WEBVTT 00:02.000 --> 00:05.000 Hello and welcome to the HumanWare See Things Differently podcast. 00:06.000 --> 00:16.000 Each month, join your hosts, Rachel Ramos and David Woodbridge as we bring you engaging interviews from guests, interaction from our one of a kind distribution partners stories that will take you off the beaten path. 00:17.000 --> 00:20.000 Current promos, shows where you can find us and so much more. 00:20.000 --> 00:23.000 So stick around. 00:24.000 --> 00:26.000 Greetings and salutations. 00:26.000 --> 00:28.000 See Things Differently, 00:28.000 --> 00:33.000 Listeners, welcome to episode eight of the podcast. 00:33.000 --> 00:35.000 I can't believe we are up to episode 8 already. 00:35.000 --> 00:37.000 That is absolutely incredible. 00:37.000 --> 00:39.000 Time is just flying by. 00:39.000 --> 00:42.000 I am here with David Woodbridge. 00:42.000 --> 00:44.000 David, what do you think about time? 00:44.000 --> 00:47.000 I think it's a process that goes from the past to the future. 00:47.000 --> 00:51.000 So I don't quite know what that actually means in, you know, think about it. 00:51.000 --> 00:53.000 But that's my idea of time. 00:53.000 --> 00:57.000 It, what's it about? 7:15, as we're doing the recording today. 00:57.000 --> 00:59.000 That's deep, that's deep. That's. 01:00.000 --> 01:00.000 Is that deep? 01:00.000 --> 01:01.000 Excellent. Good. Oh, yeah. 01:01.000 --> 01:06.000 I was told to be deep and philosophical this morning at 7:15 in the morning. 01:06.000 --> 01:09.000 That is classic David Woodbridge. 01:09.000 --> 01:10.000 I'm Rachel Ramos. We're here. 01:10.000 --> 01:14.000 We're are, well, gearing up. 01:14.000 --> 01:17.000 Speaking of time to getting back to school. 01:17.000 --> 01:26.000 That is something that happens twice a year, once after Christmas and once after the summer / winter holidays. 01:27.000 --> 01:48.000 And to do that, we wanted to bring on board a pro, a person who is involved in the school process, a TVI, because we have lots and lots of questions, and I know that this TVI can answer all of them. 01:48.000 --> 01:51.000 No pressure, no pressure, none at all. 01:51.000 --> 01:55.000 But it is my pleasure to introduce MarLisa Jacobs from New Mexico. 01:56.000 --> 02:08.000 I've had the absolute enjoyment of hanging out with her at various conferences, and she just works so hard for her students and the ones that she serves. 02:08.000 --> 02:12.000 She does a lot of work with Monarch MarLisa first, 02:12.000 --> 02:17.000 Welcome to the podcast and tell us a little bit about you. 02:17.000 --> 02:18.000 How long you've been in the industry. 02:18.000 --> 02:25.000 What do you do to prepare for going back to school, and how do you get ready to have a successful year? 02:25.000 --> 02:28.000 Well, first of all, thank you for having me. 02:28.000 --> 02:30.000 This is a fun experience. 02:30.000 --> 02:38.000 And, so I have been a special education teacher since 1995. 02:39.000 --> 02:48.000 But then I changed over and became a teacher of students with visual impairments about 8 to 10 years ago. 02:48.000 --> 02:49.000 Ten years ago. 02:49.000 --> 02:54.000 And, it is the absolute fit for me. 02:54.000 --> 02:55.000 I love my job. 02:55.000 --> 02:58.000 I love working with students who are blind and visually impaired. 02:58.000 --> 03:03.000 I love giving them access to, devices that are going to help them succeed in school. 03:03.000 --> 03:06.000 So that's who I am. 03:06.000 --> 03:13.000 And, working with students and how do I prepare for the beginning of school year? 03:13.000 --> 03:23.000 Well, it actually starts at the end of the school year, especially with devices and braille and getting books for our students. 03:23.000 --> 03:28.000 And that was, a different experience this time with the Monarch. 03:28.000 --> 03:55.000 So that was pleasurable. Usually actually like January or February, we start looking at books and deciding or trying to get the teachers to tell us what books we're going to use, and then we've got to find them either in Braille or digitally. And, so we were able to put several books on a few of, the students I work with on the Monarch, rather large books because they're high school students now. 03:55.000 --> 03:58.000 And so that was helpful. 03:58.000 --> 04:13.000 And it's helpful for the student, the student just love being able to get them digitally, to be able to, access them quicker and have them all on one device as opposed to, oops, I got to go back and get that volume. 04:13.000 --> 04:15.000 It's in my classroom. 04:15.000 --> 04:16.000 Very, very true. 04:16.000 --> 04:19.000 I definitely remember in school having about, 04:20.000 --> 04:29.000 I don't know, shelves and shelves of math volumes lots and having to run back to the different classroom, grab a different volume. 04:29.000 --> 04:33.000 So the Monarch has has definitely changed all of that. 04:33.000 --> 04:38.000 And this brings up a good point about hardcopy braille versus digital braille. 04:38.000 --> 04:42.000 So that's the thing with TVI is teachers of the visually impaired. 04:42.000 --> 04:50.000 You guys work with students who are often very young to students who are graduating high school. 04:51.000 --> 05:03.000 What do you do for younger students like those who maybe haven't learned Braille all the way yet, or maybe those who aren't using digital devices yet? 05:03.000 --> 05:13.000 And I think another question would be when do you transition a student from physical hardcopy braille to digital Braille? 05:13.000 --> 05:22.000 And it doesn't have to be an all or nothing transformation, because I think hardcopy braille still has a very important place even with all this digital braille. 05:22.000 --> 05:37.000 Younger students, of course, are learning braille from the get go. And, most of the younger students don't really start getting actual books probably until first, second grade. 05:37.000 --> 05:39.000 And then it's still usually a lot of handouts. 05:39.000 --> 05:47.000 So you have a lot of teachers who are still Brailling, what the student is needing kind of on a week to week basis. 05:48.000 --> 05:53.000 But when they hit about third grade, we're going to have more, books. 05:53.000 --> 05:58.000 But what we've found lately is a lot of books are digital anyway. 05:58.000 --> 06:05.000 They're having the students open up their their book, their, computers and open up the digital book online. 06:05.000 --> 06:14.000 And so, it's looking a little different for students who have vision as opposed to it being so different as it used to be. 06:15.000 --> 06:26.000 In the question about when do I start moving toward digital Braille is, as early as a student is ready? 06:26.000 --> 06:28.000 I think, you know, it's every student. 06:28.000 --> 07:01.000 I've had students who are third grade and ready to rock on a BrailleNote Touch or, ready to start doing, refreshable Braille, something, you know, less intricate as a BrailleNote, but, you know, maybe a Chameleon, because if you can get them on them earlier, I think we're helping them transition for computers, for note takers and giving them access to multiple devices to be able to get them to find out what works for them best. 07:01.000 --> 07:04.000 And like you said, some kids still like paper. 07:04.000 --> 07:09.000 Especially like when they're testing because they can go back and forth easier or quicker. 07:11.000 --> 07:28.000 However, I have a student using the Monarch, last year and this year, and she's really starting to be able to work the Monarch to where she can move in the book equal, I mean, you know, on the Monarch equally as quickly as she can in a book, if not faster. 