Ok. so I'm sorry about one thing, that the topic of this workshop was not well described on the website, there was only one word: Mathematical Braille, there was something missing. Anyway, the idea of this workshop is not really a workshop, like the other workshop, where something was taught, but it's more of a discussion about the existing mathematical Braille codes and why there are so many Braille codes existing, and about some new approaches of doing maths in Braille, that currently experimented at least in some places, about some questions that are asked in the Netherlands, for instance, or some experimentation in Austria about a maybe more simple Braille code, that is being developed right now.
So, I wanted to start this workshop by asking the participants, what Braille code they are using in the different countries, where you come from, and how many different Braille codes you have to deal with in your country. Because even in some small countries there are three or four different codes, while some bigger countries have only one, and hopefully in Spanish language countries, for a lot of countries, there is only one code.. So these are different ways and approaches to mathematical Braille.
So maybe I can just start making a very short introduction about this situation of mathematical Braille. It is a little bit complicated for various reasons. One of the reasons is that, it is a historical fact, which is that Loius Braille did not like math. The important thing of that is that, you might know that he liked music, there is one Braille code for music, that is used more or less everywhere. So there is a universal Braille code for music, which is taught in a lot of countries and they don't have all the same kind of problems.
But he never designed the origin of mathematical Braille code, and then at the beginning of the 20th century the people, who are doing math, started to think about how to make it easier to work on math for blind people. The problem they had is that when they were linerising equations that are graphically displayed for sighted people. If you linerise, let's say, formulas, then you have very long expressions with a lot of parentheses. And this was the reason, why they started to think about new Braille maths that would allow to reduce the size of these formulas.
And the first, as I already mentioned, was a French professor of mathematics in Strasburg, I think, so I don't know actually if he is French or German, because that was just the time when Alsace was in Germany, but he came back from the second world war and he was blind. He was a mathematician before, and then he was wounded during the war in 1917 or something like that, and then he was blind. He was called Antoine. The during the 20th century there have been a lot of Braille codes, that have been developed locally in different places, where they were facing the same situation: that formulas were too long and it was difficult.
At this period, for instance, Marburg was released in 46, that is the first official version and Nemeth in the US started to work after the Second World War. He worked on his PhD., in the 50s or 60s, on the Nemeth code. All this has been developed in local places with a few communications with other school for the blind. That's why they are so different. Of course today we have Facebook, we have Twitter, whatever you want to be connected with, and then it is much easier to share information and to build up some codes that work for everybody. In these different places people were isolated, and they ended up with a solution which was very linked to their culture, to their writing culture actually.
And if you look at Marburg, for instance, the Marburg code is one of the longer codes and it is long because there is a lot of things that must be said. It is of German precission, you cannot guess that this language will be there., because it has to be there. Like if you go to Germany, on the road you always have the sign to say: �speed limit� and the sign to say �off speed limit�, but in another country you will not have the second to say �finish�, for instance. In France, on the contrary, there are a lot of defaults. If there is no sign, it means that there is one default, while in German before each letter, you must have a sign saying: �if it's roman capital, it's roman laroques, greek laroques�. In France there is no saying it means it's roman laroques, for instance.
What we have to understand is, that it is very difficult to come back to a situation with a unique Braille code, and I'm not sure, if it's even something we should want, because these codes are very difficult to learn and they were targeting a group of persons who were blind with high mathematical capabilities and who were able to learn these very difficult codes and we have to understand, that the situation has a bit changed in the last twenty ears. And it has changed, because the reasons why people are blind have changed.
In the 70s you had a lot of people who are getting blind at birth, because they were born too early and then they have hyperoxigenation of eyes, and they lost their vision at this time. And this in developed countries almost never happens. But what happens now are problems coming from genetics, people are blind, but they also have a loss of hearing or some different kinds of trouble. So the population is a bit changing, and there are less people, who are able to actually learn these very complicated Braille codes. On the other side, the group of people, who have additional problems, which are not necessarily polyhandicap, but can have different problems, they can learn some mathematical knowledge, even if they are not able to deal with very complicated Braille codes.
So now the evolution is to go to more simple codes and to deal with the difficulty. The initial difficulty was the length of the formulas, and instead of dealing with it by making the structure complicated, we can use computers to allow the users to navigate in formulas, for instance, and to access the formulas in another way. So that they don't have to learn by hart, that these complicated structures mean this or that, but they can access first to the structure and then go in the different part of the structure and access the content. That is probably the evolution right now.
One thing I will say, it is not necessarily a good idea to want to change everything and to have a unique Braille code for the whole world, is that the people, who are using Braille code are very attached to their Braille code. If you listen to this guy, next to Dory, Bernhard, speaking of Marburg, you can see that he loves Marburg.
Absolutely.
So he will never want to work with a mix of French, British and Italian Braille codes.
That is true.
And then a lot of people will not know this Braille code, they don't want to, or maybe they can't learn another one, which will be too different from their culture. But then, of course, in some places the situation can be improved, because some codes exist in regions which have the same culture and then there are no reasons to have different codes, in some of the cases.
Anyway, maybe we can start this roundtable thing, what about in Belgium?
So, in Belgium we have two language communities, we have the French part and the Dutch part of Belgium. They have different codes. The French part of Belgium uses the French global code.
The code Antoine?
I don't know, yes, I think it was revised in 2005.
2007. It's an evolution of code Antoine.
Yes, it's a newer version.
It's not code Antoine anymore.
