Technology Bundle
Listen to this article
Listen to this articleTechnology resources for deafblind individuals.
In 2020, individuals from the reference group consistently highlighted to Deafblind Australia the priority and importance of training in the use of technology.
DBA is appreciative of the feedback from the 2020 reference group and since then has been working to provide technology training.
What kind of training are we providing?
Firstly, one on one, in person training, training facilitated online, and videos for individuals to watch themselves.
The training videos will cover many different aspects of technology.
We hope that you will enjoy learning many new things from these training videos.
This project is funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services go to dss.gov.au
Description: Title appears “Deafblind Australia presents: Deafblind Assistive Technology Overview”. Ben appears with glasses and a beard against a black background, signing in Auslan. Throughout the video, he points to photos of various devices displayed in the top right corner.
“Hi, this video is about deafblind assistive technology.
Deafblind Australia has been working on a project, planning to roll out workshops all over the country but, unfortunately, with the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic, many of these workshops had to be cancelled.
We’ve also heard from deafblind community members that online workshop platforms such as ‘Zoom,’ don’t really work very well for the deafblind community when discussing topics like technology. So given the situation, we decided to postpone the workshops and focus instead on producing this video resource covering information about the variety of assisted technology that is available in Australia.
This video will cover a range of technology that is available from a specialist business named Quantum. Quantum’s business is focused specifically on low vision and braille technology. They have offices in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. For those living in W.A or Tasmania, similar devices to what is covered in this video are available from a business named Vis-Ability. Vision Australia also sells the products covered in this video throughout the country.
If, while you’re watching this video you see a specific device that you’re really interested in, you can contact Quantum to arrange for a visit to your home or workplace, possibly with an occupational therapist, in order to assess which technology will best support your access.
What is assistive technology?
Assistive technology is a very broad term. It can mean anything from simple technologies like a magnifying glass right through to sophisticated technology like a self- contained braille computer. Both of these devices are examples of assistive technology.
Assistive technology can also mean software that is added to a computer, or tablet device, to allow for magnification voiceover, or braille connectivity. Deafblind people primarily use three types of software for their accessibility.
Sometimes people will use a combination of all three.
This video will cover a variety of technology, and if there’s any devices that you’re interested in learning more about, you’ll find contact information at the end of the video.
Magnification
Magnifiers such as the one in the picture, are simple and easy to use.
(Generic image of magnifying glass)
Portable.
You can put it in your bag and take it with you to the shops.
They’re great to help people read things either while shopping or in the home. For example, there’s a variety of magnifiers available, and it depends on how strong you need the magnification to be. There’s mild magnification, and very strong magnification. You could also have either, the traditional type of magnifier, or a stand electronic magnifier which can be used for reading documents. Both are available.
(Generic image of a stand electronic magnifier)
Simple magnifiers, like the ones pictured, can provide up to 12 times magnification.
Digital magnifiers look similar to an iPad or a tablet.
(Generic image of an iPad)
It’s a square device that can be pointed around to magnify things in the environment. Because these devices are digital, they’re capable of very strong, very intense magnification.
Some also have added functionalities, such as the ability to change background colour [and] to change font colours. These are available on some devices.
Some digital magnifiers also have a separate camera that can be used to see things at distance and display them on the screen. It’s great for looking at an interpreter at distance for example, or if you’re doing something like applying make-up, it can make it much easier to see what you’re doing.
Some magnifiers have screen reading technology built into them. So, for example, if I was trying to read some text that I couldn’t really see, I could take a photo of it with my magnifier, and then have it read the text out to me. That voice over technology is also able to be streamed into a cochlea implant or a hearing aid.
This device is called an ACE sight.
(Generic image of product)
It has a camera mounted in a headset that allows us to have a very expanded, magnified view, right in our frame of vision.
It’s great for watching sport, or theatre, or an interpreter in a conference, or forum type environment.
The picture can also be modified on this device. You can control how strong the magnification is, as well as things like colour contrast as well.
Computer software
When deafblind people work on computers, they often need the screen to be magnified, and there’s a couple of ways that this can be done.
The 1st is using the inbuilt features of the device itself, and the other way is to download separate software and install it on the computer. In terms of which program is right for you, it depends on whether you’re looking for magnification, screen reading, or a combination of both.
Some popular software in the deafblind community includes
‘ZoomText,’ is a very popular program because it includes both magnification software, and screen reading software.
It provides up to 7 times zoom, without distorting or changing the font, so the writing remains clear, and easy to read, even under strong magnification.
When using ZoomText, you can move around and navigate the computer with either the mouse or the keyboard.
It’s very easy to use. ZoomText, is also great because when you’re typing under strong magnification, it stays centred on the cursor, helping you to remain oriented on the page, and not get confused as to where you are on the screen.
Sometimes ZoomText, or a program like it, doesn’t provide enough magnification, or you might be using a laptop where the screen itself is small.
Another option for magnifying the image is, to use a second monitor and connect it to the computer through HDMI.
In this way both the computer, and the monitor will display the same information, but the monitor will be greatly magnified. A setup like this is great for participating in Zoom meetings, or watching anything that’s being interpreted online.
Braille
There are a variety of braille devices out there, and most of them can be connected to a smartphone, or tablet via Bluetooth technology. Once connected this means that the user has full control over the device, using only the braille display. Braille has several benefits.
The 1st is that it is a quiet, and totally private way of receiving information. You can be reading your braille in public and no one is aware of what the information is that you’re taking in.
If you’re doing public speaking, or giving a speech anywhere, having your prompts, and your notes in braille is a great way to check where you’re up to, to make sure you don’t miss any information, all without having to stop or interrupt your speech. For people who are fully deafblind, braille skills mean that they can retain their access to information and communication with the wider community.
We’ve talked a little bit about pairing braille displays with smartphones and tablets, but there is another device that gives all the benefits of pairing a braille display with a computer without the computer.
This device is called an ElBraille, and it is a fully functional laptop computer all housed within the construction of this braille display.
(Generic image of an ElBraille)
It’s the same size as just a braille display, but has the full functionality of a laptop computer.
More information:
Quantum Reading Learning Vision
This project is funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services go to dss.gov.au
Description: Vanessa, with long hair, appears on the right side of the screen, discussing her BrailleNote. On the left, Ben, an Auslan interpreter with a beard and glasses, signs in Auslan.
(Screenshot of interpreter on left and presenter on right)
“Hi, my name is Vanessa Vlajkov from Perth.
The main communication I use is called a BrailleNote.
It has changed over years to upgrade over time, but mainly it’s still the same looking machine, only it’s gotten a bit fancier over the years.
I started learning Braille when I was four, but I didn’t get my first BrailleNote until I was, seven. I think I was given BrailleNote from the Education Department because as I was in School, I didn’t need to buy myself one. So, I was provided with one from school, until I graduated, and then I used funding to buy my own.
They come from an organization called HumanWare. With my BrailleNote which is called a BrailleNote Touch Plus, the latest version, I do everything from texting to emailing, social media, Uni assignments and everything else you can think of it. It has a connection through Bluetooth with my phone, and can also be connected to iPad or other devices.
So, when it’s connected, I use it as a display so everything that appears on the ‘i-device’ appears on the Braille for me.
So that’s how I communicate with the world.
When it doesn’t work there is no world for me.”
This project is funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services go to dss.gov.au
Description: Jennifer appears on the right side of the screen, wearing a red jumper and discussing her Roger pen. On the left, Ben, an Auslan interpreter, signs in Auslan.
(Screenshot of Jennifer in home office)
“Good morning my name is Jennifer Weir.
I am vision and hearing impaired from Usher Syndrome.
I’m going to talk today about the Roger Pen which is up here on my computer.
What is a Roger Pen?
(Image from hearingchoices.com.au)
A Roger Pen is a device that, using FM and Bluetooth technology, will transfer sound from a television, computer, a radio or even a conversation, directly into my cochlear and hearing aid.
I received my Roger Pen after having a cochlear implanted, and a new hearing aid, and I required to have good streaming capability, due to my volunteer work and lifestyle. It was about 15 months ago.
The first thing I use my Roger Pen mostly for, is using it with my computer. It streams the conversation from a screen reader directly into my hearing aid and cochlear. Which makes it much easier for me to be able to do work as I can’t see very well.
The next thing I use my Roger Pen for is listening to the television and the radio. It streams directly into my cochlear and hearing aid. I can control the sound and the volume and it also enables me to turn the sound down to zero while everybody is doing something else, and doesn’t want to watch, or listen to what I’m listening to. It’s great.
The other thing I use the Roger Pen for is going to board meetings and any other form of meeting. I turn the microphone on, I put it on the table in the direction of where the conversation is coming from and the Roger Pen will pick that conversation up and stream it directly into my cochlear and hearing aid.
It will also switch to the next person that starts speaking, in other words the next loudest voice.
It works most of the time.
It’s very, very handy as meetings can be quite difficult, at times.”
[Jennifer demonstrates the use of a Roger Pen in receiving instructions from her golf coach, while hitting a golf ball]
(Screenshot of Jennifer
hitting a golf ball)
[Golf caddy speaks]
“Okay Jennifer, address the ball.
Close the club slightly,
bit more…
bit more…
fraction more…
that will go,
fine.”
“I just hit a ball, and my caddy has given me directions directly through the Roger Pen to my hearing aid.
He’s standing quite a distance away for safety reasons, so I use this when I’m playing golf.
The Roger Pen is also useful when having one-to-one conversations with other people who use Roger Pens and are extremely hard of hearing. This is great in a social situation because you can be having a quiet conversation by your Roger pen with someone else and understand what is being said.
I hope you have enjoyed looking at this video.
For further information on the Roger Pen just Google Roger Pen Australia there’s information on that site.
Thank you”
More info: www.phonak.com/au
This project is funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services go to dss.gov.au
Description: Paola appears on the left side of the screen, wearing a dark blue jumper and a long side plait, giving a speech about Deafblindness. On the right side, a PowerPoint presentation is linked to her speech.
(Screenshot of presenter on left and information on right)
“Hello everybody. My name is Pala Avila, this is my sign name. I am a deafblind woman. I’d like to just start by extending my thanks to DBA for inviting me to be here and present today, and to present about my experience as a deafblind person.
I think it’s really valuable for people to hear the deafblind perspective, and I think this is a great opportunity for everyone in the workshop to understand not only what deafblindness is, but how to work most effectively with deafblind people, especially online. So, the objectives of my discussion today are outlined here;
Objectives
1, What does deafblind mean?
2, Different vision types for deafblind people.
3, Technology
4, Questions/Answers
Initially I’d like to just take us through a definition of deafblindness, and then I’ll show some examples of the various eye conditions that deafblind people may have, and that’ll really help with your understanding, because I can sit here and talk about this stuff in theory as long as I want, but it’s not as impactful as showing you those sorts of images. I’m also going to talk about technology as we know everyone is obsessed with technology these days, and that definitely extends to deafblind people, but some pieces of technology are really difficult, but technology can be a great way for people to overcome barriers too. So, we’ll talk about that, and finally we’ll have some time for questions and answers at the end.
Outcome
By the end of this presentation, you will be able to understand more about deafblindness, the communication methods and how better to work with us using technology.
So, the outcome for today’s workshop.
After the presentations today, I’m hoping that you’ll have an improved understanding of what deafblindness is, and the different ways you can communicate with deafblind people, and I also hope you’ll have a better understanding of how to work effectively with deafblind people online, using some different pieces of technology.
These two words deaf and blind. I’ll talk about them separately.
First of all, deafness and blindness.
“Deaf” in the dictionary
-Hearing loss -half deaf -difficult hear
-Profoundly deaf -deafness -hearing impaired
-Hard of hearing -fully deaf -Deaf or deaf
-Oral -severe hearing loss, etc
Deafness, as it is defined in a dictionary, is quite extensive in its definition. A lot of it might use terms such as; hearing loss, or somebody being profoundly deaf, hard of hearing, half deaf, somebody might have deafness or they might be described as being fully deaf, difficulty hearing, a hearing impairment.
You might see ‘deaf’ written with both a small ‘d’ and a capital ‘D’. There’s many, many varieties of hearing loss. All of these sort of related concepts fall under the idea of what we term “deaf.”
“Blind” in the dictionary
Unable to see because of disease or a congenital condition or injury.
-vision loss -difficult seeing -blindness
-totally blind -vision impaired -unsighted
We find a similar scenario when we talk about blindness, and the dictionary definition of it. There’s a lot of different terminology associated with the concept of blindness. You might see things like: impossible to see, or congenital conditions, injuries related to vision.
You also might see terms like, vision impairment, is also a common phrase as is blindness. You might call someone, un-sighted. So, there’s a whole bunch of terminology that falls under “blind.”
We need to then combine these concepts of deafness and blindness, and they can’t really be separated in the deafblind context, but I’ll unpack that more in a minute.
The “hearing world,” (or what we would term “hearing people”).
We often find that hearing people who go blind, have a very different cultural experience of that, than a deafblind person would. The experience of a deafblind person is, that their deafness and their blindness cannot be separated. It is a singular and unique disability.
This can become quite problematic when somebody is becoming deafblind, because they have to do quite a lot of learning, relating to how they’re going to communicate once their senses have declined. I’ll go into that in a bit more
depth later.
Common words used in the Deafblind community;-
-DeafBlind (DB)
-Usher Syndrome (Usher)
-Retina Pigmentosa (RP)
Most of you in the room would be familiar with the term deafblind, I’m sure, but within that community, there’s some terms that you will see quite frequently. The first is, deafblind being shortened to just “DB,” an initialization. You also hear the term “Usher,” or Usher syndrome, and lastly Retina Pigmentosa, which is often shorten to “RP.”
These are the most commonly used terms relating to deafblindness.
What does ‘Usher’s Syndrome’ mean?
I’ll speak more specifically about Usher Syndrome now, (which is the condition that I have). Usher Syndrome refers to a person who has a vision impairment that manifests as tunnel vision, but I must say at this point that, this is not uniform for everyone with Usher Syndrome. Some people
have quite a large frame of vision, for others it’s significantly reduced. Some people may see tunnel vision, or spots on their vision.
It’s widely varied, but the term ‘Usher Syndrome,’ as well as a diagnostic category, is also a way that people define themselves, and see, self-identify in the deafblind community. You don’t really see that, as much, in the hearing world, so Usher is just a diagnosis there, but for deafblind people it can be an identity as well.
Retina Pigmentatosa (RP)
Retina Pigmentatosa is another word used for ‘Usher Syndrome’ and it is often used by medical professionals.
Retina Pigmentosa or “RP,” can sort of be used interchangeably with Usher Syndrome, but most people choose to use the term “Usher” for their identity, although they might have been diagnosed as having Retina Pigmentosa in the past. “RP,” is quite a medical term, some people do still use it, but most people who have Retina Pigmentosa would self-identify especially here in Victoria as having Usher syndrome.
(Screenshot of slide)
This slide unpacks the 3 different types of Usher Syndrome. Here in Australia, we have these 3 types, the most common,
(I believe there’s up to like 21 different classifications of Usher worldwide), but I’m going to talk about these 3 here, because, they’re the most commonly seen in Australia.
Myself, I have Usher Syndrome Type 1. My partner who also has Usher Syndrome, he has Type 2. So, we both have Usher but quite different types. For people with,
We often find people with Usher Syndrome Type 2 are quite strong oral communicators, and they come to learning Auslan and sign language later in life. Some people are interested in learning it, some people tend to put it off. For me, I was diagnosed at 7 and I feel like I really should have started learning to use braille early in my life, but I put it off, I put it off, and now that I look back, I think I might be a bit past my ability to learn it easily, so I wish I’d learnt braille sooner.
Just to backtrack a little about my personal story. I was diagnosed as deaf when I was 18 months old and then at 7 years of age, I started to experience issues with my vision and I started to lose my vision in chunks, sort of every seven years. My right eye at this point is pretty much fully blind, and that’s due to macular degeneration in my right eye. It’s like I have a black fog over my whole field of vision.
My left eye does still have some sight in it. I have cataracts which is very, very, common for people with Usher Syndrome. I know there is a surgery you can have to remove cataracts, but I don’t know how helpful it would be for me, and it could actually make some things worse, or at least that’s what I’ve heard. I know that cataracts are quite common in the hearing world, and that people have that surgery and it doesn’t cause them many problems, but I have heard of stories of people with Usher Syndrome having their cataracts removed and experiencing some negative outcomes from that, so I’m a bit hesitant. As I said I’ve got the black fog in my right eye, but then in the cataract eye, my left eye, it’s a lighter colour fog.
You can see here the two different diagrams. On the left, we have a normal functioning eye, so most people here, you can see the back of the retina, this is everything functioning normally in that first picture. On the right, this is similar to someone with Retina Pigmentosa or Ushers. You can see the pigments there, and how that can block the vision from functioning.