07:28.000 --> 07:45.000 Something I thought of when you were mentioning, you have the student who's a rock star on the Monarch and flipping back and forth between maybe multiple pages of images almost as quick, if not more quickly than a physical book. 07:45.000 --> 07:49.000 How have you seen either Monarch or other devices? 07:49.000 --> 07:52.000 Does it transform socialization for students? 07:53.000 --> 07:54.000 Absolutely. 07:54.000 --> 07:59.000 But one of the funny, neat things that the Monarch did was put chess on there. 07:59.000 --> 08:07.000 And I think that has been a social piece that has just opened up doors especially. 08:08.000 --> 08:16.000 Well, two of the students that I work with that have Monarchs, they started playing chess with, you know, the adults in the room. 08:16.000 --> 08:19.000 And then there were kids who were like, wait, we play chess? 08:19.000 --> 08:21.000 Why can't I play chess on that? 08:21.000 --> 08:31.000 And and so that social piece has been wonderful to walk into the room and see them playing chess with students in their spare time. 08:31.000 --> 08:40.000 And, and using the Monarch as opposed to a chess board. And, so there's that socialization piece. 08:40.000 --> 08:46.000 And then actually, I have a student who's trying to figure out, over the phone how to play chess. 08:46.000 --> 08:51.000 She'll move the Monarch pieces and they'll move their pieces on their board. 08:51.000 --> 08:55.000 And so they're doing it socially away from school as well. 08:55.000 --> 09:12.000 And then in class, you know, students have their pictures of, let's say they're in biology and they're doing the plant cell and, our student on the Monarch pulls it up while students are curious. 09:12.000 --> 09:13.000 Well, how are you seeing that? 09:13.000 --> 09:16.000 What does that look like for you? 09:16.000 --> 09:23.000 And so I think it brings up all kinds of social pieces, talking about the cell, talking about the device. 09:24.000 --> 09:28.000 And then, you know, getting into likes and dislikes, so. 09:28.000 --> 09:29.000 Well, I don't like science. 09:29.000 --> 09:33.000 I just seen the conversations go and go and go. 09:33.000 --> 09:36.000 When you said a student may say, oh, I don't like science. 09:36.000 --> 09:43.000 I mean, how many times in a school cafeteria or something do students talk about classes or subjects that they like or don't like? 09:43.000 --> 10:03.000 And I think a blind student, not that they couldn't before, but it's really cool now that they can participate because they too can look at graphs and pictures and kind of notice things that maybe they before couldn't because we didn't have devices like Monarch and, and other digital braille pieces. 10:03.000 --> 10:05.000 So I think that's that's incredible. 10:05.000 --> 10:09.000 And David, we're going to fly over to Australia. 10:09.000 --> 10:13.000 But you've, you know, gone to different schools. 10:13.000 --> 10:18.000 Have you noticed some of these things that MarLisa has noticed, like with Monarch and things like that? 10:18.000 --> 10:23.000 Definitely, I mean, that was this exact same situation in Australia for school and university. 10:23.000 --> 10:29.000 I mean, I know at the end of school each year because we have four terms here, not not sort of two major semesters. 10:31.000 --> 10:41.000 But I remember having to have my, you know, my TVI talk to the classroom teacher and the head of the head of that particular subject organized stuff for the next term. 10:41.000 --> 10:43.000 You get to the end of the year and you had to organize the stuff. 10:43.000 --> 10:46.000 And for next year, make sure you've got your braille books done. 10:47.000 --> 10:50.000 And it was exactly the same for university. 10:50.000 --> 10:56.000 I remember going to the lectures at the end of each year and saying, okay, can you give me your recommended list reading? 10:56.000 --> 10:59.000 Tell me what the top sort of 2 or 3 are? 11:00.000 --> 11:09.000 Which to me was always very restrictive because I wanted to basically read everything and I just didn't want to be able to read, you know, the top three books because, you know, 11:09.000 --> 11:24.000 I felt like I was being disadvantaged because I couldn't get all the other ideas from the other books. So having stuff in digital format for me would have been amazing, because then I just could have, you know, downloaded it to whatever device I wanted to use and go for it. 11:24.000 --> 11:36.000 So I think the change to digital access now, you know, not just on on the HumanWare stuff, but on mainstream tech and smartphones and tablets is really amazing. 11:36.000 --> 11:44.000 There's a lot of images and culture now, that if they're described, it's great, but sometimes, you know, they aren't. 11:44.000 --> 11:50.000 And I guess my question is, has anybody come to you and said, Miss Jacobs, what does this look like? 11:50.000 --> 12:00.000 Or can we see if we can pull this up on the Monarch so that you could help them kind of get to grips with what a certain image looks like? 12:00.000 --> 12:05.000 I think there's a lot out there that they don't even know that they can ask about. 12:06.000 --> 12:08.000 I, I come to- 12:08.000 --> 12:27.000 I was showing a bowling alley to a student and it just opened up the doors on that recreational activity because after we did, the bowling alley on the Monarch, she was like, I didn't know that all the pins were set up. 12:27.000 --> 12:32.000 I'll throw the ball differently because it's in a triangle. 12:32.000 --> 12:33.000 It's not in just a row. 12:33.000 --> 12:35.000 And I want to hear them differently. 12:35.000 --> 12:38.000 And oh, I didn't know what that beeping noise was. 12:38.000 --> 12:39.000 It's the foul line. 12:39.000 --> 12:47.000 And and so just being able to feel all of that, the next time she went bowling, she was like, I know what this looks like now. 12:47.000 --> 12:51.000 I actually can sense where everything is and what's going on. 12:52.000 --> 12:54.000 And then to be able to have things. 12:54.000 --> 13:02.000 I mean, right now I know I'm talking about the Monarch a lot, because I think there's been a lot of things that have really helped, a few of my students. 13:02.000 --> 13:19.000 But they have an app now that I'm being blessed with being able to help test and to be able to draw on the, iPad and then have the student have it come up on the Monarch immediately has been another just godsend. 13:19.000 --> 13:22.000 I was showing the app to one of my students and she's like, 13:22.000 --> 13:25.000 I wonder what my name looks like in cursive. 13:25.000 --> 13:27.000 And so I was like, okay, let's see it. 13:27.000 --> 13:35.000 So I drew it on the iPad and as I was drawing it on the iPad, she was feeling it come up on the Monarch. 13:35.000 --> 13:37.000 And was - 13:37.000 --> 13:38.000 She was just amazed. 13:38.000 --> 13:40.000 Oh, that's what my name looks like. 13:40.000 --> 13:43.000 Speaking of the the new Wing-It app, which is absolutely brilliant on my site. 13:44.000 --> 13:46.000 I was, as we do the recording at the moment. 13:46.000 --> 13:48.000 I was at karate yesterday and it's the first time 13:48.000 --> 13:51.000 I've actually taken the Monarch out to the dojo. 13:51.000 --> 13:52.000 So I had the sensei. 13:52.000 --> 14:04.000 The main trainer that I was with actually do all the different stances for me, all the different angles from front side, back side, head down. 14:04.000 --> 14:14.000 And he was able to let me know through all these different drawings and arrows he was doing on the Monarch, where I could improve all my different stances doing karate. 14:14.000 --> 14:18.000 And honestly, I went in there and thought this is going to be a little bit 14:18.000 --> 14:23.000 I don't know how this is really going to work, in two dimensional versus 3D dimensions and so on. 14:23.000 --> 14:25.000 But it was absolutely amazing. 