It's the same code that has been used in Canada and in all French speaking countries of world, so they have less problems than we have in the Flemish part. In Flanders we have two different codes, so that makes three codes for ten million people, so that's a situation not very good. In Flanders we have two different codes, one in region Brussels and one in the costal region. The difference between the two codes is that the Brussels code is a true mathematical Braille code, developed in the 70s, and the costal code is a newer code, it exists for five years, or something, and that's the code that's possible to enter through the computer keyboard. So that's the big difference between the two codes. The old code, until now, is still used with the Braille machine, so it's six Braille dots. The newer code is a bit like the light version of LaTeX in Dutch.
So, everything, instead of the symbol for OIM, you just write O-I-M. The good thing about the new code is that word-transparent, especially in ITM teaching, it's more easy for the normal teachers to communicate with people, because it's more transparent. The negative thing about the code is, that it is longer, also LaTeX and Limbu codes are much longer than the true Braille codes.
So we thought that this is not a good situation, so since last year there is an educational commission, there will be a new Braille code, somewhere between the two. It has to be short, as the old. The Belgium code is also the ................ code, it's not exactly the same, but it's similar, somewhere in between the old true Braille code and the newer, computer friendly code.
It should be developed by the end of next year, next school year. We will see, there are some experts coming from Holland to the commission to explain something more about Dedicon, but we thing Dedicon is too long. Also they use a lot of spaces and for the new code we were thinking if we use English as a base for, for example, to announce a fraction we could B or BR for the Dutch word Bruck? Or use F or FR. Four characters are too long, but one or two, we were thinking about inventing a code that's a bit more universal, or a bit more extendable than the Dutch code.
Also one Belgium company will develop some software, conversion software, so no calculating or analyzing software, but just from code to black print, to Braille. Those three should be in it, but there is no help for the blind on analyzing. That's something, I think, we also need. Because the structure, the visual structure of maths is lost, it's nowhere and I think we should create something that helps this lack of information.
So this software does not yet exist?
Now it exists, now it is a software that exists in the Braille machine. They will make a version that is for computers.
Jan, he will be here on Tuesday, he told me that...
He's the chairmen of the commission.
He told me that there is now software, where you can write in black writing and it displays on the Braille display in the Braille code. That is not yet in real time, so you need to say convert, but you can convert from to the other but what code is that?
That's the old Braille code.
That's the old?
We call it Norbert, it's the name we are using.
That's why I'm going to ask you to write it.
So we have a very complex situation in Belgium and since last year more people admitted that this is no longer welcome, if someone in Flanders, we have six million people, if someone moves to the coast, to the other side of the country, they have to learn a new Braille code. It's madness.
Is the new code derived from the old one?
The new has to be developed.
So the costal code and the Brussels are they similar to each other? Or they are completely different?
Our code, I work for a school at the costal part, we use the � we call it the Spare-Marie code- it's a little bit similar to Dedicon code, so it's very elaborated, we worked with words from the symbols, it's not symbol to symbol transcripts embol to one or three characters.
But the Dedicon code is not the Dutch official code.
Yes, it is.
It is?
We have sixteen million students in Netherlands, and we were in a situation, couple of years ago, where we had no teachers that were aware of any code. Dedicon, our transcription centre, was producing math in Braille code, but not really, they have been using it � something derived from the Nemeth code, that was established in the USA in 1952, and they had it until now, it's was that old. In the mean time, they had made their own variations and adaptations, because one transcriber thought it more practical to write this down in another way. The situation, let's say, seven years ago, was that the student would have a book and one book could have a different notation from another book. So you would have to look up all the letters each time.
Sorry, Dory, you said really sixteen million students? Not blind?
No, inhabitants. No, there were not sixteen million blind students.
Because you really said sixteen million students. That would be a little too much, I would say, a little too much.
OK, anyway, so, we had different books and then we also had a situation, that the students didn't learn a code. If you learn a code it's more or less like growing up with it, learning the grammar, but they didn't.
We also had had the situation for a long time and the mathematics was not obligatory in the final exams. So what had happened is that blind students were very actively discouraged to take maths. They very rarely would take maths, because he or she would be happy to have a teacher, or parent or somebody, who would take the extra trouble and make it happen. Basically have maths begun being completely inaccessible.
Then we have developed a minimal notation, like your costal one, which was based practically on the language that is used in Maple, Mathematica, Excel, it is a mix of it all. The pros are that it communicates very well with sighted teachers and peers, the sighted peers will immediately take a pencil and start to write down in the way that they are used to, but at least this conversion can easily be made without a computer. And an additional thing to keep in mind with this solution is that back then, all students already have almost known printed Braille in the class. So in the printed Braille you need the code, but they were all working with refreshable Braille. This code was slowly systemized and now the new math books are being produced in the index, call it a code, or language.
The good news is that we have quite a few students passing their final exam in mathematics at different levels, successfully each year. Bad new is that academically the ones that start studying, started using LaTeX in their first year of their studies, and most of you know it better than I do that LaTeX is an editing language and it is not practical to do mathematics. And then most start at more difficult levels than they ever had at school so they start at the end, they must be good in LaTeX and the brain is not yet trained to use it. So, I see a lot of students that after couple of months when they have very long formulas, say: �I got to change, I have to take a different direction, because this is too long, this is too complex, I don't have such a big memory that I can deal with these formulas�. That's in a nutshell our situation.
So at the university they use Dedicon code or they don't, because LaTeX is not another story.
