to see my peers, able to visually, physically see the professor. Now I was sitting in a classroom not being able to do any of those things relying on sound to be my eyes to help me learn my environment and my course materials. In many instances I was the professor's first student who was blind. So not only was I embarking on this new journey myself, but in many instances so where my professors. So we collaborated. We thought of ways to help me have access to the same opportunities, the same materials as my sighted peers so that I could have an equal opportunity to succeed as my sighted peers did. So with their help I excelled, with their help I was given a fair chance. With my families support as well I knew that I could do anything I could set my mind to. With God, my family, my professors I was ready to handle whatever lied in front of me.

[Music]

So with college come academics, then also comes the social aspect, my peers. I felt like an outsider looking in, I felt isolated from my peers. I felt like I was not given a chance to be a part of the group. I felt like I was being judged. Judged on something I had no control over Judged by something that did not define me as a person. I was still Robin, but all they saw was the girl who was blind. So it was my mission to show them otherwise. I was left out of peer groups because they didn't think I could do the school work. They thought that I would bring down their grades. So I proved them wrong by studying and studying and studying, by getting good grade on my tests, on my presentations, by showing them that disabilities does not mean inability, that my blindness does not define me, that my blindness is not a weakness and that I if give...

(Transcript Below)

Lori Thompson gives a demonstration on how she organizes her canned goods, contacts, phone numbers and more by using a inexpensive device made by #Caliber. this accordion like case holds and indexes the PermaBraille index cards from #American Printing House web site that she has Brailled her information upon. Lori can be found on twitter @LThompson6835 and LoriThompson on Audioboom. BATeen Cast is produced by Blind abilities for State Services for the Blind of Minnesota and you can find out more about State Services at www.MNSSB.org

Transcript:

[Music]

[Intro]

Hey everybody this is Laurie Thompson I am coming in here with a little tip on some organization something that is very inexpensive and you can use it for multiple things that you want to organize. Today I have itís called a caliber. I picked it up at a drug store. It's a little like recipe box but it's an accordion recipe box. It has 12 different little plastic dividers throughout this accordion box. It's got the little tabbies like a file folder on the top. Then it has the top of it folds over and it has a rubber band with like a button on the front. So you can close it and put the rubber band over the button so it doesn't, none of your things fall out and it stays closed. So what I done with this accordion recipe box, I have taken some dymo tape and I have labeled 12 different labels for the little file tabbies that are on here. I did AB, CD, EF and so on and so forth and the last one I did WXY and Z. So that's my last one. Then I took some Perma Braille cards and Perma braille cards are the most wonderful things ever I have found for any type of organization. They come in 3x5 sizes and they also come in 4x6's, they also make either bigger sheets like 8x10 and I think 11x13, but I really don't have any purpose for those other than at work I have a full sheet of phone numbers contact for everybody in the office in case I have someone calls and needs to be transferred to them or something.

So what I do with these cards and I use the 3x5 cards because they fit into my card sleeve very well. I made labels with them I have one these accordion boxes were I organize like labels for my can goods when they are on my cans I just wrap them around my can good this a rubber band and then when I use that item I there is a little front part of the where I can store rubber bands then I can just file my little card that have corn, green beans, what have you underneath the letter it belongs in. Now getting back to these Perma braille cards they are fantastic they keep the braille crisp, if they get wet it doesn't ruin them. They don't rip. Theyíre just amazing. You can find these at the American Printing House. They used to be $8.50 and I believe it was 50 cards you would get. It is maybe kind of pricey but these things will last forever. You can use them for multiple things. Another thing that I use with an accordion recipe box for organization is contacts, peopleís names, phone numbers, addresses. I mean computers are great but sometimes they don't want to work right or they crash or a lot of people don't back things up. So I mean always having a hard copy around is great, so I will put my 3x5 Parma Braille card in my card slate and I start from the bottom and work my way up with someoneís name at the bottom and then address, city, state and then at the top I'll put their phone number, because when I store them into this organizer I store them facing away from me and upside down so that when I reach in with my hand I don't have to take it out, flip it around and try to read it. I can read it upside down; I get their name first, because that's what I put on the card first at the bottom.

Another thing you can use this for is everybody has new apps and they have to have a user Id and a password or maybe your banking information or different credit cards stuff. Everything seems to have to have a user id and a password and instead of using ...

(Transcript Below)

QuickHit Demonstration of grabbing text images off of #Facebook and storing them into your camera roll and using #KNFBReader to extract the text. #BlindAbilities #BATeenCast #Voiceover #A11Y @BlindAbilities

Transcript: [Music]

Hey everybody, this is Jeff Thompson. I received a message from Rob Fishwick from England on Facebook. It was photographed actually it was three photographs of some text. It was an article that he wanted me to read and give my opinion on it. So how did I do it I used K and FB reader. Let me show you how.

Here's the article.

Rob Fishwick shared (inaudible) post with Laurie Thompson and Jeff Thompson. October 7 at 2:10 pm friends (inaudible) photos October 7, 5:05 am. Everyone at American tourist observations ellipsis (inaudible) no guns what do you think of gun list? Photo October 7 2015 phot October 7th 2015 photo October 7 2015. Double tap to interact with this story.

All right there you go. You heard the three photographs at the end. So I am going to double tap on this.

Back.

Swipe to the right.

Search text field. (Inaudible) three photos 05 05 everyone. American tourist observation ellipsis, photo October 7 2015 image.

Okay there is the first image, so I am going to double tap. Single finger double tap.

Photo October South Devan post close button.

All right, so at this point I have to highlight the photo, so I am just going to touch in the middle of the screen.

Photo

I believe that's it. Now I will do a single finger double tap and hold.

Alert save photo button.

Sounds good to me.

Save photo South Devan post photo.

Ok that sent it to my camera roll. Now if I swipe up from here

Photo

With a three finger swipe and I do this for each photograph. Double tap.

Save photo South Devan post, photo

Now I am going to do a three finger swipe up

Page 4 of 4

Single finger double tap and hold.

Save photo button, save photo South Devan Post, close button.

And a single finger double tap. Now all three photographs are in my camera roll and K and FB reader will find them there. Letís go.

K and FB reader, double tap to open.

Now this is opening, so I am going to swipe to the right.

Settings button camera flash is on, button, guidance, switch button, take picture button, field of view report button, add picture, library button, Choose picture from library to be added.

Double tap single finger.

Photos selfies, photos heading.

Swipe to the right.

Cancel button,

Single finger swipe to the right.

Moments button, camera roll 117 photos button,

Single finger double tap.

Photos back button,

Now with this I am going to start at the bottom. Four finger single tap near the bottom, swipe to the left.

Photo, portrait 2:18 pm, photo portrait 2:18 pm, photo portrait 2:17 pm,

Okay those are the three photographs, now if I single finger double tap it'll open it up in K and FB reader.

Recognize imported image, back button,

Swipe to the right,

Recognize imported image, heading.

Again.

Reprocess image.

Again single finger double tap.

Reprocess image, tint page done please wait.

(Inaudible) very polite the food is outstanding. There are no guns,

Pause button

There are too many narrow

Play

Another thing I like to do is to use the voice over voice,

Scott Waters Some of what I teamed everyone very polite, the food is generally outstanding, bullet, there are no gun, bullet, there are too many stair, everything is just a little bit different (inaudible)

There you go. That's using the K and FB reader to extricate from an image I got from Facebook. Alright I hope you all have a good day, until next time, bye bye.

[Music]

Last page done please wait,

(Inaudible) very polite the food is outstanding. There are no guns,

Pause button

There are too many narrow

Play

Another thing I like to do is to use the voice over voice...

Transcript Below Christine writes about the wonderful volunteers supporting the Ski for Light program. Check out more about SkiForLight on the web at www.skiforlightorg And follow Christine Malecc on Audioboom and twitter @ChristineMalec

Transcript [Music]

Hey everybody on the Blind Abilities channel, thanks for following and today for through back Thursday

Ah Jeff it's Tuesday

We're featuring Christine Malec's post on ski for light. It's a great post and make sure you follow Christine Malec on Audio Boom and on Twitter @ Christine Malec. So without further ado here's her post.

[Music]

Hello, I'd like to read a blog post I wrote about this time last year. It's about an event called Ski for Light which you may have heard of. The post is titled "People at their best".

On the desk in my treatment room rest a new ornament it's a trophy consisting of a ski tip set into a beautiful wooden base. On the inscription on the front declares it to be an award for second place in the women's snow shoeing race at the 2014 Black Hill's Ski for Light event. I have never won a trophy in my life till now. As a blind person I would argue that I often get the chance to see people at their best. Most of the cool recreational stuff I get to participate in, sailing, tandem cycling, running, Dragon boating, Blind tennis and skiing only happen because really excellent people give generously of their time, energy and money. The snow shoeing trophy I won was made by one of the benefactors of the ski even and presented by one of the multitude of friendly and warm hearted volunteers without whom the event simply couldn't happen.

The banquet on the last night contained a memorial to all the people who made this event a success for 35 years running. Ski for Light is an international organization that host annual events in which blind, visual impaired and mobility impaired skiers are paired with sighted volunteer guides for a week of winter sport and a comradely family atmosphere, the like of which I have never experienced anywhere else.

When I attended my first Ski for Light event 4 years ago, I hadn't spent much time socializing with other blind people. I had catapulted myself in among the best. Having skied before I knew about the reserves of determination required to pick yourself up out of the snow for the fifth or tenth time. Getting up the up slopes is mostly a matter of strength but getting down the down slopes need balance, guts, trust in yourself and luck. At least until you have mastered a good snowplow. A failure of any of these will reliably result in what is a (inaudible) referred to as a yard sale, The distinctive jumble of skis, poles and limbs from which you must somehow extract yourself and retain vertical status. By about my fourth yard sale I usually take 10 seconds or so just to lye still in the snow, while reassuring my guide that I am really okay, I'm just resting. Each yard sale gets incremental harder as you accrue minor aches or injuries and generally get more tires. Knowing all of this intimately I was awed to see a hundred or so blind people keep going and going and going, Most of them more competent and resilient than me. Each of them had the resources of courage, adventurousness, athleticism, sociability and finance to spend a week of their lives here and really enjoy it and seeing this in others helped me see it in myself.

Of course none of this would be possible without the people that volunteer as guides and organizers. What kind of people gives a week of their vacation, which they pay for to help others? I can answer that easily, incredible people. I have attended four Ski for Light events. Each time I have tried to express to my guide and to other volunteers, how much I admire their generosity. Each time I'm reassured with a sincerity I can't doubt that they get as much out of the week as the participants do. I can only accept their serenity as I unobtrusively wipe away a tear or two. ...