14:25.000 --> 14:28.000 And it was just him and I doing it originally. 14:29.000 --> 14:40.000 And then we ended up with a bit of a crowd around us and quite a few people said, hey, David, if you ever need someone to do some drawing for you on your on your gadget there, we've been more than willing to actually have a play with it. 14:40.000 --> 14:43.000 So that was actually really incredible. 14:43.000 --> 14:45.000 I love this so much. 14:45.000 --> 14:58.000 I was at a recent convention and Wing-It it had just been released, and we had about two minutes before someone came to the booth and my colleague was drawing things like palm trees and a sun with rays, and she was like, do you know what that is? 14:58.000 --> 15:01.000 I said no, and then she told me, I thought, wow, that is so cool. 15:01.000 --> 15:11.000 So even just outside of school, you know, David at karate, me at a booth before we had some visitors come and see what Wing-It is all about. 15:11.000 --> 15:17.000 It is so cool because as either a blind student or a blind adult, you know, we never stop learning. 15:17.000 --> 15:26.000 And this is just as neat for us as blind adults and useful as it is for those in school. 15:26.000 --> 15:32.000 And I think we've all kind of been able to chat about how helpful it's been in the classroom. 15:32.000 --> 15:34.000 And then outside of the classroom. 15:34.000 --> 15:36.000 I love your bowling alley example. 15:36.000 --> 15:38.000 I think that's incredible. 15:38.000 --> 15:41.000 That actually helps me next time I go bowling pins are in a triangle. 15:43.000 --> 15:45.000 See, I never knew. 15:45.000 --> 15:46.000 The question is, though. 15:46.000 --> 15:48.000 The question is, though, which way is the triangle pointing? 15:48.000 --> 15:49.000 Though? 15:49.000 --> 15:50.000 That's a great question. 15:50.000 --> 15:53.000 I don't know. 15:53.000 --> 16:00.000 Well, and she was able to she was able to see that, you know, when we talked about, you know, where would you throw the ball, would you throw, you know. 16:00.000 --> 16:03.000 So it was it was a really good conversation. 16:03.000 --> 16:15.000 We will conclude this segment on preparing for school and transitioning students from hardcopy braille, which never really goes away to digital Braille and MarLisa. 16:15.000 --> 16:19.000 Thank you so much for your insight and your dedication to your students. 16:19.000 --> 16:25.000 It is fantastic to witness and to hear about, and this has been so much fun. 16:25.000 --> 16:30.000 So it looks like you're sticking around with us for another segment. Yes. 16:30.000 --> 16:31.000 Sounds great. 16:31.000 --> 16:32.000 We hope you will too, friends. 16:32.000 --> 16:34.000 We will be back very shortly. 16:36.000 --> 16:40.000 Welcome back to the Hot Topic segment. 16:40.000 --> 16:51.000 This is a fun one that we do each episode, and we pick a topic that we may have differing views on and just unpack it a little bit. 16:52.000 --> 16:56.000 So this month's topic we have MarLisa Jacobs, 16:56.000 --> 17:10.000 TVI from New Mexico, teacher of the visually impaired, and we want to discuss the topic of mainstreaming it can be a blind student or a student with another disability. 17:10.000 --> 17:23.000 Should they be mainstreamed into a regular school, or should they be sent to a school that specifically deals with their type of disability, whether it's blindness, deafness, other types of needs? 17:23.000 --> 17:25.000 Or should there be a hybrid approach? 17:25.000 --> 17:33.000 There's lots of different views on this, but I have David and Marlisa here and we're going to unpack this a little bit. 17:33.000 --> 17:37.000 So David, what are your thoughts on mainstreaming versus not mainstream? 17:37.000 --> 17:38.000 We'll be saying this when we are there. 17:38.000 --> 17:40.000 But this is my personal idea. 17:40.000 --> 17:47.000 You know, those famous statements where they go, this my statement does not reflect the statement and values of the organization that represent. 17:48.000 --> 17:50.000 So that being said, 17:50.000 --> 17:53.000 I'm there to protect myself from getting jumped on by people on the internet. 17:53.000 --> 17:56.000 I think I'm a mainstream support person because, 17:56.000 --> 17:58.000 I mean, there's so there's two things. 17:58.000 --> 18:12.000 I mean, mainstream means that you're mingling with your, your quite sighted peers and everybody else wherever they decide whether or not, you're getting the exactly the same education that everybody else is getting at that particular school. 18:12.000 --> 18:20.000 But what you can't do is throw somebody into a mainstream school or university setting without support. 18:20.000 --> 18:23.000 You still need some type of support. 18:23.000 --> 18:30.000 And that's where, you know, visiting support teachers come into play. 18:30.000 --> 18:39.000 Because I can still remember my years at the blind school that I was at from, you know, year three to year nine. 18:39.000 --> 18:55.000 So three years before I graduated from high school and it just felt that I wasn't living the life that my brother and cousins and that were living when I got to 9 and 12, when I went out with excursions with the school, 18:55.000 --> 18:57.000 I just wound up with excursions to the school. 18:57.000 --> 19:07.000 And, you know, normally I just to one of my friends, in the class and when we got home that way, the support person wasn't even in class for me. 19:07.000 --> 19:10.000 So the whole role was just to make sure that I had all the material. 19:12.000 --> 19:15.000 And like I said previously, if I ever got stuck in class, 19:15.000 --> 19:20.000 I could always go in and check with her or email the information and that sort of stuff. 19:20.000 --> 19:35.000 So I, so my instinct goes for me, a good the, the issue with some because I've, I've actually got, two severely autistic children. 19:35.000 --> 19:37.000 So they're nonverbal. 19:37.000 --> 19:40.000 They do have quite a few physical behavior issues. 19:40.000 --> 19:47.000 So when they get very, very annoyed and frustrated that I can do to sort of lash out a little bit, pure frustration. 19:47.000 --> 19:47.000 Yeah. 19:47.000 --> 19:59.000 That's the sort of stuff that I can clearly understand that putting that person in the mainstream school would be absolutely unfair in this case to my son, because he's just not going to be able to cope. 19:59.000 --> 20:12.000 Special schools, from that point of view, I can see, would be a lot better in some ways because hopefully the, you know, the teachers support people are a lot more understanding of that person's particular needs. 20:14.000 --> 20:15.000 It's a very good point, really. 20:15.000 --> 20:19.000 So what are your thoughts on mainstream for students is different. 20:19.000 --> 20:33.000 You know, we I've heard over and over again that if you've seen one student who has cortical visual impairment or one student who has a vision impairment, you've seen one student with a vision impairment. 20:33.000 --> 20:41.000 You don't see a bunch, you know, and I think it's the same with all of children who have, difficulties learning in a different way. 20:42.000 --> 20:45.000 And, you know, nobody is the same. 20:45.000 --> 20:50.000 And so I think that's why we have the different options. 20:50.000 --> 20:54.000 I, I hate that we get stuck in one over another. 20:54.000 --> 21:01.000 Also, I, I feel like, here in New Mexico, we have the school for the blind. 21:02.000 --> 21:22.000 The students go to that school, however, they mainstream for a lot of their classes, and they come back to campus for, let's say, you know, skills that they need to learn specifically how to cut with a knife that may not be taught at a general, public school. 