Again, on the left we have a photo of a back of a normal retina, and in the photo on the right, you can see all the black splotches there. It may start with only a few of these splotches, and then over a number of years, the splotches spread, and if there’s too many of these, particularly around the centre, then that can cause total blindness.
It’s quite sad that there is no surgical intervention possible for this. I know that there is research in this area happening, at the moment nobody knows how to approach Retinitis Pigmentosa. They’re thinking that it might have to be a gene therapy or something targeting DNA, but I don’t want to go too deep into that now, but as it stands, no surgical intervention. We hold out hope that people may find a cure, but it is just hope.
(Screenshot of slide)
I’m going to show some images now that sort of replicate different kinds of vision that deafblind people may have, depending on their condition. This sort of replicates how people normally see. We’ve got a building, we can see the restaurant there, we can see the sunshine, we can see the little bits of shade from the buildings and shadows. It’s quite a nuanced image.
(Screenshot of slide)
RP Vision.
This photo, you can see the dark and black splotches around the exterior of the image. This is how most people with Usher syndrome, or Retina Pigmentosa see the world, so you can’t see all the buildings as we could before. There’s some areas of white grey, and black fog, around the outside of the image. Some might be small spots, some might be very thick sections, can also be different shapes obscuring people’s vision. It looks a bit like a tube. Some people, their vision is a bit like looking through a drinking straw.
Remember, not everybody with Usher Syndrome has the same vision, and this brings up an interesting point. Anytime you meet someone with a syndrome, or a deafblind person, don’t assume that you know what they’re going to need. Some people need you to be close, to communicate. Some people need you to be further away. Some people need to hold your hands to track your signing. Some people will need you to just sign in a slightly elevated position, not in front of your face, which I’ll talk more about in a minute.
If I sign in front of my face, my skin is the same colour on my hands, on my face, and it can make it really difficult. Like if I hold numbers up like this, it’s hard to see my hand, unless I move it down, so that it’s in contrast against my clothes, and now it’s much easier to pick out. So, you don’t want to be signing up in front of your face.
For me as a person with Usher, my vision is pretty much one-dimensional. With normal vision, you would describe it as 3-dimensional. You can see contours in a floor, for example, or you can see textures, whether something’s wet, or shiny. You could see changes in elevation, you could see something like sand on a surface, there’s all that sort of detail in your vision.
For me it’s 1-dimensional. I can’t see if there’s a contour. I can’t see if something’s flat. It makes me quite nervous when I’m walking places, because I always assume that I’m going to know where the lines are, I’m going to know where the topography changes, and that’s not always the case.
So, this is something a lot of people encounter when they have Usher Syndrome. They can be quite tentative in their walking or use something like a white cane to get a bit more of that information about what’s going on in the environment around them.
You might remember I mentioned cataracts before and the white fog that comes with that.
(Screenshot of slide)
This picture is a good example of what that looks like. It’s quite blurry and there’s only a small portion of the picture that can be seen.
(Screenshot of slide)
Something that’s quite common for people with Usher or Retinitis Pigmentosa, and it’s certainly true for me, is issues with glare. A lot of people with Usher Syndrome wear sunglasses, specifically to counteract that glare, but it can be a huge barrier to communication.
If I want to talk with my friends or people in the community, if they’re standing with a window or something behind them, it’s impossible for me to communicate. The glare blows out into sort-of a white-out, and the person is just totally black. So, I can’t have anyone with a window at their back if they’re communicating with me. It poses a lot of problems in a car. For example, if I’m trying to talk to my partner, and he’s there and he’s got a window behind him, in those situations where the glare is really problematic, I will hold the person’s hands so that I can track at least where they are in the signing space and that can help me to follow what they’re saying.
(Screenshot of slide)
The other thing that we have problems with a lot, as people with Usher syndrome is, let’s say for instance, we’re in a restaurant, we’re eating and we’re having a great time and then when we go outside it’s very bright. The time taken to adjust from a dark environment, to a bright environment
can be, you know, 1 to 5 minutes depending on the person.
And the same is true when we reverse the situation, if you’ve been outside and then you go into a dark environment, it can take up to sort of 5 minutes, for your eyes to adjust to the new lighting environment.
(Screenshot of slide)
Then we have total blindness, just the absence of vision whatsoever. Some people can get to this level of blindness progressively over time. Some people are born with this level of vision right from the jump, so it’s very, very, varied. And I stress this again, that the Usher community and the deafblind community at large, is so varied. Many deafblind people also have issues with glaucoma macular degeneration. There’s a whole range of eye conditions that people might be living with. So, again this shows what I’m talking about. The time that it takes me to look up here and figure out what’s on each slide is the result of this very limited tunnel vision that I only have in my left eye. So, thank you for bearing with me.
(Screenshot of slide)
People in the deafblind community use lots of different apps to help them communicate in the community. I’ve listed some of the common ones here. The first one is-
Buzz card, I’ve got the photo up here, on the slide as well, so you can have this on your phone. It’s got the right contrast and thick text that I need, to be able to see it. This is really good for communicating with people out in the community, even if they have a problem seeing that, it might be an older person, this has got some nice big thick texts easy for everyone to read, and for me it’s easy for me to see it, as well, as we have our conversation back and forward. Deafblind people often use a darker or a different coloured background, not a white background, maybe orange or blue, but with a thick black text on it, that would be my preference, and a larger font size as well.
The second app on the list here is called-
My Ear
This is quite a new thing, but a lot of deafblind people are using it, as well as deaf people. The way this works is, let’s say you’re out somewhere, you’re getting the bus somewhere. If the door opens and the bus driver starts talking to you, I might not be able to understand them, but I can hold my phone up, and this app will automatically, like it would with close captions, convert that audio into text. It’s quite amazing. Then it also gives you the option to change font size, to change the background, and font colour. It’s a really amazing app, but it’s not entirely accurate.
There’s about, I would say, 20% of things that get missed, and that could be because the person has a strong accent, or it could be that there’s a lot of environmental noise that’s interfering with the app, but it’s much, much better than nothing. So that’s a really valuable app to have on hand as well.
FaceTime/Duo. FaceTime is a pretty common app that everybody has or, Duo is the other one, I think, that’s like Google’s version. Using video chat, most people in the deaf or deafblind community use that, but unfortunately this isn’t available for all deafblind people, and I’ll speak a bit more about why in a moment. The next app is-
Skype
It’s been very, very common for a number of years now. Deafblind people use this often in place of the phone. If I needed to make a phone call to a hearing person, for example, I could use Skype to use the video remote interpreting service. I could give them the number, they’ll make the phone call, and then I can sign to them when they talk. The interpreter signs to me, when I sign the Interpreter speaks to the person on the end, so that was a way to get around making phone calls.
The other one I’ve got listed here is-
ConvoAu
This is similar to Skype, but it is a little bit different. Let’s say for example, I’m out at the shops and I need to speak to someone, I can use this app to pull up literally an interpreter out of my pocket, on my phone and I could say, “Hey, let this person know I need a haircut. I want my fringe trimmed,” and we can use this almost like an interpreter in your pocket.
This slide lists some other technology that deafblind people use. Everything up here is pretty common. You know iPhones captions,
iWatches
These watches and vibrating alarms are quite useful for doorbells and things. It’s great being able to use something like an Apple watch, where you can just get convenient alerts. You don’t need extra equipment, or to be looking at your door every 2 seconds to see if someone’s there. You can also use them for waking up, things like that.
Microphones and FM systems
Microphones and FM systems are quite common for people who are primarily oral communicators in the deafblind world. They use microphones to cut out some of the background noise. Again, people who are mostly oral communicators sometimes use FM systems, especially when they’re working on a computer, or if they’re do attend something online, they’ll have like a little pendant that they can connect, or a microphone they can give to a teacher, or someone leading a workshop, which then allows spoken words to come immediately into my listening device, and that cuts out a lot of the background noise, makes it a lot easier to follow.
Android apps and systems
Android apps and systems are quite common. People use computers and laptops, and they use vibrating alarms. So, something like a baby monitor, or a fire alarm, a doorbell. All sorts of different alert systems that use vibration.
Hearing aids/cockle implants are quite common and then,
braille reading devices as well.
These are some programs that deafblind people commonly have issues using the first one there is,
Zoom
Depending on how many people are on the zoom call, let’s say, for instance there’s 20 people in a zoom meeting, and we have an interpreter included among that list. Normally in meetings, we’ll have two interpreters, who’ll swap every 15 minutes. Often if I’m in a large Zoom meeting the Interpreter can be very small on the screen and very, very difficult to see.
Generally, if there’s only about 10 people, the screens aren’t as small, and they’re easier to see. We can pin the interpreter’s video, which will make it nice and big, and that’s fabulous, but when we do that, we’re then left out of the rest of the conversation. Just because we’re deafblind, doesn’t mean we don’t want to be involved, and see everyone else who’s in the room, same as you. You would want to feel part of the group, not just staring at the one screen all the time.
Another issue for people with Usher Syndrome using these sorts of programs, and I should just side-track here and say thank you to DBA for letting me be part of this program, I was involved in a DBA program that was meeting on Zoom and I’d never used that program before. It was very, very new to me.
When I got it set up, I could see what was going on, but tracking the icons on the screen, and the different buttons was very difficult. I had a CommGuide come and help me, I’ll speak more about what a communication guide is soon, but they showed me where things were in the program. They showed me how to download what I needed, how to pin a video, how to turn off my own video, how to turn the camera on and off, how to type in the chat. I had to sort of have a one-on-one tutorial and this was because the communication guide working with me had great Auslan skills and could explain everything I needed to do.
It was a great experience, having that person there to help me, and it allowed me to really use Zoom, and get involved, to the point where I’m quite comfortable using it myself now. But, again, Zoom is a problem for people who have lost significant amounts of vision or approaching total blindness.
In terms of someone at that point, navigating a program like Zoom independently, I don’t think that would be possible, they would need to have a Commguide with them. Also, if they can’t see what’s happening on the screen, they need an interpreter there, because we must remember the Commguide cannot take the place of an interpreter, and I’ll explain more about that later. Many people with Usher Syndrome or other types of deafblindness still have issues accessing Zoom, because of the same issues we have accessing Commguides and interpreters.
Skype is also quite a problematic app, similar to what I discussed with Zoom. Knowing where the icons are, how to navigate the screen, that can be really difficult. I personally have a bit of a hard time with Skype, and it’s because of the colour scheme. Everything’s white, and then the icons have like only a subtle change in colour.
Also, sometimes the interpreter that I’m accessing on Skype, won’t have a dark coloured background. That’s really important in order for me to be able to understand them well. If their background is bright, it just makes the whole thing unusable. Also, sometimes it’s difficult to understand a person’s particular signing style, if they’re interpreting for me on Skype. I can be locked out because of that.
FaceTime
I have used, and the success is dependent upon where I’m using it. If I use FaceTime when I’m outside, no good. If I’m in the house I’m in more of a controlled light environment, then it’s better, but again it depends on the Wi-Fi speed. If it’s too slow, it’s impossible to watch someone signing.
Microsoft teams
The biggest problem I have with Microsoft programs is, it’s just relentless and constantly updating. It feels like, every time you learn something, an update comes along, and then it changes, and then you have to wait for the Commguide to come, and show you how to navigate the app now that it’s changed.
Google Hangouts
This is another one that’s been quite problematic for me, just because I find the interface really hard to navigate visually. Most people with Usher Syndrome, most deafblind people have issues with these sorts of apps, with different colours, or with too much information on the screen, or interfaces that don’t make visual sense, or wrong -coloured backgrounds. Sometimes the text is just laid out in a way that’s very difficult for someone with a vision impairment to navigate.
There’s a lot of issues that can pop up. It’s also important to remember, that a lot of deafblind people have issues with English, because for most people, it’s their second language, and also people might be navigating the information in braille, which can become really extensive, and tiring if there’s too much information there. So, it’s important to keep things in short, sharp, chunks of plain English, wherever possible.
The difference between interpreters and Commguides is something that I alluded to before, and I’ll unpack that here.
So, for interpreters, like what Ben’s doing here, this is their job: transferring language from one language, into another.
The Communication Guide, or Commguide, can sometimes assist within formal interpreting, but they’re also responsible for physical guiding, for driving, transportation, taking people to different activities, helping them orient themselves to spaces, and make sure that they’re safe in an environment. The Commguide is also responsible for really becoming a person’s eyes, and ears, to ensure that they can be involved in the community in the way that they want to.
Deafblind people rely on Commguides a lot, and they can also support us with how to use different pieces of technology. Without Commguides, I wouldn’t know how to use any of my technology. It would be impossible to navigate any of it.
Okay we’ve got time for questions and answers, but I think we’ll do that a little bit later.”
[Presenter, Paola, takes a break and then clip resumes as she comes back into view.]
[Host speaks]
“Okay welcome back everybody.
Just during the break I’ve had a question for Paola. I have somebody asking via Zoom. Freida is asking if there’s any courses in relation to becoming a Commguide, and whether you know if they’re available, and if they’re available remotely. So, I’ll hand back over to Paola. Thank you.”
[Paola speaks]
“Thank you, that’s an interesting question. My advice really to anyone looking to get into working as a Commguide is to contact, Able Australia. Many people have begun their careers in Commguiding at Able Australia and there’s a few options, really there’s not one pathway into this sort of work. There’s no formal course either, most people begin with an Auslan qualification, be that Melbourne PolyTechnic or at R.M.I.T, somewhere like that, and then you can also go to Able Australia to have activity training, to sort of partner up with a deafblind person, see how you go.
Really there’s not just one process involved in doing this type of work. You could contact different deafblind organizations to find events that are going on, and you could get involved and have a look that way, and see if the work might be something you’re interested in doing, because we have to remember, that this is not the sort of work you can learn about just theoretically, you have to get involved. You have to do some practical work as well. You can also contact deafblind Australia. They have different information, different contacts that they could hook you up with as well, if you’re interested in that kind of work.”
[Host speaks]
“From Zoom, Freida, says she has Cert. 2, 3 and 4 in Auslan. She knows all about Able Australia, and used to volunteer at deafblind Victoria.”
[Paola speaks]
“Amazing congratulations on your study, that’s really wonderful that you’ve gone through those certificates. Might be worth, maybe, visiting physically, some different deafblind organizations or activities that aren’t connected with Able. Like you mentioned DBV, maybe popping in there, Deafblind Australia. Depends on where you’re located, but you might be able to go visit some spots.
You could also, maybe, use social media or something. There’s a lot of deafblind people on Facebook, you could post on there that you are interested in doing some Commguiding and you want to volunteer to build your skills up. There’s also an organization named Hire Up. They have some Commguides there, but really, I think the best piece of advice I could give you, is to meet with some deafblind people, do some volunteering, and go to some different events and check it out that. That be the next best step for you.”
[Host speaking]
“Thank you, Paola. Frieda says she just wants to get more skills so she can contribute to the deafblind community, and she is getting one-on-one Auslan tuition from June Stathis, and Rosette Busch, but she says to say “thank you for answering our questions.”
[Paola speaking]
“Fantastic, good luck and hopefully we’ll see you out and about in the future.
I might just speak a little bit more about communication guides, or Commguides, because Commguides are really a big part of the deafblind community. It is really important for Commguides to have Auslan skills. I may have mentioned this before, but really, there are 2 types of Commguides.
There is what I would call more of a helper model, and more of an empowerment model. Now as to which one is the best fit, it depends on who the deafblind person is. Some people need a lot of help, some people are more independent,
and they are keener to roll their sleeves up and do it themselves.
Some deafblind people might have additional physical issues, or physical disabilities, and they might need the Commguide to do a lot of, what I would call, helping. So, helping with toileting, or bathing, or ordering food, getting shoes tied, things like that.
There is another type of deafblind person who’s more independent, and really that type of person will prefer to be taught how to do something. Like I showed you before, with the buzz cards, somebody might be confident to communicate themselves in that way, but it is still worth having a Communication Guide there just to keep them safe.
Let’s say, for instance, I go up and I order, and I use my Buzz card, and then the waiter comes along and they bring me a hot drink, but I am not aware that it has been placed on the table. The Commguide could let me know, alert me to where the drink is, so that’s part of keeping me safe.
Really, that is a big part of a Commguide’s role, is safety. So, being knowledgeable about OHS, what to look out for, as far as safety hazards in an environment go. That is really, really important. As I have mentioned before, it is really important when you meet deafblind people, that you don’t assume that we are all the same.
Some people might be very independent some less so, and it’s best in these situations just to ask the person what they need and how they prefer to be supported, but when we’re doing that it’s important that we use language that doesn’t throw the responsibility all the way back onto the deafblind person.
