[Art_beyond_sight_learning_tools] TTT, cars, tapestry

[Lisa Yayla]

article excerpt http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1925484,000600010004.htm
Traffic at fingertips
And like theirs, there are 63 other cars vying for victory in the Blind Man's Car Rally. Each driven by the owner and navigated by a visually-impaired person. A perfect case of the blind leading the sighted.



article http://www.theticker.org/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticlePrinterFriendly&uStory_id=21d20d58-88c9-4863-af12-dfda41e333b1
Tablet provides graphics to visually impaired persons
Sherry Mazzocchi
Posted: 2/5/07
If you are currently reading The Ticker in its paper format, you probably don't have impaired vision. But imagine, just for a few minutes, that you do. You have a cane, or even a trained and trustworthy guide dog to help you navigate the halls and find your way amidst people, elevators and doors. You arrive at your Statistics 101 classroom. Maybe you even have a Braille textbook. But what happens when the teacher puts equations, charts and bell curves on the blackboard? What do you do then?

Karen Gourgey understands this dilemma. Gourgey is the director of Baruch's Computer Center for Visually Impaired People (CCVIP). Last September, she and Steve Landau of Touch Graphics, Inc. were awarded Baruch's first ever patent for a device that helps students learn visual concepts. Called the "Talking Tactile Tablet," it incorporates Braille, raised graphics and voice technology to help students who are visually impaired. 

The TTT is a small, portable device that can be plugged into any PC with a USB connection. Convenient and easy to use, no additional battery or drivers are necessary. 

The TTT is interactive and easy to use. It comes with a talking world map, games and an authoring tool, which can be used to develop new course curriculums. Games like Snakes and Ladders are fun and designed so students can quickly grasp the concept of learning how to maneuver across the tablet and become familiar with its graphics. "People who are visually impaired don't get a lot of training in graphics. My math teacher told me to skip over them," said Gourgey. "And I went to a high school for the blind."

Because the TTT uses Braille, voice technology and raised graphics, it provides a multi-sensory learning experience. The screen is a dense fabric of fine wires, which can be thought of as a mouse. A tablet, much a like a chapter in a book, is inserted into the TTT. When a user touches the screen, they can either read Braille or run their fingers over a raised graphic while a synthesized voice describes it. Feeling a pie chart or a bell curve is an entirely different learning experience than looking at a drawing on a board or textbook. Using vision to understand something can be a flat, intellectual experience. But touching is to grasp a concept intimately and almost immediately internalize it.

Gourgey said, "People are so used to looking at things. But when people read Braille, the visual cortex is involved. They are using the same perceptual mode, but the input stream is different."

One of the many benefits of the TTT, aside from being easy to use, is its wide range of applications. The TTT is being tested in Santa Monica with a learning disabled student this semester. Applications for learning Braille in Spanish are being developed. The statistics program in the TTT was based on a textbook by Annette Gourgey (Gourgey's sister-in-law), an instructor at BMCC. 

The programs all have a main menu and a clear, consistent structure. The statistics program has review questions on each tablet. Students can listen to the TTT's succinct answers as well as type in their own. The TTT uses two voices. One voice describes the graphics in a synthetic, digitized voice. The other voice asks and answers questions in a recorded human voice. Landau said that speech technology is advancing. "Synthetic speech is now fairly human sounding." Recorded human speech, while pleasing, is not always that practical. "It's very expensive," he said. "They are large files that are slow and hard to load." TTT software currently sells for around $699.

Gourgey, who was born blind, has been with the CCVIP since the late 1970s. From very early on in her career, she knew that fusing literacy with technology would be the key to working with visually-impaired students. "The PC revolution in the '80s had to be for everyone," she said. "You need to know how to use a computer. There is power and freedom in information."

Gourgey and Landau both say that Dr. Sally Mangold, who died of leukemia in 2005, was an inspiration in their work. The founder of Educational Teaching Aids, Mangold was considered an innovator in field of teaching visually impaired students. "She was a hero in the field, a teacher of teachers," said Gourgey.

The product developed by Gourgey and Landau does not exactly mirror the technology advanced by Mangold, but the ultimate outcome is the same. "This will bridge the graphical literacy gap," said Gourgey, "and make it fun."




article
Artworks Cincinnati, Ohio USA
Friday, February 09, 2007

"Visionaries & Voices" tapestry exhibition features the work of Cheryl Conley

ArtWorks and Visionaries and Voices (V&V) will partner for the third year in a row to display a selection of works by V&V artists. These works of art have been translated from drawings and paintings into latch-hook tapestries.  The actual latch-hooking was done by a variety of people throughout the community, both in the V&V studio and outside of it, including the disabled artists of Funky Knots, a collaborative crocheting and knitting group that meets monthly at different coffee-houses in the Cincinnati area.  

Visionaries & Voices is also bringing in the work of Cheryl Conley. Visually impaired and unable to speak, Conley communicates through her artwork.  She was taught crocheting and knitting prior to losing two of her primary senses. Conley creates multi-colored tapestries and coverlets, as well as sculptural objects, including saddles and hats.  These objects have the edgy, whimsical look of magic totems from dreams. Conley's tapestries, blankets and remnants have been merged by Camilla S. Haneburg, an art teacher in Cincinnati, into a large, beautiful quilt that is a remarkable 77 inches wide by 37 feet long. 

The twenty or more rich latch-hook tapestries will be displayed along side their original Visionaries & Voices drawings and around Cheryl Conley's quilt. Conley's quilt will be dramatically hung from the middle of the main gallery at ArtWorks. The exhibition not only transforms imaginative works of art but will also convert the ArtWorks Gallery into a plush arena of playful color and form. 
Visionaries & Voices is a local art studio that seeks to provide a nurturing home base for artists with disabilities enabling these creative individuals grow and succeed at what they do best. The group values a world in which artists with disabilities not only create and share their works of art, but are also given the chance to show the Greater Cincinnati community what it means to be creative and alive without predefined limits. 

February 2 - February 23, 2007 
Opening Reception, Fine Arts Fund Sampler Weekend: February 10, 2007 

More Exhibitions to come..... 
   
Contact us
ArtWorks
811 Race St.
Cincinnati, OH 45202
t (513) 333-0388
f (513) 333-0799 


http://www.artworkscincinnati.org/gallery/schedule.shtml

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