I had a similar problem with shortcuts and it turned out I had accidentally hit the keystrokes to turn on computer braille. Keys 7 and 8 and a “g” take you in and out of computer braille. I hope that is what happened and will fix it for you.
Wait! Keys 7 and 8 and space and “g”. It is amazing that I could have accidentally have done that.
A glow moment for me was showing the Monarch to a first grade student for the very first time and him being so excited for it. He was overjoyed for the tactile graphics. He told me over and over thank you for bringing this device to him and how I am the best teacher ever Hahaha. He was quickly able to learn how to search for the graphics and view them. One instance, that really stuck out for me was when he typed in “bike” and found graphic of a motorcycle. He began exploring it and then said “where are the pedals?” This lead to more conversation and expanding on vocabulary and concept knowledge that motorcycles do not have pedals like a bicycle that he had been able to previously interact with. This student had so much joy to be able to feel these graphics that his pure excitement brought a tear to my eye and solidified even more the importance of tactile graphics for our students. While I know this student knew the basics of what a motorcycle was the graphic provided him with a deeper understanding that would have been hard to explain without concrete representation. This student was also able to show off how he can search for graphics to administration and how he can “zoom in” and explore different parts. The principal and assistant principal were amazed at what the student was doing and viewing and how quickly he was able to learn how to access the graphics on the device. It was also wonderful for them to not only see the student using the device but the pure joy that it was bringing the student to feel ordinary everyday pictures of objects that many of us may take for granted with viewing in our everyday lives.
A grow for me will definitely be with creating the graphics. I have attempted to make a “Roll and Read” activity but have some trial and error with the sizing and spacing when the document is opened on the Monarch. The document will look great in word but when opened on the Monarch it is much too small and squished together. This will definitely be something I will continue to work on.
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My students and I have two glows. One is they need double spaced braille and also love to read new books. Most of the braille books that are not brailled by me are not double spaced. The simple yet huge use of the “+” key to make the braille double spaced is huge for them. They immediately smile and show a relaxed body posture when the braille is double spaced. Excitement and being comfortable reading is so wonderful to see a teacher. The ability to see graphics about topics were are learning about is amazing. The zoom feature and looking at details has been so exciting. Instead of a description of what is in the picture, they can “see it.” Which they love! My students are getting a whole new understanding of increase and decrease by using this feature in images.
My grow is creating mathwork sheets that are better formatted and show up in nemeth and not literary. Also working more with graphs and charts that contain braille.
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Hey y’all,
One grow that has been very much on my mind this week is how tricky it is to (safely) carry the Monarch.
I am in NYC, and most of us are itinerant and use public transit/bikes to get around. The Monarch is difficult to fit into bags, and the case that it comes in doesn’t have a handle/strap. Even if it did have a handle/strap, it could still easily be broken on a subway because the case doesn’t protect it very well. My Monarch, for instance, got shoved into a wall of a subway station the other day in a crowd going between schools.
Additionally, the size/portability of this isn’t much improved from carrying around one or two volumes of Braille textbook. Although I think this is much better than carrying around two Braille textbooks, my student’s initial reactions have been about how large it is. I think improving the portability (in way of a strap or a case that adds protection or something) or even making the entire device smaller could be very helpful. I know that hardware changes aren’t going to happen, based on our conversation in Baltimore. However, just wanted to throw that in here for future versions.
Jonathan
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My glow is similar to others - having quick and easy access to tactiles on the fly is fantastic. I have used the device in pre-k to do the Five Little Snowmen song during circle time with my 3 blind pre-k students. It was fantastic!
Similarly to others, I am excited for the tactiles and cannot wait to be able to create tactiles on the Monarch itself or on an app connected to a tablet/cell phone. I think that option will be a complete game changer and only improve the equitable access the Monarch brings to classes. The other grow I have is to come up with some safe way to carry the device. I’m sure future iterations will be much lighter and have a handle or carrying case. For now, I think I’m just going to have to sew my own because I am so super nervous about breaking it.
My student has always been more resistant to writing on the brailler as well, and it’s been a constant struggle to get him to use consistent fingering on the keys. But he LOVES the Monarch and his finger position is perfect. He’s much more motivated to use this!
He also prefers reading on the monarch and braille display. Often during “free time” he’ll listen to audiobooks, but now that we can download hid favorite books (Eerie Elementary) to the Monarch, he’s more open to reading them in braille for “fun”!!
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GLOW: We had the Monarch connected to a large monitor (because the portable one I’d ordered hadn’t come in yet). My student had started looking at pictures form the TGIL and as soon as he pulled it up, he jumped out of his seat to look at it on the screen too. He has very minimal vision, but using a lit screen of this size allows him to just make out the general shape of thing and he was thrilled to get to see the picture as well as feel it. I think this is one of the benefits of the Monarch–being able to pair visual and tactile feedback in this way is going to make a huge difference in the way students can develop concepts and create mental images.
GROW: I agree that the case would benefit from a strap. Also, the app that was mentioned being in progress where the teacher can sketch something on their device and send it to the monarch immediately via bluetooth is going to be HUGE for access in real time for our kids. Another GROW would be that the TGIL can be hard to search because of the way images are named. I assume the file names are whatever the person who uploaded them are called, but it would be easier if it were more clear so that a search would find the correct image. Many have words running together, or are numbered general file names, so I have to spend a lot of time opening and looking at a bunch of different things to find what I’m looking for.
One glow is having the teacher be able to see what my student reading or writing in real time on a portable monitor. The other glow is that I am having a great time creating tactile graphics.