21:22.000 --> 21:33.000 They were able to to participate in both the blind school on campus activities, but they were able to go to a football game. 21:33.000 --> 21:37.000 That was happening in the public school that they were attending. 21:37.000 --> 21:46.000 It's a it's a hard, tough topic because I see the benefits of going to a school that specific for a need is just. 21:47.000 --> 21:51.000 And I've got my hands on my head going, yeah, it's such a hard topic. 21:52.000 --> 21:55.000 It is. 21:55.000 --> 21:56.000 It is a tough topic. 21:56.000 --> 22:00.000 I, I do see advantages of I'll call it the hybrid approach. 22:01.000 --> 22:28.000 I was able to do that as well is, you know, you go to a blind school for some classes and some skills like computer skills and things like that, and then go to a mainstream school and you get that socialization, which when you get to middle and high school, that is a really, really big deal, is learning how to interact with peers who are sighted and then you have your peers who are blind in that type of a disability due to autism, other disabilities. 22:29.000 --> 22:33.000 You may want to have them in a school that can work directly with them. 22:33.000 --> 22:36.000 But how do they integrate into the world? 22:36.000 --> 22:37.000 Because that's the ultimate goal, right? 22:37.000 --> 22:40.000 For everyone is to successfully integrate. 22:40.000 --> 22:42.000 And that's- it's a tough one. 22:42.000 --> 22:47.000 So as with all of our hot topics, there's never a nice neat answer. 22:47.000 --> 22:54.000 But I love just talking it over with you guys and coming to the conclusion that there is no conclusion. 22:54.000 --> 22:55.000 And that's okay. 22:57.000 --> 23:05.000 Welcome, everybody, to our newly named Trials and Triumph segment, formerly the cringe segment. 23:05.000 --> 23:10.000 But David and I decided that we wanted to focus on positive things. 23:10.000 --> 23:16.000 Now, if there is a crazy trial that we've had, we can talk about it. 23:16.000 --> 23:20.000 But I thought this would also be a good segment to focus on. 23:20.000 --> 23:28.000 Some of the wins that we've experienced or victories that happened when we're just out and about traveling and living life. 23:28.000 --> 23:39.000 And what's really exciting is MarLisa has chosen to stick around for this segment as well, so she has some experiences that she would like to share. 23:40.000 --> 23:43.000 I'll just jump in and over the last month or so, 23:44.000 --> 23:47.000 I have a triumph that I want to share. 23:47.000 --> 23:51.000 And it involves the Waymo autonomous vehicles. 23:52.000 --> 23:58.000 We should have a hot topic segment about that too, because there's lots of ideas and opinions about them. 23:58.000 --> 24:06.000 But I had never tried one and I was in Los Angeles for a work event recently, and they had the Waymo cars available. 24:07.000 --> 24:13.000 They were at the event, so they had some discount codes, and I thought, well, let's give it a try. 24:13.000 --> 24:18.000 And I had some friends there who said, you should definitely do this. 24:18.000 --> 24:19.000 This is really good. 24:19.000 --> 24:20.000 Are they still your friend? 24:20.000 --> 24:23.000 And I wanted a bit of an adventure. 24:26.000 --> 24:26.000 Right. 24:26.000 --> 24:29.000 Are they still my friends? Absolutely. 24:29.000 --> 24:31.000 I'm alive to tell you about them. 24:31.000 --> 24:34.000 So yeah. 24:34.000 --> 24:36.000 But it was very, very cool. 24:36.000 --> 24:40.000 I was able to take some videos with, Ray-Ban Meta glasses. 24:40.000 --> 24:46.000 I have, and from finding the car to getting in to starting the ride, it's very cool. 24:46.000 --> 24:49.000 The car can honk or you can have the car honk. 24:49.000 --> 24:50.000 So I knew where it was. 24:50.000 --> 24:53.000 And it talks you through. 24:53.000 --> 25:01.000 You know, when you get in, it says, hey, Rachel, and it talks you through, just safety videos and you start the ride when you're ready. 25:01.000 --> 25:03.000 And it took me to, a friend's house. 25:03.000 --> 25:12.000 I spent some time there, and then I went back to the hotel for the awards ceremony that I was, participating in for the event. 25:12.000 --> 25:20.000 And what was very cool, aside from being able to request the ride and locate it, is it has audio description. 25:20.000 --> 25:34.000 So it would tell you if it's waiting for the intersection to clear or yielding to pedestrian or what street it turned on, so you can turn those on and there's a voice in the car that will tell you kind of what's happening. 25:34.000 --> 25:37.000 So I think that's very, very good. 25:38.000 --> 25:41.000 But it was a little bit unnerving getting in the back of a car. 25:41.000 --> 25:43.000 There is no driver. 25:43.000 --> 25:47.000 And before we started recording this, the question came up, 25:48.000 --> 25:52.000 Will the car tell you where you are or when you reach your destination? 25:52.000 --> 25:56.000 And when I got back to the hotel, it stopped. 25:56.000 --> 25:57.000 It was on this hill. 25:57.000 --> 26:03.000 I opened the door, there were cars honking and driving, and I thought, this doesn't seem right. 26:03.000 --> 26:06.000 But the car kept saying, you reach your destination. 26:06.000 --> 26:09.000 So I was not convinced. 26:09.000 --> 26:14.000 So I called Waymo support and I said, hey, you know, I'm blind. 26:14.000 --> 26:17.000 I just want to confirm that I am at my destination. 26:17.000 --> 26:18.000 And the agent was great. 26:18.000 --> 26:21.000 She looked it up where I was supposed to be on the map. 26:21.000 --> 26:22.000 She said, yes, you're here. 26:22.000 --> 26:27.000 You're just a little bit in front of the hotel entrance because there are vehicles blocking it. 26:27.000 --> 26:30.000 So that's why your car couldn't pull up completely. 26:30.000 --> 26:31.000 Well, okay. Great. 26:31.000 --> 26:37.000 So she gave me walking directions to the entrance, and once I had that, I was able to find the hotel. 26:37.000 --> 26:39.000 So that was my experience. 26:39.000 --> 26:43.000 Overall, this is a really, really positive so what's what do you got, David? 26:43.000 --> 26:45.000 What's your trial triumph on? 26:45.000 --> 26:49.000 You know, here in Sydney there's a famous train on, of course, that runs between Newcastle and Sydney. 26:49.000 --> 26:57.000 So it's about, 110km long and it's, you know, it's called the Central Coast Newcastle line. 26:57.000 --> 27:07.000 You know, for the last, geez, I want to say 30 to 35 years, we've had these sort of gradually getting more tired and tired sort of double decker trains running on it. 27:07.000 --> 27:13.000 And half the time you can't hear the guards you know, saying, next up is X, Y and Z. 27:13.000 --> 27:20.000 So they've been introducing the new trains over the last, I want to say 12 months or so. 27:20.000 --> 27:27.000 But finally, last week they said these trains are no longer running on the Central Coast Newcastle line. 27:27.000 --> 27:39.000 The rally on this other line, which is basically to the Blue Mountains in Sydney, but the really cool thing about these new trains is not only do they do announcements, they do the following things. 27:39.000 --> 27:47.000 So they'll actually tell you what side of the platform the train will be stopping at and what side the door will be opening on. 27:48.000 --> 28:03.000 But the really, really cool thing that these trains do now, which other ones never did and I don't know how they do it, but between Sydney and Newcastle we've got some platforms that, you know, four cars long, six cars long eight cars long. 28:04.000 --> 28:10.000 So the thing you rock up to, you, you walk up to your railway station, you think if I get on the wrong part of this, cut this train, I'm stuck? 