From Robert Beaton, MDE-LIO Instructional Materials Center Coordinator
MDE-LIO’s Instructional Materials Center has officially started transitioning to a new way of creating tactile graphics: We’re going digital! This method will replace “collage” tactile graphics, which use a variety of textured items to represent images and other visual information in a braille book.
Collage tactile graphics can be time-consuming, expensive, and inconsistent, and more space is needed to store them. Digital tactile graphics are more eco-friendly, consistent, and easier to store and produce. By transitioning away from collage tactile graphics, we hope to decrease the use of plastic thermoform paper this year by 70 percent.
To work on this transition, we have been holding weekly interactive tactile graphic workshops with our vendors and a few paraprofessionals. During the workshops, participants have worked on Michigan-specific templates, discussed best practices, and created several graphics (with lots of trial and error) to determine what works best. Ultimately, we plan to align with full-page refreshable braille displays.
If you have any new transcription projects you are going to need, we are incorporating these changes while still providing the most accurate and timely braille for students. Think ahead and submit those orders!