Recently CSDB School for the Blind teachers Nancy Barron (technology), Kyle Berns (math), and Alex Pillard (science)participated in a two-day training with Joe Said from Tactile Engineering. They learned about the new Cadence refreshable braille display and how it could be used at CSDB.
Students at CSDB are excited to try this new device. They diligently practiced writing their spelling words in preparation for the Spelling Bee at CSDB. In addition, during a recent science class, students examined various types of clouds which were presented as tactile images.
According to the Tactile Engineering website, some of the features of the Cadence are:
- Read multi-line electronic braille. View graphics that update in real-time. Collaborate with teammates. Play video games. Experience the Cadence tablet.
- Each Cadence tablet is a pocket-sized device (about the size of a large mobile phone) with a 384-dot refreshable screen. That’s 48 cells of 8-dot braille, in four lines of 12 cells each. Connecting four tablets into a desktop quartet provides eight lines of 24 cells each.
- The tablet features Perkins keys, a directional pad for navigation and control, and seven multi-use keys for selecting lines, accessing labels and menus, highlighting objects, and more.
- A USB port enables easy charging—but you won’t need it that often. The Cadence tablet uses so little energy that even with a full load of classes, the battery will last for days.
- Use the USB port to connect directly to a computer to enable improved compatibility with screen readers like NVDA.
Check out more information: The Cadence Tablet