28:10.000 --> 28:13.000 Because when it pulls up, those doors, just don't open. 28:13.000 --> 28:15.000 They just stay closed. 28:15.000 --> 28:17.000 So what happens with these new trains? 28:17.000 --> 28:22.000 You get on and it pulls away and it will automatically say, welcome on board. 28:22.000 --> 28:26.000 You are in car six of an eight car train. 28:26.000 --> 28:30.000 So if I said that to me, I think, oh fine, I can just walk up, you know, three front cars. 28:30.000 --> 28:39.000 So that way I know absolutely not only what doors are opening on what side of the train, but I know absolutely that I'm on the right carriage. 28:39.000 --> 28:40.000 I'm not going to get stuck. 28:40.000 --> 28:45.000 But the fact that you can tell what carriage right now is just it just takes a huge weight off you travel. 28:49.000 --> 28:51.000 It's it's 28:51.000 --> 28:53.000 I've just it's the little things, right? 28:53.000 --> 28:56.000 Just little things that make travel so, so much easier. 28:59.000 --> 29:00.000 That's it. 29:00.000 --> 29:01.000 Yeah. Right. 29:01.000 --> 29:04.000 How do I get those in what car are those in? 29:06.000 --> 29:09.000 Well, my try out - MarLise just talk to us. 29:09.000 --> 29:12.000 Tell us about your program. 29:12.000 --> 29:23.000 I am, assistive tech specialist, and sometimes we don't think about, like you said, those little things that are going to make a big difference. 29:23.000 --> 29:32.000 I was working with a student who was just struggling, bless her heart, to to see the board, to see the paper in front of her. 29:32.000 --> 29:46.000 And we had tried one thing after another, and I came in and we had this simple magnifier that you can put paper underneath it and, and read up close. 29:46.000 --> 29:52.000 And they had a camera that you could, flip to the board and see the board will, all of that was great. 29:52.000 --> 29:53.000 She loved it. 29:53.000 --> 29:55.000 She was like, yes, I want to use this. 29:55.000 --> 30:01.000 And she, we, I was having her play with it to just kind of make sure if she had any questions. 30:01.000 --> 30:06.000 And she started crying and I was like, oh my gosh, what did I do? 30:06.000 --> 30:19.000 What happened? What did I do? And her, the assistant who helps her in a lot of her classes was standing in front of her and she said, I can see her face. 30:19.000 --> 30:21.000 She's so beautiful. 30:21.000 --> 30:28.000 I was like, oh, my gosh, the things we don't think about that that happened. 30:28.000 --> 30:36.000 And so that was a triumph for me, that that she was able to feel the connection with the person that's been working with her the whole school year. 30:36.000 --> 30:42.000 And it just took a simple magnifier to to do that. 30:46.000 --> 30:47.000 That's incredible. 30:47.000 --> 30:55.000 As David often says, we use the right tool for the right job, and that was the right tool for the job. 30:55.000 --> 31:00.000 So, friends, if you have triumphs or trials that you'd like to tell us about, don't be shy. 31:00.000 --> 31:02.000 We'd love to hear from you. 31:02.000 --> 31:08.000 Podcast@humanware.com is where you can send those notes with Love It. 31:09.000 --> 31:14.000 Tell us your stories because we have plenty, but we know you have plenty as well. 31:16.000 --> 31:21.000 Welcome everybody to the Partner Corner segment for this episode. 31:21.000 --> 31:24.000 It is so exciting that 31:24.000 --> 31:33.000 I get to go a little bit north of the border here and talk to someone from Canada. 31:33.000 --> 31:37.000 It is my pleasure to introduce Erin LeBlanc. 31:37.000 --> 31:43.000 She is an assistive technology specialist at Neil Squire and Erin 31:43.000 --> 31:47.000 Welcome to the podcast and I'm so excited you're here. 31:48.000 --> 31:49.000 Yeah. Thank you so much, Rachel. 31:49.000 --> 32:02.000 It's, I'm excited to to share all the good about, you know, Neil Squire and and our connection to HumanWare and, and all that love and joy that we have in assistive technology collaborations. 32:02.000 --> 32:03.000 Love and joy. 32:03.000 --> 32:10.000 That is something we have an abundance when it comes to assistive technology collaboration. I love how you put that. 32:10.000 --> 32:10.000 Tell us your story. 32:10.000 --> 32:16.000 How did you get into the industry and meet up with HumanWare and start this awesome partnership? 32:16.000 --> 32:24.000 Yeah, so I have been working to support individuals with disabilities literally since forever. 32:24.000 --> 32:34.000 Some of my really early, you know, jobs and early career opportunities were in kind of personal support worker roles, respite worker roles. 32:34.000 --> 32:54.000 And I've moved through some positions, such as learning strategist, where I'm doing like accommodation provision and assessments, and had a big shift probably about five years ago, where I really fell in love with the assistive technology piece of breaking down barriers and providing opportunities. 32:55.000 --> 33:11.000 So I've been with Neil Squire for just over three years as an assistive technology specialist, and Neil Squire is a Canadian nonprofit organization, and we serve Canadians with disabilities. 33:11.000 --> 33:22.000 So we are not specific to the blind, low vision community, we serve individuals with mobility impairments, hearing impairments, learning disabilities. 33:22.000 --> 33:29.000 We have a whole portfolio that is really ready and willing to work with those struggling with mental health concerns. 33:30.000 --> 33:47.000 And I got connected to HumanWare in a pretty special, natural way, when I ended up sharing, airplane seats, side by side with a gentleman by the name of Mathieu here out of your Quebec, Canada office. 33:47.000 --> 33:51.000 And we were both on our way to the Assistive Technology 33:51.000 --> 33:55.000 Industry Association conference that happens annually in Orlando, Florida. 33:55.000 --> 33:57.000 That is absolutely incredible. 33:57.000 --> 34:05.000 Yes. Mathieu Paquette, he is our product manager for Stream and StellarTrek and Odyssey and so on. 34:05.000 --> 34:09.000 And you can't network any more naturally than that. 34:09.000 --> 34:11.000 I just love that. 34:11.000 --> 34:22.000 And so what was the conversation like where Mathieu maybe mentioned what he did and you thought, hey, this could really fit into what I do into the organization. 34:22.000 --> 34:24.000 How did that materialize? 34:24.000 --> 34:36.000 So I really began exploring solutions and technology for individuals with total vision loss and low vision. 34:36.000 --> 34:42.000 About a year and a half ago, when I met a beautiful woman who- 34:44.000 --> 34:46.000 I share her story so often, and I might even get emotional. 34:46.000 --> 34:49.000 But she is a newcomer to Canada. 34:49.000 --> 35:02.000 She arrived as a refugee with her family and just had so many layers, kind of facing her for securing employment and housing and everything else. 35:02.000 --> 35:10.000 And she is blind and she is so motivated and she wanted to become computer literate. 35:10.000 --> 35:14.000 She wanted to enter the workforce like she's a dreamer. 35:14.000 --> 35:32.000 And I began working with her, and she has sparked me so many times to ask those questions like, hey, when you have someone who has never used technology, when you have someone that's never explored, even visually, what the alphabet looks like. 35:32.000 --> 35:37.000 So to kind of go down the road of a QWERTY keyboard, you have someone that's never learned Braille. 35:37.000 --> 35:46.000 You have, you know, all these kind of factors that just made up who she was and her learning opportunities hit me. And 35:46.000 --> 35:55.000 Mathieu and I were sitting beside each other, and I had met another really special individual, you know, a newcomer to Canada, similar story. 35:56.000 --> 35:59.000 And he actually was a Braille reader. 