It's not a story. If you have your books before your exams, you are lucky. That's really a problem, especially for students. They simply do not have the experts that can use the books in a required quality and in time. So, most students do not use Dedicon.
And they don't use LaTeX.
Yeah, yeah, they use MT reader, they do with them selves. If they are lucky enough to have somebody to cut the books or to get the digital format from the....that is something that Dedicon is now helping with since, approximately, one or two years: to get the digital documents from the publishers. And then, if you have good PDF quality, the 600PPI quality book, then of course this is a good bases for the MT reader.
And they convert it to LaTeX?
Yes, they will convert it to LaTeX.
And from LaTeX you can then convert it into more readable formats.
Yes, but if they write something in LaTeX, they will just use it to produce a planner above the line and under the line, for the teacher.
Of course.
And they will read the LaTeX, so if you, for example, work in a code like Nemeth, then there is a conversion software. You can write in Nemeth and I know that a lot of people do not really properly write in Nemeth either, so they all have their own improvisations. But basically it's possible to have a Nemeth code go into LaTeX, vice-versa. But we don't have that software. Not enough students, not sixteen million students. That's the problem.
In the French universities, don't hide. What are used by the students is Paris 6, Paris 7, Paris 8.
You are all from France? All four of you?
Yes.
And you are from Mexico?
Yes, we are all French. I don't know the French mathematical code, only the Spanish. We are from the French university of science, attribute of maths for blind students, because they just given up before commuting university.
OK. Did you hear that? That everybody...so they give up before they come to the university? That is exactly what John Angele told me.
We have no students in computer science, not this year.
Yeah, but who do the computer science have some math module that they have to do.
They don't use Braille.
So they don't use Braille.
Probably some people have been making them to read at mathematics home, but in the past few years we didn't a program converting to Braille for class lessons, only for exams, like graphics
And it's the worst students passing to the high level, would you recommend them to use LaTeX, or you use the French code and then high level.
It's simple for us to use LaTeX, but it would be a problem for us to recommend something.
And do all universities in France use LaTeX? No? Because in Holland there is a difference too. There is always more to my story. In some universities they don't use LaTeX that much than in the others.
I only use OpenOffice, the math type, and it works very well. Because I use a default to make the transcriptions after, which works very well with Open Office. And it is a new devise which is starting to be used in France for the sciences. I started to do this since a few months, maybe I do the transcriptions since June. Before I was working with a lot of students with disabilities, but I didn't need to do the transcriptions, because we didn't have any students in mathematics. And now, we will need for the next year, for example, some biology graphics, I don't know, some formulas, I don't know what should I use. But it is not a problem of Braille anymore.
No, that's a problem of the graphics, we just talked about in the annotation.
You were talking about a new devise?
Yes, it's called RAT.
It's not a devise, it's a software.
One of the communes projects, it's an educational project, and one of our partners is on Mathematical biology, one of our partners is in Paris, and there the teacher also the words in Braille and she types for OpenOffice and then she uses another.
And it works very well, you can choose, we have this Braille contract to, Braille to?
I think most of the blind students, but I don't know about the maths, but they use discontract.
In Holland we don't use contracted Braille, not at all. So we always have one Braille sign on the Braille display and one letter, or character on the monitor. And in Belgium?
We don't use contracted Braille.
Not any more? OK.
Braille contracts are so less popular. I consider it a really fine invention. It makes reading faster, it makes writing easier and faster, but of course a current trend is that more and more people are educated in the mainstream, but contracted Braille is more and more forgotten.
That's a new reality to the mainstream, they have a lot of blind people, that's the reality so you have to deal with it.
Yes, but wouldn't it be a fine idea to keep the awareness of the children for real refined Braille technologies, such as contracted Braille, even although they are not very good. This would be a challenge.
So in France, in the universities, you have said there is no convert. Actually there is one, which is used in these three universities. But there is one official code which two minor colleges used in all the country and which was revised several times. In 71, 2001 and in 2007 so people at least in schools, secondary schools, are using this French code and there are no other.
I said that they use it in Belgium. But they are thinking in Canada, in the institute for the blind in Montreal, they said that they are using Nemeth, actually, up to now. A couple of years ago, they were discussing to start to use the French code instead of the Nemeth, because in the French speaking they were using the American. You know the French Canadians want to do everything different to British Canadians.
The last improvement, for instance, with the French Braille code seems a little bit strange. They made, for instance, some changes of the code to allow to make some exercises that exist in French books, in math books for people, especially for junior people, which could not have been transcribed with the previous one. This is something very peculiar, because it makes it more difficult than it was for the blind, because they wanted to make it as difficult as for the sighted.
A very simple explanation is the difference between a fraction bar and a slash, on the division. A lot of exercises in mainstream math, for elementary schools, is to make the people understand, that one over two, or one divided by two, mean the same. And in the previous Braille code, one over two and one divided by two were the same, so you don't have to explain anything. It is the same. So the exercise was to ask people if they recognize if two identical prepositions were meaning the same or not. So these kinds of exercises were not used in the schools for the blind. But now, the people are more and more integrated in ordinary schools, so these exercises are told in the classroom. Then it was completely not understandable what was the topic of the exercise, which they were doing in Braille. So they made a special thing that you can write differently, the slash and the bar, and if you have x plus one or x minus one, with or without parenthesis. Because if you have x plus one all of this over x minus one, you don't need to put parenthesis. But if you do it in Braille, you need some brackets to say where it starts, where it has the beginning.
