BARD Makes Listening Easier for Hard-of-Hearing Seniors

BARD provides selector buttons for tone and speed on their digital audio players.  My 95-year-old mother needs to have the speed of the voice slowed a bit.  The analog audio players allowed this, though it distorts the audio.  The digital audio players really allow the speed to match the needs of the listeners.  Voices of Vision provides digital eAudiobooks and we download the books we like to USB drives that the digital audio players read.

For more information about BARD, please follow the link.

"We, the People" . . . and Health Care Reform

The preamble to the United States Constitution contains these words, "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America."

When Congress, elected by "the People" to represent them and their interests, is faced with legislation that should be "for the good of the People as a whole" (such as health care reform), it is surprising that members vote along party lines.  Regardless of political affiliation, we, "the People" are an amazing cluster of people who all need good health care.

How do members of Congress accurately reflect the needs and interests of "the People?"  How do they make their decisions in ways that are for the highest good of as many "of the People" as possible?

BARD Website provides Digital Audiobooks for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

The Library of Congress provides the National Library Service (NLS) for the blind and physically handicapped.  Recently the NLS has begun switching from audiobooks on recorded cassettes to digitally recorded audiobooks--available on a special cartridge and for download.  These digital audiobooks are available for eligible subscribers only and must be played through the Digital Talking Book Machine (DTBM) player provided by the NLS through state libraries or by an equivalent machine purchased by an eligible subscriber.

The NLS now has a Braille and Audio Recording Download (BARD) website which subscribers can use to download digital audiobooks in a compressed (Zipped) format.  These downloaded digital audiobooks can be extracted to a file on a computer system, then the extracted file folder can be copied onto a USB drive that has no other pre-loaded software.  The DTBM need to see the file folder and can access the book files.

While these books have been released as recently as October, 2009, there are already some updates to the software.  These can be accessed at a special DTBM update website.    These updates are also in zipped format and need to be downloaded and extracted on a computer.  Then the extracted file folder needs to be copied to its own USB drive so the DTBM can read the update and initiate it immediately.

My mother received her "advanced" DTBM (which allows bookmarking of downloaded books) in early November.  We needed to update her software before her machine played downloaded audiobooks.  After updating the machine, we have discovered that the PNY 2GB USB 2.0 drives available from WalMart at $9.98 work well for both downloaded audiobooks and downloaded updates.  BARD will be adding to its collection throughout the year and beyond.  It currently makes books and magazines available in digital audio format in multiple languages.

My mother (who has macular degeneration in both eyes) started working with the cassette tape players provided by the NLS earlier this year.  She had many problems with the recorded cassettes because she is also hard of hearing and, though we have external speakers that let her hear what is played, the combination of the narrators voice and the cassette recording made it extremely difficult for her to understand the audiobooks received on cassette.  The cassette player also works with audiobooks from public libraries and she was able to understand many of those.

The DTBM player is both easier to operate and has a much clearer sound quality.  It is much easier for Mom to understand digital audiobooks played on this machine.

Mom lives in Carol Stream, IL, and is supported by the Voices of Vision Talking Book Center based in Geneva, IL.  Her online membership registered with Voices of Vision transferred to the BARD website in one working day.  Mom needed an e-mail address and had to complete two online forms to be able to open her BARD account and download digital audiobooks.

The mission of the NLS is "That All May Read" and they are doing a terrific job at making that happen for thousands of blind and physically handicapped individuals, free of charge.  The materials mailed to the people using the service and being returned to the Talking Book Centers move through the U.S. Post Office free of charge ("Matter for the Blind and Physically Handicapped").

This service and the new BARD service and DTBM are keeping Mom connected to the world in ways that she would otherwise not have access to.  I am very thankful for the support of the Library of Congress, the National Library Service, and of the Voices of Vision Talking Book Center and all those involved in adding to the quality of life for their patrons.

I first saw the DTBM at the July 2009 Annual Conference and Exhibition for the American Library Association in Chicago, IL.  The Library of Congress had an exhibit at McCormick Place and their representative showed me how the player worked.  At the time he said that they were being made (in China) and would be avaliable soon for distribution in the USA.  We received a letter in early October allowing Mom to request the player as soon as it became available and she was one of the first to receive one in this area.  The cartridge is "wrapped around" a USB drive and the DTBM reads one book at a time.

The DTBM can access multiple books on the same USB drive by holding down the green PLAY button as the machine advances through the folders on the drive. I will still have a few drives available for Mom can free space on the drives by erasing the books when she is finished with then, then can load other books on the same drive.

Making Connections between Schools, Parents, and Students

Teachers are often challenged to make connections between schools, parents, and students.  Many times parents regard their children and school work as unrelated to the "real world" of their day-to-day lives.  The Library of Congress of the United States of America has suggested that students capture oral histories of their families.

Last year I had two projects that I introduced at the middle school (seventh and eighth grade) level that could be adapted up and down and is relevant to adults as well.  These two projects were a Family Migration History project and a Footprints Project.  You can find out more about these projects on my digital portfolio for education on YouTube.  (Follow this link for the same video on Teacher Tube.)  You can find the details for the projects on these websites:  http://drmontgomery.wikispaces.com/ and http://drm-ms-resources.wikispaces.com/.

In the Family Migration Story we used the National Geographic Human Genome Project as our starting place for everyone's stories, then picked up personal family stories as far back as the parents could remember, talking about family members and reasons for moving from one place to another across the globe.  Using a collaborative writing technique guided by the teacher students in each class created a series of questions which they translated from English to their native language.  They asked their parents the questions and recorded the answers.  They also gathered family pictures, souvenirs, and other family treasures to support their stories.  (These are called primary source documents in historical research circles.)  We made digital copies of these treasures and returned them immediately to their parents.  Our goal was to have the students write a script from their answers and to digitally record their Family Migration Stories--accompanied by the digital photographs of their family treasures.  Ideally they would make the recording in both English and in their native language.  Our goal was to record their scripts onto DVDs which the parents could then play at home.  Due to technological difficulties the audio in our recordings didn't work last year, though the rest of the project went well.

The Footprints project takes the end of the Family Migration Story and talks about what someone has done with their lives.  Middle school students can talk about what they want to do with their lives and what kind of footprint they want to leave on the planet.  Parents and teachers can talk about footprint stories from the point of view of what they have done with their lives and of the footprint they are leaving on the planet.

These are very engaging projects and are good for the beginning of a school year, though they could be a focus point for anytime during the year.  Parents could come to the school to view multiple Family Migration Stories as part of a celebration of learning.

The key to integrating parents into the school life and the life of the students is to make the connections with the real world.  Parents and students studying language together can be a help as well as parents becoming involved as subject matter experts about their own families.