The BlindAbilities Team check in on Joe during his Press Conference after the Battle Round. Stay tune for an in depth interview with Blind Joe early next week! #BlindAbilities Presents #BlindJoe #TeamBlake #BlindAbilities.com #TheVoice @JThompson6835 #@ane7625

News

Transcript coming soon.

Check out this video on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/GJNj8vHI2zs

Uploaded on Nov 3, 2011 · "I Have a Blind Student in My Maths/Science Class, Should I panic? How to promote inclusion for blind students" Invited speaker session by Donal Fitzpatrick, Lecturer at the School of Computing at Dublin University, at Thriving in a colder and more challenging climate, the 2011 conference of the Association for Learning Technology (ALT). Session given in Leeds, UK, on Thursday 8 September 2011 at 10.30. For information about ALT go to http://www.alt.ac.uk/. Made publicly available by ALT under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England and Wales licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/b....

Join Jeff Thompson, Raquel G and Pete Lane as they delve into the details of accessible digital voice recorders in this in depth chat with Tiffany Nelson and Stanley Freeman of the Olympus America Corporation. Many of the Olympus recorders feature voice guidance which allows blind and visually impaired customers to enjoy an audio experience ranging from basic note taking and file management to high-end, sophisticated multi-track and editing features, at a variety of price points. Listen as the team learns of possible new products coming in the not to distant future and hear of potential Beta testing that may be forthcoming for members of the blindness community. #BlindAbilitiesPresents #Olympus #Audiorecorders #Lane7625 #JThompson6835 #RaquelG

{Music} Blind Abilities Presents From the Pocket a series where we use 2 apps, Pocket and Voice Dream to bring you articles from the web using Pocket App and seamlessly into Voice Dream. today we bring you an article from www.PeoplePets.com about a Blind runner who goes the distance with the help of a running guide dog. Hope you enjoy. {Music}

Blind Runner Goes the Distance With Help from the Nation’s First Official Seeing Eye Running Dog

UPDATED 10/16/2015 AT 3:43 PM ET •ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 10/16/2015 AT 3:39 PM ET At nine o'clock sharp every morning, Richard Hunter heads out for a jog through his neighborhood in Folsom, California, racing side-by-side with his partner: a long-haired, lively type with a tongue that hangs out of his mouth from the start of the run to the finish. Klinger, a German shepherd with a playful demeanor, is the first guide dog in the country to be officially trained as a running partner for a blind person. In this case, that would be Hunter, 48, a former school psychologist who has lost most of his vision since he was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa at age 22. The pair have been running together every day since Aug. 23, when Hunter brought Klinger home from the nonprofit Guiding Eyes for the Blind center in Yorktown Heights, New York, after they both graduated from a three-week training program. “Klinger has made such a huge difference — I'm no longer running off the path and don't have to worry about distracted drivers,” Hunter, who was hit by a car while riding his bicycle alongside a sighted guide in 2013, tells PEOPLE. “And he's such a delight to have in our family. We've all became very attached.”

Hunter, a married father of three daughters who developed United in Stride, an online database that connects blind runners and sighted guides, has been an avid runner since age 18, when he joined the Marines. When he was discharged as a second lieutenant after developing his eye disease, then later lost his psychologist job, he decided to continue running as a way to show his children he could persevere in spite of his worsening eyesight. “I did 11 marathons, the Boston Marathon, a 50-mile endurance run and completed the Ironman run with sighted guides,” says Hunter, “but after the accident, my family was concerned. My daughter, Lindsey, kept asking, 'Daddy, when are you going to get a guide dog?' “ Hunter consulted with Thomas Panek, Guiding Eyes' president and CEO, and Panek, who is also a visually-impaired runner, agreed that his agency would develop a program to officially train a dog to be a blind person's running partner.

Treadmills and human guides were fine for most, he told Hunter, but blind people needed more options to enable them to exercise outdoors. “Having a running guide (like Klinger) enables a person who is visually impaired to transcend the obstacle of mobility by fostering a potentially very active lifestyle,” Panek tells PEOPLE. “It also sends an important message to others with vision loss that anything is possible, and limitations are merely perceptions.” Because the pilot program with Klinger was successful (the dog was trained for six months by blindfolded runners to navigate street corners, curbs and obstacles at a quicker pace), Guiding Eyes now hopes to train companions for other visually-impaired runners.

“Once the dog is trained to know your route, you're set,” says Hunter, who runs three to six miles, six days a week with Klinger. “I started out at home by walking the route with Klinger and he picked it up pretty fast.” “He loves to run and he's so well-focused on it,” he adds, noting that the 65-pound German shepherd likes to snuggle in his lap every evening. “He sets the pace, then after we're done running, his favorite thing is to play fetch with a tennis ball at the park. It's been a real life-changer. I just love getting out every day with Klinger.” {Music}

Teen Cast is produced for Minnesota State Services for the Bli...

"The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. I’m Stuart Holland.

(music) " We turn now to the Working Strategies column of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, by Amy Lindgren, from May 17. It’s entitled Graduates: Time to hone your definition of ‘professional.’ " Graduation time always puts me in mind of new workers, headed off to summer jobs or career-path positions. For many, this is the transition point from student to professional -- a leap of enough magnitude that it's worth pausing to consider what that actually means. So here's a question for you: What comes to mind when you hear the word "professional"? Perhaps you think of someone who seems to embody a professional ethos. Or maybe a code of conduct springs to mind, with specific standards for measuring professional behavior. You might even conjure an image of a certain type of worker, in a suit-and-tie or skirt-and-heels position. Here's something I've discovered by accident: There seems to be a generational divide in defining professional behavior. That's probably not news to anyone in management or anyone involved with multiple generations on a regular basis. But in my very informal polling process ("Hey you -- what does this word mean to you?") I found some interesting points of agreement and difference between age groups. For example, where everyone seemed to equate professionalism with respect -- as in respecting others in the workplace -- my younger respondents did not seem as concerned with "respect for authority." I had an interesting discussion with a 20-something who feels it's her professional obligation to oppose her boss if she disagrees with a decision; baby boomers I spoke with were more likely to see that as risky and possibly unprofessional. Image was another interesting talking point. Nearly everyone in my small sampling was open to an expansion of professional image to include a variety of work outfits or hairstyles. But the generations seemed to part ways on things like tattoos, piercings and bare legs (nylons vs. no nylons). While I think this is largely a matter of evolving fashions, I was nevertheless struck by a sentiment framed by younger workers that I didn't hear from older workers: "If I'm doing my job, it shouldn't matter how I look." In the end, I didn't come up with a uniform definition for "professional" but I did re-learn an important lesson about the risks of assuming that a common word has a common meaning. In a subsequent Internet search, I again found a diversity of definitions for the concept, although I did see some common themes. For example, a number of the writers on the web described professional behavior as some combination of etiquette, respect, ethics, knowing one's job well and being expert in one's profession. The elements of etiquette and respect seemed to underlie most of the advice I encountered, including: Always get back to people in a timely way; listen more than you speak; respect your colleagues' contributions; etc. Since I hate to let a good round of Internet reading go to waste, I thought I'd assemble a brief code of professional do's and don'ts for new graduates heading into careers over the next few months. Although I recognize that the tide might be turning on some of these points, I'm taking a safe route by presenting the more conservative side. After all, it's hard to imagine being too professional for the workplace. Professional Communication. Don't interrupt others, disagree in a disparaging way, or let your emotions speak for you. Do listen more than you speak, strive to understand others' views, and respond in a timely manner to messages. Professional Image. Don't under-dress for business events or client meetings, keep an exceptionally messy work area, or send out communications with errors you...

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. I’m Stuart Holland. (music)

September 21, 2015 Don’t be Intimidated: Asking Questions in Class as a Blind Student Learning Ally College Success Program mentor Joe Retherford shares his thoughts on why blind college students should never be gun-shy when it comes to asking questions.

For me, the hardest thing in college was not the subject matter – it was building up the courage to ask questions. Asking questions sounds easy. We ask so many in our lives, but as the only blind person in my college classes, I hated feeling even more different by calling attention to myself. As much as possible, I avoided being the thorn in my professor’s side. At the beginning of my college career, I did not ask any questions in lectures and never utilized office hours, and consequently, I suffered. I attended lectures that were complete wastes of time and took tests for which I discovered too late that I was not prepared. Over time, I learned to be the pesky student who asked all of the questions and, as a result, my grades were happier. Asking questions during lectures was challenging because I don’t like interrupting anyone while he or she is talking. In courses with a lecture format, the professor would be rolling along, and I didn’t want to stop the flow. There were as many as 300 students attending the class who didn’t want the professor to stop talking either. However, questions need to be asked, and you need to feel comfortable slowing professors down to make lectures useful and meaningful for you. I would remind myself that I am paying just as much tuition as everyone else in the class, so I deserve the right to ask a question as well. Just because I can’t see the material on the board doesn’t mean that I don’t deserve the right to know what is there. When a professor says, “…this equation over here,” I should have the same right to know the sample equation, so I need to interrupt and ask the question. When you’re in a large lecture class, make sure to sit close to the front. Projecting your voice from the back of a large room is difficult, and the harder it is to ask questions, the less likely you’ll want to ask them. In my undergraduate experience, students often thanked me for asking questions in lectures because it slowed the professor down. The Q&A time gave the other students in class a moment to think about the material longer, so they could better comprehend it. So just remember: you are not annoying the other students – you are helping them. One under-utilized resource in college is the extra time your professor or teaching assistant sets aside: office hours. Office hours became essential to my success in college. They allowed me to have a more intimate environment with professors than lectures where I could ask a lot of follow-up questions. At first, I was intimidated about going to the professor’s office hours because I didn’t want to seem like I wasn’t paying attention in class. In my experience, though, professors like students who approach them outside of class. I built more genuine connections both with the professors and the material. Some professors may even consider bumping a grade up if it is on the borderline, but they would only do that for students they know are working hard. Professors like seeing students who care about the material. Remember: professors are paid for being there whether students come or not, so don’t feel self-conscious about your questions. You are not wasting their time. If I could give one piece of advice to any student, it’s this: ask as many questions as you need.

Again, that was from Learning Ally, Don’t Be Intimidated: Asking Questions in Class as a Blind Student, by Joe Retherford.

After losing his sight in a hunting accident during his s...

