Ask eighth grade Ben Franklin student Mia Yia what her favorite book is and she’ll quickly give you a long list with a chuckle. She chuckles because the inside joke is that all the books are her favorite. This passionate reader and learner accesses books and learning materials through Braille, a form of written language for blind and visually impaired people with characters expressed by patterns of raised dots and read using fingertips. 

Recently, her teacher for visual impairment, Mr. Gilmore and educational assistant Ms. Adrienne, have been able to add a new tool, a Brailliant.  This braille keyboard connects to Mai Yia’s iPad and features a refreshable braille display that allows her to read the contents of what is on the iPad screen while also adding her own content. “Having a Brailliant for Mia Yia goes a long way to equalize her access to learning materials. It allows for real time collaboration, teaching and learning without having to wait weeks for ordered braille materials to arrive or for us to translate,” Gilmore shared. “Using this tool allows her to communicate using GoogleDocs, Email, even navigating to Facetime. Her teachers can give her immediate feedback on what she is working on without having to go through someone to translate materials or her work into or out of braille.” Gilmore also shared how crucial tools like the Brailliant are during E-Learning days, allowing teachers to collaborate and work with Mia Yia very similarly to how that teacher would work with a student without blindness or visual impairment.

“She is so fast on her iPad with the Brailliant,” awed Ms. Adrienne, Mia Yia. “Access to YouTube has really been a game changer, especially for classes like Science. She has two screens so we can pause, take notes, listen to a video again if we need to as we’re working through the lesson.” 

While tools like the Brailliant offer increased access and independent learning for Mai Yia, breaks from the screen are important to her too. Her favorite break? A ruthless game of Uno with her instructors.