We do not say things like,
“Are you okay? Are you okay? Or can you see me in this? When we use language like that, we are making it seem like the deafblind person is the one with the problem, but really, it is the lack of access that is the problem.
If the access was provided appropriately, it would be easy for deafblind people to be involved, so we can ask these things, and ask for information in ways that don’t disempower the deafblind person or make them feel ‘less than.’ I can tell you one story about when I went for an eye test. I went there and I had these drops put in my eyes, I have to do this every few years just to check the extent of my tunnel vision. Now, back at the time, I did not have a Communication Guide. There was an interpreter there though, and that was great, this is about 10 years ago this took place.
So, I went to the eye hospital, and I got the drops put in and they dilated my pupils, and I said to the Interpreter,
“Can you ask the reception where the women’s bathroom is please?” So, they asked, and then they told me, they said,
“It’s straight down the corridor, then you take a left,” and I thought, “Oh, that’s easy,” straight down the corridor, then left.
So, off I went straight down the corridor, took the left turn, and then hit a step that I didn’t know was there, right before the door, and I fell down the step, and into the door. Luckily, I didn’t have glasses on at the time because I probably would have broken them.
Now this isn’t the interpreter’s fault, again their job is to interpret what the receptionist said, and that’s what they did, but thinking back, I should have had a Communication Guide with me because, even though the Interpreter, interpreted what was being said, it wasn’t all the information I needed. There was an important extra piece I needed to know about the environment to keep me safe, but even when you have a Communication Guide, they’re not with you all the time.
We might not have enough funding to pay for every time we need a Commguide, or they might not be available when we book. I learned from this experience, that in the future I also have to take responsibility for asking for the information I need. So, I could ask the Interpreter, “where is the toilet?” And then say, “is there anything else I need to know? Are there steps? Is there anything that could be a danger or a threat to me?”
We can’t always think we can rely on Commguides. We need to take a little bit of personal (pardon me), accountability for our safety, and it’s really important that people who work with deafblind people, or people out there in the community understand the difference between Communication Guides and interpreters.
I can talk a little bit more about technology in this space.
You might recall, earlier in the presentation, I was talking about some apps and programs that deafblind people have issues with using. I owe a massive debt of gratitude to the Commguides, that show me how to use these programs, but it’s also important that people running meetings, on online platforms, know how to do so in a way that works for a deafblind person.
So, very simply this could start with things like, having a dark
background, making sure that the interpreters are appropriately attired, and that they have long sleeves, dark clothing, with no logos or patterns on it. It’s important that the interpreter’s clothing contrast to their skin colour, and that they have good lighting where they are as well. You want the lighting coming from above, or off-centre, ideally not blasting right up in the face.
It’s also important to make sure that the onscreen interpreter is close enough to their camera so as not to appear very far away. We really only need to see the top half of the person’s body if they elevate their signing space slightly. Also, when the interpreters need to swap over, they will often let you know, “okay we’re going to have an
interpreter swap,” but online, the deafblind person will then need to pin the second video, the second monitor.
In the deaf community, these sorts of online things tend to just steamroll along at an excellent rate of knots, but if you’ve got deafblind people in your meeting, you need to allow that extra time for the people to pin videos that they need to do. It’s also important in meetings like this, to let the people know who’s speaking, when they’re speaking, and this is quite a difference between the deaf and deafblind community.
In the deafblind world you can’t really catch who’s speaking on screen, so it’s important to say your name before you contribute, so that any deafblind people can follow what’s happening.
It’s as simple as just saying,
“Ben speaking, look I think this…” or
“Janet speaking, I have a question…”
Sometimes the Commguides will also let me know who’s come into the meeting. They might let the deafblind person know where the audience’s attention is directed, as well. Different pieces of environmental information like this come via the commguide, that could be like sounds in the room, people coming in, and out, things like that.
Another thing I should mention. In the zoom waiting room, for people who have difficulty seeing, such as someone with Usher Syndrome, let’s say I’m in a zoom waiting room, I don’t have a Commguide with me, because they weren’t available. I might be looking to see if the Interpreter has arrived. When the Interpreter arrives (and apologies folks, this is for a physical waiting room not an online one), so if I’m in a physical waiting room waiting for the Interpreter, often what happens is the Interpreter will arrive and say,
“I’m here for the deafblind person,” and if they know me, they might come up at this point to let me know that they’re here. They can place their hand on my shoulder, or on my arm, or on my leg.
It’s important that they place their hand, but don’t tap. If you tap, then I can’t orient you in the space. I don’t know where you are every time your hand comes off me, but if you place your hand and leave it there, either on my leg or my arm, I can follow the line of your hand, and your arm up to where you are, and orient you in the space.
In the case of an interpreter who’s never met me before, would be a good idea that they got there early enough to be able to have sort of a warm-up conversation with me. That way I can let them know about my communication preferences and what I need. I can ask them to take their rings off for example, or let them know that I need you to sign slowly.
It’s a good point actually, rings and jewellery are really distracting visually, so always best if interpreters aren’t clad out in earrings and rings and things of that nature.
I think it’s really important for organizations like the NDIS to improve their understanding over what it is that deafblind people need. The NDIS is really impossible to navigate at the moment, but we rely on it for our funding, for interpreters and Commguides. That is our Lifeline, to being involved in the world, to being involved in the community.
Unfortunately access to Interpreters and Commguides for deafblind people, is not as easy as it is for say, the deaf community. I might get a NDIS package that has plenty of funding for Commguides, and interpreting hours in it. Might have a good allocation for, let’s say classes and training in how to use my technology. Might also have funding included in it, to make my home safe, and accessible, to make modifications to the lighting, or to the physical layout of the
home, and these might be modifications to do with access or safety, making sure that the house isn’t too dark for instance.
So, a plan like this would include everything that I needed to not feel disabled. Unfortunately, we know that NDIS has this big fixation on reasonable and necessary supports, but they don’t understand the extent of support that is required for a deafblind person. They also don’t understand the impact that not accessing information has on deafblind people.
I really think the NDIS could benefit from a more holistic understanding of the deafblind experience. Same could be said for interpreters. Most people just focus on their Auslan, making sure that’s great, but they don’t think about all the other aspects of their job: their clothing, their positioning, their attitude, how they ask questions, what language they use, all these things, can have a big impact.
Some people will be offended if you ask them, “can you see me?” It’s the same as asking a deaf person, “can you hear me?” It’s like going up and saying, “can you breathe?” It’s like, get out of here, stop throwing it all back on me!
So, I think the NDIS need to improve their knowledge of deafblind people, as do the interpreting practitioners among us, and I think also, councils and people like that, particularly if they’re doing road works.
It’s really important to let deafblind community members know that this is happening. Ultimately, it all comes back to as simply as saying, ‘deafblind people need information,’ and that’s why you need things to be appropriately coloured, you need things to be appropriately positioned, it’s all about
access to information, and ultimately the safety
that comes from that.
It’s about making sure that everyone has the right colours they need to be able to see things, making sure that the interpreting workforce is big enough to support the people that need it. I’m hoping with the recent announcements to the free Tafe courses changes that. We will finally grow the Interpreting workforce for deafblind people, but we also need for the Commguide workforce to grow, and for that workforce to grow the Auslan skills are of primary importance.
I’d just like you to cast your mind back to the type 3 Ushers that we talked about earlier, where people have a very sudden, and immediate vision and hearing loss. This can have quite a profound impact on people’s mental health. They find themselves, all of a sudden, having to engage with medical personnel and all sorts of different things.
I would reiterate again, that I think learning Auslan is so, so important for people in that situation. It really is just one of those vital skills, even though it mightn’t seem like it, acquiring that skill, will at least give you the opportunity to communicate with other people after your hearing has completely declined.
If anyone’s got any questions don’t be shy, I’m more than happy to answer anything that anyone would like to know more about.”
[AI voice speaks]
“Is there a hereditary link to Usher’s Syndrome?”
[Paola speaks]
“I’m glad you asked me that question. That’s a really important bit that I left out. You are correct, Ushers is a genetic condition. It’s interesting, in my family there’s no precedent, there’s no one in other generations, but I met a geneticist once, who was saying that the weakness in the gene often comes through the father’s side. They can have a genetic weakness that is passed from generation to generation. In my family that doesn’t seem to be the case. So, the answer is that yes, it is, but in my family no, it wasn’t.
[Host speaks]
“Freida has asked,”
“Will you be talking about haptics today?”
[Paola speaking]
“Oh, I’m happy you asked me that. This is great, see, there’s a lot of things I’ve left out of the presentation, but it’s come up in the questions, so that’s good. For me I didn’t know anything about social haptics, until about 3 or 4 years ago when I went to a presentation. I had a presentation at the NAB, and there were two interpreters there, and one of them offered to use haptics with me and I said,
“What is that? I don’t know what that is.”
They said,
“Look, we can do some different gestures on your arm to let you know about what’s happening in the audience. For example, we can let you know if people are laughing or I can let you know if you’re speaking too fast, and you need to slow down. All these different cues, different ways we can communicate to let you know what’s happening in the audience. We can let you know if they’re bored, if they’re excited, if they’re looking around the place, or if someone has a question, so it’s a way of positioning another interpreter there to give you this information.”
This presentation, at NAB, was my first time using it. It was such a huge auditorium, maybe, I don’t know, 150 people there, so I couldn’t see if my jokes were landing, or if people were engaged in what I was saying. Having this ‘haptic’ feedback was fantastic.
It can happen either on the upper arm or the back. There’s a variety of ways to do it and it was a very new concept for me, but a very helpful one. It means that while I’m presenting, I can get feedback like; you need to slow down, or feedback about what’s happening and I don’t need to interrupt my presentation. This is really exploding and it’s used quite a lot in the community because it works for people, kind of regardless of the extent of their vision impairment, so it’s really popular.”
“Janet speaking.
Do we have any other questions online or in the room?” [pause, while waiting to see if there are any questions].
“Thanks James.”
[James speaking]
“A lot of things now are becoming user friendly for everybody, such as mobile phones. For myself that’s blind, I use my mobile phone as a tool. What’s your thoughts on the NDIS, when they don’t let people purchase phones, as they are an everyday device. Where a lot of blind people, deafblind people, use their phones as accessibility tools.”
[Paola speaking]
“It’s a good question, and an interesting point James. It’s definitely something I’ve had to advocate for, a lot, needing a phone for a variety of reasons. If I could draw the comparison
with the deaf community, some people have received funding for an iPad, or a phone, and I had to explain that I can’t use an iPad, because I only have functional vision in one eye. It’s too big to be useful for me, and I’ve explained that I need a phone with good resolution, a high-resolution screen that I can actually see, and I make the argument that this is part of my accessibility needs, because, let’s say, information is being released, like about a bushfire or about Covid.
This is the only way that I can access that information. Other people might be able to listen to the radio. They can listen to a podcast. They can hear people around them. For me I’ve got one way to access that information, and that’s through my phone.
So, it becomes a vital access-ability link here. There has been a little bit of back and forth, and argument with the NDIA about this, because they don’t necessarily accept my rationale for wanting the phone, but eventually it was accepted, because they understood that I could not use the iPad, and that there was a lot about what I needed the phone for, and the characteristics of the phone itself, that meant that was the right device.
You know, another thing, is that I can’t always have a Commguide with me all the time, and I need to feel safe and
the phone is an important part of that. Really, it’s about your rights to safety, your rights to access the information, and your ability to understand, and connect with the world around you during your everyday life. I think it plays a really important part in that. Did I answer your question, James?”
[James speaking]
“Oh, yes, thank you.”
[Paola speaking]
“Most importantly of all, if there’s one takeaway, If, you want more information, about anything you’ve learned here today, make sure that the information is coming from a person with lived experience. Some courses like what we’ve done here today, are taught by hearing people and they don’t always cover what deafblind people think it’s important for you to know.
I think it’s important that any information you’re getting comes from a person with lived experience, and I would really encourage you all to get some practical experience in the deafblind world, as well. If you have an opportunity to attend a deafblind world workshop, that’s great. It’s great for developing empathy. They’re activities in those workshops where you can experience a little bit of what it’s like to be deafblind and I think you would be quite surprised by your response during those activities, but it’s a great way to help you better understand what it’s like to be without vision and hearing.
I would really encourage everyone here to go and do a deafblind world workshop with Deafblind Victoria if you can, but other than that, thank you for being here.
Thank you for listening to my presentation.
Thank you very much everybody.”
Paola Avila’s email address contactipaola@gmail.com
This project is funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services go to dss.gov.au
Description: Michelle appears on the left side of the screen, wearing a light grey sweater as she gives a speech. On the right, an interpreter with short hair signs in Auslan against a blue background and switches with another interpreter during the video, who is wearing a dark blue shirt.
(Screenshot of Michelle, left and interpreter, right)
[Michelle speaks]
“Welcome everyone to our presentation, proudly brought to you by Deafblind Australia, and also TachTech which is my business, that I provide one-on-one training.
I want to welcome everyone. Before I start, I must recognize, that we are on the land of our traditional owners. I respect Elders past, and future, and respect the land, to whom we are now on.
I want to welcome you today to our presentation. For those who can’t see what’s happening, I’ve got in front of me, various computers that I hope to show you, and
hopefully encourage you, pardon me [cough], encourage you to actually explore. As well, I’ve got a refreshable Braille Display in front of me, which I will show you in a minute.
I want to also dedicate this workshop today on behalf of a good friend of mine who’s recently passed away, Andrea Sherry, who actually got me started in computers and a lot of work time Andrea spent with me, giving me these, towards some of the knowledge that I have today. So, I want to say thanks Andrea.
Today I’m going to show you a couple of platforms or a couple of different Windows environments. In front of me here, I have a computer which is a Windows HP computer. Quite fast, and also, I have, as I said before a Focus 40, 5th gen Bluetooth and also USB Braille Display refreshable Braille Display.
I want, I’m using my main screen reader on my computer here called, ‘Jaws.’ That’s J A W S. It doesn’t mean that the shark going to attack you. No. It actually stands for Job Access With Speech. JAWS has been around for quite a while, and I’m running JAWS 2022 latest version at the moment. I will just kick JAWS up open for you, so, you can actually have a look, and also, if you are able to hear, have a listen to the synthesized voice. A screen reader basically is what people see, and here on the screen you can actually produce, with either speech,
if you have hearing, or even if you got a little bit of hearing.
I’ll show you a device in a minute, have a little bit of hearing. You can actually produce what’s on the computer, via either Braille. For instance, I will just call up my desktop in braille at the moment.
[AI voice speaks]
“folder view
list,
view
recycle bin, 116.”
[Michelle speaks]
“On my Braille Display,”
[AI voice speaks]
“To end the selected item, press f2.”
[Michelle speaks]
“Thank you. On here, on my Braille Display, I’ve got
‘list view folder,’ and I got my recycle bin, one of 16 shortcuts on my desktop. For instance, if I want to choose a particular item on my desktop”,
[AI voice speaks]
“Zoom 2 of 16,”
[Michelle speaks]
I can either go to Zoom,
[AI voice speaks]
“JAWS 2021”
[Michelle speaks]
“I’ve got an earlier version of JAWS over there…”
[AI voice speaks]
“Microsoft Edge.edmp Brave fair 3.0.
[Michelle speaks]
I’ve actually, I will show that in a minute, I actually have a program that will help to teach you or teach people how to work JAWS. JAWS is actually the main leader in screen reader technology. I said before that I, you can actually, it doesn’t matter if you, have a little bit of hearing, you can still hear the voice, and I’m using a
little device here called a Streamer. A streamer connects without any wires or anything like that to your hearing aids.
If you have hearing aids that are Bluetooth enabled, you can actually, turn your hearing aids to the streamer, and the streamer can actually pick up the voice. Now I’m going to actually make the computer talk. I will hear it through my hearing aids, but you won’t hear it of course, because the speech is off. I’m just going to turn my hearing out, 1, 2.
Okay, I’m just going to now see if I can get the voice to go through my hearing aids, and when you want the thing to work, it doesn’t!
(Screenshot of device)
Ah, okay it wasn’t switched on. Okay. I’ve actually, have my hearing connected to the streamer, and the streamer can actually tell you what’s happening. It doesn’t mind, it
if you can’t hear, you don’t need the voice, you can actually control JAWS completely by Braille.
Now for those people who don’t know braille, there’s a program called Fusion, which is actually, you can control a Braille Display, and also you can control the screen magnification, all in one program.
People asked me JAWS, yes, is quite expensive, but I don’t have any money, or I don’t get a NDIS that will
cover me for JAWS. How then can I work a computer with a screen reader?
Well, there’s a free screen reader that is okay. Not my
most popular screen reader, but it certainly does work.
I’m just going to turn JAWS off for you.