35:59.000 --> 36:06.000 And, I knew about the BrailleNote Touch Plus. you know, I've kind of seen it in action, heard about it. 36:06.000 --> 36:13.000 And Matthew and I just started this beautiful conversation about, like, why would you go in this direction? 36:13.000 --> 36:19.000 Why would you continue to encourage Braille versus maybe exploring some other softwares? 36:19.000 --> 36:35.000 And so it was great to have someone who's really, you know, this is their bread and butter and when the more kind of specific questions that I asked, the more feedback he provided and the more examples he provided and went way above and beyond, like we shared a taxi to the hotel. 36:35.000 --> 36:42.000 We met up like various times over the conference, and when we both landed back in Canada, he coordinated a meeting. 36:43.000 --> 36:48.000 With someone who was really able to speak to the different 36:49.000 --> 36:55.000 Braille devices that HumanWare offers to really do, like a really special pairing with this individual. 36:55.000 --> 36:57.000 I gotta ask asks. 36:57.000 --> 36:58.000 I'm always curious. 36:58.000 --> 37:06.000 What would you say is your favorite piece of technology that you've gotten to introduce to one of your clients? 37:06.000 --> 37:08.000 I know it's a tough one. 37:08.000 --> 37:13.000 Like just within the HumanWare or my going big ocean of options here. 37:13.000 --> 37:14.000 Let's do one of each. 37:14.000 --> 37:44.000 Let's do one thing from HumanWare and one thing from something else that you have experience with, from the HumanWare the Victor reader is been just like the classic that a lot of the individuals that I support that are, you know, of a particular age and have a particular comfort with that style of device, you know, just providing that auditory feedback for reading support and, digital document support. 37:44.000 --> 38:01.000 It's just such a handy, small, user friendly compact device that I find it so multi-functional and really, really easy to use for even like a debutant technology person. 38:01.000 --> 38:13.000 So it's one that I've recommended a lot and trained on a few times with persons who were very like opposed almost to the introduction of more advanced technologies. 38:13.000 --> 38:16.000 So that would be my go to. 38:16.000 --> 38:18.000 I really like the design. 38:19.000 --> 38:22.000 Again, just it's very intuitive to use. 38:22.000 --> 38:25.000 So it's not burdensome. 38:25.000 --> 38:39.000 It's really not something that, has been difficult to kind of have really good implementation, like we do often unfortunately, see very specialized complex technology be recommended and purchased and paid for. 38:39.000 --> 38:50.000 And then just ends up collecting dust, or it's not really being used to its full capacity because of the learning curve involved in really being able to use it. 38:50.000 --> 38:52.000 But the Victor is a great one. 38:52.000 --> 38:55.000 I think it's just really well designed and serves a lot of purposes. 38:55.000 --> 38:57.000 I think I'll go with that one. 38:57.000 --> 38:59.000 I love it, I love that it's a great choice. 38:59.000 --> 39:01.000 One of our most popular products. 39:01.000 --> 39:02.000 How about the other one? 39:02.000 --> 39:26.000 Outside of what HumanWare offers, I will say that just in terms of a device that can do so much for so many like high incidence learning disabilities, the accessibility settings, that you can change at no cost, very easily within a lot of the Apple products, 39:26.000 --> 39:41.000 I recommend a lot of Apple products, not because of specialized apps that you can put on them, but really because of how easy it is to make so many good modifications to the device and the interface and accessibility. 39:42.000 --> 39:45.000 So that's one that I will say that I will recommend 39:45.000 --> 39:59.000 Apple products a lot, whether it's a phone or a tablet, especially for, you know, limitations within reading and reading comprehension or writing or written expression, because you can do it with just like two little taps and it changes the whole way. 39:59.000 --> 40:04.000 You can, you know, express yourself with word processing or read and understand documentation. 40:04.000 --> 40:07.000 This is a fantastic answer because it's true. 40:07.000 --> 40:17.000 And even in the previous segment, we had our low vision product manager say that, you know, there's a magnification app called the explore app, and that's on the iPhone itself. 40:17.000 --> 40:26.000 So it's not about having proprietary technology to meet all the needs, mainstream technology has come such a long way that we can meet those needs in some ways. 40:26.000 --> 40:36.000 And yet there's still a space, and I think always will be, for technology that meets the needs of of blind people and those with other disabilities. 40:36.000 --> 40:39.000 Erin, thank you so much for coming on. 40:39.000 --> 40:48.000 Just speaking with such enthusiasm about what you do, how you're partnering with us to fulfill that mission. 40:48.000 --> 41:02.000 And it has been such a pleasure, I will say, because I want, you know, HumanWare and also other partners out there to know that we really value the relationship. 41:02.000 --> 41:10.000 You know, I've had really beautiful success, you know, having devices sent out for people to trial before purchase. 41:10.000 --> 41:30.000 And I know that perhaps the rules are a little bit different south of the border, but at least here in Canada, like, it's so important, sometimes to really have a trialing opportunity, especially when some specialized technology does has a price tag that is not always accessible to everyone or available to everyone. 41:30.000 --> 41:35.000 So I just wanted to send out some props, to the partnership on that side as well. 41:35.000 --> 41:43.000 If there are on site demo days or loan libraries, no matter where you are in the world, those resources are available. 41:43.000 --> 41:46.000 They exist and are worth checking into. 41:46.000 --> 41:49.000 So you can see if a piece of technology is going to meet your needs. 41:49.000 --> 41:52.000 Well, thank you again Rachel for having me on. Today was really fun. 41:54.000 --> 41:55.000 Welcome everybody to the 41:55.000 --> 42:04.000 Tips and Tricks segment of this episode, and it is my pleasure to welcome back Roger Steinberg. 42:04.000 --> 42:09.000 He has been a guest on our podcast before and we are so lucky to have him. 42:09.000 --> 42:19.000 He is our low vision product manager and he is going to share some tips and some tricks about magnifiers and which one to buy. 42:19.000 --> 42:28.000 Because as we know when making any tech decision or any bigger purchase, there's a lot of choice and it's hard to know which choice to make. 42:28.000 --> 42:38.000 So out of our low vision products, Roger's going to go through them and we'll just have a quick chat about which ones meet, which needs and which one might be best for you. 42:38.000 --> 42:41.000 So Roger, welcome back. Rachel, thanks a lot. 42:41.000 --> 42:43.000 I'm just so happy to be back again. 42:43.000 --> 42:46.000 This is one of the fun parts about the job is doing this. 42:46.000 --> 43:00.000 And you know, this afternoon I'm going to a conference to to meet and greet and, show show our solutions to individuals who might have a need, and those are the most exciting parts of the job, is helping people to find something that really helps them out in their day to day life. 43:01.000 --> 43:06.000 But as you know, Rachel, picking a digital magnifier isn't just about zooming in and zooming out. 43:07.000 --> 43:11.000 It's about finding the one that fits the needs of the user just right. 