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Bea and I had another productive day at the Mathru School for the Blind today. I was unable to go to Mathru yesterday because I had some serious stomach issues. I guess I’m not used to Indian food anymore . On the other hand, Bea’s visit yesterday was very productive. She met with Sujatha, a volunteer who helps Ms. Muktha run the school. Sujatha is also helping us with whatever we need for our study. Bea was able to finish interviewing all of the teachers and staff needed for our study.

The purpose of our visit today was to install the four Braille Writing Tutors we brought over from Pittsburgh. After two years of continuous use, the current tutors at Mathru were no longer working properly. We’re not exactly sure what happened but figuring this information out will be valuable to us. We want to create a device that can withstand developing world conditions as well as primary school student conditions.

Current tutor at the Mathru School for the Blind

New Braille Writing Tutors

There was one computer that already had the necessary software so installing the new tutor was as easy as taking out the old one and plugging the new one in. However, for the rest of the tutors, I needed to copy the software onto the computer, install a necessary driver, and change some settings on the computer’s device manager to get them to work. I’ve never had to install tutors before so successfully installing all four tutors was a rewarding experience for me. Every time I got the tutor to work, I did a little dance, which I call the Braille Tutor dance .

I trained Sanju, the computer teacher at Mathru, and Teju, a volunteer, to use the tutor. Because the tutor’s buttons and cells were not working properly, they did not know about the tutor’s other learning and game modes. Training others to use the tutor was another first for me. I’ve demoed the tutor before, but never trained. They caught on very quickly! Here’s a video of Sanju and Teju playing the Animal Game.

Sanju testing the Braille Writing Tutor

I’ve asked Sanju to test the tutor while Bea and I are here and to let me know if he has any questions or runs into any problems. In the meantime, I am planning to create an installation tutorial so that they can install the tutor software onto other computers at Mathru. I will also put together a training manual so they can train others to use the tutor.

Things seem to be going well and on schedule. More later!

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