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. I’m Stuart Holland. (music) Tulane snapper Aaron Golub becomes first legally blind player to play for FBS school in NCAA game This article was written by Andrew Lopez, who writes for The Times-Picayune Tulane's Aaron Golub made history on Saturday afternoon when he became the first legally blind player to play for an FBS program in an NCAA game. Golub took the field for the Green Wave in the fourth quarter and successfully completed the long snap with 8:20 left to play. Andrew DiRocco's PAT attempt was good and Tulane went up 45-17. "It was a great opportunity," Golub said. "I'm happy they gave me a shot. It just felt great." The sophomore long snapper has zero sight in his right eye and limited vision in his left eye. Tulane coach Curtis Johnson said he wanted to reward Golub for the hard work he's put in day in and day out and this was the opportunity he saw to do it. "Every morning I'm up, he's up in the weight room and he's working and working and working," Johnson said. "I would like to play him as much as I can because that's what you do, you reward kids who work. I don't care what they are or how they look. This kid works and he's just like everybody else. I'm going to play him as much as I can." Johnson had talked to Golub about what to expect when he went in the game so when he approached Golub about entering, the sophomore was ready. "I prepared and I just know that I've done this thousands of times," Golub said. "It was nothing. It's the same as in practice. It was just me and Pete (punter Peter Picerelli) the holder and I just snapped it to him." Johnson also said he didn't tip off Central Florida coaches that Golub would be going into the game and that Golub preferred it that way. "I don't think of it like that," Golub said. "I don't consider my vision being an issue. I'm happy to go out there and do anything. I wouldn't have wanted them to know." Johnson said he didn't tell UCF coaches about Golub because he wanted it to be "legitimate and real." And also, don't expect Golub's appearance to be a one-time shot. "They were going to come at him," Johnson said. "I talked to him about that. I wanted to do it against Maine last week because whenever we get up, I'm going to play him. He's one of those kids that just works hard." Again, that story was entitled “Tulane snapper Aaron Golub becomes first legally blind player to play for FBS school in NCAA game.”

Career Corner is a program produced by the Minnesota Radio Talking Book Network, part of State Services for the Blind and it is recorded for people who are blind or have reading disabilities. You can find complete programming of the Radio Talking Book at www.mnssb.org/rtb and the password is rtb. Your host for Career Corner is Anne Obst. (music) We turn now to the Working Strategies column in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, by Amy Lindgren, from August 16: Acknowledge the 'elephant in the room,' before it crowds you out I frequently hear from job seekers that they fear they were -- or will be -- turned down because of something that couldn't easily be discussed, such as being too old or too young compared with others on the team, or being very large in stature, or for having a personality that was notable in some way (very outgoing or taciturn, for example). These job seekers know going in they're different from the candidate the employer was anticipating. And yet they made it to the interview, so something on the resume, cover letter or in the early contact must have clicked. In last week's column, I provided a strategy for anticipating and even welcoming difficult interview questions. This week I want to look at the difficult questions that aren't asked, perhaps because they're too awkward or even illegal. These proverbial "elephants in the room" are the things that can't be ignored, yet can't be acknowledged. As a starting point, it helps to empathize with interviewers caught in a bind between maintaining ethical -- and legal -- interviewing practices and needing to ensure a worker can do the job. While it's never appropriate to discriminate against a worker based on age, for example, neither should one be surprised when the employer forms an initial impression that the younger candidate who arrives late to the interview might have a problem with work habits, or that the older candidate who sends an attachment in a nonstandard file format might not work well with technology. These age-based stereotypes are culturally embedded and candidates whose mistakes or physical appearance play into the stereotypes face harsher consequences. If you feel something unspoken is working against you, your first step is identify what you think that might be. Then analyze why and how much that would matter to an employer. As noted in last week's column, you can sometimes broach the topic by adjusting the answer to a spoken question to include information for an unasked question. But other times you'll need to raise the subject more directly so you can put your own spin on it. Here's an example of how something awkward might be approached by the candidate: "There's one thing we haven't talked about that I can imagine might be on your mind. I'd like to tell you a little about my experience in intergenerational workplaces. You know from my resume that I'm past the mid-point in my career and I know from my research that many of your folks are recent college graduates. "I know I wouldn't be here if I didn't have the skills you need. But one thing my resume doesn't really show is that each of my last three roles involved teams that skewed much younger than me. In some cases I was the leader and other times I was the one learning from a younger colleague. I'm very comfortable and effective regardless of the age differences on a team. "You shouldn't have to take my word for it, though. The references I've brought include two people who are younger than me; one was my manager and one was a co-worker. I know you can't easily ask questions related to age, but I just wanted you to have the information so you can feel comfortable with how I'd fit your team." Age issues can be tricky to discuss but this short soliloquy demonstrates that you can frame an issue without sounding either defensive or aggressive. It's just a respectful statement that acknowledges the employer's position while raising an awkward subject. If you want to ...

{Music} BA Teen Cast is Produced for State Services for the Blind and you can find out more about State Services and what they provide on the web at www.MNSSB.org NAVIGATION DEVICE LETS YOU FEEL YOUR WAY THROUGH A CITY A GUIDE THAT SITS IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND

By Claire Maldarelli Posted September 4, 2015 http://www.popsci.com/engineer-creates-navigation-device-based-on-sense-touch

Navigating through a crowded city like New York or London can be a challenge, especially for those who are visually impaired. Adam Spiers, a postdoc in robotics at Yale University, set out to create a tool that helps visually impaired individuals easily follow navigation instructions. His tool, a 3D printed device called Animotus, sits in the palm of your hand and changes shape to guide you to your destination by touch. The Animotus communicates in two ways. The top piece twists right and left to indicate the direction the traveler should turn, and slides forward to show how far in that direction the user should move. Once it's ready for the next directional step, the top piece slides back into its original place. “The idea is that it relies only on the sense of touch,” Spiers said. Spiers opted out of using vibrations or sounds as they can quickly become distracting for visually impaired individuals, especially in a big city where pedestrians are constantly bombarded by noise.

The project was funded by NESTA, an independent charity organization in the United Kingdom. To test out his product, Spiers partnered with the British theater company Extant, and adapted a version of Flatland--a satirical novel about a fictional two-dimensional world--around the Animotus device. Audience members, both sighted and visually impaired participants, became the actors and were guided around a pitch-dark stage (which happened to be the inside of an old church). They followed the Animotus device’s instructions to reach various destinations. In addition, participants listened to other actors read the narrative and heard sound effects that told the rest of the story. By the end of the play, participants became so comfortable with their Animotus devices that they didn't want to give them up, said Spiers. "It was quite endearing for me to see them become so attached to to the device."

The current version of Animotus works with wireless location sensors mounted on the walls of the space where it operates. The ideal next step, according to Spiers, will be to enable it to connect to smart phones and other GPS devices so that it can be used as an alternative to staring at a screen to find a new location. He also hopes to see how the device works when used in the middle of a busy street as well as with different terrains, such as a hiker using it to find her way. While the Animotus is still far from mass production, Spiers envisions the tool as an easier way for both visually impaired and sighted individuals to find their way.

Join Jeff and Pete as they chat with Blind Joe following his historic debut on the Get to know Joe, his family, his music and the behind-the-scenes experience on the set of the NBC blockbuster, The voice. Join Joe as his journey continues to the next phase of the competition, the Battle Round! Good luck Joe! #BlindAbilities #BlindJoe #Music #TheVoice #GoBlindJoe!2015 season of The voice.

You can follow @MoeLucie on Twitter and on AudioBoom.

STEM #chemistry#Blind#Accessibility in this post I describe The periodic table from a blindness perspective. #chemistry

FashionInsights brings to us Episode 4: Putting an Outfit Together. Join @SibbyMeade as she describes her process for putting a typical outfit together with a Blindness perspective.

BATeenCast is produced by Blind Abilities for State Services for the Blind of Minnesota. You can find out mor about State Services, and what they provide, on the web at www.MNSSB.org

You can find more podcast pertaining to a Blindness Perspective at www.BlindAbilities.com and on Audioboom at Blind Abilities Channel, Radio Talking book and right here on BA Teen Cast. Http://www.AudioBoom.com/channels/TeenCast

{Music}

Nine essential tips for working with people who are blind

http://www.perkins.org/stories/blog/nine-essential-tips-for-working-with-people-who-are-blind

August 31, 2015 By JIM DENHAM

With more people who are visually impaired in today’s workforce, following these simple do’s and don'ts is smart business etiquette

Documents with highly stylized typefaces can be difficult for people with low vision to read. Instead, use easy-to-read fonts like Helvetica or Arial.

It’s not difficult to work with people who are blind. In fact, if you have coworkers who are visually impaired, or if your job takes you to companies with employees who are blind, following some simple guidelines will make your interactions more respectful and productive. While some of these suggestions may seem like basic common sense, others may not be so obvious. DO identify yourself when initiating a conversation. You shouldn’t assume the person will recognize your voice. Just as you identify yourself when conducting a phone conversation, it’s helpful to quickly identify yourself when speaking to someone who is visually impaired. You don’t need to formally introduce yourself each time. A quick, "Hi there, it’s Mary" is usually just fine. Similarly, when working with a group, it’s often helpful to go around the room and have everyone state their names so the individual who is blind knows who’s attending the meeting. DON’T censor your language when speaking to individuals with disabilities. It’s perfectly okay to use words like watch, look and see when talking to someone who is blind. For example, asking, "Did you see that show last night?" won’t offend most individuals who are blind. DO describe the layout of large rooms. When entering a meeting or conference room with someone who is blind or visually impaired, a brief description of how the furniture is arranged can make it easier for that person to navigate his or her surroundings. Generally, an extended description is not needed. A description such as “The table is U-shaped and we’re at the open end” or “The room is set up classroom style” works well. DON’T be afraid to ask questions. If you’re curious about the technology a person is using or if you want to know what they can or can’t see, don't be afraid to ask. Most people with a disability would rather have you ask questions than just make assumptions. DO give a verbal indication when you walk away from a conversation or leave the room. If the individual to whom you’re speaking can’t see you, they may not know you walked away. A quick word that you need to leave will eliminate any awkward moments. DON’T speak to or touch a guide dog. These dogs are working, and touching them or talking to them may distract them from their job. This could potentially result in injury to the individual being guided. Even if a dog is at rest, ask the owner for permission before petting the dog. DO provide electronic copies of materials you’ll be handing out in hard-copy form or presenting via PowerPoint prior to a meeting. This gives staff with disabilities the opportunity to load the documents onto their computer or other device and print them in an accessible format, or listen to them in auditory format. Providing copies ahead of time is simple courtesy. Just as you would never give a handout to all the tall people in the audience and tell anybody below 5'10" you’ll send them a copy later, don’t make people who are visually impaired be the last in line to receive essential information. DON’T use highly stylized typefaces. When preparing documents, avoid using stylized or graphical fonts, as these can be difficult for individuals with low vision to read. Instead, use easy-to-read, sans-serif fonts with clearly defined letters and clear spacing between the letters, such as Helvetica, Verdana or Arial. DO add alternative text tags to graphics. If you insert a graphic or photograph into your PowerPoint presentation, Word docu...

