An electronic note-taker with a Braille keyboard can help a student take notes and allow it to print in Braille. For example, a student can attend a lecture on American history and take notes just like all his other classmates. The note-taker often has a built-in speech input which allows the student to read email and use a calculator and upload or download information. One example is Braille Lite, which is a portable word processor and note-taker. It has a word processor, spell-checker, phonebook, calculator, timer, stopwatch and clock. Accessible PDAs use text-to-speech technology and a "tactile" cover. For example, the Maestro is a slim, portable PDA that allows students to take text notes with a standard or Braille keyboard, edit documents, read books, manage e-mails and surf the Internet.
Although a magnifying glass might be suitable for some students, specialized software, such as Zoomtext, enables students to magnify the text on the computer screen. Other programs, such as Supernova, are even more sophisticated and integrate magnification, speech and Braille.
Some software applications use a scanner and Optical Character Recognition so students can scan hard copy into the computer which is then read aloud or, alternatively, users can magnify on screen. The Adobe reader has a Read Out Loud function for PDF files. Students can hear a page or the whole document and are able to start and stop at will. Auditory players, either portable or desktop types, enable students to read books on disk. Students can "bookmark" pages and navigate their way through the books.
Students now have more access to classroom handouts in Braille. Teachers can scan pages into a computer and then use specialist software programs and printers to "translate" the text into Braille. For example, a teacher can turn a page of French into French Braille and then use a specialized embossing machine to convert that text onto a printed page of Braille. Other innovative ideas for using Braille include work by the University of Illinois. It is developing small sculptures, cast from bronze, with mathematical equations on them to help children between 7 and 10.
Visually impaired students often need to deal with images as well as text. Teachers can now use specialized machines and paper to "raise" the ink on the image from a flat drawing so that students can then feel the shapes and lines.