Express Activity 2: Tactile Viewer

Expanded Core Curriculum Mastering the Monarch
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  1. I played around with graphs and some pictures of monuments (e.g. Arc de Triomphe). I used the directional pads and the plus/minus buttons to pan and zoom in and out.
  2. Zooming in did reveal more detail, which was great, but on intricate buildings, it lacked the level of detail that was important to understanding the historic and artistic value of the building. Too much panning also made graphs difficult to interpret.
  3. I see tactile graphics being valuable in math (graphs), science (process diagrams), social studies (geography, architecture), and just for leisure.
  4. The main challenge I see is the difficulty in balancing meaning and detail when making/interpreting graphics. On the one hand, if the image is too intricate or detailed, it makes it look “muddy” or “messy,” thus hard to interpret. On the other hand, if it is oversimplified, crucial details and nuances will be lost. I think it would be amazing if these images came with an “audio walkthrough” or “tour” that could describe things in more detail and provide a way to explore each picture in a way that makes sense for that specific picture. Not all pictures can be explored in the same way.
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The Tactile viewer is oneof the most inovative pieces of this tech in many ways. Firstly, being in school before technology, I am familiar with emobssed graphics, and extensive maps, figures and picture representations, and this, to me, adds a lot more depth to seeing graphics in a very unique way. I explored the buterfly, and the various stages, using the zoom in and out features and the DPad direcitonal arrows to look at specific things and I was literlay blown away, because I’ve never had this kind of functionality or detail at my fingertips in such a ready way. I have been a braille user all my life, being born totally blind, with no vision at all. I learned braille at 5, in public school and was mainstreamed, and had two absolutely amazing braille teachers that instilled the love of braille, and reading in me at an early age and so I appreciate braille in all it’s many facets, and the fact that the face of braille is changing and becoming more digital every day, and this opens that up tremendously. The tactile viewer is a great tool and I have had the opportunity to use it in a few bookshare books that have images before each chapter, and to see those, even though it’s a small thing to some, is a fascinating thing and to be able to interact with a book in that way to get a detailed depiction of what my sighted peers get to see daily is awesome. I look forward to seeing where this might develop in he future. I hope to be able to teach students and patrons to navigate graphics using the tactile viewer inmore detail, and also using it to work more closely in my daily work, with spreadsheets in excel and other places to better interact with the text and graphics and understand the layout of spreadsheets in a more accessible way than I had originally thought possible.

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Experiencing Tactile Graphics: From Uncertainty to Excitement

Experiencing tactile graphics over the past few years, particularly through the development of the Monarch, has been a journey that began with anticipation and uncertainty—and has now evolved into genuine excitement.

My first encounter with the Monarch was back in 2022 at an ACB Leadership Conference. The facilitator handed me a tactile graphic and asked what I thought it represented. Before I could respond, a low-vision participant behind me called out that it was the Eiffel Tower. I was frustrated, because the exercise was meant to be a tactile, not a visual, experience.

As I explored the graphic, I realized something important: I would not have been able to determine what it was without time, practice, and growth in my tactile perception skills. It became clear that, like many adventitiously blind individuals, I needed to develop the ability to tactually interpret and recognize complex images.

This time around, after learning the Monarch’s capabilities, I decided to explore the fifty United States. Geography has never been my strongest subject—I didn’t spend much time with maps when I was sighted, and I’ve never felt fully confident in that area. But on the Monarch, I discovered something remarkable.

I was able to zoom in on specific regions, starting with Texas. Feeling the Braille “TX” label and the detailed state borders gave me a sense of structure and context I’d never experienced before. Increasing the level of detail helped me understand the relationships between states, and rotating the map to view it from different angles brought the geography to life in a way I hadn’t imagined possible.

For the first time, I felt like I could truly learn and comprehend the layout of the United States through touch. The ability to explore, zoom, and rotate independently made me excited about the possibilities for other learners as well.

When working with students, I plan to introduce tactile graphics by first encouraging them to explore the image with as much detail as possible. From there, we can compare that to the default presentation to determine which view supports understanding best—especially when zooming or panning is needed. Starting with a familiar aspect of the image can also make exploration more meaningful and confidence-building.

Developing these tactile exploration skills will be invaluable for learners, especially when collaborating on team projects, analyzing data, or interpreting complex visual information in a nonvisual way.

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  1. I looked at the penguin, 50 states, and the baseball diamond. And many more! I used the zoom in and out mostly.

  2. It helped a lot for the baseball and football areas plus the US map of the 50 states. That was huge. I think it helped a lot. The problem for me, and I think this is a me thing is knowing that the more dots and what they meant and I figured out the penguin had more dots for it’s wings/tuxedo marking, so that was interesting. It wasn’t good or bad, just interesting, it’s like on the tactile graphics I have seen but since I was exploring and I didn’t know what to expect it was new.

  3. I already want to use this for my work graphics. I think both in the classroom to represent graphical data like in statistic class/sociology/psychology classes where you are constantly looking at graphs to interpret data would be crucial. I also like the layout options, where I could work with a client on showing them a department store layout/café layout where they were working retail or food service and struggled with the special concepts.

  4. Challenges would be the portability of the device. I know it’s better than what we have had in the past but the examples I gave were very mobile working conditions. A challenge would be having a safe, clean, and dry environment for the Monarch.

Optional Extension

I think two things about the Monarch are nice. One, it’s durable. I have seen so many reused graphics where they are pressed in and you can’t tell sometimes what it is because someone else has used it, or it got damaged/wet. Secondly, it makes it really nice to have something that can refresh at a moments notice, and one where you can zoom in and feel the full braille and have it tell you what it is. Like in the video where it said Yellow. I would get so many graphs that would say Y. I would try to think it that a Yes, Yellow, Young, etc. What did Y mean.

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I am curious how the symbol lesson went with your husband.

I also enjoyed the 50 states map and mentioned stats in my response as well. I wish I had this when I went through college.

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I don’t think I have ever been so excited to read a spreadsheet. LOL