My grow is in regard to only having one USB A port. Normally I use that port to connect my portable monitor for power. In many of the schools, outlets are few and far between so it is hard to use the monitor and use a thumb drive. Also, I have been trying to find a good backpack or other carrying case for the Monarch and monitor…if anyone has any suggestions, let me know.
My first glow was actually during training when I was able to produce a quick pdf with proper braille labels for a tangent, chord, and secant, then check it out on the Monarch – all in the time they were just talking about how to use Word to make tactile graphics. I had Geometry on my mind because I’ve transcribed so much of it this year.
My next glow was actually great pride in watching my student explore the Monarch with an eye to what has changed since we did the field testing in the fall. His comments were a delight: it refreshes so much faster, point and click is so much easier. He has been waiting with bated breath to be able to use it again.
He brought up a grow, wishing it could move just a line or so up instead of by whole page sort of like how visually a Word document just keeps adding to the bottom of the screen. Moving by page got in the way when he was in a brf document writing out steps to solving an equation when all of the sudden the problem couldn’t be seen.
I just went to the training last week and was just fully amazed and excited that I couldn’t wait to show my student. I went back on a Thursday and went into his English class where they were editing. Sadly I didn’t bring it that day as I had just gotten back and really didn’t think I would have a chance to show him before using it in class. Right away I can see how the Monarch will be a super tool to have for a student in class to edit and to view images with very little preparation.
My grow moment or a question I have and wanted to see if anyone else experienced this when working with students is the film creating a ripple as the student explored the screen. On Friday I showed my student the Monarch for the first time. As he was exploring the film rippled. I found this to be very curious as in order for me to make it ripple I had to press very hard. Either his fingers are sticky or presses very hard when reading and he doesn’t glide or maybe he doesn’t understand what that means. I am not sure if this has caused issues for him when reading as when he tries to read on paper or a braille display I couldn’t tell if he was gliding or not.
If anyone has any suggestions as to this or ideas to teach gliding when reading, maybe this could be part of the reason why he is a struggling reader. Also has anyone else experienced this.
Here is another “Grow”…probably a pipe dream. It would be great if it were possible to program a series of images so that it would be animated. I was thinking about this with the eclipse yesterday. We had the Monarch set up with the series of eclipse images I created. We had a person come who was deafblind. We showed her the series, but it would have been fantastic if you could program the series to show the movement of the moon over the sun…like a slow sequence. I am not sure that I am fully explaining what I mean…and I am not sure if it would even be possible…The same sort of thing could be used to show planetary motion, plants growing, etc…
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That would be SO COOL! I bet it is possible!
Yes that would be awesome. It would be like the flip books that would have images in the corners and as you turned the pages it looked like an animation. Maybe showing my age a little but it would great.
I also was thinking about flip books! Or when we use to draw two similar, but slightly different pictures (like a dog with his tail in two different positions) and use a pencil to roll up and down the page to make it seem like the tail was wagging! I am definitely showing my age!!!
When I was at the training a month ago, I tried graphing those trig functions, only to find that I couldn’t use parentheses to separate the function name from the argument (the expression inside the function). Whenever I type “y = sin(x)” like in programming or in a scientific calculator app like KeyCalc on the BrailleNote Touch, KeyMath throws an error that there are too many undefined variables. I only realized now that I have to put a space between the function name and argument, like “sin x”, which produces a graphable equation. The same is true for the hyperbolic and logarithmic functions. I believe this issue of notation is something students in a pre-calc class need to be aware of. It would be great if KeyMath recognized the “programmers’ notation” that’s perhaps more common in a higher math context. As someone who majored in physics in college, I was often using computational tools like Mathematica and MATLAB, and when completing assignments I was notating math in a form similar to LaTeX before there was any native math support on my braille notetaker. Perhaps the Monarch’s preferred math syntax could be clarified in the user guide when that becomes available.
Glow: Quick access to textbooks. For my 5th grade student, we keep her math textbook in the library which is located right down the hallway from her classroom. As you can imagine, the textbook is multiple volumes. She will sometimes forget that she needs the next volume of the textbook until she is sitting in math class starting a lesson. Then, while the other students start the lesson, my student needs to walk down to the library to find the next volume which wastes class time.
Grow: I understand the need for the covering over the refreshable braille cells as this is a very expensive device. It is important to protect the device to limit the need to send the device away for pricey repairs. However, my student (who has been a braille reader for many years) has complained about the covering making it difficult for her to read the braille. I am wondering if others have had similar complaints from their students? Is there a way to make the covering even thinner to make it easier to read the braille? I imagine this would be even more challenging for a new braille reader.
It took me a little while to get used to it as well. I found I need to press slightly more than I would on paper braille. I also, wonder if your membrane has stretched and needs to be replaced?
Okay–this is a glow up that is more embarrassment! I got back from Baltimore all excited with my Monarch. I got sick (Covid from the trip to Baltimore but my traveling companion was spared so that’s good) for a week. Felt better and was able to travel to CSUN, which was amazing. Came back the Monarch was dead as a doornail. I had left it charging. So I sent it to Humanware and the diagnosis was that I was using the wrong charging cord. In Baltimore, I thought I had charged it this way, but perhaps it just held its initial charge.
So in the realm of ‘you are smarter than the Monarch’ I might have just broken that rule. But the way I see it, my students make mistakes all the time, and each mistake is an opportunity to learn something. So I just learned something! Rusty with the device, but back at it! An embarrassment glow? Anyway–you all probably feel smarter than me now! 
Small animations! I love that idea!