[AI voice speaks]
Unloading JAWS
[Michelle speaks]
“I’m just going to start now, what’s called NVDA. That’s called, Non-Visual Desktop Application. Okay. Now NVDA is now launched, and I’ve also yes, I’ve got that connected to my Braille Display and you can actually download NVDA, and that’s something that I can actually help you with, if you don’t have that sort of um technology, or information. With NVDA, you can also, you know, you can actually read documents with it, your website etc.
Let’s perhaps, go to something like Google. Just something very quickly, ‘Run Windows Run.’ I didn’t realize I still had my hearing aids connected. I’m just waiting for the, I’m not sure, actual fact, we’re not connected to the internet, are we? I’ve just realized that, but you can actually…
[AI voice speaks]
run dialogue type, the name of a pro.
[Michelle speaks]
So, you can actually, when you’re connected to the internet, because where I am at Ross House, I’m actually where I work in the office. We’re actually a little way away from the office, so I’ve got no internet here at the moment, although I could if I wanted to, connect my iPhone with the laptop so I can actually have internet connection.
I just want to turn voice over, off, for a minute, and just show you for a second, a screen reader that comes with a program, with Windows, called, ‘Narrator’. I’ll just turn voice off for a minute, for you.”
[AI voice speaks]
“Exit NVDA dialogue.
What would you like to do?
Combo box exit collapsed
alt plus d okay button, okay.”
[Michelle speaks]
“Just told NVDA to exit the program. Okay, now let’s go to Narrator. Narrator is a free program, that can come with Windows, however, I believe that braille support is, you can actually access braille support, but what happens is, if you want to use other screen readers, the Narrator does tend to take over the drivers.
So, let’s turn this on for a moment.”
(Screenshot of Michelle’s monitor)
[AI voice speaks]
“Narrator dialogue, okay button, alt plus, heads up don’t show again, check box unchecked, all space checked, turn off narrator, okay button, narrator heading, level one. Welcome to Narrator.”
[Michelle speaks]
“Okay, now I’ve got Narrator, as I said you can actually…
[AI voice speaks]
FS reader 3.0,
[Michelle speaks]
…be quiet. Okay, you can actually connect the Narrator and you can actually use Narrator. It gives you basic information with Narrator and Windows, however I strongly suggest however that JAWS or if you can’t, if you don’t have funds for JAWS, I think something along the lines of NVDA, is quite good. I just going to close Narrator for you for a minute, and just show you some features of JAWS.
I just want to show you a feature of JAWS which I think is really cool. You can actually run a training program called FS Reader. FS Reader is a program that you can actually, will teach you, how to navigate around your computer with JAWS. There’s also other programs you can use, as well, with NVDA, and I think actually the browsers that you use, does give you that access.
So, let’s how about we go into FS Reader and let you have a look at how this works. I’m just opening FS Reader here, and FS Reader is now opening. If this, I wanted to find out if everyone is following what I’m saying. I hope I’m not talking to fast for interpreters, but I hope everyone is happy and is following what we’re saying. Actually, so, can we find out if everyone’s happy?
What information giving, or whether perhaps there’s something that’s really, gone over your heads, and I need to maybe backtrack and explain?
Okay, I actually, now have I’ve got voice over here, where I’m actually, where…
[AI voice speaks]
“Log in failed…”
[Michelle speaks- jokingly to computer]
“You would have to, wouldn’t you?
[Michelle speaks to viewers]
So, you can actually use voice over the on the Mac etc, and actual fact it’s a very, very, different system to JAWS, that I was showing you just before. Also, you can actually use a screen magnification that comes built in with Mac which is something that you could use if you can’t it’s a little bit like the screen magnification that you can use with your iPhone, which is something I actually, people use very successfully, Ushers as well, use very successfully you can actually, you can actually change the iPhone or the Mac, to whatever background colours etc you have, however, if your vision is starting to deteriorate you can actually use your Mac with connected to a refreshable Braille Display.
So, that’s 1 thing I’m just going to see if I can log in, so I can actually show you, just going to see if I can log in.”
[AI voice speaks]
“…tips, see what’s new in Mac OS Monteray. Discover new way…”
[Michelle speaks]
“Right. Thank you.
I’ve got I’m actually in. What I will do is, all you can actually, pick various programs from your desktop
[AI voice speaks]
“Preview has no windows.
Preview has no windows
Safari has no windows.”
[Michelle speaks]
“I’m just going to close that. Let’s have a look, so you can actually pick whatever program, on the Mac.
(Screenshot of the ElBraille)
I just also want to show you a computer that has been adapted specifically for blind people and it’s called the ElBraille. I’m just going to have to put my ElBraille back into the. I just wanted to show you some features of the
ElBraille. I’m just going
[AI voice speaks]
to space,
[Michelle speaks]
I’m just going, ElBraille is like a little computer, that is, actually, works Windows 10, and they’re actually now developing the same computers for Windows 11. I failed to say that on my lap laptop here. I actually have Windows 11, working with JAWS 2022, and last night, one reasons why I’m having a little bit of trouble with my Mac here. I haven’t used my Mac for quite a while, and I was busily updating to the latest version of Mac. So, I haven’t had time to actually fine tune it for today. But at least you get some idea, that you can actually plug a Braille Display, with voice over, on the Mac, and that actually comes free with the Mac.
Where with Windows, you have to, if you want JAWS, you have to pay for it, but I actually put this, is only a personal view, and I don’t want to influence anyone. I really do prefer JAWS ‘cause I think you, I think once you set up for you can learn to do so much with it, but at the same time you can also learn to adapt, and weave JAWS through to your own personal choices and preferences.
So, this computer here, that I’m using here, is actually,
and I think we have we gone to sleep. I’m just going to see we’ve gone to if we’ve gone to sleep. I think we have gone to sleep. Okay, with the braille computer it, this is called an ElBraille, E L B R A I L L E. Now, one of the features about ElBraille, is the ElBraille can actually work just like a Windows computer, however if you, are a…”
[AI voice speaks]
“See what’s new in Mac OS Monteray, discover new…”
[Michelle speaks]
…if you are a braille reader you can actually use ElBraille, if you are primarily a braille reader. If you can’t read braille, the ElBraille is really not for you.
I’m just going to see if I can turn this on. One of the differences of ElBraille compared to the other 2 computers, it doesn’t have a screen ‘cause, mostly for blind people you don’t really need a screen, however the, I think one of the downsides to this being that, if something happens, you can actually put a monitor to this actual computer. I just wanted to show you before we run out of time, and can someone tell me how we’re going for time, please?
I just wanted to show you the FS Reader that we spoke about a little while ago.”
[AI voice speaks]
“List view not selected, recycle bin.”
[Michelle speaks]
This program is actually run by JAWS, where it can give you, not only audio instructions, but you can actually you use the FS Reader training package that can help to get you started with JAWS. So it doesn’t matter if you can’t hear, you can actually use braille in whatever code braille you want to, you want to read.
Look today is only just a very, very, brief introduction. I can’t go into deep information. This is something that I’d be very proud to present to you, if you want to follow up at a later time. I will also give you contact information, so you can actually in braille, and also large print, which I’ll send through to Janet to give to you. So, if you want to contact me, send me a text message, if you can, or if you want to send me an email. If you don’t have any of those features, I’m sure hopefully, that either you can contact me through deafblind Victoria, or you can contact me through my business, so I will give you information on how to contact me.
One thing I did meant to say, that I have actually forgotten about, is that I was born blind. I lost my hearing due to, I had severe ear infections as a child, and I actually grew up blind, but I lost my hearing. I use a Baha on my right ear and a cochlear in my left ear, which I haven’t got off today, because I’ve just got so many other things going on in my brain at the moment. So, I’m very happy to give you the floor so you can ask any questions. I know, maybe there’s things that it’s gone over your head. I don’t know but I’m very, very, happy to make sure that you can sort of fully aware what’s happening.Thank you.
[AI voice speaks]
“Can JAWS magnify documents or recognize bank notes?”
[Michelle speaks]
“Yes, it can. Yeah, not JAWS itself. There’s another program that has JAWS and a magnifier program already built in called Fusion. F U S I O N. Fusion, that come from the same company who makes JAWS, but also too, one thing that is really good about Fusion is that you can actually use braille when your sight starts becoming worse. You can actually then use Braille Fusion, but you can actually use Fusion that has magnification program built in. There’s also, there used to be a program called ZoomText, Z O O M T E X T, however, I think now, mostly a lot more people are using Fusion. That’s also something I could help you with, but JAWS itself, doesn’t have a screen magnification, but Fusion has voice, braille and magnification.
[AI voice speaks]
“I have Usher’s syndrome. Do I need to learn braille?”
[Michelle speaks]
“Yes, if you can’t hear, or if your vision is starting to deteriorate, it really is a good idea to learn braille. I’ve worked with friends, I’ve worked with Usher’s friends before that have had to learn Braille. I know it’s a very difficult thing to accept, that you have to learn braille, but I used to have, I used to have some partial sight, because of complications, not Ushes, but something different. I actually lost all of my vision 100%. So, I actually knew braille beforehand, so all I had to do was just brush up on my Braille.
So, I actually had to learn braille because I used to use programs that could enlarge the screen, and there’s a program called Fusion, F u s i o n. Fusion, and that actually, that can work with the Braille Display, or it can make the screen larger with different colours in the background. So, if you don’t like bright colours etc, or bright back, (I’ll say that again), bright backgrounds, you actually can adapt Fusion, I think there are demonstration copies of Fusion. There are demonstrations of copies of fusion that you can actually, download and that would be something I could help you with at, another time through Vispero or Freedom Scientific.”
[AI voice speaks]
“How many years did it take you to learn braille?”
[Michelle speaks]
“Well, you can actually start learning the basic braille alphabet, and that actually depends on how much experience in reading and writing you have had. It
doesn’t take a person all that long. It’s like anything, when I learned Auslan, it took me a little bit of time to learn, learn, learn, learn, learn…to get my mind to try and remember everything. So, it depends how much time you put into it.
It would take approximately, I’d say about, I could get you going in braille, after 3 months, to do basic braille. Not signs and contractions, although that will, that can actually basically, can be introduced as time goes on for a person to learn full contractor. That is all the signs and shortcuts in braille. It can take about 2 years to fully read everything, but I do have a course in braille that people can actually take to actually learn to read braille, but I’d say basic braille, that’s a little bit like finger spelling, compared to finger spelling and Auslan etc.
Finger spelling, where, you know, doesn’t take a person all that long, however to remember all of the signs in braille takes that little bit longer to, from beginning to very end, I’d say it’ll take about 2 years, but it depends on how much time you’re willing to put into it.”
[AI voice speaks]
“What is the name of the braille device you are using?”
[Michelle speaks]
“Oh, it’s called a Focus 40, 5th gen. You can actually buy that through Quantum Technology. There are actually also other braille devices as well. Humanwear, Hem’s Products, so that’s something I could also help you with, if you needed help down the track with that as well, but I actually rather like the Focus 45th gen, and also too, for my iPhone, which if you are coming, or if you are. I’m holding another workshop on Tuesday, with Vanessa from W.A. We’re going to talk about another braille computer called the Braille Note and also the iPhone. So, stay tuned for that. That’s going to be really, really, exciting.
Do any other the questions please? Waiting. waiting waiting for the interpreters. Maybe I’ve bombarded them with technology.”
[Janet speaks off-camera to confirm that there are no further questions].
[Michelle speaks]
“Nothing, nothing okay.
Excuse me, Janet. I just thought perhaps we can basically talk a little bit about Deafblind Australia, since Deafblind Australia is presenting this presentation.
Deafblind Australia was actually an organization that helps to protect the rights of people who are deafblind. It’s the only national organization of its type, although we have state organization separate to DBA. There’s an
organization, Deafblind Western Australia, and also Deafblind Victoria and we all sort-of try our hardest to work together to make sure that the rights of deafblind people are protected, that the community learns a lot more about deafness. I want to acknowledge the sponsors of the ‘Seen and Heard,’ project. I want to respect them and thank them for their very generous NV I think it’s NVDA. I say NVDA um NDIA, (all these acronyms), NDIA, I want to acknowledge them and also the sponsors who’s providing money for this project.
Do you have anything to add apart from that Janet?”
[Janet speaking]
“I might just come next to Michelle here.
(Screenshot of Janet next to Michelle)
Thank you, Michelle for making those comments about Deafblind Australia. I don’t have anything to add. I think you’ve done a wonderful job at explaining what the role of Deafblind Australia is, and I’m delighted and very thankful, for Michelle being present here today, and offering her knowledge and her passion about technology.
I think you can all see that Michelle loves technology, and the project that we’re working on, is all about ensuring that our community know what’s available to them, in terms of technology, and that there is a range of technology out there to suit your needs. So, I’ve learned a lot today, but I really enjoy spending time with Michelle, and seeing her love, and sharing all of her knowledge, and I hope you got something from it today.
Please take Michelle up on her offer about coming to see you, to learn more about what she can do for you because I’m certain that she’s got something that will help you along your journey. So, a big thank you to Michelle…”
[Michelle speaks]
“You’re welcome.”
[Janet speaks]
“…and thank you for joining us.”
[Michelle speaks]
“Also, too, can I thank Troy, my Comguide support worker, who’s here, who’s my, “gopher,’ -he, “goes for this, and goes for that!” And he’s a wonderful, wonderful, support. I couldn’t do this on my own because I have balance issues and I do need quite a lot of support, so look, I hope you do get the opportunity for me to work with you.
You can actually, if you if you have NDIS, you can actually get some training funds through your NDIS and that’s something else, perhaps we can talk to, whether it’s braille, or whether it’s face to face tutoring.
Okay, thank you very much indeed guys.
I want to thank the interpreters. I love interpreters, so much, love you guys. Thank you. Hope to see
you another time. Cheers.”
[Description: Kirra Pendergast, a woman wearing glasses and a floral top, appears on the left of the screen. To the right, an interpreter signs in Auslan against a plain dark background.]
(Screenshot of presenter)
“My name is Kirra Pendergast.
I’m here to talk about staying safe when you’re online. What we call cyber risk management, because this is holistic, it’s not just about when you’re on social media.
I’m going to talk a little bit about email, SMS on your phones, and a few other bits and pieces as well.
But a little bit about me so you understand my background and why I do what I do. So, I’m the CEO of ‘Safe on Social Media.’ We’re Australia’s largest and most trusted, and in demand, cyber safety training and education company, and I’m really, really happy to be working with DBA today.
So, over the last 14 years I’ve worked completely focused on Cyber safety. My background however is almost 20 years in cyber security, and what’s called, counter-cyber terrorism, where I worked with the Queensland Government after September 11. So, I’ve worked with now more than 400 schools or 800,000 students across Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Indonesia. I work with the AFL, some NRL teams and embarking on working with a couple of other sporting teams in the next few weeks.
I’ve presented training days for New South Wales police, countless government agencies, legal, big legal seminars, and everything in between. So, I’m a regular media commentator and I’m also in my spare time studying a diploma in counselling.
So that’s a bit about me. But what I want to talk about today, is to start off with, what you’ve actually signed up for, when you start using social media. A lot of people forget that when you download any App, you tick a box that says accept terms and conditions of use, and in those terms and conditions of use, is a whole heap of things that we didn’t really take into consideration. So, when you click “I agree,” you are signing an electronic contract that is going to hang around forever.
Now, in Australia we have what’s called a privacy commissioner. So, if you pay for a service, all of your data and all of the information that you’re sharing with that service is protected under Australian Privacy Law. However, if you’re using a free service, that might be Hotmail, or a free Gmail account, or Yahoo, or any of the social media apps like: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Skype, anything like that, because they’re not free, YOU, actually become the product.
So, you’ve become a data generating commodity to these organizations, because this is how they make their money. They don’t sell your personal information, they sell access to it, under license. So, if you were to read the ‘terms and conditions of use’ of every single one of the major apps, it would take you about 76 days. And one of the clauses in there actually says that they can change their terms and conditions of use at any time they choose, and they don’t have to notify you that they’ve actually done that.
So, we need to remember that these can change, and it’s up to us to see what’s going on.
The basics in all of the major Apps, there’s four really basic things. The first one an age recommendation guideline. Now the age recommendation guideline isn’t in there for your safety or safety of kids, that you know it says 13 plus, because it’s illegal for any App to store and retain the information of children under the age of 13 for the purposes of sales and marketing. Under What’s called the children’s online privacy and protection act in the US. So, that governs most social media platforms. Even Tik Tok, which is a Chinese organization, but most of it is based in the US. So, they’ll get really big fines for breaching that and you sometimes hear about those things or read about those things in the news where it’s, you know, Tik Tok got find however many millions of dollars because they sold access to the information of children under the age of 13. So, that’s why that is there.
