This Is Noteworthy
Being able to take notes while on the go has been the dream of many a blind person since the invention of the audio cassette recorder. As we all know, audio cassettes were cumbersome, and at times, quite awkward. You see, the main problem with audio cassettes for notetaking is that you have to constantly change the tape, rewind and fast forward through the tape to find bits of information, and if that’s not bad enough, then you run into problems when your machine decides to have your cassette for dinner!
Of course, back in the day, cassettes were all that blind and visually impaired people had to take notes with, other than the Braille Writer. Fastforward to today, and now we have some very exciting options for notetaking. We have laptop machines, desktops, digital voice recorders, and yes; actual notetakers. We’re going to focus on the notetakers because these are very exciting devices that assist blind and visually impaired people to manage information while on the go.
When you hear the word notetaker throughout this post, think PDA. If you’re a sighted individual reading this, then you know all too well what a PDA is, and how they work. With a standard PDA device, you can write documents, browse the web, send e-mail, manage contacts, and with today’s PDAs or smart phones, make telephone calls.
Of course, PDAs for the blind and visually impaired are a bit different, but the same in many ways. For starters, PDAs for the blind and visually impaired are a bit larger than the ones you purchase in an electronics store. The reason being is that these devices come with either a full sized Braille writer keyboard, or a standard querty style keyboard that is used on all computers.
Also, PDAs for the blind and visually impaired come with speech and Braille displays making it that much easier for the blind and visually impaired to access information.
Notetakers come in all sorts of combinations and flavors. They also range in price too. However, what you need to remember is that notetakers for the blind and visually impaired are more expensive than the ones that you purchase in the electronics store. The reason being is that these specialized notetakers utalize special software and hardware to make these devices accessible to the blind and visually impaired.
Many of these notetaking devices come with Braille keyboards, or querty keyboards. These devices allow for blind and visually impaired people to access technologies that their sighted peers do on a daily basis.
Notetakers have come a long way since their inception. The very first notetaking devices had very robotic-sounding speech,and very little memory storage, and most of them used a standard 3 and a half inch floppy disk drive that held information. for the day, those storage drives held a lot of information, a staggering 1.44 MB, which by today’s standards is nothing! However, back then, 1.44 MB was a lot of storage space. Today, we have multi-gigabyte storage devices, and even terabyte storage devices that are portable and will work with most notetaking hardware provided today.
Notetakers have truly revolutionized the way that the blind and visually impaired handle their information. Everything from handling grocery lists, to club memberships can all be handled with today’s notetakers. Even surfing the web is now possible, and if that’s not enough, then what about streaming media?
You can download files with these devices, play audios, write documents, plan vacations, doctor’s appointments and much much more.
Below is a site that will give you some idea as to what these devices are like and what they have to offer.
If you are blind, or visually impaired yourself, or you know somebody who is, then the link above should give you some great information on these devices. However, like I said, these devices are a bit more expensive than their off the shelf counterparts.
My favorite is the Voice Note mPower, which is listed on the web site above. I honestly feel that if you’re going to purchase a notetaker, then the Voice Note mPower should be the one to get. It is actually part of the Braille Note family of products being offered by Humanware, a leader in assistive technology devices and software.
The very first notetaker that I have had the joy of learning was the Type ‘n Speak produced by Blazie Engineering. It has a querty style keyboard, and speech output. However, the speech output was truly undesirable. It was extremely robotic, and barely understandable.
However, the Type ‘n Speak did have some really interesting features that normally come with notetakers. You could create documents with it, manage appointments, do calculations and much more.
However, it lacked Internet connectivity, and it used those 1.44 MB floppy disks in a drive that costs about $300 to purchase. It was truly an interesting learning experience because it was my first exposure to electronic notetakers.
It is good to see that notetakers come in many configurations and styles to fit just about anyone’s needs. If you’re a strict Braille user, then you will want to purchase a notetaker that has a Braille style keyboard, whereas if you love to type on the PC, then you will want one with a standard querty style keyboard instead. You can get notetakers with, or without refreshable Braille displays.
However, with the refreshable Braille displays; you’re going to pay a whole lot more for the notetaker. Just make sure that you choose the notetaker that best suits your individual needs. Make sure that you get everything that you want and need from the device prior to ordering. The last thing that you want to have happen, is to order the wrong product, and regret it later.
Notetakers are great tools for the blind and visually impaired because just like their off the shelf counterparts,; PDAs, the blind and visually impaired can do much of the same things that their sighted peers do on a daily basis.
