Background
I love technology, so the unboxing was tremendously exciting. I’d taken the hive course already, read the user guide, watched the snapshot videos, imagined myself holding, touching, reading Braille and typing on one.
But in working with my community college students, I know many are techno-phobic. This is also true of our professors, even those with a PHD. Reading instruction manuals is for them confusing; learning a new piece of tech is daunting and frightening. I mastered my first iPod in three days, my NLS eReader in 2 hours, and JAWS over several months.
So thinking about the Monarch, I know not everyone will gleefully follow the instructions, tap on the keys, try the point and click. They will wade slowly in to the ocean and at the first foaming wave, will back up towards the warm comforting sand. With surfboard in hand, I must gently guide them out beyond the breakers to show them how exhilarating sailing across the vast sea can become.
Initial thoughts:
“OOF, it’s bigger and heavier than I thought it would be!” But the button placement is so intuitive. Even before turning it on, I know what each of them does. (And I’m blind so I don’t have the advantages of pictures in the user guide; though I did cheat and had AI describe them to me!)
I agree about the multi-line Braille being revolutionary, but that is only going to be truly appreciated by those who struggled to master STEM with a single-line Braille display.
One issue:
The user guide instructs one to charge it for four hours before using it. So, as soon as I unwrapped the protective sleeve, I connected it to power, using my laptop’s USB power supply which was already plugged in at my desk. Because it was larger than I thought, I had to lean over it to make more room, so it would safely reside next to my laptop. It automatically booted up, displayed the butterfly and went in to language settings. In rearranging my stuff to make it fit, I inadvertently pressed the spacebar with my tummy!
Luckily, I’m a good Braille reader and was listening to the speech and realized I was about to change the system language. And because I’d used other Humanware devices, I knew to press Backspace to return to English and press Enter.
But this could have been a dreadful problem for a less savvy user. It should either not automatically boot when connected to power, or the user guide should warn one this will occur.
Surprises:
The quality of the tutorial is a welcome surprise. I had to crank up the volume and I did follow along in Braille, eager to adjust my profile so I could read Grade 2.
This thing is really big though; the user guide said almost 16 inches, but I think it’s closer to eighteen. I pulled out my sewing tape measure but forgot to actually do the measuring which I will do tonight. I had planned to take it to work this week, but I don’t think so. Dragging expensive, delicate equipment on public transportation is a bad idea. So I tossed my NLS eReader in my purse with the user guide and decided that was good enough for now.
I also notice that Braille is much less sharp than on my other displays, but the membrane is a necessary compromise. I have read many slightly squished Braille library books and this is no different. But new readers often tend to press hard on dots, and that’s going to make them especially hard to read on the Monarch.
Challenges:
I easily found All Apps and Settings, but that is because I’ve used humanware and android devices. Might have been an issue for someone new. However, it’s always fun when the first thing you have to type on a new keyboard is a wi-fi password. Mine is 31 characters long with lots of symbols because I’m married to a security geek. I used to be a software engineer, so thank goodness, I do know computer Braille. I feel sorry for most of those who do not. I could have cheated and plugged in a USB keyboard, but I’m stubborn; I won’t always have one handy!
Other humanware devices, the eReader, Stream 2 and 3, Brailliant and the new NLS talking book player all let you create a wi-fi configuration on a USB thumb drive. I still have VRWireless.xml handy and the later Wifi_config.txt, but there was no menu choice to import a wi-fi configuration. I believe this should be implemented, since Humanware has already written code to accomplish this.
It took a couple of tries, but I was finally connected. I found Key Updater and began the update.
After 46 per cent through the install it froze and made a loud noise which continued, and which I recorded if anyone at APH needs to hear it. I was afraid I’d “bricked” the thing, but I hadn’t. I held the power down for 20 seconds. Then I held power down again for about five seconds and it started up and I was able to happily examine the butterfly.
I tried updating again, and this time it went fine. It took forever, even though we have a very fast connection; my husband has an internet business. It had to reboot and install yet more updates; just like Windows!
But eventually, it was all done. The package had arrived late and I was so sleepy I could not remember how to get in to options to finally change my profile to grade 2. I searched the main menu and the All apps menu and couldn’t locate it.
I finally had to load the user guide, but unlike the user guide on most humanware devices, I didn’t seem to be able to jump by headings. I tried typing H, and wondered how to navigate by levels because I couldn’t remember reading anything about this. I tried searching, and couldn’t find that either. The user guide appeared not to display in Victor Reader but rather as a web page in its built-in browser. I was about to pull out my eReader, where I did have the user guide, but didn’t have to.
I finally got over my senior moment and remembered it was space with O. I set up my profile, and decided I wasn’t thinking straight and really needed to get to bed!
Expectations:
At last blind folks can participate in math study groups with peers. No longer is their pencil impairment a barrier. How I wished I could do my math homework with friends when I was in school; to sit and exchange ideas rather than struggle on my own to understand the steps to solve a problem. But my peers couldn’t read Braille and I couldn’t give them print. And if I used the Abacus, it was even worse, so foreign to my sighted teachers and classmates.
I know it will be an adventure to have my Braille-reading students use this to take exams. Right now they get double extended time, and I wonder if the Monarch will make it easier to absorb a complicated test question, especially if they use speech and Braille together. I know my learning disabled students do much better when usingK3000, the both see and hear the textbook, and even though I have no learning disability, I find listening to difficult material, and reading it right afterwards in Braille helps me solidify my understanding.
Priorities: what to learn first?
Definitely the Braille editor, so I can try working problems with multi-line Braille. It’s algebra, calculus and statistics that my students struggle with most. And my own math skills are atrocious, so I’ve already collected a variety of math textbooks to try working with.
I also want to try reading some technical books in the Victor Reader, though I’m a bit concerned about all those books from NLS that are hard-coded for forty-character lines. Probably reading books from bookshare will work better. My eReader is loaded up with mysteries and science fiction and I can of course also transfer a few to the Monarch.
E-Braille is certainly exciting but I know our college will not want to pay for it. And right now it’s basically vaporware. I hope APH converts a few STEM books in to E-Braille for us to try.
Most beneficial for preparing students:
The tactile graphics of course. Though what I’ve prepared so far from the TGL has been pretty simple; I have a PIAF machine. It will be interesting to compare what I have done on PIAF to what can be displayed/zoomed on the Monarch.
I just used the PIAF to put together the international phonetic alphabet for a linguistics student. It’s downloadable from BANA and it is nicely formatted for a 8.5-inch width, so if I can figure out how to get those pages on the Monarch, that would be 'way cool!
I also like that even if I give a student a PIAF I can first preview it on the Monarch and let them preview it to decide if it’s going to work for them. I wonder if I can train my sighted student workers to use Wing-It to make some graphics for us!
I will post more when I get back home and can continue to explore!
P.S. This post looks kind of weird! I think Hive’s implementation of Mark-down is adding something strange to each heading.