The Freedom Scientific Student of the Month program features K-12 students living in the U.S. who are blind or visually impaired and use Freedom Scientific technology to achieve educational goals. The Student of the Month for April 2023 is Jonathan, a junior from Florida. Jonathan has been a JAWS user for many years, and he appreciates the versatility it gives him both in and out of the classroom. “I like the Convenient OCR feature because it reads the text in images if you can’t read it. JAWS also works well in Office applications.” He also uses a Focus 40 Refreshable Braille Display, which ..read more

Want to know how to gather information about an open application? Need to refresh your screen or restore JAWS settings? Join us Thursday, February 16 at noon Eastern time for a live webinar, “When JAWS Does the Unexpected: Top Five Troubleshooting Tips.” What We’ll Cover We’ll provide troubleshooting tips for gathering information about applications, managing settings, restarting JAWS, and contacting Technical Support. Learn how to: Virtualize a control or window to gather information or copy error messages. Use JAWS Speech History to review and copy information spoken by JAWS. Enable the tel ..read more

The Freedom Scientific Student of the Month program features K-12 students living in the U.S. who are blind or visually impaired and use Freedom Scientific technology to achieve educational goals. The Student of the Month for February 2023 is Karl, a student in third grade from California. Karl has been using JAWS since he was six, and regularly completes schoolwork at home and in the classroom using JAWS. “JAWS helps blind kids know what’s on the screen. Most can’t read print so they use braille and JAWS,” Karl says. JAWS was especially helpful to him when completing assignments during the C ..read more

would you like to improve your proficiency with a braille display? Join us Thursday, January 19 at noon Eastern time for our live webinar, “How to Improve Productivity Using Refreshable Braille.” What We’ll Cover We’ll show you seven features available when using a braille display with JAWS, plus discuss useful commands for the Focus Blue braille displays. Learn how to: Access braille settings in JAWS Use Scratch Pad to take notes when not connected to a computer or portable device Use status cells to obtain formatting information about a document or web page Select, copy, and paste text usin ..read more

The Freedom Scientific Student of the Month for December 2022 is McKayla, a junior from Texas. This program features K-12 students living in the U.S. who are blind or visually impaired and use Freedom Scientific technology to achieve educational goals. McKayla has been a JAWS user since she was introduced to the software in kindergarten. Today, she uses it to complete assignments and conduct research. “JAWS is an excellent technology to use because it is all auditory,” McKayla says. She also uses a Focus 40 Braille Display to complete classwork, telling us that it gives her another way to acc ..read more

The Freedom Scientific Student of the Month program features K-12 students living in the U.S. who are blind or visually impaired and use Freedom Scientific technology to achieve educational goals. The Student of the Month for August 2022 is Holly, a senior from Missouri. Holly began using JAWS and the Focus 40 Braille Display in the seventh grade, and said each product provides a lot of versatility, but when used together, they offer even more flexibility. “Using them together is better than using a mobile notetaker. I can access applications for school, check email, and do a lot of things th ..read more

The Freedom Scientific Student of the Month Program features K-12 students living in the U.S. who are blind or visually impaired and use Freedom Scientific technology to achieve educational goals. Due to the busy July conference schedule, rather than featuring a student this month, we are highlighting a few of our favorite stories. Brennan Brennan is a senior from California who primarily used a Braille notetaker until last year, when he discovered better options. He began learning to use JAWS with the Focus 40 Blue 5th Generation Braille Display, and he quickly made exceptional progress. “JA ..read more

On FSCast 213, Dr. Robert Englebretson, Associate Professor of Linguistics at Rice University, discusses the Braille code for the International Phonetic Alphabet, why reading Braille is different than reading print, and his ongoing research about how Braille is taught. Here’s a link to Dr. Englebretson’s home page, And one to the Braille IPA specification, including the introduction by Martha Pamperin. Activate link to listen, right click to download. You can also read the transcript ..read more

The Freedom Scientific Student of the Month program features K-12 students living in the U.S. who are blind or visually impaired and use Freedom Scientific technology to achieve educational goals. The Student of the Month for February 2022 is Brennan, a senior from California. Before his senior year, Brennan primarily used a Braille notetaker to complete assignments. Though he only began learning how to use JAWS with the Focus 40 Braille display at the start of the year, he has made exceptional progress. “JAWS helped me access the internet in ways I didn’t know were possible,” Brennan said ..read more

Braille is an essential tool that promotes literacy for individuals who are blind. It provides a means of reading and writing at home, in school, and in the workplace that can’t be substituted by any other means of accessibility. Braille is widely produced on paper and made available via technology such as refreshable braille displays, computers, and standalone refreshable braille devices. This technology provides braille access to a wealth of digital content, including: Documents E-mails Web pages Books Now that Braille Literacy Month is coming to a close, we want to recognize several organ ..read more