Our job as english students is to be able to read any work critically and closely. What makes this work efficiently is that we are able to see the text in front of us. We can identify the structures and specific diction the author chose to use to create meaning. But what about someone who is unable to see whats exactly on the page, how will they be able to close read and annotate the text they are reading? What I am proposing and want to create is technology a visibly impaired person can use to close read any text. Now, there is technology that reads the text for you, and of course braille is used to for people to read physical copies of text. What I want to do is mix the two together.
For this to work, we would have to make new books that are connected to a smartphone. The books wouldn’t be made out of ink and paper anymore. Instead, the braille will be connected to a chip in the spine that allows for a person to apply a certain amount of pressure throughout any part of the text to create a highlight type action on the page. What will happen is that after the pressure is placed, it will turn kind of sleek to indicate that you have made an annotation. That annotation can then be read to you straight from the book.
There are many organizations around the country that help the visibly impaired by prerecording material for people to indulge. One group called RRRB (Recorded Recreational Reading for the Blind) produces over six hours of recorded audio a week for a retirement home and communities around the West Valley of Maricopa County, Arizona. Because there are volunteers like them, it wouldn’t be a difficult task to find people that want to be a part of the project.
I want to focus this more for blind scholars. I feel that this will help aid in reading more difficult text because for someone who isn’t sight challenged, an individual will most likely mark up an entire reading because there is just so much information that needs to be carefully analyzed.
Works Cited
Recorded Recreational Reading for the Blind, https://www.readingfortheblind.org/. Accessed 25 April 2017
What excites me most about this project is it’s focus on allowing the visually impaired further access to literature and annotation tools. Being able to offer a tool that allows for more in-depth analysis than a basic screen reader offers could end up being be very important and groundbreaking within the blind community. The amount of volunteers already helping the blind is impressive and convincing evidence that enough support for this invention exists.
I’d maybe want to see a little more information regarding how smartphones will actually offer a textured feel/option for readers. Will it work with any phone or just the newest models? Also a way to sort through annotations made on prior pages would be a cool feature to have, this way prior annotations could be more easily located.
I think the only additional evidence readers may want to see is a comparison to other current screen reader technologies and their limited annotation options that are currently offered. This could help finalize the details, differences and technologies needed to complete this newer style screen reading idea.
The only think I might consider adding to this is a voice recording feature so people can make marignalia like we have a tendency to do.