{Music Intro}

Wearable technology is redefining what it means to be disabled by David Z. Morris @davidzmorris FEBRUARY 10, 2015, 9:05 AM EDT

The meaning of “disabled” is changing as people adopt wearable devices and move into a bionic future. The visually impaired have used canes to navigate for most of recorded history, but the white version we’re familiar with was born in early 20th century Paris. Guilly d’Herbemont lived above a street frequented by blind pedestrians, regularly witnessing their peril in an era when automobiles were common but crosswalks a novelty. By 1931, she had come up with the idea of establishing a bold white cane as a protective symbol and navigational tool for the blind, and distributed more than 5,000 of them at her own expense. The idea had spread internationally within two years. Tech developer Krispian Lawrence hopes to build on d’Herbemont’s legacy. Lawrence lives in India, which he says has “the unfortunate distinction of being the blind capital of the world,” and he sees both the strengths and drawbacks of the white cane. “The cane has social significance. At the same time, it has two major defects: it can’t [guide] you from one place to another, and it can’t orient you.” Lawrence is CEO of Ducere Technologies, which he co-founded with Anirudh Sharma in 2011. The company is about to release its first products under the brand Lechal (Hindi for “Take me there”): footwear that will supplement the white cane by providing navigation and safety information through vibrations in the wearer’s feet.

Since starting the company, Lawrence and his team have discovered that their product appeals to a variety of people. When the Lechal shoes and insoles become available later this year (for about $150), they will include features that will help runners monitor their pace, outdoorsmen map new trails, and tourists navigate unknown cities, all without burying their faces in a smartphone. This broader spectrum of users benefit from the haptic interface and motion commands that make Lechal intuitive for the blind. Lechal is just one example of how wearable tech is eroding the boundaries between assistive technology and the consumer technology market. As interfaces get more creative and sensors get more powerful, people with all types of bodies will be drawn to technology that enhances senses, monitors health, and eases interactions with the environment. As they become more and more a part of everyday life, these devices may shift our views on bodies and their limitations. The developers at Soundhawk have planted their flag on that blurring line. Soundhawk is an in-ear device to enhance hearing—but don’t call it a hearing aid. The company’s founders and executives include audiologists who have seen plenty of patients experience difficulty hearing in certain situations even though they display no measurable sign of hearing loss. Soundhawk is based on the same technology built into high-end hearing aids, but it’s targeted at this technically unimpaired group. “We’re taking a product away from the idea of being a hearing assistive device for people who have a problem,” says Drew Dundas, the company’s chief science officer, “to being a performance enhancement for people to improve their quality of life.” To target these users, Soundhawk is trying to distance itself from the stigma of hearing aids as signs of aging and infirmity. In part, they’re doing this by marketing the device directly to consumers, rather than through doctors. Soundhawk has also bucked the trend toward invisibility in hearing aids, instead releasing a device that resembles a hands-free headset—a design less likely to mark the user as impaired than even the most discreet in-ear hearing aid. Similarly, while Lechal offers invisible insoles, its shoe product is flashy, a bet that today’s users are unembarrassed about showing off their enhancements. Watch more the latest in tech news from Fortune’s video team:

The assis...

{Music} {Short Video Caption} collaborative robots help researchers see a better future for the blind August 28, 2015 in baxter in the lab by Sue Sokoloski It’s been said that technology can create class divides, but M. Bernardine Dias, founder of the TechBridgeWorld research group at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute, sees technology playing a more uniting role. Dias’ vision is evident in TechBridgeWorld’s latest research project, a program that explores how collaborative robots can help the blind navigate urban environments.

In collaboration with the blind community in Pittsburgh, the researchers are exploring ways that the Baxter Research Robot can enable those with impaired vision to accomplish tasks that are easily taken for granted, such as distinguishing between two colors of bus tickets or understanding directions through physical gestures. Eventually, the researchers would like to create a mobile robot that helps blind people find Baxters located throughout the city. The goals of the program? To provide visually impaired people with the ability to be more independent, and to expand the opportunities for human-robot interaction to the blind community. Are you using a Baxter robot in your facility? We want to hear your story. Tell us about it in the Rethink Robotics Video Challenge for a chance to put your research in the spotlight and win a Baxter robot. {Continuation of Video Caption} {Music} This blog can be found at RothinkRobotics.com {Music}

BATeenCast Channel Presents Christopher Meyer, a Blind college student taking on the challenges of the higher expectations those he surrounds himself with and pushing forward through his determination and experiences. Not only is what he has learned from his journey through high school, Blind Inc. and his year in college, he has gained a vast amount of future resources in the fellowship he took on in Germany. Join Lori Thompson from the Blind Abilities Teen Cast team as she chats to Christopher about his transition years and what he has gained through the experiences. BA Teen Cast is produced by Blind Abilities for State Services for the Blind of Minnesota. You can find out more about State Services and what they have to offer at www.MNSSB.org

You can find more topics and information regarding Blindness and Vision Loss at www.BlindAbilities.com

Welcome to another Episode of Fashion Insights. In Episode 3 Sibby Meade talks about choosing the right makeup colors for skintone. This episode covers pale skin. Follow Sibby on Twitter @sibbyMeade and on AudioBoom at FashionInsights.

Pete Lane chats with Mark Jones of the Walt Disney Company about the various accommodations available to blind and visually impaired Guests at Disney Theme Parks, including braille Guide books and maps. However, the primary focus of the interview is the Disney Hand-held Audio Description Device currently offered in the Disney Land Resort in California and Walt Disney World in Florida. The device is convenient, provides outstanding detailed description and is free to anyone who wishes to use it. But this podcast offers much more than talk: Pete had tons of fun adding audio from Disney attractions all over the world, including your favorite tunes, sound from fireworks shows and parades, and excerpts from the actual audio description device that is used at the parks. Pete managed to secure an excerpt from the never-before heard audio description of the brand new Paint The Night Parade which celebrates the 60th Anniversary of the Disney Land Resort. So join Pete as he celebrates the sights, colors, sound, music and yes, the Magic of Disney! #BlindAbilities #BACast #Disney #AudioDescription #Lane7625

Blind Abilities presents an in depth interview with Douglas Walker and Larry Muffett from the Hadley School For The blind. Join us as we talk to the voices of Hadley seminars and learn about all the offerings and activity happening at the Hadley School for the Blind. The Hadley School Web Site is: http://www.hadley.edu

{Music} Blind Abilities presents: From the Pocket, a series where we bring you articles from the web using an app called Pocket which extracts the text and then seamlessly play back on the Voice Dream app. Today we bring you and article about Blind Folding Sighted People and does it help? {Music}

Blindfolding People Doesn't Help Them Understand Blind People

Written by BEN RICHMOND CONTRIBUTING EDITOR January 15, 2015 // 06:00 AM EST Sometimes walking a mile in someone else's shoes just puts you a mile further away from understanding his or her experience, or so a study out of the University of Colorado-Boulder could lead you to believe. Researchers there found that people who experienced simulated blindness were then more likely to perceive the blind as less capable of functioning independently.

“Disability activists have long argued that simulations give a falsely negative view of disability,” the study's lead author, Arielle Silverman, told me.

Silverman, a PhD candidate at CU-Boulder's Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, is blind. She had noticed that people who've never met a blind person tended to have better attitudes towards blind people than those who said they've interacted with blind people. She wasn't surprised when the study found that people who wore blindfolds as part of a simulation came away with worse attitudes towards those with disability than those who weren't blindfolded.

More than 100 college students participated in the study. Some were blindfolded and asked to perform tasks like walking across a room or down a hallway, fill a glass from a water pitcher with a closed spout, or sort coins.

Silverman told me that after the study, 53 percent of blindfolded participants rated blind people as less able to live independently than sighted people, compared with 34 percent of those who were not blindfolded.

Being blindfolded led subjects to believe that blind people can't do tasks as well “Participants' attitudes were harmed because the blindfolded experience led them to believe that blind people cannot perform activities as well as people with normal vision,” Silverman said. “While all participants tended to have this belief, it was more intense among the participants who had just simulated blindness.”

It's more than just a matter of snide or condescending attitudes. There's a discriminatory element at work here that the growth of enabling technologies throws into relief. Assistive technology that allows people with visual impairments to use a computer, which is pretty much the essential skill for a good number of jobs, is now available off the shelf.

“Blind people still experience discrimination in many jobs even though technologies and techniques now exist to allow people to perform well in those jobs without sight,” Silverman said. “For example, a blind person can be an elementary school teacher quite effectively in partnership with an assistant to help with written work. However, many blind people who apply to become teachers are dismissed out of hand because they cannot see.”

“Similarly, simulation participants thought a blind person would be less able to live on their own (even though hundreds of blind people live independently or head families), and this belief could contribute to custodial forms of discrimination.”

I have a distinct memory of my sister and I leading each other around wearing blindfolds and claiming that we were learning what it was like to be blind, which makes sense, enough, for children to do. What's weird is that “blindness simulations” are still used as educational tools, Silverman told me, even used to train teachers and professionals who will work with people visual impairments. Not only is there a lack of evidence that they benefit relations between people with and without disabilities, there's now evidence that they do the opposite.

“I would urge anyone considering running a simulation to first seek feedback and collaborat...

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. I’m Stuart Holland. (music) Ode to the Code How One Student Came to Love Braille by Kaitlin Shelton This originally appeared in Future Reflections, Volume 34, number 1.

