USM’s new Braille tutorial system

A team designs a programme that will further facilitate teaching to the visually impaired.

UNIVERSITI Sains Malaysia (USM) researchers have developed what is believed to be the first online Bahasa Malaysia multimedia Braille tutorial system in the country.

USM’s School of Educational Studies Special Education programme chairperson Assoc Prof Dr Lee Lay Wah (said eKodBrailleBM (http://ekodbraille.ses.usm.my), is now available free of charge for the sighted.

She said she and two other researchers, Prof Dr Abdul Rashid Mohamed and Foo Kok Keong, were involved in developing the system until last year to make Braille more accessible to the public.

Relating to feedback she had received, Dr Lee said she was told there were special education teachers who taught visually impaired students, but who were Braille illiterate themselves.

“The conventional way of learning Braille is from the brailler and one also needs to pay for software support. With limited number of machines, students also need to take turns to learn.

“That is why we decided to develop this programme,” she said recently.

The public can register for free to take part in the tutorial system which has five mastery levels — Basic Braille, Braille Contractions, Braille Signs, Basic Mathematical Signs and Braille Texts.

“Those who complete each level will be issued with certificates online endorsed by USM.

“The tutorial system can be used by universities training special education teachers.

“In-service teachers who are teaching visually impaired students, but have not been trained in Braille will also find the system useful,” said Dr Lee.

“As of now, there are no other systems online that offer what our tutorial does. There are many websites for Braille in English but most of them provide only information, not tutorials,” she said.

As for future plans, Dr Lee said they would develop a British Braille course which will be available through paid subscriptions.

“We are open to collaboration with investors,” she said.

The comprehensive tutorial system has features like animated demonstrations, Braille simulator, guided assessments, Braille games, virtual tutors and help pages.

USM vice-chancellor Prof Tan Sri Dzulkifli Abdul Razak said the tutorial system was developed with a university research grant of RM100,000.

The tutorial system requires the Mozilla Firefox browser.