43:11.000 --> 43:16.000 Like in Goldilocks in her trying to find the porridge, going from chair to chair and crunching one. 43:16.000 --> 43:20.000 And one's too big one's too small, one's too complicated or just right. 43:21.000 --> 43:27.000 So that's what I hope to do today, is give, folks some, some guidelines to think about when they go to buy a magnifier. 43:27.000 --> 43:28.000 Sounds fantastic. 43:28.000 --> 43:35.000 So let's start out then with our our smallest handhelds, if you will. 43:36.000 --> 43:42.000 How would somebody decide, do I need a five inch magnifier or an eight inch magnifier. 43:42.000 --> 43:42.000 Yeah. 43:42.000 --> 43:44.000 So I think, Rachel, it comes back. 43:44.000 --> 43:47.000 To- I created a little mnemonic here. 43:47.000 --> 43:49.000 And if somebody wants to send us a better one, I'm all for it. 43:49.000 --> 43:58.000 But, so simply put, it's like what every tech fan buys, and it's a simple way to think about five key areas when shopping for a digital magnifier. 43:58.000 --> 44:06.000 So the very first thing, and probably the most important to consider is that w the what what do you want to do with this magnifier when you buy it. 44:06.000 --> 44:08.000 So explore 5 and explore 8 Those are two of ours. 44:08.000 --> 44:13.000 Obviously there are others on the market, but again it comes back to starting with your purpose. 44:13.000 --> 44:16.000 Are you looking to read your mail? 44:16.000 --> 44:18.000 Are you doing crossword puzzles? 44:18.000 --> 44:20.000 Do you want to look at family photos? 44:20.000 --> 44:24.000 Or maybe you need to fill out forms at or see a whiteboard in a classroom? 44:24.000 --> 44:27.000 So this one question what do you want to do? 44:27.000 --> 44:32.000 The what is is going to help narrow the choices down very quickly. 44:32.000 --> 44:34.000 What do I need this for. 44:34.000 --> 44:35.000 So that's the starting point. 44:35.000 --> 44:40.000 So the following question, you know after you you answer the what is the e or the every. 44:41.000 --> 44:42.000 It's the environment. 44:42.000 --> 44:44.000 Where are you going to use it. 44:44.000 --> 44:55.000 So if you're going to use it at home, you probably can get away with a larger desktop magnifier like our Reveal 16, although there's a plethora of desktop options on the market. 44:55.000 --> 45:01.000 But if a user is going to go from, say, class to class or going to appointments, or maybe it's just for, 45:02.000 --> 45:04.000 I'm going out on the dinner, I'm going grocery shopping. 45:04.000 --> 45:13.000 So those lend themselves more to the first products that you mentioned, maybe that five inch explore or the 8 or the 12, depending upon the environment. 45:13.000 --> 45:15.000 Where are you going to be setting it up? 45:15.000 --> 45:16.000 So some people need both. 45:16.000 --> 45:33.000 So again, I would come back to the user and say, think about your day to day routine and the environment where you're going to be using this device most often. in today's digital world or landscape, like you mentioned, maybe you'll need a five inch for spot reading. 45:33.000 --> 45:36.000 Maybe you need an eight inch for a more involved task. 45:36.000 --> 45:37.000 It's no different. 45:37.000 --> 45:48.000 I think then folks having maybe an Apple iPhone or Apple iPad or some type of other tablet or computer, it just comes down to the different tools for the job. 45:49.000 --> 45:52.000 Now, you mentioned desktop magnifiers. 45:52.000 --> 46:05.000 Let's jump into the next category, if you will, of the 12 inch and 16 inch, what do you tell folks who might be interested in those types of magnifiers? 46:06.000 --> 46:06.000 Yeah. 46:06.000 --> 46:09.000 So again you have your first two questions that you've answered. 46:09.000 --> 46:12.000 The the what and the environment. 46:12.000 --> 46:18.000 Right now, you're starting to get into as you cross over sometimes into our 12 inch which we have a Connect 12, it's called. 46:19.000 --> 46:23.000 And we have a second Reveal 16i, i is for intelligent. 46:23.000 --> 46:26.000 So we move into the level of technology comfort. 46:26.000 --> 46:29.000 And you mentioned a minute ago the iPhone and the iPad. 46:30.000 --> 46:33.000 Some individuals are not comfortable with those. 46:33.000 --> 46:35.000 They're they're just too deep. I was talking to my mother this morning. 46:35.000 --> 46:38.000 She's like, I don't know what to do with the cell phone. 46:38.000 --> 46:47.000 And so, we start, you know, diving into is the user comfortable with touch screens and applications on their phones and things like that? 46:48.000 --> 46:56.000 Or do you want something that just works with, you know, 2 or 3 buttons where I learn, you know, I press this one to zoom in, I press this one to zoom out. 46:56.000 --> 47:00.000 And there's one other that changes the colors for me, and maybe a power on and off button. 47:01.000 --> 47:20.000 So some people really prefer a simple tool, that starts with the smaller solutions that you talked about the explore line, but then if they want to get into text to speech capturing a document, with the device, having a read aloud back to them, accessing the web, using other applications and things like that. 47:20.000 --> 47:31.000 That's where our Connect 12 tablet based solution, the reveal 16i and our latest, solution, we have a prodigy software that comes in a number of different configurations. 47:31.000 --> 47:37.000 Those open up the world of, you know, more advanced technology for those that have a higher level of comfort. 47:37.000 --> 47:41.000 I love that you mentioned being comfortable with your technology. 47:41.000 --> 47:43.000 That's such a big consideration. 47:43.000 --> 47:49.000 We manufacture technology, of course, that's meant to be easy to use and intuitive. 47:49.000 --> 47:53.000 There's nothing better than just pressing a button and having something happen. 47:53.000 --> 47:56.000 So I'm changing the zoom. I'm changing the contrast. 47:56.000 --> 47:57.000 Just for a second. 47:57.000 --> 48:04.000 Can you talk about some of the speaking features that the larger models or even the software has? 48:04.000 --> 48:08.000 I love that someone can take a picture and then get it read to them. 48:08.000 --> 48:14.000 Yeah, this really speaks to the features that you would look for once you've gone through sort of those first three things. 48:14.000 --> 48:18.000 So, we, we utilize the Acapella speech engine. 48:19.000 --> 48:26.000 Folks that are new to the world may not recognize that name, but these are high quality, human sounding, more human sounding voices. 48:26.000 --> 48:32.000 They actually use neural text to speech now, which is modeling off of actual human speech. 48:32.000 --> 48:40.000 So there are a host of different technologies that can be used out there, but we think that the Acapella are the best within the low vision sphere. 48:41.000 --> 48:50.000 Of course, you know, if you're using, a digital device for a reader and just doing reading and listening, sometimes, other voices come in more handy there. 48:51.000 --> 49:00.000 But then we get into, you know, the other features beyond just the audio feed back into, you know, how high of a level of zoom does the user need? 49:00.000 --> 49:09.000 So, you know, some devices like our explore 5 go for go up to 22 times, and then we have other devices that go to 60 times, what you're looking at. 49:09.000 --> 49:13.000 And so how, you know, it depends on the eye condition, but how far do you need to go? 49:14.000 --> 49:17.000 What is the level of clarity that you need to have? 49:17.000 --> 49:20.000 There are ranges in displays of the clarity of the image. 49:21.000 --> 49:27.000 Do you need to have lighting built into the unit or is your environment going back to the other question, do you have a lot of good ambient lighting? 49:27.000 --> 49:29.000 Where are you planning to use the device? 