Today I am an avid Braille reader. I love reading novels on my BrailleSense or in hard copy, and I can't imagine life without literacy. Some would say I'm even a bit too stern about Braille. I tend to avoid other forms of reading such as audiobooks and live readers, since a part of me considers using those methods of reading to be cheating. You really can't replace Braille and the independence that comes along with it. From the way I talk, you're probably assuming that I've had a Braille-filled childhood and parents who fought long and hard to secure the privileges of reading for me, but that wasn't the case. One day in pre-K I was pulled out of class by a woman from the county for an assessment. We sat in the hall, and she introduced me to the Perkins Brailler for the first time. We Brailled a few letters, and I was starting to get the hang of it, but she took me back to class, and I never saw her again. County officials determined that I saw well enough that reading Braille might not be my best option. When I was sent along to kindergarten, my parents had the notion in their heads that I would read large print. Kindergarten came and went, and I started first grade in the fall of 2000. My teacher, a creative and wonderful woman named Mrs. Murphy, noticed right from the start that there were a few problems with my academic performance. For one thing, I could read print, but it was painfully slow and tedious. Since I have nystagmus and a very small focus in the one eye that has vision, I had to scan each letter individually before I could identify the word I was reading. I was also missing out on a lot of the incidental learning that the sighted students gained from seeing things such as alphabet posters, number charts, and other visuals on the walls of the classroom. Mrs. Murphy decided that this needed to change. She researched the problem and decided that it was time for me to switch from reading print to reading Braille. This idea terrified my parents, especially my mother. She had been told that, since her child had vision, everything should be done to allow that vision to be used, and that using it would help me be more like my peers. In a roundabout way she had been told that reading anything other than print would make me look blind. Under these conditions, she was against the idea of my learning Braille. She thought, "Who does this teacher think she is?" But Mrs. Murphy followed her instinct and fought for me to learn Braille. She sat my mom down and told her that I was a bright student; there was no reason for me to be reading below grade level and falling behind my peers if it didn't have to be that way. She explained that for me Braille would be the great equalizer. The books would grow longer and more complex, I'd be expected to read more for my classes, and without Braille I would continue to function at a lower level than my sighted classmates. She also made the point that the doctors had no idea how long I would have usable vision, and that it would be much harder for me to learn Braille as a middle school or high school student than it would be at six years old, when reading instruction was part of the curriculum. My mom finally agreed that I should start learning Braille, and my instruction began. But that wasn't the half of my struggle to become Braille literate. By that time the idea that reading print was what made me the same as my friends had already wedged its way into my six-year-old brain. When they took away my books that had pictures on the covers and looked just like everyone else's, I was a...

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. I’m Stuart Holland. (music) Librarylyna:  Bringing 3D Printing into the Classroom by Kevin Yang This article originally appeared in Future Reflections, Volume 34, Number 1. My name is Kevin. I am seventeen, and my dad has been blind for sixteen years. As a child, I was always accompanied by my dad—running around the house playing hide and seek, banging random keys on the piano, and putting on puppet shows. I forced him to listen to my comedy stand-ups, which actually were just stand-ups, minus the comedy. I couldn't have asked for more. My dad has a PhD in material science and is working to create a full-page Braille display. In 2003 he developed a novel idea for creating cheaper and more efficient refreshable Braille cells. With the help of my mom, he created a very large scale model based on his Braille cell idea. I was only six at the time, and for me it was like getting a new toy. However, the implications of that first 3D model symbolized the disparities between my father and me. It was clear to me that my mom could translate my father's words into a physical 3D object, but I could not. When my dad tried to describe his sophisticated idea to my six-year-old mind, all I heard was gibberish. It was incredible to me how my mom was able to understand. Years later, as a temperamental fifteen-year-old, I found that describing 3D concepts with mere words left much to be desired. Information is almost always lost in the translation, and this frustrated me to no end. I had many ideas for improving upon my dad's current designs. Verbally I tried to explain how this was that and that would do this. My dad didn't get it. Granted, sometimes I didn't even get what I was trying to say myself! Even with the help of tactile graphics, I still was not able to describe to him accurately what I was thinking. It was my dad's turn to feel confused. What we needed was what we had years ago--a 3D model. The 3D model of the Braille cell my mom built not only showed me what my dad was thinking; it also allowed my mom to show my dad how certain parts of the cell might need rehashing. Our solution to the issue of communicating 3D concepts was to create 3D models of them. As a result, I took up 3D modeling. Although the learning process took some time, 3D modeling opened up many doors. It facilitated the transfer of my ideas into computer-aided designs. With the help of 3D printing services, my ideas turned into real, holdable, physical objects. The first time my dad felt a 3D model of one of my ideas, his eyes actually seemed to brighten. With a touch, he understood what I had in vain been trying to describe with words. Fast forward to 2014. The topic of 3D models came up casually at a family dinner in January. We wondered if there was any website or service that used 3D printing to create tactile materials for blind students. After dinner we Googled the topic, and sadly found out that no such site existed. To us this was shocking news. With dropping prices for 3D printers and a growing number of 3D designers, a website tailored to educational 3D models ought to exist. Just as quickly as Google returned the dismal results, LibraryLyna was founded. With our experience from 3D modeling Braille cell concepts, my father and I began working on a 3D printing hub for teachers and blind students. We designed LibraryLyna with accessibility in mind, from the screen-reader accessible framework to menus that are split into logical categories and metadata descriptions of models to give an idea of what might be expected from a print. Moreover, all models available have been handpicked to guarantee high quality. And there are no distracting ads; the website is completely funded by users through donations. Since January ...

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. I’m Stuart Holland. (music) Judo Girl by Sara Luna This article originally appeared in Future Reflections, Volume 34, number 2. Throughout my life my friends and family have known me for many different talents and interests. Today I am best known by the moniker Judo Girl, a designation that makes me happy and proud. Judo is a Japanese sport that consists of throws, pens, and submissions. It is sometimes confused with karate or tae kwon do because of the similar uniforms we wear. Next to soccer, judo is the second most widely played sport in the world. Every day judo touches the lives of millions of people, and it has transformed my life for the better. Judo is one of the few sports that is played in both the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The only specific difference between Paralympic and Olympic judo is the position of the players at the start of a match. In Olympic judo with sighted players, the players begin their match standing ten feet apart on the mat, and they need to fight for their grips. In Paralympic judo, players who are blind or visually impaired begin their matches at the center of the mat. Opponents can start the match having physical contact with one another. If at any time during the match the players lose total physical contact, they will be brought back to the center of the mat so they can regain their contact, and the match will begin again. I experienced judo for the first time on January 9, 2010, when I was twelve years old. More than five years later I still remember the precise date because the experience had such an impact on my life. That day I met a staff of teachers and coaches who loved what they were doing. I could tell that they cherished every moment they spent teaching judo. Later I grew to refer to these people as my judo family. I decided to try judo because all of my friends were getting involved in it. I was intrigued by the idea of throwing someone around. For the first time, on that cold January day, I had the chance to participate fully in a sport that I thought would be fun. Before I started judo, most of the people around me thought of me as a fragile blind girl. I was never allowed to participate in gym class at school because my teachers were afraid I would get hurt. Judo was a completely different story! Sure, some people I knew were still a bit concerned for my safety. For some reason, though, they thought judo was an acceptable sport for me to practice. That meant the world to me! The first time I threw someone, I felt strong and empowered. I was not aware of it at the time, but that was definitely the point when I started to shed my status as the fragile blind girl. When I started in judo, I was not a confident person. I was pretty insecure, and I did not believe in myself. One person helped me change all that, my sensei, or teacher, Bret Wolf. During class he often told me that he believed in me and that I could be a champion some day. I felt he was the first adult in my life who genuinely believed in me without patronizing me. Because he believed in me, I began to believe in myself. As my confidence grew, other people began to believe in me, too. I cannot think of any more appropriate word to describe the people I train with than family. Throughout my five years in judo, I have built a bond with the people at my dojo, or training center, that is stronger than anything else I have ever felt. My senseis are some of my best friends, and I think of my training partners as brothers and sisters. We all learn from each other and laugh together like any other family. I have built a particular bond with one of my training partners. Her name also happens to be Sarah (with an h), and she is sighted. Though we accidentally have pulled each other...

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. I’m Stuart Holland. (music) Cheering Blind by Deja Powell This is the first part of an article that appeared originally in Future Reflections, Volume 34, number 2. Recently I received an email from a young woman who has ambitions of trying out for her high school's cheerleading squad. She wanted to know if it was possible for someone like her, who is blind, to be a cheerleader. Her desire to be a cheerleader hit close to home. I had the same aspiration when I was in high school. I grew up in Salt Lake City and have been blind since birth. When I entered high school I was quite shy. I was thrilled to be out of junior high and on to bigger and better things, but I lacked confidence and struggled to accept my blindness. Like any teenager, I was trying to figure out who I was, where I fit in, and what my goals and dreams really were. I was confused about a lot of things, but I knew one thing for sure. I knew I wanted to be involved in everything high school had to offer. Determined to build my confidence, I set a personal goal to step up and step out. My mom is a dance teacher, and I started dancing when I was two years old. I loved every style and every minute of it! For as long as I could remember, the thing I wanted to do most in high school was dance. Much to my dismay, things didn't go as I had hoped. I didn't make the drill team or the dance company. I was crushed! I wanted it more than I'd wanted anything to that point in my life. I knew I could be a dancer; my mom had always told me and shown me I could do it. What now? I still had to reach my goal of getting involved. I have always loved sports. I love the thrill of the game, I love being part of a team, and I wanted to be involved with my school. What better way to be involved and support my school's teams than becoming a cheerleader? I loved the idea of cheerleading, but I honestly couldn't understand how I could do it. I had never met nor heard of another blind cheerleader, and I sincerely doubted it was possible for a blind person to meet such a set of challenges. How could a blind person follow a game, learn cheer movements, find the proper place in group routines, do stunts, execute jumps, or stay in sync? The list went on and on. Even if I actually made the cheering squad, I would have to tell my advisors that I was blind (or rather, that I had a vision problem, which is how I worded it back then). That scared me more than stunting or performing. I had become very good at keeping my blindness a secret. I didn't use a cane or read Braille, and I was quite talented at pretending I could see things that I really couldn't. I expressed my concerns about cheerleading to my mom, and she told me that I just needed to try out. She assured me that we would figure it all out when the time came. Nevertheless, my doubts got the upper hand. I canceled all my plans to try out for the cheerleading squad. My fears were just too much. However, my mom was not having it. She reminded me that I said I wanted to be a cheerleader; at least I had to give it a try. She's a smart mom! I cried myself to sleep the night before the tryouts, but I did try out, and I made it! I did sophomore cheerleading in tenth grade, and then I made the varsity squad my junior and senior years. But how did we make it work? I say we, because it really did take a whole team effort. My coaches and my squad quickly learned to adapt things to make cheerleading possible for me. My coaches showed me the moves by placing my arms in the correct positions, and I quickly learned the names for the various cheer maneuvers. High V, low V, T, half T, herkies, toe touches, stag jumps, high kicks, and hurdles—I learned them all. My learning process was very much hands-on. Fortunate...

Sibby from #FashionInsight explains her passion and gives a big Thank You to all her fans :) and appreciates the support and encouragement she has received from everyone.

Sibby goes through 15 steps for applying make-up in the 2nd episode of Fashion Insight

SibbyMeade demonstrates her techniques on applying make-up from a totally blind perspective. Join her as she does a basic application process and stay tuned for more Fashion Insights on the Blind Abilities Teen Cast Channel. You can also find the BA Teen Cast productions on Http://www.Blindabilities.com BA Teen Cast is produced for State Services for the Blind of Minnesota and you can find out more about State Services at Http://www.MNSSB.gov (Text transcript will be posted soon)

(Transcript Coming) As part of the 25th Anniversary of the ADA, American's with Disabilities Act, Mark Erickson, A Native American and Orientation and Mobility Instructor at Blind, Inc. talks about his Native Drumming and his passion for his Native music and history.

