Question
I would like to find a web page that would teach me to visually recognize Braille. I have learned the alphabet and a few special symbols (capital sign, number sign and period). I can recognize them visually, but my fingers are not sensitive enough to read them by touch.

THis web page http://www.brl.org/intro/index.html
Has a braille course, but it is too advanced. For example, the first  reading lesson requires the student to recognize complicated punctuation such as colons, semi colons, hyphens and quotation marks as well as special symbols such as italics.

What I have in mind is something that would let me learn to recognize words, them move into more complicated material.

My reason for doing this is as a mental exercize and because I do some volunteer work at the local library for the blind.

Thanks

Jo


Answer
Dear Jo,
    After doing a search I came up with a few sites that I hope will help.

https://63.240.118.132/Community.asp?AnnouncementID=251
(this is a more intense study of the materials and so forth, but could prove to be helpful if you are working directly with the blind)

http://www.indynerds.com/braille01.htm
(this seems to have some interesting possibility. It has a program that allows you to download simulated Braille font for Windows...this will definitely help you to learn all the various punctuations and symbols)

http://www.duxburysystems.com/products.asp
(a few more free Braille programs to download)

http://brailleschool.com/
(this seems like a fantastic site)

I did an extensive search, but did not come up with anything that matched your exact needs. I wish I could offer you more help. I have yet to work with Braille over the computer, so my Internet resources are low. Still, I hope you can find something useful from these links.

Good luck,
Jeannine