 The Kentucky School for the Blind ordered 15 Monarch braille devices and received them Sept. 5. Photo by Joe Ragusa, Kentucky Department of Education, Sept. 5, 2024
(LOUISVILLE, KY) – A shipment of 15 new braille reading devices to the Kentucky School for the Blind (KSB) is a “game-changer” for the students, said KSB Principal Peggy Sinclair-Morris.
The new Monarch devices are cutting-edge braille readers with a multitude of other features and a larger display to improve the learning experience for blind and low-vision students.
“You have not just the braille display on it, but you have a display where you can actually see tactile graphics, charts and graphs in addition to math and science features in real time. Before the Monarch, you either had to create them yourself or they came out of a book,” Sinclair-Morris said.
The device is about five pounds and around the same size as a 15-inch laptop. The device features an eight-dot Perkins braille keyboard, pan up and down buttons, direction pads, Android navigation keys, and a 10-line by 32-cell refreshable braille display which can render lines of braille and tactile graphics simultaneously with 3,840 equidistant pins. The 10-line refreshable braille display feature is a large leap from previous technology, which only allowed for one line at a time.
The device also connects to the internet and can establish a connection to the American Printing House's tactile graphics library, providing a wide variety of options for how it could be implemented in the classroom.
“We look at each student individually and students who are our braille readers will start to implement it in the classroom, slowly but surely,” Sinclair-Morris said.
The device was developed through a partnership with the American Printing House, which is headquartered in Louisville, and technology development company HumanWare.
The Monarch devices were delivered to KSB during a ceremony on Sept. 5. MarySusan Abell, communications director for American Printing House, said they will make a true difference in the lives of blind and low vision students by putting what could be binders full of braille textbooks into a simple device.
“This will truly level the educational playing field for blind and low-vision students,” she said.
Jessica Minneci, a communications associate for the American Printing House, said she’s excited for the students to have more advanced math capabilities through braille.
“I stopped around trigonometry because I majored in writing in college and I didn’t need that math, but I loved math and I was very good at it,” she said. “I would have gone on to advanced math if I had this device and I would have had access to a lot more tactile graphics.”
Jim Kreiner, senior director of product operations and customer analytics for American Printing house, said the Monarch came together through collaboration with several different agencies and organizations to provide custom software for the device.
“Our educators were working to develop whole new pedagogy; how do you teach pinch-to-zoom and panning and things like that on a tactile display when that’s never existed and never been taught before,” he said.
KSB purchased the Monarch devices using money from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) fund. The federal ESSER funding supports the safe and sustained return to in-person learning. It expands equity by supporting students who need it most, particularly those most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We appreciate having the access to that funding so that we can address learning loss for our students,” said Sinclair-Morris. “We used (ESSER funding) not just for learning loss for Braille readers, but for all our kids with visual impairment and low-vision.”
Sinclair-Morris said she expects the devices to help encourage more students to learn braille as it becomes easier to teach.
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