{Music Intro} Blind Abilities Presents: A BA Teen Cast And today we have George Wurtzel a former resident of Minnesota who now resides in the Napa Valley area of California and is a leader at a camp for youth and Parents of Blind children. We hope you enjoy.

Craftsman's blindness doesn't hinder his woodworking vision

Written by BARRY EBERLING beberling@napanews.com NapaValleyRegister.com Published July 10, 2015 5:00 pm • At the top of the article there is a picture of George Wurtzel walking across the camp property using a cane, wearing bib-overalls and a straw hat. The picture is captioned: George Wurtzel, construction manager at Enchanted Hills Camp for the Blind and Visually Impaired, walks on the property earlier this week. He is in charge of building a workshop area where campers will learn pottery, woodworking and leather craft skills

The article reads:

George Wurtzel carves exquisite wood creations using his mind and his hands, but not his sight. He has no choice. He is totally blind, a fact that to him seems to be an asterisk on an impressive body of work and accomplishments that speak for themselves. Wurtzel is construction manager at Enchanted Hills Camp for the Blind and Visually Impaired in the Mayacamas Mountains west of the city of Napa. He’s renovating a barn there, uses ladders and power tools, and in his spare time creates wood crafts that recently were displayed at the Museum for Contemporary Art in Detroit. “It’s not the eyeballs that do the work, it’s your hands and brain that do the work,” said Wurtzel, a husky man with a graying beard who on this recent day wore overalls and a straw hat. Wurtzel employs mental muscles that in sighted people might be lax. He has a sense of spatial relationships, allowing him to help create a two-and-a-half mile trail at this camp along mountain slopes that spill down to the Napa Valley. “I don’t know exactly how I know it, but it’s in my head,” Wurtzel said as he sat on the deck of his camp residence.

{Sound of skill saw cutting wood}

Wurtzel’s “about me” section on his website relates how he started building things in elementary school and opened a millwork shop in Traverse City, Michigan. It describes the Craftsman-style furniture he creates that fit together like a puzzle without screws, wood fasteners or glue. His blindness? He doesn’t mention that in this brief autobiography. He is simply George Wurtzel, woodworker and craftsman. On the other hand, he doesn’t shy away from talking about his blindness, often punctuating his stories with a laugh. He mentioned how as a child he ran into the mailman while riding a bicycle. The mailman told his mother to lock up the bike to keep it away from her blind son. His mother replied that she did, but that young Wurtzel found the bolt cutters.

{Sound of Chain hitting the ground}

Growing up on his family farm in Michigan, it was all hands on deck, and that included Wurtzel. He pitched in doing such chores as milking the cows. “If you could work, breathe and move on a farm, there was something you could do,” Wurtzel said. His parents didn’t tell him he couldn’t do things because of his blindness, so Wurtzel did them. He became an auto mechanic and worked on Volkswagen engines, though he didn’t stick with it.

{Sound of engine starting and reving}

“I didn’t like how greasy and grimy you get,” Wurtzel said. Woodworking turned out to be his life’s calling. He’s worked as a contractor, started a business that made triangular boxes for veterans’ internment flags, and had a storefront workshop in Minneapolis. He came to Enchanted Hills a few months ago. Wurzel said with a laugh that the camp approached him when it was minus 6 degrees in Minnesota, making for an easy decision. His chores include turning an aging, 1922 barn with corrugated metal siding into studios for leatherwork, sculpturing and other work. After that, he is to create seating for an amphitheater. He is to teach skill...

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The following article is from the July 2015 Edition of the Braille Monitor. And you can find the Braille Monitor at NFB.Org Landing among the Stars: When Teachers and Students Work Together. By Chelsea Cook

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Landing Among the Stars: When Teachers and Student Work Together by Chelsea Cook

From the Editor: Lately articles in the Monitor about education have been about difficulties getting class materials in accessible formats. We were thrilled to hear from Chelsea about a positive university experience, especially in a challenging degree program like physics. Chelsea is an active member of the National Federation of the Blind of Virginia and of the Writers Division. Chelsea was a 2010 scholarship winner, and she has this to say about her experiences pursuing her physics degree: It was a rainy Friday evening—Halloween, in fact—and I was waiting for the bus to take me home, though I was not going to get ready for a party or put on a costume. I was not scared or disheartened by the weather but filled with adrenaline and optimism. I was heading straight to my computer to code an orbital mechanics problem. Getting to this point had not been easy; in fact, getting into this course had not been easy. In a basic space survey course in my freshman year, my favorite part had been the material on rockets: velocities, launch times, and the way payloads moved once in orbit. I loved the mathematical treatment and knew I wanted to investigate further. Someone said, "If you want to go deeper, study orbital mechanics." I remembered that phrase and continued with my physics degree. I kept checking the class schedule, but I always had a scheduling conflict and prerequisites I hadn't taken yet. The semester before my senior year I thought, if I wanted to take this mystical astromechanics course, I'd better get serious about it. I examined the prerequisites, and, although I hadn't taken the prescribed courses, I was well into my physics program and had mastered similar material. With the blessing of the Aerospace Department head, I was allowed to enroll. Working with a new department on campus always fills me with some trepidation, but it turned out the instructor and I were a perfect match. He and I had the same learning style (visual/tactile), so he was able to spot areas in coursework where I might have trouble with a concept. Anticipating these, he would come up with solutions before I even knew there were problems. These solutions were often low-tech, demonstrating that keeping things simple is often valuable. Since English was not his first language, he wanted a way to communicate with me that would work well for both of us, and it turned out that tactile models were the key. He could use simpler vocabulary and have my hand exploring the model at the same time. What a winning combination. The first model he made consisted of two pieces of cardboard taped together. Since satellite trajectories are naturally in three dimensions, having a model mimicking reality was crucial. The cardboard was oriented to simulate the two planes of a spacecraft's orbit, and creases in the material represented different vectors between important points. Most of this model-exploring was done during office hours, which came to be a sacred time for me. When the class began, my instructor initially thought that reading the equations aloud in class would be sufficient. When he realized this would take much more time, he needed another approach, so office hours worked to fill in the gaps. I had Braille notes, so I could follow along in class easily enough, but he said it was his "duty to teach you and the class the whole syllabus." Taking that to heart, he was receptive to my many inquiries, which often took us on interesting journeys outside of class and through the world of academia. In one session we could go from discussing course problems to pure geometry to real applications of spaceflight to how those applications were imp...

Erinn Pwns tells her story from age 18 to 21 as she went from high school to a training school and on to college. She also went abroad learning and working. Below you will find a full text transcription of the podcast. You can follow Erinn @ErinnPwns on both twitter and Audioboom.

BA Cast: Erinn Pwns: Making It Happen - Transition from High School to College to Abroad.

{Music Intro} Blind Abilities presents Erinn Pwns. Making it happen. Her transition stage from high school to college and on. Hi, my name is Erinn, at the time of this recording I am in my mid-twenties and I live in Michigan. I was born totally blind with the exception of light perception. And the topic is regarding the transition period of time for the visually impaired from 18 to 21 years of age. So, I am here to share a little bit about my experiences during that period of my life.

So, the summer before I graduated high school, I knew that I wasn’t going to be going to college right away, because it was agreed that I needed training on quote unquote “skills of blindness.”. I didn’t do as much as I should of in my house as I should have so, that is a fault. And I was really upset at first because taking a year off was going to put me behind everybody else. And so, I just want to say kind of get use to that idea if you need it because it was really helpful for me. So don’t get down on that or let others look down on you. And yeah, just take the year off if you need it. After I graduated from high school and had my open house and all that, I went about 45 minutes away from where I live to a training center individuals who are blind. I had to take mobility, computer and cooking classes and other things for them to see where I was at in those areas. And once it came time, I took an assessment to see if I passed or failed as far as being college or life ready in all the areas. I did pass and did apartment training. They had like two apartments in the buildings so two people could do it at a time. And you had to cook your own meals, do your laundry. One time at a laundry mat and take out your own garbage and all that. And in the end cook a meal for ten people. Some people you invite from the center. So I did that and it went well. And I also met some really good friends that I still speak to today. So, it wasn’t a bad year. I was also a volunteer receptionist in the building and I was paid. And an department on a campus near by. I also started dating someone at that time. And, we are not dating any more, but the point that I want to make is that he lived on the other side of the sate and so I took a train for the first time. It really pushed me to travel and to be more independent, because I was doing something I wanted to do instead of something I was told to do that benefitted me. So, after i left there, before I went to college, the following fall, I did their college prep program for visually impaired individuals about to go to college. Where you go to take a class, you have a job on campus, and you have to go to some workshops regarding time management and other things. It’s um hosted at a University nearby the same place I worked before as a receptionist. And so their disability office comes and talks and everything about accommodations. So that was I think a thirteen week thing and after that I was ready to go to college. So, I attended Hope College.I was a Spanish major. I lived in the dorm for the first couple of semesters then I moved to an apartment. So, again I had to go to the store to get my food and really live with my roommates... kind of. I guess learning to live around not just other people, but, sighted people who sometimes forget to put stuff back where they found it, or just generally like sharing that small space with four other girls. And then during a couple of the summers, in between my college years, I stayed in that college town, because where I am from there weren’t any busses. So, I wanted to be able to...

