Braille class a hit with parents, teachers

Six tiny little dots. That's all Braille is. But for a group of Valley residents, understanding those six dots is a big challenge.

For the first time, a Braille class was offered, and several Valley residents took up the challenge of learning the code, which is used by visually-impaired people. Jacinda Danner, the Mat-Su Borough School District's vision specialist, taught the five-week class, giving a brief introduction of the code to the students.

"It's really interesting how many words you can make out of the six dots, and the combination of words," said Teresa Clarke, a grandmother who took the class as a way to learn beside her 3-year-old granddaughter, who is blind. "To see my granddaughter learning it from scratch is pretty amazing."

Nine people took the class, ranging from mothers and grandmothers to teachers and teacher aides. Danner said she tried to keep the brief course to the point, and to give the participants some information on where to find other resources.

"We covered the very basics, and I gave them a lot of places where they can find resources for their classrooms, or for their children," Danner said. "I tried to keep in mind the audience and tailored it to them."

The main objective, Danner said, was to inform parents.

"My goal was to get them to a point where they would know enough that they could look things up and help their children with a reading assignment," Danner said. "They really hung in there."

Danner said it was a low-key, pass/fail-type class, with one college credit available. And while she tried to focus on the basics, she touched a bit on how technology is changing the world of Braille.

"I tried to show them the future a little," Danner said.

Danner travels around the district helping visually-impaired students, and at her Teeland Middle School classroom, she has several Braille writers.

Through a grant, she was able to purchase a Braille embosser, as well as Braille 2000 software that has the ability to scan regular typed pages and convert them into Braille.

The BrailleNote is essentially a pocket computer that visually-impaired people can use to create files and write papers in Braille. It then can be plugged into the computer, and using the software, be translated into regular type, which then can be printed. The device is particularly popular among students at the college level, because it gives Braille readers the opportunity to take the same courses as sighted students, without needing any special attention.

"Technology is amazing, but keeping up with it is the challenge," Danner said.

That's exactly how Clarke feels, and she is still learning the basics.

"It's unbelievable how fast things change, and it's ongoing," Clarke said.

Clarke and her daughter, Brandee Clarke, moved to the Valley from New York. She said she is pleased to see programs like the Braille class offered here.

"When we moved up here, I was surprised to see how many programs there were for disabled students," Clarke said. "There seems to be so many more opportunities here than we had in New York."