In the license agreement, the license agreement states that to be able to use the App for free, you’ve signed off on a non-exclusive, transferable, sublicensable, royalty-free, worldwide, license to use any of your intellectual property on or associated with that App. So, what that actually means is any photo, any video, any text, any audio recording, anything that’s going on in the background, that might be detected by an App, or any of one of the things that you can see here listed-
Your location down to within about 40 cm of where you’re standing, how you bank, who you follow, what you like, the conversations that you have through private messenger, all of that information is gathered, and all of it is sold off, under license, so that people can access that and sell advertising.
That way the Apps can sell advertising to targeted demographics. So, this is why you’ll often get ads for things that you weren’t expecting, but you might have Googled or you might have had a conversation with someone about. All of those things come up all the time in ads.
There’s a law enforcement disclaimer. This means if you’re the victim, or the perpetrator of a crime, online or off, the police can access everything including the things that you have deleted, and if they need to, they can go pretty deep under warrant. A lot of people think that if they smash a device up, that the police aren’t going to be able to access anything. That’s completely incorrect.
In a world where we have cloud computing, and what I mean by cloud computing, is that everything is stored in the internet. So, with apple we have iCloud, Google have similar, Snapchat have their own, Tik Tok have their own. Everything’s backed up and stored, you don’t know who’s got a screen shot. So, nothing is ever completely deleted. We need to remember that all the way through our use of anything online.
So, the next thing I wanted to talk about, was some changes to the law that are here to benefit all Australians. So, the new Online Safety Act. Well, it was called the ‘Enhanced Online Safety Act,’ but they’ve changed it to, ‘Online Safety Act,’ now, is somethings that were put in place originally in 2015 to form what’s called the, ‘Office of the eSafety Commissioner, in Australia.
They’ve just been given a whole heap of new powers that came through on … January 23, 2022 is what I was trying to say.
So, there’s a world first cyber abuse scheme for adults. So, this is for all of you out there. You don’t have to be under 18 to report something to the eSafety commissioner now. Any Australian can now report serious online abuse, and I’m going to go through that at the end of this session in detail. So, you know what online abuse is, and how to report it. There’s a strengthened image-based abuse, and cyber bullying scheme with reduced time frames now.
So, what used to happen was, if someone bullied you, or abused you in any way online, you would report it to the App that it happened on. You would have to give them 48 hours before you reported it to the eSafety commissioner’s office. They would then give the App another 48 hours to remove the post that was offensive, and if they didn’t, they would then be fined.
So, what happens now, is all of those time frames have been reduced to 24 hours. So, if they don’t remove the post within 24 hours the app can be fined up to $555,000 if it’s issued to an individual, the fine is up to $111,000 and up to five years in jail. So, these are really good things to protect Australians from online abuse through the eSafety commissioner’s office. They strengthened information gathering powers for the eSafety commissioner’s office as well, which means that they can unmask identities behind fake accounts that are used to bully, troll, or conduct any kind of illegal activity.
So, that means if I had an Instagram account and I called myself, “popcorn fairy,” for example. If, “popcorn fairy,” was nice most of the time, but she was relentlessly bullying somebody, if that account was reported to the eSafety commissioner’s office, they would go to Instagram and find out who I was, even though I was using a fake name. It is completely fine to use a fake name. They’re only going to investigate it if it’s reported, and if there has been some sort of illegal activity conducted through that account.
There’ll also be a rapid website blocking power. So, a few years ago, there was some terrorist activity in Christ Church New Zealand, filmed and live streamed. That won’t happen anymore, this has given the eSafety commissioner the power to literally shut that off. So, no Australians will witness anything harmful that way anymore. So, moving onto how to use some of the Apps better.
Now I could talk about every single one of these Apps for about 6 hours straight. So, there is some corresponding cheat sheets on top tips on how to do these apps better. That you’ll receive access to as well.
The first one is Instagram and being very aware of what you post and how it pieces together to tell a really big story about you. I can actually go through Instagram and find out so much information on people it is mind blowing.
The name of their dog, where they went to school, how many kids they’ve got, what they had for dinner, whose birthdays when, when they were last on holidays, wherever.
We have to remember all of those things now, because we’re not the only ones looking at it. Everyone can look at it, unless your account is set to private, which is what I recommend. If you have your account set to public, because you want to share information about something that you’re into; a hobby, your work, all of those kinds of things, that’s completely fine but just be really careful, about what’s in the background, and especially if any of you are friends with, or know, young kids, you can actually encourage them to do this better. To create a digital footprint that’s really positive, once they’re over the age of 13, by only talking about what they want to do when they leave school.
So, for example if they want to be a chef, create a whole account about cooking, so that when someone looks at that particular Instagram account, it’s going to bring up all of the good stuff, not all of the negative rubbish, when they’re talking with their friends about stuff. So, we need to make sure that we help the younger people that we know create a positive digital footprint, as well as what’s out there.
The other thing that’s happening through Instagram, at the moment, that I did want to discuss, is what we call sextortion. So, sextortion is when someone tries to get an explicit image of you, and share it, or threaten you with sharing it. There is a load of this happening through Instagram, through the direct message request section.
So, it happens on Facebook as well, but mainly on Instagram, and if you receive a direct message request from a complete stranger, always just hit delete. It’s either going to be a link to adult content to try and lure you into buying something, or you might get like, I recently had a young woman in her 20’s approach me because she had received a direct message request from someone that she didn’t know, saying that if she didn’t send a naked photograph of herself within a short period of time, they were going to distribute an image that had been clearly, just grabbed off the internet, and morphed to look like it was her. They were going to distribute that to everyone in her list.
I’ve also had the same thing where people have been threatened if they didn’t pay $600 to a bank account, or an enormous amount of crypto coin, that this would happen to them. Now, that is complete rubbish, okay. If you speak up, and get assistance from the eSafety commissioner’s office, or
from the police, do not respond, okay. There’s a reason why it says “decline, block, and delete,” down the bottom of the direct message area. Do not respond to any of those messages that come through from people that you don’t know. Is a much safer way to use Instagram.
On Snapchat there is a map function, that a lot of people aren’t too familiar with. So, in the bottom left-hand corner there’s a little icon, that if you tap on it, it actually brings up a map, and when you zoom in, it is really, really detailed, and you can see that, you can, literally, in the screenshot here, you can see me standing over the roof of my old house in Lennox Head.
I’ve got a big ghost, on my head in this photo because I’m set to what is called “ghost mode,” which means I’m the only person that can see me on the map and nobody else can access that information about me. The safest one beyond that is what it says, “only these friends,” that way you can choose people close to you, who know where you, are at all times, on the Snap Map and that can actually be used from a safety perspective as well. So, people know where you are, if they need to find you at any time, but be really cautious about who you choose to let into that Snap Map.
When it comes to Tik Tok, this is a wildly popular App but we need to make sure that we’re covering off on a few things. When you first open up Tik Tok, it’s going to bring in, what I would describe, as the gutter trash of the Internet. So, while it’s trying to figure out what you want to follow, it’s going
to show you absolutely everything, and some of that material is really distressing and depending how long you sit, or look, or feel, or just hover, over a particular video, is what they’re going to show you more of.
So, there’s everything from you know natural disasters to really violent events, and car accidents, and things like that. If you hover over them for a little bit too long, your Tik Tok feed’s going to come up with that over, and over, and over, and over again. And it can take months to get out of it.
So, if that’s ever happened to you, you’re best off shutting down a Tik Tok account, and starting again. I would prefer that no one on the planet used it at all. When young children, when I present, ask me how old they should be before they start using Tik Tok, my standard answer is 27. I don’t like it, it’s really dangerous.
So, we need to think about it, and when I was speaking about the terms and conditions of use earlier, one of the terms and conditions that did change late last year, was Tik Tok. So, they changed to say that they are using facial recognition technology, and voice imprint technology.
So, we don’t know how exactly that’s being used, but it can be everything from ad placement, to they’re selling that off, or they actually the algorithm has become so clever that it can detect your face movements, and how you’re actually reacting to things on their platform.
So, we need to understand that this is what happens, but the upside of Tik Tok is there’s a lot of challenges that raise a lot of money. So, the ice bucket challenge raised about $15 million just in Australia alone. There’s a whole heap of really positive challenges and things that happen on Tik Tok, and things that make you laugh, and things that make you happy. So, we just need to make sure that we know how to block, and report, and speak up when something upsets us in any way.
I just wanted to step into a little bit more law now, because a lot of Australians are really vulnerable to this one. It’s called image-based abuse. Now that occurs when you have shared an intimate image, a nude, or a sexual image, and it’s distributed without your consent.
So, it includes photoshopped images, drawn images, and videos, and one in five Australians will experience image-based abuse. So, like it doesn’t matter how old you are, what race you are, what gender, what sexual orientation, any of that, we are all in this one, and everyone is particularly vulnerable.
So, the eSafety Commissioner’s Office set up an image-based abuse portal. So, you can report it right there, and they will do their best to get it taken down from wherever that video or photograph has been distributed, and help liasse with the police, because it’s up to four years jail in every state in Australia, for someone to abuse someone by sharing their intimate images.
With group chats which is a wildly popular way to communicate, with people. So, there’s group chats happening on Snapchat, on Instagram, on WhatsApp, on
multitudes of platforms, and if you know any little kids, the only one that I recommend for children under the age of
13 is Facebook Messenger For Kids, because it’s controlled by parents.
But for all of you out there, we need to remember that sometimes these group chats can get a bit toxic, and you need to remember that if you’re in a group chat and there’s bullying or any kind of illegal content, or whatever being shared, that you need to remember to get out. So, just by saying something like…
‘Sorry guys, this is getting a bit nasty I’m out.’
… shows that you’ve actually left the chat.
I’ve seen on a couple of occasions now, loads of people charged with being, ‘Guilty by Association,’ when they’re in a
group chat, where there’s been some kind of illegal activity happening and they haven’t left the group chat. So, make sure that you get out.
Group chats were designed to be helpful and supportive. Don’t feel compelled to respond to messages in a group chat straight away. People need to remember that you might be in the shower, you might be wishing somebody a happy birthday, you don’t have to be available to people within 2 minutes 24/7. Really important that we remember that.
You also need to remember that group chats are never private. There may only be six of you in there, but I
guarantee you someone has taken a screenshot, and you don’t know where that’s going to end up. So, we need to
think about those ones. Avoid using them late at night when we’re tired, we’re more emotional you can take things out
of context, so it’s really important that we make sure we turn off notifications, because I often speak to people that say they get messages at 11, 12, 1 O’clock in the morning. So, we want to make sure that we take control of how we consume technology and not let technology consume us. Super important to take that in.
When it comes to sexting and respectful relationships. I just wanted to add a few things here as well, because a lot of people tend to separate these things, because one’s online and one’s offline. Sexting is a sexual activity, and all sexual acts need consent from all people involved, and breaching that consent isn’t okay, and can result in what we call image-based abuse that I explained earlier.
So, it’s not okay to share other people’s messages that you’ve received, or send a message that could have a sexual connotation to someone that hasn’t asked for it. It’s the basics of consent and asking permission. It’s also important that you always know that you have the right to say, “no,” even if you’ve shared an image in the past or you’re in the middle of a hot and heavy conversation with somebody.
You can say “no” at any time and step away from that conversation. Do not feel pressured, okay, and do not respond, if you don’t want to. If someone is targeting you in this way, block it, and report it immediately. You can do that through esafety.gov.au.
It’s never okay for anyone to pressure you to do anything sexual, including sending photos of yourself. You need to make sure that you remember that it’s your body okay. Your body. You’re the boss of it. You get to say “no” at any time. You also get to say, “hell yes!” That’s what we call, “enthusiastic consent”. Okay. So, we need to remember that you have complete control over this at any time.
When it comes to online abuse there’s a whole heap of things here that a lot of people don’t realize can be reported in Australia. So, firstly we have that image-based abuse that I spoke about which is threatening to share explicit images.
We also have sextortion, or being blackmailed, regarding illicit photos of you. Doxing, is if someone shares all of your personal details online. So, it’s like the digital equivalent of having your phone number written on the back of a toilet door, which is what would have happened when I was in High School. This is the digital equivalent of that.
Cyberstalking, is repeated or unwanted contact from someone that is also reportable. Impersonation, fake accounts that have been set up to seek, gain from you, or damage your reputation in any way.
Deep fakes, that I talked about earlier. Never, ever, ever, post a profile shot that is, ‘front-on,’ like a passport photo, ‘cause it’s very easy for someone to crop your face and morph it onto the body of somebody else. So, always make sure your profile shots are, ‘side-on’ or slightly tilted, or you’re wearing glasses, or a hat, or something like that, so it’s harder for your face to be cropped off.
We also have defamatory comments. Deformation is huge on social media, and if you run anything like a community page, all of those pages that we often connect with out there like, Community boards, certain groups that are into certain hobbies, you know, “Thumbs up Thumbs down Melbourne,” or whatever. Remember, that if you are the administrator of one of those pages you are 100% responsible for everything that happens on them. It’s considered that you’re a publisher in the eyes of the law in Australia.
So, if there’s anybody in there giving anybody else a hard time, you don’t need to ask permission anymore, just delete them immediately, okay. You need to protect yourself, if you are running one of those pages, and if you see it, report it to the administrator of the page.
We also need to step up and manage the emotional impact of any kind of online bullying and abuse.
My story is big in this space. I’m going to take a minute and share it with you, because I think it’s important that you all understand how this can be so impactful. As someone that had 18 years up my sleeve, of a very big career in cyber security, I got bullied so badly by somebody that I trusted, when I was 43 years, old that I barely left my house for 3 months.
I got so sick with reactive arthritis from that, it was very hard for me to leave the house. It even hurt to have sheets on me at night. It was the way my body dealt with the trauma of being attacked on a daily basis by somebody that I really trusted.
They set up multiple accounts that looked exactly like me, blocked me from them, and used them to bully themselves. At one point, I was tracking them through 7 different mobile phone numbers. There were multiple hashtags that were created, calling me names, making defamatory comments, it was absolutely horrendous, and it went on for 2 ½ years.
It cost me about $272,000 in legal fees, and loss of income, and all sorts of things came off the back of that. That’s why I do what I do, because I don’t want anyone to go through what I did. There’s a whole heap of ways that you can manage the impact of online abuse, because it is huge.
When you least expect it, and still now almost 10 years later, sometimes I do talks like this, and I literally have spoken in a room with 350 teachers in front of me, and burst into tears, because of that post-traumatic stress of going right back there.
So, these are a few things that I learned along the way, that I wanted to share, if any of you ever experience any form of online abuse, or bullying.
The first one is silence. Silence is golden. My grandmother used to always say, “darling, silence is the loudest scream,” and I never understood what she meant until I used it. So, when I was being attacked on a daily basis, I said nothing. Just zipped it, okay, and just let them go for it. All I did was take hundreds of screenshots which I still have, every single one of them, 10 years later.
Okay, so I’ve got all of the screenshots and then I decided to become a role model in this space, so going high, so people could see that I wasn’t responding to very public takedowns of me on a daily basis. I just took that high road, which is a really important thing to do.
Rally your network around you. This is one thing I didn’t do, and I wish I’d had it, because I don’t think I would have got as sick as I did if I had have spoken up, but at the time there was no laws around this space. I was Australia’s leading expert in it, and yet it was happening to me. I was consulting to the Queensland Government on how they should use Facebook and getting attacked on it on a daily basis.
So, we need to remember, that you need to get your allies around. You need your support network, you need to speak to a counsellor, because that’s the only way you’re actually going to get through this, by naming your feelings and remembering your strength, as well, and how you could help others that go through this.
Allow yourself to feel really upset and hurt because you do have to grieve this. If it is a friend, like it was with me, the grief process of losing a friendship to 15 years, in a very public forum, was really difficult to comprehend and to calibrate. So, you need to make sure you talk about those feelings with your allies, and remind yourself constantly of your good qualities and your strengths.
There’s a term called ‘gaslighting,’ which happens a lot in cyber bullying, because when someone’s relentlessly attacking you on a daily basis, they start to make you believe it. I felt like I was becoming everything she said I was, when I wasn’t, okay. So, I’ve actually, you been using a new term because mine was work-related. We knew each other through work, that’s where it all started, so I now use the term ‘occupational violence,’ because that’s what it is, and we need to speak up, and stop it.
So, if it happens to you, make sure you speak up. Maintain perspective. This is not going to be around forever, and even when I’m teaching little kids that may be bullied, I now tell them how to turn it into their superpower. Literally make something really good out of something really bad, and if you can help your peers doing that, because you’ve experienced it, is a really good way to build your resilience when it comes to being bullied or abused online.
In Australia we have the eSafety commissioner’s office so you can report cyberbullying image-based abuse, any Illegal, and harmful content and adult abuse straight to them. It’s important to understand, that you need the URL, or the address of where it’s happening, so cut and paste it into your report.