And then you change something, and you can write it differently, if the parenthesis are there or not, while before it was the same. In Braille it was the same to write with or without parenthesis, because the brackets were at the role of parenthesis. So now it makes a little bit more difficult in Braille. But, actually, this is not a big problem in the sense that if you go over in the studies, this disappears, you don't care about the presence of the parenthesis.
But I think it makes it something that was simpler at the beginning for the blind student.
It was a price that had to be paid for the integration. From the moment, when they got integrated, they have.
The funny thing is and then I think that the Czechs should tell their situation, but the funny thing is that Nemeth designed his code not semantically but representational. He was a blind math teacher and he needed a way to be able tell what was in the book, so if there was something above or under the line, this required another division sign, so to speak a slash. And then he also developed a way of dictating mathematics, which is quite genial. Because if Art Kashnar would come, he has been doing research on dictating maths to one another, and then he would do this double blind and over phone, so nobody could see it. Everybody thought, I did a great job, but only 25% of what was dictated was notated by the other person was correct. So if you dictate in the Nemeth way, then you use this system for math speak, then you don't so easily make the common mistakes. That's the counter part of it.
We, in Holland, we have also decided that the books will be made differently in order to be Brailled, they were not Brailled anymore. Now it's getting complex. So Braille had, for example the slash, the slash on the monitor, not the Braille slash, was used to indicate superscription. So you got mistakes, people thought it's a slash and I have to divide it, but it was meant to indicate a square. The speech confusion was big and we also said that it's no longer useful to have representational math code, let's work with a semantical one. So one that shows the functions, that shows what I have to do.
So we don't have this complicated situation, you have just described, any longer. In our way of dictating. We have simplified it. There's always a slash.
The problem about presentation of maths is that since ten years, everybody is speaking about semantical presentation of maths. Like MathML has too versions: semantic and representational. So there exists a semantic MathML code, like there is a representational mathematical. But 99% of software's are using the representational. Because they are translated. The problem is that it is more complicated than the fact that people don't use it, so it is difficult to decide between the two representations.
If you take something very simple, like A parenthesis X plus one closing parenthesis, A (x+1), this can mean two things. If you are doing maths algebra, it would probably be the product of A and x plus one, but if you are doing mechanics, for instance, it would probably be a function of acceleration applied to x plus one. This, when you see only the formula, you have no way to know. If you take A, then there is some evident context that if it's algebra, it is probably not a function.
But then, if you take another letter, L parenthesis somewhere , it can be anything.
F, the F is normally the abstract name for a function. F parenthesis x plus one. F (x+1). Is a function of a mathematical product.
It can be a product sometimes, yes, so there is no way to decided this automatically. What happens is that in Braille, there is a same ambiguity, so there is no problem, because you have the same. You can transcribe from mainstream to Braille without having to answer this question, because the two meanings are represented the same way as well in black, as well in all Braille codes in that exist. But then if you want to use it to speech, then it is useful to know it, because then you will not say the same A by x plus one or A of x plus one, it could improve a lot. If you say that you go to semantic in Braille, that's interesting, but I'm not sure if it's somehow possible in the next 25 years.
For the software, because the software cannot decide the context.
Software cannot decide, so the only way to solve this is that the user, who is designing the formula on the computer says it's a function. It's the only efficient way, I mean. If you want to reuse existing content, designed in LaTeX or in paper, or in MathML representation, there is no automatic way to convert it.
And since ten years there are two groups working on the mathematical representation. There is one group working on MathML stream, because now we are using MathML 2000 something, and another group OpenMath working on the version 3 of OpenMath, on MathML3 and OpenMath3 are getting closer. And both are completely semantic. But until now, nobody was able to implemented it into a software. Because we don't know how to do it.
So it is interesting to have some Braille representation which goes than the mainstream representation on the semantic code.
Let's talk a little bit about the codes used in Czech Republic.
Excuse me, I don't have experience with this.
This morning we had one workshop, in Czech Lambda is obviously used a lot.
Yeah, Lambda is, is anybody here is familiar with Lambda?
He told us not to use it for conversion to Braille.
You mean to paper Braille.
They told us only to use it to read on the computer.
Well I can tell a few words about Lambda. The Lambda project is an European project. It is a European funded project between 2000 and 2002, something like that. They have made a new code for visually impaired people, which was supposed to improve the possibility of converting. So it's a, what I call, computer friendly software, system, Braille code. Personally I prefer human friendly computers, the computer has to adapt to the human and not on the contrary. They made a code which is genial, it has no complicated grammar as in all the other Braille codes, so that it can be converted to a sighted version more easily.
Each symbol is in Lambda represented by an abstract object, which can have several representations. One is an image, a character, actually and one is a Braille representation for one country and one is a Braille representation for another country. What they did is that they made a several representations for several countries, reusing the existing symbols of the country. It's like when you have a linear grammar but with same symbols. The structure is not the same, but the symbols are more or less the same.
It has one big dysfunction, it is an eight dot Braille, while all the other Braille codes, minus one, are six-dot Braille. And originally Braille code is a six dot code. Two additional dots have been introduced by computer. And what people generally say, is that it's not really usable to have eight dots. But that doesn't mean that some individuals can't read with their finger on eight dots, but most people will use only six. And then the codes using eight dots for literature are clever to use the down dots for something that is not that important. Like capital, so the dot seven is often the capital. If you miss a capital sign when you read, it's not a big problem, but then, when you edit the text, you can find it.