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The following podcast was produced for customers of Minnesota State Services for the Blind. You can find out more about State Services and what they can offer at www.MNSSB.com

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Braille is not dead. (So Stop Trying To Kill It) A post by Megan. You can follow Megan’s Blog at WheresYourDog.WordPress.com {Music}

Braille Is Not Dead (So Stop Trying To Kill It)

I’ve heard the case against braille books, and I agree with all of it. Braille books are bulky, because the braille alphabet is oversized compared to print letters. They aren’t terribly common, as the market for them is so small. They are incredibly expensive to make, so most of us don’t own our own books. We usually end up borrowing them from special libraries and resource centres. Braille is inconvenient: all throughout junior high and high school, my backpack weighed somewhere in the neighbourhood of 25 pounds, because it was crammed full of volumes and volumes of braille. If I also had to carry my laptop case, braille notetaker, and/or my Perkins Brailler, I’d be carrying something like forty pounds of equipment and books back and forth every day. That’s a third of my body weight, and I am quite sure some of the neck and back issues I suffer from began with all those books. Then, there’s the multiple volume problem: most braille textbooks (and longer leisure reading books) are in multiple volumes because of braille’s bulk. My first braille dictionary (and last—I never got another one) was twenty-five volumes in length. My high school chemistry book, which was also stuffed with tactile diagrams, was 53 volumes long. Each volume only contained the equivalent of 20 or so print pages, so I would sometimes run back and forth during class to fetch the next volume of braille. When I had chemistry or math homework, I’d have to carry several volumes of braille, instead of just two books like every other student. It was a nightmare, especially when I’d miscalculate and bring the wrong volumes home with me. If you ask my parents, they’ll tell you about all the times I came home distraught, because I’d realized, too late, that I didn’t have the correct volumes with me. Oh, the tears I shed over braille books. So, yes, I know the case against braille, and it’s a valid case. Knowing this, people are then astonished when I declare that braille needs to stick around, inconvenient as it is. People keep insisting that braille is dead. With screen readers and other text-to-speech products, what do we need braille for? Blind bookworms, students, and employees can just sit back, relax, and let their computers read to them. Who really needs to have the actual text in front of them, anyway? Isn’t being read aloud to enough? No, it is not enough—not by a long shot. It’s not enough, because we still deserve to read. It’s not enough, because it’s still nice to be able to pick up a book (or, in some cases, to cuddle up with electronic braille). Most importantly of all, it’s not enough, because blind children still need a literacy tool. They still need to learn to read just like everyone else. Imagine if, when you send your five-year-old to kindergarten, the teachers decide that reading is overrated. Instead, they just read out loud to your child, not letting her see or understand how print works. Now, imagine that the teachers then insist on teaching the child to write, without teaching her to read first. Sure, a child can be taught to type and never have to know how to write by hand, but how can one write if one cannot read? How can a child learn to spell if he doesn’t have access to the ability to read first? Nearly everything I know about language I learned from reading. If you want to be a good writer, you have to watch other writers at work, and this necessitates a lot of reading. Yes, I can still learn by having my computer read a book aloud to me, but I do find that I don’t retain information quite as well just by listening. Not everyone is an au...

The following podcast was created for customers of the Minnesota State Services for the Blind. more information on State Services and what they have to offer can be found at www.MNSSB.org

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I Am Not My Dog, A blog post by Holly and you can follow her posts at CatchTheseWords.com

I Am Not My Dog CatchTheseWords.com

Having a dog can be a good thing. For some, it is a smoother, more effective way of travel. For others the cane is by far the better option. Both are perfectly valid experiences, what works for one blind person doesn’t for another. I have come to loathe the perception that my life must have been awful before getting Isla. I think the media is partly responsible for this, feeding the mentality that guide dogs are always best. Cane users are seen as incompetent, or desperately lonely blind people who must be longing for a dog. That quite simply isn’t true. And just because a person might find guide dog travel better for them doesn’t mean they had no life before getting a dog. I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. I’ll be going to university in September and I’m concerned that people will choose to speak to me because I’m holding onto a very cute looking dog, not because I’m a genuinely interesting person…though that’s debatable I suppose! I know some guide dog owners love the extra attention they receive, they feel like they are connecting with more people and it gives them the opportunity to make friends, however for me it’s been a miserable experience. I would rather two people come up to me directly in a week and ask me about the band shirt I’m wearing and whether I’ve seen them, than 200 who want to know my dogs life story. I’m not my dog and I’m desperately trying to break free of that perception. I’m also not public property, I’m a real girl with feelings who would like to be shown the same basic respect others deserve. To illustrate this, I want to talk about several interactions I’ve had this past week. On Tuesday I went to the dentist, the guy is new and he was very nice to me. However, he didn’t ask me any questions about my life, besides the obligatory medical history. Our brief conversation revolved around my dog, and how I must find things easier now I have her. The problem I find with this isn’t that people ask, it’s how they phrase it. “So, your life must be so much better now you have her.” They aren’t actually asking me if I prefer using a dog or a cane, instead they assume that it is the case. I know people don’t mean it, or probably don’t even think about it. Perhaps it seems like I’m being overly sensitive and it’s a simple issue, however I hear this day in day out. I know that it is how people think, they have this idea that a dog is best for everyone. Canes are seen as your training wheels, after which you progress to a dog. And I always want to tell people no, that isn’t true. But no matter how nicely you explain it many get upset, or even offended. They have this view that a dog is best and telling them no goes against everything they have ever seen in the media. Yes, a person may prefer guide dog travel but that doesn’t mean before they got a dog they sat at home and cried into their pillow. I did however have a very nice talk with a lady who worked in a shop whilst I was looking for a dress to buy. She was far more interested in describing me the dresses and helping me look for them than asking me personal questions. I shouldn’t have to find experiences like this refreshing, but I do. However for the rest of the day most questions I received from shop assistants whilst I was paying involved the following: How old is your dog? Is it a boy or a girl? What’s its name? How long have you had it? Is it your first dog. I don’t mind that people ask exactly, but I always get asked this set of questions. I know people don’t realise that I’ve had to answer them hundreds of times before. It honestly gets tiring and boring, and I wish their attention could b...

Lori and Pete interview Megan Bening, a college student attending Minnesota State studying IT. Megan is Blind/Visually impaired and talks about what works for her as she breaks down the barricades that try to block her from the goals she has set for herself. From the tools she utilizes on a daily basis to the joys of life that puts her out side the typical “comfort zone” that society has expected her to be in, Megan forges forward self-determining and blazing a new path for those coming up behind her. Quite a role model for Transition aged students.

Pete demonstrates the #Audio #Messenger and the settings that let you decide on how long the Audio files stay on your #iPhone #Voiceover #iPhone

Pete demonstrates the Messages Function Native to the #iPhone

Pete demonstrates how he utilizes the #AudioBoom App using #Voiceover on the #IOS platform #iPhone

An example on how I use the Free @Audioboom app using #Voiceover on the #iPhone

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. (music) Experiences For Life, from Future Reflections, a publication of the National Federation of the Blind by Jon Gabry Hello. My name is Jon Gabry. I grew up deaf and blind. I can now see things that are a little bit close up. My parents really encouraged me. I went to school, and it was an hour bus ride to and from. I went to the School for the Deaf in New Jersey. My parents knew how to make a plan for my life. They gave me experiences to learn and prepare for my future. They knew I needed to start building a résumé so that I could show people what I was interested in and what I wanted to participate in. All these experiences helped me make good decisions for the future. In ninth grade I started learning in the transition area. This was a good time to experience many new things. First I was involved in playing sports. I loved it! I played golf with the Mid-Atlantic Blind Golfers Association. I was also in a rock climbing club. I am the only deaf-blind belayer in New Jersey. [Applause] I also belonged to the Junior NAD, National Association of the Deaf. This is a service club. I also learned to play the drums. In 2005 I was a volunteer in the special education summer school in my town. Every day I made photocopies and checked math papers. I helped kids learn swimming. In the summer of 2006 I volunteered to be a custodian in a school in my town. I volunteered there for about two weeks. Later that summer they decided they would give me a job. [Applause] I learned a lot there through the experience and the hard work. I walked to work every day. The people I met were great, and I felt good. But I knew I didn't always want to be a custodian. I liked high school. I liked music and art. I knew I wanted to do college. I wanted to do something with math and art when I got there. When I was a junior in high school, I visited different colleges. I was nervous! I also visited the Helen Keller National Center in Sands Point, New York. It is a vocational training center for people who are deaf-blind. I attended there for two years. My goal was to go to college and to be independent. I enrolled at Nassau Community College, and I learned to use Paratransit. [Paratransit is a service that provides door-to-door transportation for people with disabilities.] I learned to obtain and use interpreting services and other services for disabled students. I learned to get technology and to travel the campus independently. I worked at the credit union, and this was a great experience. I also liked working at Barnes & Noble. That was okay. I worked at Stop and Shop, and I really didn't like that! All these experiences helped me learn more about myself and make better decisions. They also helped me develop my résumé. At the Helen Keller National Center I learned deaf-blind technology, orientation and mobility, communication skills, and independent living skills. I had my own apartment. I cooked, I cleaned, I shopped, and I did my own laundry. I was very responsible for myself. (I did order out a lot.) [Laughter] I met many other people who were deaf-blind. I enjoyed my independence. When I graduated from Helen Keller National Center in 2010, I went home to New Jersey. I wasn't happy about moving back home with my parents. My parents fixed up the third floor of their house, and it's a small apartment for me. I decided to go to Bergen Community College in New Jersey. My transition from high school was at last completed. As a student at Bergen Community College, I travel by Paratransit. I navigate the campus independently. I use interpreters and note-takers in my classes. I am studying math and art. My future goal is to become an architect. I want to design buildings for people who have disabilities. I also work i...

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. (music) How Daring to Believe Changed My Life and How It Can Change Yours, from Future Reflections, a publication of the National Federation of the Blind by Mary Fernandez Reprinted from the Braille Monitor, Volume 57, Number 1, January 2014 I moved around the kitchen, using a measuring cup for the first time to make ice cream. I argued with my peers that we needed to put some caramel in our chocolate ice cream. In a sly move I sneaked up to the ice cream maker and poured in some caramel. When they all tasted it, they said, "Someone put caramel in here," and unknowingly proclaimed my brilliance by repeatedly complimenting the texture of the ice cream. Since we were all under sleepshades during the cooking activity, no one had solid proof that I had been the miscreant who dared put in the caramel. That same weekend I got to use a chainsaw, in heels of course, and for the first time listen to blind adults talk about their lives, their dreams and aspirations, and the ways they had made those dreams and aspirations come true. That was the first weekend I visited the National Federation of the Blind headquarters, and from that weekend forward, I have never looked back. I walked away having seen three things I did not associate with blindness: belief, hope, and passion. “Not a Normal Child” I was born in Colombia, South America, and lived there with my grandmother until the age of seven. My mother left to come to the United States when I was two years old. A year later I became totally blind from glaucoma. As a three-year-old I thought everything in my world was still fine, but then my older brother started going to school. In Colombia parents pay for children to attend school. Since my brother was sighted and I wasn't, he had priority. I remember that I went to school for about a week, but since the teachers didn't really know how to teach a blind child, I was declared unteachable. In the meantime, I was taken to what seemed to be every eye doctor in the country. I despised eye doctors! All they kept saying was, "This girl is blind. She needs to sit around all day. You shouldn't be running around, little girl; you're blind." Then to my grandmother they would explain how I wasn't a normal child because of my blindness. I didn't know how to verbalize to these adults that that wasn't right. I couldn't see, but I wanted to know things. I wanted to explore the world around me, and why did my brother get to do those things, and I didn't? What made me so different from other children? Resistance and Discovery Finally, when I was seven years old, my mother came back to Colombia to bring us to the US. When I came to America, I knew no English, had had very little interaction with children my age, had very poor social skills with people outside my family, had never attended school for longer than a week, and had the unhealthiest and most negative attitudes about blindness. When I first started school, I was terrified; I did not know how to act with children my age. And, to top it all off, some old man came by and put a cane in my hand and told me I had to walk around with it. I was like, "Sure, in your dreams, Dude," and promptly dropped the cane on the floor. After repeated prodding and questioning, I told my O&M instructor that canes were for old people, and I was seven, not an old lady. He tried to tell me blind people used canes to help them travel. I knew better! While I used the cane when he was around, I would do anything possible not to use it otherwise. It didn't help that the school had given me an aide who would let me travel sighted guide with her all the time. Once my mother got wind of this, she wasn't having it. She told me that, if it was the last thing she did, she would have me usi...

