The monthly workshop of OHFA Tech took place on 18, August. The workshop was divided into two sections Taptilo and Code Jumper. Participants learned about the world’s first smart braille learning device ‘Taptilo’ in the first section and the ‘Code Jumper’, an incredible innovation designed by Microsoft to teach computer coding to blind and visually impaired students.
4 blind participants attended this workshop. Each section lasted about one and a half hours.
Section 1 - Taptilo
Taptilo is an innovative solution for the ‘learning braille is too difficult’ phenomenon. Several surveys have shown that merely 10% of the blind and the visually impaired use braille. Lacking special teachers and learning materials were two principal problems of this phenomenon.
Taptilo and its jumbo braille cell(5 times the size of the regular braille) proved a boon for students who starts learning braille. Students all around the world are learning braille effectively and easily with Taptilo. This section included the following contents:
Know the appearance
Read and trace using braille blocks
Learn to choose a topic in the program menu
Learn the music braille with Taptilo
Connect the device to Taptilo 4.0 mobile application
Compose your music with braille blocks
Learning music braille and composing melodies were highly appreciated by the participants. Since all participants were familiar with music braille, they loved the music time with Taptilo.
In our post-survey, one participant responded :
‘When I was in the blind school, many students found difficulty in learning music braille, because we didn’t know how it would sound. Taptilo plays the melody in a controllable tempo as I write down the music braille, it was super helpful and fun.’
She also mentioned that the ‘Game’ contents along with various ‘Activities’ featured on Taptilo would make braille learning easy and fun!
To find more information on Taptilo, please visit here(https://www.taptilo.com/) and schedule your meeting for Webinar here(https://calendly.com/taptilo/taptilo-webinar?month=2022-09).
Section 2 - Code Jumper
Code Jumper is a computer coding learning device designed by Microsoft for the blind and the visually impaired. With a little help from the instructor, Everyone can learn basic programming concepts and computational thinking.
In Section 2, we introduced Code Jumper to the blind who have not learned computer coding before. This section included the following contents:
Know the appearance and configuration
Understand the flow in the closed code
Connect the ‘Play Pod’
Code Infinite loop with ‘Loop Pod’ and ‘Infinite Plug’
Learn selection
The best thing about studying with Code Jumper is that students virtually follow the flow with their hands. They just need to touch and follow lines coming from ‘Hub’, the start line of the code and read ‘Pods’ the line goes across. Therefore, even complex algorithm becomes a simple problem when coming into Code Jumper.
All components of Code Jumper are distinguishable by each unique shape. Code Jumper is 100% accessible for all. All participants who are blind enjoyed their very first computer coding lesson and composed their own code.
Lessons with Code Jumper never get boring. Code Jumper plays various music, instrumental sound, and sample sounds as the result. In the workshop, participants wrote the code playing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” with loop statements, and randomly playing piano using selection statements. Teachers and students may upload recordings and sound samples to Code Jumper to make lessons more intriguing.
In our post-survey, one participant responded :
‘Though it was my first time learning to code, I fully understood loop statements and selection statements. Following the line connecting each component, it was very easy to understand what is going on inside the circuit.’
To find more information on Code Jumper, please visit here. (https://codejumper.com/)
If you would like to know more about Taptilo or CodeJumper, you can register the webinar through the button below.