Take as many screenshots as you can, even screenshot the fact that you’ve reported it to the app because that is the process. Screenshots, report it to the app that it happened on, if they don’t respond within 24 hours, report it straight to esafety.gov au. They will take it down, or get it issued a take-down notice. That gives the App or the person 24 hours to take it down, and if they don’t, then all of those fines kick in.
If you feel like you are being threatened, or at harm in any way, or someone is sending explicit, or intimate images of you, to anyone at all, the best thing to do is actually contact
CrimeStoppers. So, people forget, CrimeStoppers is available for all of this aswell. They’ll allocate it to the local police. They will chase it up, okay. So, they’re all there to help you.
Or through DBA. You can contact me. I’m always happy to help in these spaces, because I’ve been through it. I know the legal system and I know exactly what to do, and now that I’m working with you all, I am available by email if you ever should need it.
So just to wrap all of this up, somethings on how you can help yourself from here on in.
We often hear the term Digital Detox. Personally, I don’t
believe in it, for a lot of us it is our primary source of communication with the outside world. So, it’s there. A lot of us use it for medical apps and things like that.
I had a Mum contact me a couple of days ago because her 10-year-old son needed to manage his Type 1 diabetes through an App on his phone, but the sneaky little thing was also accessing Apps late at night. So, we had to teach her, and him how to make that, to shut it all down properly. But the digital world, and Apps are so deeply embedded now, it’s very hard just to shut it off for a period of time.
So, we need to stay in control of what really matters, and be, what we call, “well-connected” instead. So, staying human, or kind in a digitally saturated world, making sure you actually have a conversation with someone that you pick up the phone, and call them, or you have a cup of tea, or a cup of coffee and a conversation.
A lot of people are going to say “I’m fine,” by some kind of message when they may not be, and they just need to talk to a friend. So, we need to take that into consideration as well.
Some tips that you can use to hack back your tech-habits, because we all get into really full-on habits in this space, even if we deny it. You know, I do. I’ve had to put some place, things in place, to stop me from picking up my phone and checking messages in the middle of the night and stuff like that.
So, get connected to goals. When you have a vision of your future and where you want to be and what you want to be doing whether it’s study, or whatever you’re more likely to be focused on that, rather than just sitting online, talking rubbish and looking at, you know different accounts that may not be real. Most of them aren’t. They’re heavily edited over-produced lives of people that don’t actually exist, in a lot of cases.
So, we need to get connected to our goals.
Turn off notifications. Don’t allow yourself to be interrupted easily, especially in the middle of the night.
Set yourself a digital sunset.
Make sure you’re not online, in any way for at least an hour, before sleep. It gives your brain time to unwind, because if we are disturbed in the middle of the night, there is massive studies now to say that, that interruption from social media during sleep patterns is what’s causing a rise in anxiety and depression in people. Just from that constant lack of sleep. So, you won’t actually go back into a deep REM sleep again until the next night. So, we have to make sure that we protect that, to produce all the happy hormones we need in our brains to stay happy and healthy.
Diversify your digital diet. There’s some incredible new Apps out there that you can download and use. You know, I stay in 150 hotels a year on average so I use Apps for everything from meditation, to something to put me to sleep, to someone reading me a bedtime story, to whatever. So, there’s some things out there that you can find. Curate your
feed. Take control of what information you consume. As I said before, rather than just consuming what’s presented to you, go through it, unfollow things, follow accounts that are inspirational to you. It’s a much, much, healthier way of using
social media.
So, my contact details are available.
If anyone has any questions, they can come straight back through to me.
I will respond to those within 24-48 hours and at any time if you need any support with anything that I’ve spoken about today you can contact me through the email address listed. Thank you very much for your time.”
Contact:
Kirra Pendergast- CEO
Safe on Social Media Pty Ltd
kirra@safeonsocial.com
This project is funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services go to dss.gov.au
Description: Title appears: “Seen and Heard Project” – Deafblind Australia presents with Peter Cracknell and Megan McEvoy from Quantum, along with the DBA logo. Peter is shown speaking to the camera in a light blue shirt and glasses, with an Auslan interpreter signing on the right. Midway through the video, the interpreter swaps to a lady with a fringe wearing a dark blue top. Later, the video shows Megan presenting in a room with Peter visible on video in the background.
(Screenshot image of Peter on the left
and Auslan signer on the right)
[Peter speaks]
“And so, I’m Peter Cracknell and I’m the manager for Quantum Reading Learning Vision in Queensland and the Northern Territory. I’m a vision technology specialist, and that means that I have experience with computer equipment, braille equipment, and low vision magnification equipment, software equipment for people with dyslexia, voice dictation software, and large print output and everything to do with helping people with print disabilities.
So, although I’m based in Brisbane, I do actually provide a resource to the whole of Quantum on the areas of Braille and blindness technology and so I support my colleagues throughout Australia in that capacity. So, I’m here in Brisbane my colleague who’s with you there in Adelaide Megan McAvoy.
Megan did you want to introduce yourself?”
(Screenshot image of Megan)
[Megan speaks]
“Hello everyone. My name is Megan McAvoy as Peter said there. I work for Quantum Reading Learning and Vision. I am new to the role here. I have a background in optometry services and glasses manufacturing, so that’s why Peter is assisting with me today as well, but as a low vision consultant based here in South Australia, I’ll be able to assist everyone with low vision technology and software and hopefully to learn the Braille side of things braille technology shortly.”
[Peter speaks]
“Okay, we, Megan and I, will be doing a presentation about some of the assisted technology that Quantum provides. This is mostly technology for magnifying, but also for converting to audio. Now we do of course understand that many people with hearing problems may not be using an audio output solution, but we often also find that people who are hard of hearing can actually, if they wear hearing aids or a cochlea, can often actually hear our amplified equipment.
So, Megan’s going to be demonstrating some equipment. I might just give an overview first of the equipment and she can demonstrate it.
So, Megan do you have the ClearView Speech there?”
[Megan speaks]
“Yes,”
[Peter speaks]
“Great. So, the ClearView Speech, it’s quite a large piece of equipment, 24inch screen, and the idea is that it can magnify, very greatly, paperwork that’s place underneath it, but in addition to that, it can read out-loud the paperwork through the speakers or through a pair of headphones. So, this is what we call text-to-speech combined with magnification.
Now, Megan if you could just spend a few moments just demonstrating both of those functions?”
(Screenshot image of Megan demonstrating) (Generic website image of product)
[Camera shows Megan walking to the ClearView Speech technology.
ClearView Speech screen is not visible to online viewers.
Megan Speaks]
“Absolutely. So, as Peter mentioned we’ve got the ClearView speech here. On the screen you can place documents. If we can move that that around there, we can also make print quite large depending on what’s needed, and we can scroll out there, as well. What Peter was talking about there, is the text-to-speech function as well. So, if we touch the touch-screen-text inside the window, and tap the screen we can line up an A4 sheet.”
[ClearView Speech AI voice reads out text]
Welcome to Quantum Reading Learning Vision. Vision impairment can make lots of everyday activities very challenging. Quantum might start to join the…
[Megan speaks]
“I’ll just pause that for a second. So, that will read the sheet left-to-right, down. We can also choose parts of text that we want it to read. Once again by moving down and being able to choose words that where you want the speech to talk and start again from.”
[AI voice muffled in background]
Okay, you can we can change the colour of text as well.
[AI voice muffled in background]
To improve contrast, to be able to view things easier depending on visual
needs of the text colour and the background colour as well.
[AI voice speaking]
Main Menu
[Megan speaks]
“With these functions as well, you can also change the voice, if you prefer it. They it has 30 different languages, in generally female and a male tone as well. There we are. As Peter says it can do 1:60 times magnification. It is portable, but being around about 19 kilos you would leave it set up in a particular table as such. You can generally use it for about 4 hours off a full charge as well.
Anything you’d like to add Peter?”
[Peter speaks]
“Yes. We’re talking about the ClearView Speech at the moment, aren’t we?
[Megan speaks]
“We are, yes.”
[Peter speaks]
“Yes, okay. The ClearView Speech has a very large screen and that’s very beneficial for people with very low vision, and Megan will demonstrate how you can use the sliding tray at the bottom to smoothly move very magnified print left and right so even though it’s very, very, magnified you can still read successfully, and this includes, of course, bills and bank statements, it includes magazines and books. In fact, it’s even possible to put iPads and phones under these machines.
So, Megan, if you could just demonstrate how you use the sliding tray to move the print underneath…”
[Megan holds the ClearView Speech technology, Megan speaks]
“We can fit a large double A4 document in here, and that tray then will move, allowing the bracket, is wider and so it allows you to move the entire document up and down, over, and that way, once again, being able to zoom in to where you like… and that will work there.
Once again, it can change the contrast if that assists with vision, turning the colour off, turning black and white, as such with that one as well, or leaving it as a colour image.”
[Peter speaking]
“Megan one of the things that people with low vision often have, is a sensitivity to glare. And that’s why we often find that the white writing on a black background is more comfortable for people with vision impairment and there’s many colours you can choose from to suit your eye condition.
Now the ClearView Speech is a very large device. We call it a desktop electronic magnifier, because once it’s placed in a convenient location that’s where it stays. So, that means that you need to bring your reading materials to that point to read. A lot of people actually would prefer a solution which they could move from room to room, and that’s what we call a Transportable Electronic Magnifier.
So, we’re going to actually look at some transportable options, that have some of the same functions as the ClearView Speech, but are much smaller. The downside is that being smaller the screen size is smaller, so that you can’t get the same reading comfort as you would with a ClearView Speech, but the upside is that you can move them, not just room to room, but also if you’re going away to stay with family, you could take these devices with you.
So, Megan you’ve got there with you, I think the Clover Book and some compact devices. Would you be able to spend some time just demonstrating the features of those?”
(Screenshot of Megan (Generic image of the Clover
with the Book Lite) Clover Book Lite product)
[Megan speaks while demonstrating]
“As Peter was saying the transportable devices are a bit easier to take and carry around. Okay, the Clover Book Lite. Here is one that will actually fold up, and comes in a carry case as well, the size of a laptop bag. So, it makes it a little bit easier to carry around. Okay, this one here, so, it has the tactile buttons on it, much easier much lighter, only around about 2 and ½ kilos to carry, okay, but once again, we’ll turn this one on, get it to turn back on, … it still has 1:60 times Zoom, so, still quite a large magnification range on this, but we can place this under here, okay, it will take a few seconds to take the photograph.
With a lot of these devices, you can speed up the text, or slow it down when it’s talking to you, and also the volume on it as well.
Okay, once again you’ll be able to choose where that needs that, where you need to select the text from, and that will work quite well for those there, might just if I place that one there for a minute. Okay. Most of these will get around about 3 or 4 hours of battery life out of these devices.
(Generic image of the Compact 10
showing long flip-out camera arm)
From there, we’ve got the Compact 10 as well.
Once again, another device that will be able to use any text from. Some of these have actually two cameras with them, and so this device actually has three cameras.
So, you can do a far-away image to be able to take a photograph of a menu board, or out while you’re walking. It will also have a near camera as well, and then it does have a flip-out camera, that once again allows for a document size. We can fit, it’s hard to, I’d be able to show everyone after as well, an A4 sheet will fit under this one here…,
[demonstration of page fitting under flip-out camera]
and once again we’ll be able to read that document aloud for people. Many of these can also have a headset included as well, so that you can plug them in to a Bluetooth or a wired headphone, to be able to make the hearing, to hear it better as well.
(Generic image of the Compact 6 product)
And likewise, then the Compact 6. You’re going smaller in some of these devices, so a lot of their names refer to just the screen size of them. So, then it’s once again coming down to a 6inch screen on this sort of device, and it allows a little bit easier transportation in a bag as such.
Once again, can zoom in if you put text underneath. This can zoom into anything there. You can capture an image, it will read that aloud again as well, you can change the contrast for it, too some of these… this one particular does have a stand that it can sit in as well, that can be, and then that will also read an A4 document located underneath that as well, okay, which I have there. So, as a stand that will then be able to capture the image underneath that one there.
[Demonstration],
but it makes it easier for pocket size, when they’re going smaller, but then the smaller images, you may not fit the full document into the device, as such, it will be needed to be moved around a little bit more, okay. Many of these products showing you that have the autofocus on the camera as well, so that you don’t get that fuzzy image as such with them too.
Okay, Peter did you want to add anything more with the speech do the products?”
[Music], maybe he’s on mute?”
[Peter]
“Good so does anybody have any questions at this stage about these the speech products?”
[Megan]
“I don’t, we don’t have any hands up here at the moment? No.”
[Peter]
“Okay, good. So, we might move on to the what we call the portable electronic devices. So, these are even smaller than the transportable ones. They’re designed to be carried in the handbag, or something of that size, or easily even taken to the shops, and that sort of thing, and so they can do some of the magnification functions, but not some of the speech functions that you’ve seen demonstrated.
So, we have a range starting at around about 3 and ½ inch screen all the way up to around about 6inch screen.
So, I’m just going to get a 3 ½ inch screen one, and then Megan can take over and show you some of the larger ones.
(Screenshot of Peter holding up the Clover 3.5)
So, in my hand here, I have a clover 3.5, which refers to the screen size measured from one corner to the other corner. I’ll just switch it on. The idea is that we can rest it on paperwork and move it across the paperwork, the packaging or whatever, and get quite good magnifications, albeit on a small screen. It’s easy to operate. There’s just one button to switch on. It has lights, it can fit into a pocket, or a handbag. It can do also the alternative colours that that Megan’s already demonstrated on the bigger machines.
So, this device would not be for reading a book, but it would be great in the supermarket or around the kitchen, or perhaps to just check some small piece of correspondence. It’s reasonably inexpensive, around about $350. So, this kind of thing is not the only solution for people with low vision, it may be an additional solution.
Maybe they have a bigger machine as well, but of course, it is only a small screen, so obviously it’d be great if we could have a wider screen so we can fit more words across the window here. And Megan’s going to demonstrate some of those slightly larger screens now.”
(Generic image of the Clover 5
pocket-sized magnifier product)
[Megan speaks]
“Excellent, thank you Peter. Okay, so moving up in size slightly is the Clover Book 5, make sure we turn that one on, handy handle to hold that there, that can also sit against documents to be able to move across the [Music] text okay.
[Megan demonstrating]
It does have some really simple functions of the buttons. Once again, to be able to make text larger, or to make text smaller. It gives you a little beep once you’re
back to the start of that side, as such there. So, once again makes that quite simple to move around and use for that one okay.
There’s the ‘5’ and then we also have the ‘6’ here.
(Generic image of the product)
Once again, going slightly larger in size, here as well, does have a stand on the back, so that allows the device to prop-up a little bit, and use that easier to view text and to slide it along. This one does have two cameras, so it allows you to see a long distance. If you were to look at a menu board as such or to go to a fast-food restaurant.
You could hold it up you can in real time be able to zoom through text to see that there, or you can capture an image and then bring it closer to make larger to look at the details of what that is there as well. So, with the two cameras it has it in distance mode, when we flip the stand back around, it will go to a near text, and once again you can capture that there as well okay. Comes with a hand strap and much more portable than some of the bigger ones okay.
The one thing that this can do is you can save images and create a voice tag with them as well, so if there was a document that you frequently use as such, a piece of text, a menu, as such when you save the image you can create a voice tag for it, calling it a menu, and you can recall that quite easily in this save documents of that machine there as well.”
Excellent. Alright, Peter have you got us there again?”
[Peter speaks]
“Yes, thank you Megan. Did you show the Clover 6 at all?”
[Megan speaks]
‘Did just have the Clover 6 up, yes, with the, a handle on that one. Yes, yes.”
[Peter speaks]
“One of the one of the things about the Clover 6 is that it can also be used for looking at things at a distance. So, people often are in say; in Bunnings or in a supermarket but they can’t quite see the shelves a little bit higher up, or a little bit lower down and so what you can do with the Clover 6, is you can actually just zoom in on things at a distance, and magnify them.
So, that’s quite a useful feature for people who are out shopping or maybe in a cafe and they want to look at the specials board as well.
I’m conscious that we’re actually going quite fast through all of this equipment so hopefully that will mean that at the end of the talk people will have an opportunity to actually try some of this equipment out.
And Megan will help you with that.
So, we’ll take a short break for any questions that you have now and then we might move on to an area of Braille and iPads and that sort of thing. So, if anybody has any questions for either Megan or myself, please ask at this time.”
[Megan speaks]
“No, no, questions? Do we need a drink break or anything?”
[In person attendee speaks off-screen]
“I’ve got one of the items here. It’s for using recipes when I’m cooking. It is difficult.”
[Peter speaks]
“Are we okay to move on?”