This is one of the major faults that people, who tried Lambda, find on Lambda. You cannot really read it linearly, and they need to go up and down with the finger.
They also use dot seven and eight to create new symbols, or they use seven and eight to get information about the capital.
There are symbols on eight dots. Especially, for instance, I don't remember the code it self, but if you have an A, you have to see with the dots seven and eight, if it is roman, capital, Greek or something like that. When you are reading literature, for instance, you miss a capital sign, it's not really important, but in maths it's a problem, because a small a and big A might mean something completely different in formulas.
It gives extra information. If you use six dot Braille you have 63 symbols and when you use eight dot you have 2 and 55. But they know 55 symbols using eight dots.
So they reuse the same kind of symbols of each of the countries, but put on eight dots. If the code was using two Braille characters in one code it might lead to only one in the Lambda code. Each symbol is an abstract with a name with a representation for the screen and several representation in Braille and they had to add some six dot representation. There the system that is able to convert automatically, does not convert, because it's only a different representation of the character.
On the screen what you will see a beginning of the square route which will be only above one character a symbol looking like a square route and at the end there is a small square rout reversed, so it shows the end. This is easier for the teachers to understand what it is than to have the Braille dots, but still it's not the natural way for the sighted to see formulas, and especially with fractions it starts to be a little bit difficult. Because when you have fractions within fractions, then you have a lot of separators and it's quite difficult.
I did some experimenting with Lambda, although just a few times, and I found out that the Lambda code is not so difficult to learn. I'm not really sure why the lady before me asked, if all the 256 symbols are defined in the eight dot code. Perhaps not all are used in another language, but many are certainly used. But I really thought that the Lambda system, it self it is counted as an editor, and this editor really makes it quite easy for you to write a formula. You can define where a fraction begins, you have a mark of the constellation and the editor is sensitive and feels, or recognizes the end of the fraction or of a route or of an index. I count this quite comfortable.
But what Dominic said is true, it is not so pleasant for sighted individuals to read what's on the screen after blind persons, although they did implement some kind of not real time converter to graphical notation, but sometimes let's say takes a snapshot of the screen and converts it to graphics.
I do not know how well, how fast and how pretty looking this works but at least they have the opportunity.
Yes, there is a converter from Braille, from Lambda code to MathML representation, so they can open an Internet Explorer window, they use Internet Explorer with a math plug-in and then the formula would be in graphics. But it's not natural, sometimes you press a button and then there is a formula. But then, if you modify the formula graphically, then you have to close it and reprocess it.
They tried to sell the Lambda code in different countries. What I know that in France, they had a meeting with the official representative of the Braille commission of them, there is a French committee national of the French Braille, and they went to tell them that their old French code was not good enough and that they should use theirs. You can guess what their approach was. Then whatever the code will be I wouldn't bet a cent on it in the future.
On Lambda?
So in some countries, where they did not have a code before, it might have worked, in some small countries. I know that one of the participants to the Lambda project was in one of the old western countries, so there it is used a little bit. It is also used a little bit in Italy, but I'm not even sure if in all Italy, and that's about all.
But one of the advantages of Lambda is that it is analyzing most of them, it can ask for the structure of the formula.
To some extenses.
That depends on what you mean by structure. What they do is that they will move the characters and the parenthesis.
And also if there is a fraction.
Yeah.
It's not used?
I don't know, actually, what the people in the classrooms are using. You take a formula and you remove a section of characters, it's something you cannot do in WORD or whatever. The biggest work of the project, where they spend most of their time, was to design a new code and to make the projections to different languages. What is interesting is the approach of having a linear code with existing characters and the software to overcome the problem of the length of the formulas. Then the software is a bit limitating. The fact it is eight dot, it is a problem.
I think that you started very interestingly why is there.....sorry, rephrase....You started very interestingly with saying that there is one music code, and then you dwelled upon the history of math codes, stressing that they were all developed in isolated environments, language environments, where some character already taken for something else, so each country had to look for their own solution. Can you explain why this has never happened with music?
Because there was one, because Loius Braille designed the music code.
And that would do for everybody?
Well then, people started to use it, if something exists, you don't have to create it. So it was designed by Loius Braille, and it was there from the beginning.
I know, that in Holland, nobody is asking more about the Braille music code, how is that in your countries?
And what are they using?
Most speech and sonar and like dancing dance software, that is playing it for you, you can analyze it, you can do parts.
To be honest I did learn some piano playing, not very professional, but I did it for seven years and I have received a lot of very, very complicated music. And I would be desperate if I did not have the chance to read it in Braille, because all those things that you have been quoting in a sense rely on the audio sense. They give more or less the interpretation of the music and not really a precise account of that material that has been written by the composer. But I'm very astonished, that the reality seems to be that Braille music gets less and less accepted or even questioned, or demanded by the people.
Yesterday in our social come-together, in the evening, I have met with a blind piano player. He is one of our workshop leaders. Many of you know him. He really plays the piano very much, even Bach's advanced works and he said that he had never touched a note in Braille. He has his teacher, who plays the music for him, then he records it, and then I would brake down from something like this, because I had said this might work, and I am surprised that it works often. But it doesn't hive you the very precise image of that, what has been written by the composer. Perhaps and explanation for the phenomenon is the fact, that what we were saying, Dominic said it, if you had things like Marburg mathematic Braille, the things are complicated. The same has to be said for the Braille music code.
It's terribly complicated to look at, let's say, two or five voices of the chore in Braille code, its very, very, very complicated. Just a few more words and I will be done with it.
