Advantages of the Mountbatten Brailler to the Student:
- Skill Building. Introduces students to a wide range of computer concepts within the process of learning Braille. Things like using the keyboard, saving information in memory, working with files, control of speech output and many more. Students learn these skills easily, as a side-effect of using a modern Braille writing tool.
- Easy transition to other technologies and devices.
- Print to Braille and Braille to Print. Simple easy translation between Braille and print. Greatly reduces the isolation of the Braille student.
- Directly connect a PC keyboard to enable peers to write Braille messages. Makes Braille interesting and fun for the whole class.
- Makes Braille more accessible. View Braille as text on Mimic screen or on printer.
- Peer Support. Modern sleek design creates interest amongst peers, leading to greater understanding and acceptance.
- Regular lightweight paper is cheaper and easier to store and carry. It’s also the same paper the rest of the class uses.
- Braille embosser for use with a PC, laptop, netbook or Braille note-taker. Produce Braille from files, CD, Web page or email.
- Battery operated and portable.
- Lots of training and support is available.
- Friends for Life. The Mountbatten remains a vital tool throughout all levels of education and beyond. This is a tool that can stay with a student from their first tentative steps on the road to literacy right through to full academic and functional literacy. Beginning with early Braille instruction, it meets a student’s changing needs, ultimately becoming their personal resource for hard copy Braille.
Sample games
Because lots of families will visit, we encourage you to share the things your family does together with the Mountbatten – do you play games? write stories? make music? Maybe other families would like to try your activities, so please do let us know! Send an email to us at info@mountbattenbrailler.com and we’ll be very glad to put your story up.
The Famous Shark Attack
Shark Attack is a wonderful game to play on any model of Mountbatten – great fun for all, and giving great practice in reading, writing and navigating.
This game is set out in the SET-BC Lessons guide; you can download the full guide here, or use the link to read it online. The instructions for Shark Attack are in Unit 3, Lesson E.
Here are the steps to play it:
- The person who will be the shark should insert a new sheet of paper in the MB.
- Another person should Braille the letter g about 12 times in various areas of the page, in front of the player or players. The person setting up the game sheet should explain that these are little fish swimming in the ocean.
- If there is more than one player, there should be a sheet for each player – and they should all be the same!
- The person who is preparing the game sheet should centre the embossing head on the page. Now the game is ready to begin.
- Explain that the player is a very hungry great white shark and that they want fresh fish for supper. Explain that once they know how to move around and swim they can start eating the fish.
- Have them navigate to 1 cell in front of the fish and use backspace+space to delete the g – to gobble up the fish.
There are other variations of the same game:
- The Star Catcher Game – players have to catch as many stars as possible (Braille the letter 's’ s for star).
- The Hungry Wolf Game – the hungry wolf wants to eat some tasty sheep (the fat wooly sheep are represented by a 'full cell’, all six dots.
- Vary the number of sheep, fish or stars to increase or decrease the difficulty.
- For multiple players, set an auditory timer for 2 minutes and then count the consumed stars, fish or sheep; the person who gets the most in the time is the winner.
Reminder: so that the players can successfully delete the fish, sheep or stars, don’t eject the paper or lift the paper lever after you have created the playsheet, otherwise the embossing head won’t line up correctly.
When the game is done, have the player use the automatic page eject feature to remove their Braille page: Eject page is newline+enter.