You can use this space for general discussion and questions!
Webinar Discussion Prompts:
How will you expand on and build concept awareness and new skills for the Monarch? Examples include: zoom, tactile clutter, and panning.
What is your plan for assessing your learner’s current knowledge and skill level and how will you begin instruction on the tactile graphics skills and concepts needed for advancing to the Monarch?
I will bring parents to the tactile learning team! It is critical to bring all members of the educational team, an underutilized resource.
Very good point. Too often our parents either don’t understand the importance of tactile graphics literacy or THEY KNOW their child benefits from exploring tactile graphics and pictures for their learning and are not engaged in this conversation.
I really liked the masking frame. Going to try that with my students. Such a great way to show the concept. My students are struggling with this concept.
The idea for teaching panning – using a cutout on a paper graphic and paired with the Monarch- is such a great teaching strategy! I can’t wait to try it out!
One of the more important components to developing tactile graphics is the removal of tactile clutter or too many interfering lines. The use of a image editor to bring down the thickness of lines as well as removing non-essential tactile shapes to help define the shape of the image presented is essential. Choosing to find images that are already in a black/white format is important. Using functions such as Image Trace in Adobe Illustrator to help define the overall shape for tactile representation is one way. Teaching Braillist’s and others on the team how to redefine imagery is important.
I had not though about using a masking frame either but it is an amazing idea for teaching them how to simplify the image in order to access it!
STEM! Excellent resource! Especially the graphing calculator!
To help students to build concept awareness I will try using the idea of having a rectangle that shows just a portion of a graphic. It was a very concrete way to introduce a more abstract concept.
I am excited to have my student compare an actual flower and parts to an image on the monarch. I think that will help to teach her what the device can do. There is so much more to do! I’m very excited!!
I like the idea of using a masking window with a tactile graphic much like we do with our low vision kids that need less clutter on a page. Tactile clutter is a constant struggle for our braille transcriber team as they try to decide what information to include that reduces the clutter or breaking it into smaller graphics to reduce the clutter.
Our team has been spending so much time creating so many tactile hands-on materials so that the student can understand volcanoes and fossils, but the student is missing out on other materials that we don’t have time to create. We could teach so many more concepts with this quick tactile graphics machine. The student has learned braille and creating tactile information using multiple tools very quickly and he’s hungry for more.
The masking frame reminds me of how you would simplify visual materials for students with low vision. I like the activity of isolating details and then revealing that these details reside in a larger frame. I think this can do in many ways throughout a student’s day–lunch tray; apps on an iPad; physical desk; desktop on computer…
One thing I was wondering is what programs can be used to prepare graphics for the student’s use?
I also feel like teaching them how to pan and explore images both zoomed in and out can really build their understanding of just a few features of the monarch! As well as teaching them how to interpret the information when it is presented in segmented portions such as with the monarch life cycle.
Love the masking idea!
Software? I wonder how it interacts with Braille Blaster?
I’ve used the firebird software to build graphics but I’m not sure if those files can be uploaded to the Monarch.
I can see how completing tactile puzzles as a prerequisite skill would lend itself towards this concept. Understanding how smaller isolated chunks can be combined to make a fuller representation is helpful.
We use tactile view and then embed them into a Duxbury file, but I would think saving it as a brf file would allow it to be uploaded into the Monarch.