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. (music) To Serve My Country, from Future Reflections, a publication of the National Federation of the Blind by Evelyn Valdez I want to thank Carol Castellano for inviting me to speak today. I really appreciate my New Jersey family that has always believed in me! My story is a bit different from some, so I want to give you some background on how I came into the blindness game. I did not grow up as a blind child. When I became blind at seventeen, and I'd hear other blind students talk about the camps they went to where they had lots of friends, I couldn't relate. I had never gone to those camps, and I felt left out. But I brought into play some other experiences. I think my parents were a bit shocked when I started to go blind. They didn't know how to react. I know I had a little pity party for myself. I felt really bad! I was seventeen. I ran track, I played softball, and I was a heavy-duty ROTC girl--the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps. I was going to be a Marine. I had chopped my hair really short, and I was super BAD! Nobody could touch me. I worked out every day. My brother was my hero. He is a US Marine and two-tour Iraqi veteran. I'll never forget the day I sat down with my Marine recruiter to take the test. All of a sudden I couldn't see the test any more. I didn't know what to do! I lied to the staff sergeant. I said, "I can't take the test today; my head is hurting really bad!" He said, "But Evelyn, if you don't take the test now, it will push back your time for going in." I kept insisting that I couldn't take the test because I had a terrible headache. I walked out of there defeated. I said to myself, "This is the only dream I have!" Ever since I was a little girl, I knew I was going to be in the military. Period. I had no Plan B. So now I kept asking myself, "What do I do?" I started to think about how I could do something in my life that was military related, but I wasn't mentally ready. I had to come to grips with the reality that I was now a blind person. I didn't know anything about blindness. The only blind person I knew was me. When I met the National Federation of the Blind of New Jersey, I met people who believed in me before I believed in myself. With the encouragement of mentors in New Jersey--Ever Lee Hairston, Joe Ruffalo, Carol Castellano, Jerilyn Higgins--I began to realize that blindness was not a big deal. All these blind people I met were just doing their thing. Everybody was working and walking around with canes and cooking (no one cooks better than Jerilyn!) and I thought, "How are they doing it?" With their encouragement, I learned blindness skills and started going to college. I held onto my dream of doing something related to the military. I knew that I could no longer join the Marine Corps, but I knew in my heart that some kind of military work would surface. I just didn't know how I would make it a reality. In college I majored in education. I loved teaching kids and helping them problem solve. Problem solving had been instilled in me ever since I was a young child. During college I became more and more comfortable with myself. When I became really good at using the cane, my father said to me, "I want you to go into New York." "Okay," I said. He said, "Just get there. If you're not sure what street you're on, give me a call and I'll let you know where to go." My dad came from Peru, and he lived in New York for many, many years. He really knew Manhattan! I called him a couple of times for help. It felt so good when I didn't have to call him anymore to ask him where to go! I had begun problem solving by myself. I didn't know the terms that are used by orientation and mobility (O&M) instructors, terms like mental mapping and structured disco...

The following podcast was recorded for use by customers of Minnesota’s State Services for the Blind. You can get more information about State Services for the Blind and the services it offers by going to www (dot) mnssb (dot) org. (music) Playing with Knives, from Future Reflections, a publication of the National Federation of the Blind by Laura Martinez I was born in the city of Salvatierra in central Mexico. When I was very young I was diagnosed with retinoblastoma, a form of cancer that attacks the retinas. After extensive treatments, I was free from cancer but had become totally blind. In Salvatierra, as in most of Mexico, there was no program to mainstream blind students. My only option was to attend the residential school for the blind in Mexico City. My parents didn't want to send me so far from home, and I didn't want to go to a boarding school. To me it sounded a lot like the hospital, and I'd had too much of hospitals already! Since I was home all day, I spent a lot of time with my mother. Although she was very protective and kept me away from the stove, she wasn't afraid to let me use knives in the kitchen. I would help her cut up fruit and chop vegetables for our meals. Eventually I got my own knife to play with. I used to go outside and practice chopping leaves and twigs. When I was nine years old, my family emigrated to the United States so I could attend school at last. We moved to the town of Silvis, Illinois. I didn't know any English, and I had never been exposed to Braille. I attended a public school that had a resource room for blind students. For the first year I had an interpreter with me in the classroom. By the end of that year I knew enough English to be on my own. With the help of my teacher of the visually impaired (TVI), I learned Braille and got caught up academically. By the time I was twelve I entered junior high school. When I was in high school I transferred to the Illinois School for the Visually Impaired (ISVI) in Jacksonville. I lived away from my family for the first time and got exposed to a lot of things that were new to me. For the first time I was allowed, even encouraged, to use a stove. Cooking on the stove was very exciting to me because it had been forbidden for so long. After I graduated from high school, I knew I still needed to improve my orientation and mobility (O&M) and other skills. I enrolled in the adjustment to blindness program at the Iowa Commission for the Blind. I also started to think seriously about a career. Since I loved cooking and experimenting with foods, I began to do research on culinary schools. To my delight I was accepted at the Cordon Bleu Institute, one of the leading culinary schools in Chicago. I explained in my application that I am blind, but when I went for a tour of the school after my acceptance, the staff seemed shocked to meet me in person. They may have thought that I had some vision, and they were very upset to discover that I am totally blind. I found out later that they fired the senior advisor of student services who accepted me. After my visit, the school threw one roadblock after another in my way. The new advisor of students claimed that they had lost all of my paperwork. I said, "That's not a problem. I have copies of everything." They still came up with excuses about why I wouldn't be able to start in September. They said I had to go in and talk with them, but they kept breaking appointments with me and not returning my calls. Finally I decided I needed help. I contacted Patti Chang, president of the NFB of Illinois. Patti called the national office of the NFB in Baltimore. That same day Charlie Brown, an attorney who is active with the NFB, called the director of the culinary school. The director said she had no idea what was going on and assured him that I was welcome to enter the program. One call from a lawyer was all it took to break down the barriers! When the school was trying to reverse my acceptance, they kept s...

BA Teen Cast is produced by Radio Talking Book Network and is part of the State Services for the Blind. and is recorded for people who are blind or have reading disabilities. For complete programing you can find Radio Talking Book on the web at Http://www.mnssb.org/rtb To inquire about services from State Services for the Blind contact us at Http://www.mnssb.org

BA Teen Cast is produced by Radio Talking Book Network and is part of the State Services for the Blind. and is recorded for people who are blind or have reading disabilities. For complete programing you can find Radio Talking Book on the web at Http://www.mnssb.org/rtb To inquire about services from State Services for the Blind contact us at Http://www.mnssb.org

BA Teen Cast is produced by Radio Talking Book Network and is part of the State Services for the Blind. and is recorded for people who are blind or have reading disabilities. For complete programing you can find Radio Talking Book on the web at Http://www.mnssb.org/rtb To inquire about services from State Services for the Blind contact us at Http://www.mnssb.org

BA Teen Cast is produced by Radio Talking Book Network and is part of the State Services for the Blind. and is recorded for people who are blind or have reading disabilities. For complete programing you can find Radio Talking Book on the web at Http://www.mnssb.org/rtb To inquire about services from State Services for the Blind contact us at Http://www.mnssb.org

BA Teen Cast is produced by Radio Talking Book Network and is part of the State Services for the Blind. and is recorded for people who are blind or have reading disabilities. For complete programing you can find Radio Talking Book on the web at Http://www.mnssb.org/rtb To inquire about services from State Services for the Blind contact us at Http://www.mnssb.org

BA Teen Cast is produced by Radio Talking Book Network and is part of the State Services for the Blind. and is recorded for people who are blind or have reading disabilities. For complete programing you can find Radio Talking Book on the web at Http://www.mnssb.org/rtb To inquire about services from State Services for the Blind contact us at Http://www.mnssb.org

BA Teen Cast is produced by Radio Talking Book Network and is part of the State Services for the Blind. and is recorded for people who are blind or have reading disabilities. For complete programing you can find Radio Talking Book on the web at Http://www.mnssb.org/rtb To inquire about services from State Services for the Blind contact us at Http://www.mnssb.org

BA Teen Cast is produced by Radio Talking Book Network and is part of the State Services for the Blind. and is recorded for people who are blind or have reading disabilities. For complete programing you can find Radio Talking Book on the web at Http://www.mnssb.org/rtb To inquire about services from State Services for the Blind contact us at Http://www.mnssb.org

BA Teen Cast is produced by Radio Talking Book Network and is part of the State Services for the Blind. and is recorded for people who are blind or have reading disabilities. For complete programing you can find Radio Talking Book on the web at Http://www.mnssb.org/rtb To inquire about services from State Services for the Blind contact us at Http://www.mnssb.org

BA Teen Cast is produced by Radio Talking Book Network and is part of the State Services for the Blind. and is recorded for people who are blind or have reading disabilities. For complete programing you can find Radio Talking Book on the web at Http://www.mnssb.org/rtb To inquire about services from State Services for the Blind contact us at Http://www.mnssb.org

BA Teen Cast is produced by Radio Talking Book Network and is part of the State Services for the Blind. and is recorded for people who are blind or have reading disabilities. For complete programing you can find Radio Talking Book on the web at Http://www.mnssb.org/rtb To inquire about services from State Services for the Blind contact us at Http://www.mnssb.org

BA Teen Cast is produced by Radio Talking Book Network and is part of the State Services for the Blind. and is recorded for people who are blind or have reading disabilities. For complete programing you can find Radio Talking Book on the web at Http://www.mnssb.org/rtb To inquire about services from State Services for the Blind contact us at Http://www.mnssb.org

BA Teen Cast is produced by Radio Talking Book Network and is part of the State Services for the Blind. and is recorded for people who are blind or have reading disabilities. For complete programing you can find Radio Talking Book on the web at Http://www.mnssb.org/rtb To inquire about services from State Services for the Blind contact us at Http://www.mnssb.org

Using the iPhone and the audioBoom application to send a post to find abilities teen cast

Uploading from the iPhoneand using the web to record