Bernhard, let's not go too much on the music side.
But there is one parallel that is very interesting, nobody learns it, nobody teaches it. Of course, if you want to learn, you need somebody to...yeah, there is very little of students who are completely without guidance.
That is true.
If in any discipline, that was, as I stressed one, of the reasons. If I had the choice, why not use Nemeth, why not use the Belgium code, why not use the Marburg codes. It's all very near, it's our neighbors. We are English. But we don't have teachers, first we have to teach the teacher.
That is another problem, yes.
That's a very elementary one. If you want to use a code, and you want to use it properly, and you want to use it effectively, you need teachers, trained teachers first.
That's true.
The problem is that when you go to a mainstream school, there is a problem with the teacher, because the teacher cannot have a group of people, so they need to move, but depending on the size of the territory they will spend more time on driving than in teaching. I cannot teach to as many students, that we need. But that is the same with grade two, math and music.
Yes, exactly.
But music is another problem. I understand now, that we are short of German precession.
That's fine.
Actually, you have said something important that it is interpreted and then if you get the printed version you are not in chance to make your own interpretation. The work of the musician is doing the interpretation that is why the machine couldn't do it.
You can find the same with literary reading: some Braille readers won't have any form of spoken books, no human reading, because they just want to make their own interpretation. That is some artistic freedom that people require.
We don't have this artistic interpretation in maths.
Let's talk about the Spanish, the Spanish speaking countries.
In the Spanish speaking countries we don't have that kind of problem as you, because there have been many Spanish conferences and they have agreed on one code. So Spain, Mexico and the whole Latin America use the same code, which we call Unified Mathematical Code and that's the standard. There have been people, for example from Mexico, this, I don't exactly know who he was, but he felt, that the Unified Mathematical Code is too long, and he decided to enshort the version. Something more similar to the Nemeth, but it is not widely accepted, it is not a standard, so we use the same code as the Spanish, Columbians and everyone in Latin America.
We have other types of problems regarding maths and Braille and the education of blind people in general, but not the unification of the code.
So this code is now used everywhere in Spanish countries?
Yes, officially.
Congratulations, that's fine. We can learn from you.
So, in Spain?
In Spain it is the same.
Yeah, I have the document from you.
And you don't have the problem teaching the teachers?
Yes.
That is one of the problems we have, because the teachers, I mean the mainstream teachers, they are not very familiar with Braille in general. Mathematical Braille in particularly, they are not used to it
They have some training courses, but for example in Mexico I don't know about the other places in Latin America, but in Mexico, in elementary schools we had children integrated in mainstream schools and they have people belonging to these education centers, who are send to schools to provide them some kind of .... I would say it's not effective. In paper the government will say: Yeah, we will take care of them� of the blind students, because we have these centers of education with special teachers. So the paper is there, but if you go to schools they are doing anything else than talking to children. There are very few of them, who do their jobs. Yes, there are national problems of training of teachers in Braille or other types of tools. Yet, sometimes they go to the workshops and sometimes they don't and maybe they go and then they forget or they go and they don't use anything.
That is a problem, because it is so rare, that sometimes the teacher, even in special schools for one, two or even three years has no Braille students so he uses the routine.
But opposed to, for example in France, most of the children know the Braille code, because not all of them have access to computers. So it's not so easy for them, they have to learn Braille.
OK. And do you know anything about Brazil?
Brazil? No, I don't know. I don't know if they use the same code, because they speak Spanish too. I can look in the document.
Yeah, I have the document on the web, where there were some information about different countries, and I had some information about Spain and Spanish speaking countries, but I have nothing about Brazil.
Yeah, from Mexico and a down...
Is it difficult in the mainstreams; is it difficult as a teacher to have all the expertise? I think in Holland, we have the same system, so we have special schools and special school teachers who help mainstream school teachers and people. But I have seen Armic, she specializes in maths.
Yes, but that is another thing. We have itinerary teachers who have been teaching in special schools in elementary schools- in basic education. In secondary education, which with us starts when the children are twelve years old, these teachers are still called itinerary teachers, but they are not teaching anymore, they are a kind of system supporters. They tell the school where to order the books, how to handle the child, how to cope if there are some social emotional problems and things like that, but they and Armic accidentally happens to be a first grade mathematical teacher who has been a kind of a rebel saying: �Hey, I am here to help these kids to pass their final exams, so my employer says I'm not allowed to teach maths, but I do. So, she is an exception in our country.
Yes, but why is she a rebel, and why is she saying I want to guide these people, because other itinerary teachers are �oh, no, maths, oh, no, I don't know maths�. You know the blind people just can't do maths, just skip it. That's the biggest problem.
That is the attitude.
Yes, it is and that is the biggest problem.
Mathematics is mostly not skipped, not because it is too difficult for the student, but because it is too difficult for the teacher. That is the problem.
And the teacher reports the fault to the student saying...the teacher would never say it's too difficult for him.
I think maybe we should consider a totally different system where, let's brainstorm, we have sighted math students that are near to the students and that are coached by a work to teach whatever, something like that.
I am not an itinerary teacher I have people from twelve to thirteen years old, some of them study engineering, some of them study sales. It's impossible to cross the law, so I can understand the situation. Me myself, I would like someone like Armic. If I had people with problems with maths I would say to a colleague: � Please, you help them, you are the expert�. You can't be an expert in one of the problems.
The idea of many governments to mainstream the children is to reduce costs.
Which is stupid.