[Megan speaks]
“Just wait one second Peter,”
[In person attendee speaks off-screen]
“I use it with one hand and I’m trying to cook with another. I do use one of these and it helps me to read very small text, and books as well.”
[Megan speaks]
“Absolutely fantastic. As you can see a lot of the magnifiers, they work well in certain situations sometimes the larger ones are bigger, perhaps if for a cooking book, but depending on what technology you have available, they all work very well.
[Peter speaks]
“I might just take a short moment to, step back a bit from the technology and just talk about what Quantum can do, in terms of reaching people. So, we, I know we’re all a little bit constrained by Covid you know we have to take precautions and so on, but we’re still cast as an essential service, and we can still visit people in their homes and the workplaces.
So, we do that all the time, we make appointments to see people with equipment in their homes, or their work places, or their schools. So, that we can demonstrate it, trial it with people. We can run longer trials for a week. We do that wherever we have a local representative.
So, here in Brisbane, of course I’ve got a staff of four, but in Adelaide, Megan, you’re it. So, if you could just explain a little bit about the, you know, where you’re based and the sort of region that you can reach.”
[Megan speaks]
“Absolutely no worries at all. So, as mentioned before, I am South Australian based. It’s really, I am Southern based. I live down in the lovely beaches of Port Noarlunga, but I’m happy to travel all over the State where needed. Even rural trips as such. I can organise with particular clients and come out to visit as well. So, happy to take phone calls from anyone, if they need services, or equipment and as Peter mentioned, you know we can visit people in, wherever they would like, if it’s a local café, if they’re not comfortable in their house, or at home, or at their workplace and I can talk about what sort of technology would be best to assist them, and they can let me know what their goals would be with it. Absolutely.”
[Peter speaks}
“We, at Quantum we are an equipment provider, obviously we know a lot about our equipment, but we’re not a service provider. So, we don’t do any occupational therapy, we don’t do any assessments, formal assessments, for the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
We actually collaborate with the RSB and Guide Dogs and all the other agencies. We collaborate with independent occupational therapists and they provide the service. They provide reports and formal assessment. We can lend equipment and we can lend our expertise, that’s where we come in.
So, we’re not competing with agencies or independent services, we are just adding some value to what they already do. So, we obviously are very involved with the National Disability Insurance Scheme the NDIS, but also with the Job Access Scheme, with the Department of Veterans Affairs, and of course private individuals as well. We do that all through Australia.
Great, okay. So, I’m going to move on now to another area which is around Braille, and Braille displays, and so on. I do realize that there are many deafblind people who don’t read braille, and there’s I believe it would be useful for more people to learn braille, maybe not to read books or anything like that, but perhaps to read signage and also most importantly to be able to type into a computer or an iPad.
Now, the reason I say this, is because for people who are deafblind with a progressive vision loss, where their vision may get worse, they may come to a point where they can’t use the magnification of their device effectively, like an iPad or a computer and unfortunately because of their deafness they can’t rely on the speech output from the computer.
So, a lot of technology for accessing iPads and computers is actually based around speech feedback from the device, and the problem with that, is if
you’re profoundly deaf of course, is, that’s an issue for hearing.
So, I just I would encourage anybody that has a progressive vision loss and who is also profoundly deaf to consider learning the braille code.
As I say, not because they want to read a book with braille, but simply because it gives them an alternative typing mechanism.
Now, the alternative to that of course, is to become a touch typist on a qwerty keyboard, and when I say qwerty keyboard of course, I just mean a conventional computer keyboard. It’s possible to get qwerty keyboards that are Bluetooth, and that means that they can actually connect to an iPad or an iPhone.
So, I’m going to give you a scenario. So, let us let’s take a hypothetical case where somebody is an iPhone user, but their vision deteriorates. How are they going to be able to reply to a text message, especially if they have a problem with their voice communicating, if they’re deafblind, and they cannot talk clearly enough to dictate into their iPhone with the Siri? So how is someone like that going to actually reply to a text message that they’ve received?
We know that they can magnify the text message, on their iPhone or their iPad, but how they’re going to operate the little keyboard.
So, this is just an iPad, just for demonstrative purposes and if I am…”
[Screenshot of Peter holding iPad display
up to camera for online viewers]
[AI on iPad speaking]
Suggestions, no, notes, note Textfield is editing, voice over, off.
[Peter speaks]
“If I am editing a message here, the problem is, the onscreen keyboard cannot be magnified.
(Screenshot of Peter holding the
iPad keyboard up to camera for online viewers)
Even though the print here, this print here can be magnified just on the iPad, or the iPhone, but the keyboard cannot be magnified, and because it’s a touch screen you have no feedback as to where you are on the touch screen, so it’s very difficult for a blind person to type on this kind of a screen.
Unless they can use the speech output, the voice over that comes with the iPad, but I’m just assuming in this case, the person can’t hear very well and cannot communicate with speech. So, how can they do it?
Well, they have a couple of options. One is, they could just simply buy a Bluetooth keyboard and learn to touch type on the Bluetooth keyboard, and that’s probably my primary thing I would recommend.
I would recommend everybody to go down that route to learn how to type the alphabet with a qwerty keyboard by touch typing. There are many online courses and programs that can teach people to touch type. The one that we sell is called, ‘Typability.’ Typeability, but there are other ones as well, available, which you can find on the Internet. So, I would strongly encourage people to do that, because that will give them access to computers iPads and iPhones, to be able to type and reply to emails and to messages.
Another alternative is to purchase a small Braille keyboard. It’s only got six keys on it and its Bluetooth and it can connect to your iPhone or your iPad or indeed your computer, and instead of typing on the main keyboard, you would actually type using the braille code.
Now, the braille code may seem a little daunting at first but it only takes a couple of hours to learn the alphabet, and that’s pretty much what you mainly need to be able to reply to a text message.
So, I would strongly encourage anybody to look at those sorts of things. It is even possible to use tapping on the screen of an iPad to simulate a braille keyboard, so you don’t even necessarily need to purchase a little Braille keyboard; you can actually just tap on the screen, with 6 fingers.
Now, it may well be of course that some people would like to go the whole hog and learn Braille, or maybe they already do know Braille, to feel, I mean, and we have a range of electronic Braille Displays. I’m going to see if I can just turn the camera down onto one of them now.
(Screenshot of Braille Display)
So, hopefully you can see on the desk here, an electronic Braille display.
[AI voice muffled in background].
“It has a row of plastic pins that pop up instantly, and change configuration depending on what is in focus on your iPhone, or your iPad, or your computer. So, I have it connected to a computer that’s actually built around it. This dock around the electronic Braille Display is actually a computer and just to demonstrate that I’ve connected it to this television screen. There, and that is the output from this electronic braille display with its computer dock around it. But we could just use the electronic Braille Display on its own connected to your own home computer, or to an iPad. We do have a smaller a smaller version of it.
(Screenshot of Peter holding up the
smaller Braille Display for online viewers)
And this is much, much, more portable. This one has only got 14 characters of braille, but it’s quite sufficient for connecting to an iPhone, and replying to text messages using the blue keys, or reading the text message on the lower part here and this can easily fit into a handbag.
You could be using an electronic Braille Display in a café, you could be using it also to communicate with blind people, because by connecting it to an iPhone you can get the iPhone to speak out loud whatever you are typing here.
So, if you can imagine a scenario where a deafblind person needs to communicate with a blind person who’s not deaf, this would be a communication possibility.
I’ll see if I can demonstrate how the pins change when we when move. So, what I’m going to do is, I’m going to try and angle it so that you may see the pins change.”
[AI voice speaks]
List box number… [inconsistent audio]
[Peter speaks]
“So, what I was doing there, I was actually moving down a menu in the ‘Windows’ computer that’s connected at the back here, and the braille was instantly changing depending on the menu I was in. I could have been in a document that I had typed and, of course the braille would be spread right along the braille line and I could advance it, just by pressing a key, and it would advance, to the next bit, and the next bit and so on.
Now I do realize…,
[Peter puts Braille Display down and moves computer camera back onto him]
… just bring this back on me.
Of course, I’m very aware just how difficult it can be to learn braille from scratch. I know this myself because I’ve been learning braille online myself, and it’s not easy, but the first part of learning braille is very, very, straightforward, and that’s just learning the alphabet. So, I would recommend that to, well, to everybody. I think it would be a good mental exercise for everybody but very, very, useful for people who are deafblind to learn.
Good. Now, for those people who have some hearing, but maybe they may be wearing a hearing aid or a cochlea but they can hear with the aid of an aide. We do have some text-to-speech devices that are very, very, portable and have many, many, uses for people who are have low vision who are blind and or who may have dyslexia.
So, one of the things about our text-to-speech devices, if you consider how a dyslexic person struggles to read print, the text-to-speech device can convert print into audio, and read back the document, and that’s very useful for dyslexic people who really struggle to read.
It’s obviously useful for people with vision issues, and we’re going to be looking at a couple of devices that Megan has with her. In the range called the OrCam range. Now, Orcam, is spelled o r c a m. The ‘C’ bit is fairly obvious, that’s for camera. The ‘O’ bit is the Hebrew word for light, and the device was actually invented and manufactured in Israel, and we are the Australian distributor for Orcam.
And Megan, if you could just, maybe, starting with the OrCam Read, and just demonstrate how it can work.”
[Megan speaks]
“Thank you, Peter.
(Generic online image
of an, ‘Orcam Read’ in use)
Okay, so OrCam Read, I have here. So, as you said a very portable, handheld, light device as such, here I believe it’s only yeah, 44 gram or so. So, very light, as such, to use. Okay, the easy thing with this, is, it is just a point to capture the text that you need and it will read it aloud for you as we said. That we’ll make sure we’ll turn it on.
Okay, but you can hold it like a pen, okay there’s a button at the top that you simply cast on. It’ll shine an LED light over a text that you want to read and simply click the button there, and it will read that text back to you okay.”
[OrCam AI voice speaks]
OrCam Version 9 is ready. Battery is 67% charged.
[Megan speaks]
“Okay so if we just point that at the text here, you hear a camera…”
[AI voice speaks]
Computer access and keyboards Zoom text screen magnification software can help with magnification up to 36x and provide a wide range of options such as large mouse pointers…
[Megan speaks]
“There we go so I’ve just paused that there okay so that just captures the page of text and will read that back to you as well you generally get 3 to 4 hours battery use out of that but any text any menu generally works.
I have the working distance on, it can be handheld or a little bit further out maybe a meter or two in front of you, as such, to be able to capture text as well, but that means when you’re walking around and there’s signage as such, you’d like to read, that will just read that back to you there as well okay. Excellent that will work in dark areas too.
Then we move on to the OrCam MyEye, here which then is a handsfree device okay. Pop the lanyard on, this will mount, it’s a magnet mounted device okay, you can attach it to any spectacles, or there is a pair of frames that comes with the box, that you can attach the magnets to.
Once again, I had these turned off, and they’ve gone into sleep mode, okay. As this is loading up, we’ll just talk, so it attaches with a magnet.
There’s two different ways to run or to use this device. There’s a touch bar on the side that you can give it commands from by simply touching there or moving your finger along the sides, but there’s also voice commands as well.
So, there are ways that you can tell it for volume up volume down, there’s around 20 voice commands that you can give the device, that will that it will respond to okay. This will…
[background AI voice coming from device starting up],
…it’s just coming online now.
Excellent, I believe this might have been on in my case, as I was just getting it ready last night and the battery might be fairly flat on it there. We’ll see if we can get it to read, okay. I apologize the battery’s going down on that one there. I will be it must have been on in my bag for that.
It will just, taking an image of this, it will tell you what tender, so what money you’re holding, in terms of $10 note, $5 note, $20 note it will be able to tell you that as well okay.
There is also facial recognition software in this. What you will need to do is pre-load a face in there so you can scan someone by holding down a certain function on this, but what that will then do is remember their face, so when they approach you the next time, it will call out with your voice on there, saying ‘Susan’s approaching,’ as such for this one here as well okay.
You tend to, once again, get three or four hours use out of this sort of device here okay. This can also read barcodes as well. So, when, you can scan products either at the shops or in your home and it will give you certain information in regards to the product that you’re holding, whether it’s nutritional information or just simply the name of the name of the product that you’re using there as well.
Okay, there is a function on this as well that you can use smart reading, and what that will do, is when you scan a document, rather than it just reading left to right, you can ask for, say the headlines, and it will then go through and read the headlines for you. You can then direct it to say, “I’d like you to read me the second article,” or, “the third article,” or, if you’re looking for a particular phone number, once it scans the document you can give it a voice command of, “read me the phone numbers.” It will find those digits there as well, likewise maybe an amount if it’s a bill or something like that one there. That will also work in dark areas there as well. A very handy, very, handy little device this one.
I’ll get it on charge now to see if someone wants to have a look at it shortly, I do apologize that that’s drained. Anything more Peter you’d like to add, you’ve got one, oh excellent. He’s got his there.”
[Peter speaks]
“Yes, sorry, so you’ll see that my OrCam is just connected to my own spectacles and they can, it can connect. We can put a little clip on the side of anybody’s spectacles, or even their sunglasses and that allows us to simply clip the Orcam to the side.
Now what I’m going to just demonstrate, is a couple of things. So, with the OrCam MyEye, it can detect hands and fingers. So, what I can do is, I can just point and…
[AI voice speaks]
Peter
[Peter speaks]
…and I’m close to the microphone there so you may have heard that, but what it did was, it identified that I was pointing to, just that phrase there, and it read just that out loud.
So that means that you could be looking at some packaging and you could point to you may see that there is some text there you can’t read it, but you can see it’s there, and you can point to just that text and it will read it out loud for you.
So, for example let’s say you were in the supermarket and you were looking at the cereal section. You pull out a packet and you point to the big print and it will say “Cheerios.”
That’s great because you don’t have to listen to everything that’s there. If we had just tapped the side of the OrCam it would have read everything that was on that packaging, including the monosodium glutamate, the micrograms, the suggested servings, all of
that would be read out loud. But, by using a finger to point, we can just narrow it down to just this, or that. And I apologize to the signers who are trying to sign monosodium glutamate, apologies for that!
The other thing is with the OrCam MyEye, we can point at distant things too, not just reading materials, but signage. So, you could be in the supermarket and you might detect that there are signs hanging from the ceiling for each aisle. You could just point at the rectangle at the top and it would say; eggs, confectionary, milk, and so on. So, you know that you’re in the right aisle. Then you can walk down the aisle, you can point at the shelf which has got the pricing label, and it would tell you the price. You could then pick something off the shelf, and just check whether it’s got nuts in it, or how many calories and so on. So, it’s a very powerful device for not just for home but in the community as well.
The other thing that Megan mentioned was that it can recognize currency. So, you can pull a bank note out, and it will tell you that it’s 20 Australian dollars, or if somebody hands you some change.
Unfortunately, not coins, just Bank notes, it will say 5 Australian dollars. So, that’s very useful and it can also recognize the barcodes in 2 or 3 of the supermarkets in Woolworths, Coles and one other. What we mean by that, is that if you lift a product up and look at the area that has the barcode, the OrCam has actually got a record of what that barcode means, and it will, instead of saying the barcode number, it will say ‘Heinz, Baked Beans, 150 grams.’ So, that’s extremely convenient to be able to lift something up and it will tell you generally what the product is.
You can use that barcode feature as well to tag things. So, let’s say you had some objects at home that had barcodes on them. So, perhaps a CD case, and you can actually program the OrCam to say not the barcode number, but to say, well whatever you want. It could be Beyonce, it could be Frank Sinatra, and so this way it’s a very convenient labelling system, where you can manage items in your home.
The other thing that the OrCam MyEye can do, is it can be programmed to recognize people’s faces. So, it can store up to 150 faces. The process is, when you are with somebody that you wish to recognize in the future, let’s say your husband, what you do is, you actually press and hold the side of your cam whilst looking at them. It will beep and ask you to name the person in front. You then say ‘David,’ ‘Peter’ or whatever, and it records your voice.
So, the next time you see their face, or the OrCam sees their face, your voice pipes up ‘David’ or ‘Peter.’ So, you can imagine a situation where you might have programmed some of your friends and acquaintances, perhaps some support workers, and maybe you walk into a room and there’s 3 people you don’t know who they are, but if they’re programmed into the OrCam, it’ll say ‘David,’ as you look at David, it’ll say, ‘John,’ as you look at John. And the advantage of that is that you can then interact more naturally with these people.
They can’t hear [it], because it’s in your ear, but you can then say, “Oh hi, John, nice to see you again,” rather than hoping that they will announce themselves to you.
Now, the range of face recognition is around about 8 m so it won’t detect somebody at 20 m, or somebody that’s on a sports field running around, but within 8m, it will announce the person’s name as they approach. So, these are some very powerful features of the OrCam.