49:29.000 --> 49:30.000 So lighting isn't so important. 49:30.000 --> 49:37.000 And of course, then we get into a lot of things that I covered in a previous session with with us, which is sort of like lines and blinds. 49:37.000 --> 49:38.000 I won't go into those now. 49:38.000 --> 49:41.000 Color, contrast and things like that. 49:41.000 --> 49:45.000 So there's a lot of features to consider and you can get into features being overwhelming. 49:45.000 --> 49:52.000 Coming back to your your point about the comfort level of use, you know, too many features may not be a good thing. 49:52.000 --> 49:57.000 I think the last feature that I would consider is sort of, do I need this thing to be foldable and compact coming back? 49:57.000 --> 50:00.000 And that ties back to the environmental use. 50:00.000 --> 50:02.000 Do I need to be able to move about really, really efficiently with this? 50:02.000 --> 50:05.000 Or is it okay for it to sit in one place all of time? 50:05.000 --> 50:10.000 So this is where things get really personal about what's just right for the user themselves. 50:10.000 --> 50:31.000 So to conclude, Roger, if somebody is looking at magnifiers and trying to make a decision, what is the best way for them to learn about the options and then eventually get a demo of that product so they can really make that final decision of what's going to work best for them. 50:31.000 --> 50:31.000 Yeah. 50:31.000 --> 50:37.000 So I think it's, you know, talking with the appropriate people, finding the right sources of information. 50:37.000 --> 50:40.000 So, you know, most folks nowadays will start with Google. 50:41.000 --> 50:44.000 But, talk to the eye care provider. 50:44.000 --> 50:47.000 If it's a veteran, they can talk to the VA. 50:48.000 --> 50:52.000 People that are still in the workforce can talk to rehab counselors and so forth. 50:52.000 --> 50:57.000 In the education sphere, it's going to be teachers of the visually impaired and things like that. Counselors. 50:57.000 --> 51:02.000 So try, try and find someone that's in the know about these sorts of things. 51:03.000 --> 51:04.000 There is one other consideration. 51:04.000 --> 51:07.000 And for many it's it can be the most important consideration. 51:07.000 --> 51:09.000 But I would still always start with my needs. 51:09.000 --> 51:11.000 And that is the budget for the device. 51:11.000 --> 51:15.000 So, you know, magnifiers can range in price from under $1,000. 51:15.000 --> 51:27.000 In fact, we have a free magnifier app for people that are just starting to experience, you know, vision loss and need a simple magnifier on their phone, but they can go up to several thousand dollars for the device. 51:27.000 --> 51:33.000 So higher cost usually brings the larger screen size and some of the advanced features we talk about. 51:33.000 --> 51:35.000 But the goal isn't always to buy the most expensive. 51:35.000 --> 51:36.000 That doesn't mean it's better. 51:36.000 --> 51:38.000 It's the find the one that meets your needs. 51:38.000 --> 51:42.000 So again, I always say, I'll come back to that, mnemonic that I gave. 51:42.000 --> 51:45.000 And again, I would love for somebody to give me a better, a better one. 51:45.000 --> 51:47.000 But, you know what every tech fan buys? 51:47.000 --> 51:51.000 What the environment, technology. 51:51.000 --> 51:55.000 You're comfortable with, the features and your budget, for the device. 51:55.000 --> 51:57.000 So find the balance. 51:57.000 --> 52:00.000 Try before you buy, find a resource that you can try them out. 52:00.000 --> 52:05.000 We have dealers throughout the country, as well as sales managers across the country to help you out. 52:05.000 --> 52:07.000 And don't be afraid to ask questions. 52:07.000 --> 52:08.000 There's no wrong, wrong answers. 52:08.000 --> 52:14.000 And trying to find something that's going to meet needs, because the best magnifier isn't always the biggest or flashiest one. 52:14.000 --> 52:18.000 It's going to be the one that that meets your needs as a user. 52:18.000 --> 52:24.000 To help you get through day to day, enjoy reading and doing what you want to do and your life's pursuits. 52:24.000 --> 52:25.000 I couldn't have said it better myself. 52:25.000 --> 52:32.000 Roger, thank you so much for laying out all these considerations in such a concise and easy to understand manner. 52:32.000 --> 52:37.000 And if anybody has any questions, please reach out to us. 52:37.000 --> 52:42.000 You can go to our website www.humanware.com www.humanware.com 52:42.000 --> 52:45.000 We have lots of resources. You're not alone. 52:45.000 --> 52:51.000 I know sometimes with changing vision it can be overwhelming and it's not easy to find what's out there. 52:51.000 --> 52:58.000 But HumanWare, has been around for a long time and we want to help in any way that we can. 52:58.000 --> 53:04.000 So Roger, thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us and you will be back on a future episode. 53:04.000 --> 53:05.000 It's good fun. 53:05.000 --> 53:11.000 Rachel, I appreciate you being here and I definitely look forward to the next go around, whenever that may be. 53:12.000 --> 53:16.000 All right, friends, welcome to the upcoming show segment. 53:16.000 --> 53:27.000 As mentioned in the previous episode where things were slowing down a bit, things are now speeding up and you can find us in several places around the country and internationally. 53:27.000 --> 53:33.000 So I'm here to tell you about the upcoming shows in August and midway through September. 53:33.000 --> 53:40.000 Starting August 14th through 16th, you can find us at the National Federation of the Blind, the NFB. 53:40.000 --> 53:49.000 We will be in South Carolina at the DoubleTree, and that takes place in Columbia, South Carolina, August 21st through 24th. 53:49.000 --> 53:52.000 You can find the NFB in Arizona. 53:52.000 --> 53:56.000 We will be at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Phoenix. 53:57.000 --> 54:00.000 Come say hello to our distributor, Digital Apex, there. 54:00.000 --> 54:03.000 August 22nd and 23rd. 54:03.000 --> 54:10.000 We will be at the Iowa Council of the United Blind that takes place in Iowa, and we will be in the holiday Inn in Des Moines. 54:11.000 --> 54:13.000 Cruising on into September. 54:13.000 --> 54:25.000 Now on September 11th, the National Federation of the Blind, we will be in North Carolina at the Marriott that is in Carolina Beach on September 16th. 54:25.000 --> 54:30.000 We are cruisin' across the pond to Sight Village, Blackpool. 54:30.000 --> 54:36.000 We will be at the Winter Gardens and that is in 97 Church Street, Blackpool. 54:36.000 --> 54:42.000 FY11 HL that is over in the UK. 54:42.000 --> 54:50.000 So if you have some friends or you yourself are over there, please come by and say hello to our fantastic European team. 54:51.000 --> 55:03.000 They will be happy to take orders, say hello, give you some demos, answer any questions that you have and that is open from 9:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m.. 55:03.000 --> 55:13.000 If you find yourself in Europe and want to contact the sales team by email, you can do so at eu.sales@humanware.com 55:13.000 --> 55:19.000 So again, we are in lots of different places around the US and across the pond over in the UK. 55:19.000 --> 55:23.000 So if you happen to find yourself in one of those places, stop by and say hello. 55:23.000 --> 55:25.000 We'd love to chat with you. 55:25.000 --> 55:28.000 If you have comments or suggestions, we'd love to hear from you. 55:29.000 --> 55:32.000 Please send them to podcast@humanware.com 55:32.000 --> 55:35.000 That's podcast@humanware.com 55:35.000 --> 55:37.000 Thanks so much for listening to See Things Differently. 55:37.000 --> 55:39.000 We'll see you next month.