So if you would really offer a proper education, you would have to educate more people or have more itinerary teaching at several levels, and have assistants, it costs more. And that of course is a big problem.
We should have more meetings, instead of one teacher crossing the whole country. Because the biggest costs in Belgium in itinerary teaching are the transport costs.
Of course.
But it cannot be far in Belgium.
This is a different discussion from the notation problem itself but in UK I have visited a sensory advisory centre and this was an educational centre for children with any handicap: deaf, blind, motility skills, whatever. And they had itinerary teachers responsible for an x number of students in small areas, where they have a minimal investment in traveling. In Holland they could jump on the bike, in England there is too many hills, but short distances, little traveling time and there the problem was how do you educate these itinerary teachers, so that they know sign language and they know it all. But that's another approach, of course.
The thing in Norway is that all blind schools all have resource centers. There are two resource centers for the blind. One is in the North and one in South, and they train teachers and people. So that's another way.
Yes, but Norway has oil.
Yes, they have oil, and they use it for the people. The thing you said is true, that integrated education can never be less expensive unless you decrease the quality. And if you want to do a good integrated education it's the choice of society. But it is much more expensive than having institutions.
But it's not efficient the way it is now.
Yes, because they want to do it cheap.
There is no communication.
We did not let Bernhard to speak about Marburg. But not too much Marburg. I know that in Germany there are four or five different codes and they also have the only (non-Lambda) eight dot code for maths, but it's not very much used. U can say a few words but shortly, because I would like you to speak about your project, the new code for schools. And why you did that.
OK. Should I immediately begin with this?
Yeah.
With this project?
Of course.
The idea was that Marburg is not really accepted in Austria. It was for some time but now, in the schools, but now they want to have simpler codes and we had for some time a quite nice code, it was called Human Readable TeX, HRTeX, which idea was to simplify LaTeX a little. I think one of the ladies sitting in front of me was talking about simplified LaTeX. This was quite well accepted in our school, but now there is a new initiative that some school teachers from Vienna came to us and made a project and said: �We want to optimize the old work for producing books for blind�, not only mathematics, but every subject, they want to optimize it.
One of the components of this project activity was also the idea to examine the HRTeX we had in the direction whether it is efficient enough, whether it is suited for school children.
The result of this examination, which is of course not completely finished, is called ASBMC, which is called Austrian School Braille Mathematics Code, it is now only for Austria and German speaking countries, but it can be easily localized. And let me point out two guild lines that drove us, that inspired us, by creating this. The idea was, first of all, it should be an ASCII code, so not and eight dot code, not a Braille code, in the classical sense, but a code that can be written on every ASCII keyboard like this one. And that can be viewed on an ASCII screen and also on the Braille display. But not so much in favor of Braille, but in favor of ASCII. Some of you might remember the ASCII math code from Karlsruhe, which has been designed in the 80s.
The other idea was, really... of course, ASCII means in Braille seven dots, because you have six dots for the letters and the seventh for the capitalization. And the other idea was to make the code such, that it can be easily typed on the keyboard also for young children, and that it can easily be read for the children.
So one of the outcome of our attempts was for instance, you called the backslash, you know this from LaTeX, a text symbol like backslash frack, is the fraction, or backslash sin is the sign function. And we used, we call this the escape character, and we use now the accent, the apostrophe, instead of the backslash, because it's much easier to by typed on the keyboard, at least on the German one. And it's easier read, because it's just thought out for a small child.
The rules are very similar to TeX, but we have eliminated those curly braces, you know, in TeX that everything has to be fit together, is surrounded by curly braces. These are also hard to write with a German keyboard so we use ordinary round braces. So for me, for a semantical mathematician it is a little bit unpleasant because the distinction between the normal and curly braces is now disappearing, but it's easier readable, easier writable and the teachers demand it from us.
Another thing is, we have short, very, very short symbols now for a square route or an integral. A square route is simply the accent sign with a capital W, now why W and why capital. W is clear for all folks who speak German, W is like Wurtzer, which is the German word for route. But why capital, this is much, much harder, to explain, it was unclear for me, the teacher said: � Hey, Wurtzer or route is in German a noun, a substantive, which has to be written in capital according to German grammar. And they want for the teachers, sorry, for the children, this is no difference. So, capital S for a sum, because sum is a substantive. Capital I for integral, capital W for route.
Now I, personally to be honest, my last sentence. As a scientist I consider this a little strange. But for teachers it might really be important that is concept of capitalization, that they are teaching them, their children, in German grammar is also valid in math. I have to accept this that teachers in a sense have a different way of viewing things and so we decided to code the code in according to these guidelines.
Good.
OK. Interestingly, we also chose the code to use only keyboard strokes so that if you would convert to another format, you would never have squares or other accidents. So, it's easy to type and it's also easy to type on a laptop keyboard.
Exactly. It's a keyboard code.
That's what we have in common. And I think for that what you use W, C, we use Wartell and Stereo. We made S Q I think.
Really? That is because the Dutch people have so much English speaking. I know it, that's clear, yes.
By the way, I heard you mentioning that too, to make it more international for many years I have been plying to use more English software, because there already is an accessible English software and if you talk about maths, so if you train the brain to use any letter for any symbol that's not inconvenient once you are used to it.
It's also used on the calculator.
Yeah, exactly, yeah.
Sorry, what is in capital letters?
English abbreviations. Maybe not in Germany.