Megan also mentioned smart reading. Now, what this is, when you’re looking at some things like say a telephone bill. The most important thing about a bill is how much you owe, and when do you have to pay by. If we were to use a text-to-speech device and were to read the whole page from top to bottom, it might take us a long time of listening before it got to the important bit, which might be on the right-hand side, halfway down the page.
So, that would be very tedious to have to listen to the whole of all of that, before you got to the important bit. You might have to listen through all the address, the ABN, the special promotions, perhaps tariffs and all that sort of stuff before eventually it said, $230 on the 23rd of March.
With the smart reading feature in the OrCam, you can actually say, “read the amounts,” and you actually say that out loud. “Read the amounts.” And the OrCam has a voice recognition, and it will just read the amount of money that’s written on the page. You could say, “read the dates,” and it would read just the dates that were written on the page. On a newspaper you could say, “read the headlines,” and it would read just the headlines, or you could say, “read from,” and you would say a word that you think is going to be on the page.
These are all things for convenience. Now, I understand of course that this will only be useful for people who can speak, but we find that people will often use some features that they can use and obviously they wouldn’t be able to use all of the features.
So, this technology is very, very, compact and Megan, I just need to correct you on one thing. The battery life of the OrCam MyEye, is 90 minutes. On the OrCam read it is about 3 hours, yes, but on the OrCam it’s only 90 minutes, that’s continuous reading. You can of course, connect just a power bank.
Now, these power banks, they’re commonly available, and they’re used to recharge mobile phones, so many people have these, and you can connect your OrCam by a cable to the power bank and recharge it when you’re out and about.
I will talk a little bit about the NDIS, because we have a lot of our equipment approved by the NDIS, including the OrCam. But, the NDIS, will of course look at the most appropriate solution, which may be the less expensive solution, and some people may be using apps on their smartphones to do some of the functions that the OrCam can do.
So, when an assessor is looking at, maybe, an OrCam, they will also be looking at whether an App or some other support could work for the person to do the same thing. And that’s where we defer to occupational therapists at the various, either independents, or at the various agencies, like the Royal Society for the Blind. They are the ones that can make the assessment as to the appropriate product. We can provide our expertise with the products that we have and we can lend products for trials and so on.
Now, what we’ve looked at so far with the OrCam have been text-to-speech, they convert print to audio, they do not have a vision function at all. So, even though I wear, sorry, even though I wear the OrCam on my glasses it has nothing to do with my eyes.
The only reason I’m wearing it on my glasses, is because it then follows my gaze, so if I turn my head to look at a piece of paper, the OrCam follows with it, that’s the only reason it’s up here, and also to be close to my ear, but it does not improve my vision, it does not magnify, and we do get quite a lot of inquiries where people are looking for a magnification solution.
They hear about the OrCam and they think because it’s in, on spectacles that it will be a magnification solution, but it’s not. It’s an audio solution. So, it’s very important that you understand that. We do have though, some spectacle mounted solutions that are magnification solutions.
I’m going to show you a few of those now.
One of the simplest solutions is a 2x magnifier that we wear like spectacles. So, they’re just mounted just like spectacles.
(Screenshot of Peter wearing the product)
They do have a lens at the front that can be moved in and out, and a lens the, eye lens here. It’s only a 2x magnification, and it cannot be worn over your existing spectacles.
So, if you’re very short-sighted it won’t have any correction in it. It’s only going to be suitable for people that don’t really wear much in their spectacles.
What do we use it for? We have a pair that’s used for television. So that you can sit in your normal armchair and have a slightly magnified view of the television set. I do always say to people, another option is simply to get closer to the television set, but often times, people, you know, their furniture is where it is they don’t like to be close to the TV, but if they can perhaps bring another chair up close to the TV that’s always a very good solution and sometimes a better solution than a pair of these spectacles like these.
We have another version that can be used for close work, like knitting, or sewing, or something like that, and of course the point is, your hands are free, because you’re wearing the magnifier on your face. As I mentioned it’s only 2x times magnification.
So, I’m going to show you some things that are a bit stronger than that.
(Quantum website image of
Virtual Reality Headset, the ‘AceSight’)
So, what we have here, this is a modified Virtual Reality Headset. As you can see it’s worn just in front of the of the eyes, with a band around your head. It has a small camera at the front, and two screens just in front of your eyes.
What it does is, it uses the camera to look at something at a distance, which could be the television, or it could be maybe in a cinema, or a sporting event, and it projects the magnified image onto the screens and you can adjust the magnification using a small controller which has got a plus and a minus button, and that will zoom in, and zoom out. You can also apply different colour contrasts and enhancements to improve the image. So, this device gives you hands-free operation, especially for things at a distance.
The downside, is that I cannot wear my spectacles underneath this. So again, if I need a strong prescription, I can’t actually use these here. The other thing of course, is it can be eventually a little bit heavy on your nose. The positive of course is that it’s a strong electronic magnifier.
So, for people that need a lot of magnification an electronic magnifier is the only way to go. Now we have a variety of these, what we call wearable electronic magnifiers. This is called the AceSight.
We also have something called the OxSight.
(Generic image of the OxSight product)
Now I don’t have an OxSight with me today, unfortunately, but it’s a similar sort of arrangement to this, a little bit less bulky, and the OxSight, that was designed for people who have diminishing field of view.
So, what I mean by that, is for people with, who have their field coming in, through tunnel vision, which may be through retinitis pigmentosa, or one of the other conditions.
What we can do with the OxSight, is we can compress a large field of view into a smaller field so that the large view is compressed into the usable part of the person’s vision. So, the OxSight is designed for people with tunnel vision, and the other magnifier like the AceSight, is mostly designed for people with macular degeneration, or some other condition. But, in both cases they have a rechargeable battery they have screens and some kind of a controller pad.
We’re also hoping to launch another modified headset, which can receive direct media. So, for example television, and of course the streaming services, directly into the headset.
So, that would be useful for people who want to watch TV, maybe with family, but they can’t see the television set, but if they had the TV program streamed right in front of their face, they would be able to manage it, and so, we’ll be launching that later. We’re always looking at these devices to suit what people want to do at home.
I should mention about what we call the wearables that I’ve just been talking about there’s so many factors at play. So, first of all, everybody’s vision is different, and even between the eyes there’s a difference. Often, somebody has an eye that’s virtually useless, and another one that’s got a bit of vision.
So, these wearable headsets they have to be adjusted as best as we can for that particular level of vision, and of course the other thing is, everybody’s face is a different shape. So, some people have got very small noses, some people have got big noses, they got tall foreheads, they got big heads, small heads. So, these headsets have to be, quite a lot of adjustment to make them comfortable for people, and in some cases we can never we can never get it comfortable enough, and that’s why it’s so important that people try stuff, with an experienced person, like ourselves, to make sure that they really do work.
Definitely one of the things that we find is that so many people are shopping online these days, but almost all of the technology that we do requires it be tested face to face with somebody that knows what they’re talking about. So, that’s why we invest so much in having staff that can reach people in their homes and their workplaces, and we’re not a catalogue company, and we’re not primarily an online retailer, we we’re a face-to-face organization.
Okay. Finally, we need to talk a little bit about computers and what we can do with computers. So, there’s 2 things that we can do with computers, and we’ve already
demonstrated some of the things with our other devices. We can magnify what’s on the screen, and we can convert it to audio output. So, some people will with low vision would prefer to just magnify things, and some people with profound low vision would need to have audio output, and some people indeed would actually connect a Braille Display as well.
What we might demonstrate here, Megan will demonstrate, is how the ZoomText program, which we sell, can be used to magnify and speak what’s on a computer screen.
So, Megan, if you can get your laptop ready and maybe do a demonstration of how we can magnify and change the colours and the mouse pointer and so on, with the ZoomText program.
(Image of ZoomText Magnifier product
box from the Quantum website)
[Megan speaks while demonstrating on a laptop. Laptop screen display is too far away for online viewers to access]
“Fabulous. Okay.
So, with the zoom text program running, I will run up here, it allows me to be able to scroll through the desktop quite easily. It will, it’ll give you a snapshot of your desktop running at that particular time. So, you do need to scroll around with this one here, okay, but that will give you an enhancement. Likewise, you can up the magnification so if we do need to make it larger to be able to see certain text, or where, what we need to go to, that will allow us to do that as well. I’m just using the keypad or the mouse pad on my laptop here. There are keystroke commands as well for this, to be able to, simple commands of logging, of zooming in, zooming out, turning the program on, and off, etc for this one here as well.
So, hot keys that you can use. It also, when you can read text aloud, it will do faster voice, and slower voice, as such for that one there, as well likewise, you can turn the all those contrast colours that we showed before, there are contrasting colours that you can use on these to make it easier to view programs on the laptop if needed, or computer, basically for these ones here as well. Excellent. So, that’s just, they, rolling around with that, and it just allows you, with a lot closer Zoom in on those ones there, okay, back up there as well, when I find that.
Was there anything more you wanted to add to that there, Peter?
I’ve got the laptop here just showing this.”
[Peter speaks]
“Yes,”
[AI voice]
“Bye bye,”
[Peter speaks]
“Yes, so the, you’ll noticed that when Megan was moving the mouse pointer, she had to move around quite a lot to get around the screen especially at big magnifications.
So, we tend to find that ZoomText works really, really, well for people that only need up to around about 4x magnification and that’s a lot of people. That’s most of the low vision people we see, would only need up to four times magnification, but many of them need stronger magnification and there comes a point when they really should be using the audio output more, and more, and the mouse less, and less.
(Quantum Website images of the Fusion, Jaws’ and ZoomText products)
So, we have a program a version of ZoomText called ZoomText Fusion, that allows people who are transitioning from using a mouse to entirely using a keyboard with audio to make that transition more easily.
So, we often find that people will apply for the ZoomText Fusion program, so that they are they like an insurance, in case their vision should get worse they will be able to then transition more to audio output, and you’d have
heard on Megan’s computer that it was speaking, as she did things and some people will have that switched off and some people will use it a lot to listen to what’s on the computer.”
[Megan speaks]
“Peter are you there? Can you hear me? I think because we had a slight delayed response from today, I think we’re running out of time here, now. Just to allow for a few questions and answers. I believe there’s another presentation on with another group after us.
So, we might need to leave the software there, at the moment. If we can and put, we could, obviously, put some more information up when we have it online, as such, but we might need to just allow the time now for if anyone’s got any questions, or maybe to look at the product if that’s, yeah if all okay with you?”
[Peter speaks]
“Thank you, and I should add, that our website not just describes how you can reach us and what we can do, but for all the products there’s a full description, full
pricing and lots of resources on our website that people can
use”
[Anne speaks]
“Excellent, thank you everyone for coming, and I just like to specifically thank Peter Cracknell and Megan McEvoy from Quantum R.LV.
My name’s Anne, by the way, I work for Deafblind Australia.
So, thank you everyone for coming. Thank you especially to the Royal Society for the Blind, for giving us the venue, and thank you to the South Australian Robotics Club, the “RoboRoos,” for providing all the AV Equipment. I think that’s everyone I need to thank. Oh, thank you to the interpreters as well, and the captioner. Thank you very much, we’ll finish there.”
This project is funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services go to dss.gov.au
Description: The title appears with “Quantum Training by Stewart Andrews” alongside the DBA logo. Stewart stands on the screen, giving his presentation while wearing a shirt with the Quantum logo. On the right, an Auslan interpreter signs and later swaps with Meredith, an interpreter wearing a dark blue top.
(Screenshot of presenter)
“My name is Stewart Andrews.
I’m a vision technology specialist for Quantum Reading Learning Vision, and I’m here today to go through a bit of an overview of equipment that’s available to help people out who are deaf or blind. And just a little bit about Quantum. So, Quantum is a national company. We have about 20
Employees in Victoria. We have a new office which is in Mount Waverly. It’s at Unit 6, number 417 Ferntree Gulley Road. At the facility there we have quite a big range of equipment. We have a spare consulting room which is
available for people to come in and use and with, or without our assistance, have a look at some of the equipment and see whether that equipment could help their situation.
So, I just like to thank the deafblind Association for inviting us
to come here today, and we’ll get on with the presentation.
So, what we’ve got here today is, to start off with, I’ll just talk about some magnifiers and probably lighting.
Lighting is one of the things that’s overlooked by a lot of people to assist with people’s vision. Having reasonably good lighting is very important. Natural lighting is always better than spotlights. So, if you can think about if you’re outside and you’re trying to read something you will normally always be able to see better outside in natural lighting than you will in artificial lighting inside.
I suppose there are exceptions to that rule, where you know people are affected by the glare quite a lot, and too much glare is, makes it too hard for people to see. But, generally the closer to natural lighting the better.
So, to start off with Optical magnifiers. Optical magnifiers come in different shapes and sizes. This one that I have here at the moment,
(Quantum website image of Mobil hand magnifier)
This is actually a 1 ½x Optical magnifier. So, a 1 ½x Optical magnifier, if I was to hold it over this page here, and we may do a few closeups later on to show this difference a little bit more, so a 1 ½x Optical magnifier, and this one actually does have a light in it as well, we’ll magnify the print 1 ½x. This lens is quite a large lens. It’s about 80 mm wide okay, so it’s quite a large lens, and if I was to look at a line of print, the 1 ½x Optical magnifier will pretty much magnify the whole line of print.
So, let’s just say that that 1½x magnifier is not strong enough, and we need to get a stronger magnifier, if we were to go up in size to a 2x or a 3x magnifier as you can see, this this lens is now quite a bit smaller. It’s about a 60 mm lens okay.
If we were to put that magnifier on this print again, on the same sentence instead of getting the whole sentence, we’ll actually only get about 3/4 of that sentence.
So, we won’t get all that information to look at the same time. The other thing that changes quite a lot as the optical magnifier gets stronger, is the focal distance of the magnifier. And what that means is a really weak magnifier, you can hold the lens back quite a long way and you’ll be able to have everything in focus as the magnifier gets stronger, and stronger, you need to hold it closer and closer to the page or it will not be in focus. And, the other thing that you have to do with the stronger magnifier, is you actually have to have your eye up close to the magnifier.
So, you can’t hold it at arms distance with a very strong magnifier, and just move the magnifier forward and backwards to get it into focus. You have to hold your eye up closer to the magnifier or it just will not be in focus.
This next magnifier I have here is a 6x magnifier.
(Screenshot image of (Screenshot image of
Stewart with 6x magnifier) magnification)
So now the lens has got smaller again. Once again, it’s got a light. All the good magnifiers have lights. Now, if I was to hold this magnifier on that same line of page, on the same sentence, we may only get 2 possibly 3 words to read at a time with this magnifier. Once again, we have to hold it really close and I also have to have my eye up really close to make sure everything is in focus.
So, the difficulty with using a really strong magnifier is to read along a sentence and to have a look at, to comfortably read a sentence and understand what you’re doing you need to go through word by word, and you need to be able to remember the words that you’ve just looked at.
So, if we, if you wanted to use a really strong magnifier or you needed a strong magnifier, just to take down the shops to have a look at like the prices of some goods or if you wanted to check the size of clothing maybe check a product out at the supermarket that would be fine. But, if you wanted to read, like, a whole page of information, like this copy of the quantum newsletter that I have here. If I had to go through that with the strong magnifier, and go
every single line,
every single word, and remember
every two words as I went,
line by line,
I could probably do it but it would be very hard for me to be able to remember what I’ve just looked at, word by word, put it all together.
So, what we sort of need, is a magnifier which actually has a larger area of viewing. What they have available now are these electronic magnifiers. Now, electronic magnifiers come in all different shapes and sizes. This is actually a small one.
(Quantum website image of a
Clover 6HD pocket sized magnifier)
This is a 6inch screen. They come in a 3inch screen, and go all the way up to a 12inch screen for a portable electronic magnifier. They actually have cameras on the back which look down at the page, look down at the print.
The idea is, you put the electronic magnifier over your page, and you move it around like you would a normal Optical magnifier. But, because the field of view is no longer just a small lens on a magnifier, it’s actually the whole screen of this electronic screen.
We can push a ‘plus’ button or a, ‘minus’ button. The, ‘plus’ button will actually increase the magnification. So, now, if we were to go back to that same line, again and we’ll take it up to about a 7x magnifier, you know we can get a few more words on this smaller screen. A lot more than we could on that on that optical magnifier.
So, the other thing about the optical magnifier is, you can change the colours or the contrast of the print that you’re trying to look at. The majority of people, and it is a bit of a generalization, but majority of people can see better with a different contrast of the text. So, instead of natural colour, white and black, or a white background with a black foreground, or vice versa, of that, generally people can get a little bit more clarity of the different words or the different letters. So, the idea with these magnifiers is, yeah, you plug them in, you charge them up. They’ve got batteries in
them.
This one actually has a handle so you can hold it as a handle.