No, it's also on German calculators, I'm completely with you. I was reading English mathematics books for almost thirty years. But I learn on all these discussions and my friend Maria also accompanied me on this process. I learned, or we, at the university, very high university learned on these discussions that teachers are in different positions. They have to satisfy also the needs of the children and for them these English things are not so obvious. They are happier if they have more connection to their mother language, then at the university things change, but one can have let's say two levels of the code. One German version and one international.
Yeah, exactly, because in your introduction you also stressed that you have more students with extra learning difficulties, so you need extra simple codes. Mostly they don't need such complex marcs, they will never go into complex formulas.
Yeah. That is true.
One side is of course the students, who have more learning difficulties, but also in the past, in the special school for blind, one will go very far and the ones who are more efficient in, I mean the more brightest students, I don't want to say the more clever, but I have some other thinking what means clever, student's more efficient in this kind of task. And I think now there is a need of small democratic in a way, more open to other age students. Sighted student can have an average level in math, in the case of blind you have a very few who are very good in math, the ones who can learn the code. And the other know nothing. It's not a linear curve, there are a few very good and then none.
And this is a new sense, this has to be cured.
I think there is no reason that the average blind student cannot have an average mathematical knowledge.
Exactly. And this is a sentence, you were writing on the homepage of the ICCHP Summer university university.
It was a bit different, but yes. The idea may be the same.
So what we did in our project was making a list of what formulas were necessary and what, let's call it level, or type, of school education and then see if your notation would still work. In our case it works up to the sixth form, we didn't test it for university but it works very well. We have several types of school. We have one type of school that is vocational training for administrative jobs, computer science jobs, not scientific level, but very practical level. It works fine there. So that time of distinguish, that you can make and then see what is something usable. I would also very much like to work together internationally. Because it's a pity that everybody is reinventing the thing we own, for their own situation.
You are in a lucky position with the Spanish code, so you have no reason to. But I hear from a lot of people: �Hey, it's not working anymore!�.
It is funny that two sources, the Flemish and the Germans. Both of you spoke of using English words. The thing is that, thinking international, you are not going to do something, which will be used in Britain, because you put a few English word in it. And even if you put all the English words in it, they will never use your code. That's like Lambda saying �come on, I have a better code.�
But it is common in other countries. And maybe it's also an attitude in Belgium you see English movies with Dutch subtitles, we are used to English. It's not that strange for us to English. Most of us know several dialects in English. They speak Australian English. They speak better than we.
Also we have six million Flemish people it's too small. It is easy to create some code with English influences. And we know that we won't convince the rest of the world, but the biggest problem for me is the students that learn something and move to another region, to another country. It's a big problem. But I think that the differences in codes can be overcome by software. So it doesn't have to be a problem also. Using a little bit of there and a little bit of there. Also people have to be prepared for the higher level, the secondary level, of education.
And again, so many people are working with the Dedicon, the Belgian code, we have to learn another code. We had one student studying maths a few years ago, he studied six years secondary school, then he took one year off and he started to study at the university maths and he failed. I'm not saying it's one directly linked to the other, but there is no.... It's a pity, someone is learning for twelve years a code, and then he wants to go to a higher, university level and he has to learn another code and everything.
Because he cannot have his teaching materials in the code that he learned.
Yes, that's why we should do accessible, you know and some software to translate to any code. The problem is the cost. The group of persons is too small. Then we don't have the funding.
That's why we have to think internationally, to create this group bigger, larger. We have one guy studying maths in university nobody will care, but maybe in Europe we have twenty, or thirty and then we can do something more. Internationalizing is to be a bigger pressure.
Yeah, I agree. Small countries are speaking.
But for me, you don't have to abandon everything for a new code, the solution is more in having some software, not some software for each country, but some software that can be localized. So that the software is using the eight code, for example some prototypes were based on Braille, they were outputting Braille, but they were based on MathML. It was MathML. We have something, which is mainstream format and that allows to display properly for the sighted on the screen.
And then, if the user knows Marburg, then for him, each time he changes the view, or something, it is translated to Marburg. But if on the same software you use French Braille, then the software will translate it to French Braille.
But to develop a software like that you also need an international question like, we need software that is conversable to French, English, Dutch, the German the this and that.
Then the student must learn French codes.
The student uses the one he knows.
But there are not many teachers in the countries that are teaching the codes of the countries, so if you want to solve the problem you need software that makes it a lot easier, second you need to improve teaching each countries own code, no problem, if we have that software. And if I had software where I can even enter in a Braille code and you will see it beautifully with display, real time. No more problems. But still you have to learn Braille code.
Yes and no, because this software can also use the code that Bernhard described and actually the module already exists. It's very flexible.
You can make one form, you don't have to redesign the mathematical part, the mathematical part is the same and then you just have to make some small modules that speak your language. Your mathematical language.
But each country than has to have a mathematical language that is being taught to the children.
It's easier if you had a standard.
But the system is completely modular, so you can have one module, which speaks the language described, and another which speaks the original Marburg. And you can even imagine it that you put some progressive thing in it, that is the software will contract, use the grammar rules progressively. You said that the student has this level and this and this and not the others and then you can introduce a simple result. So these are ideas for now. These are ideas which are possible to implement.
These are great ideas. Exactly. I think it is time now and I would say everybody who would like to continue this discussion with us, please leave me your email address and then I will contact you. Soon after summer university.
I don't know if anybody wants to add anything at this point, but maybe we should have a break and those who wish to stay will go on discussing.
Is that ok? The coffee would be cold.
Thank you very much.