Preparatory topographical and maths methods
Anneke Blok: Good morning, or afternoon, my name is Anneke Blok. I am a rehabilitation therapist and I work in Amsterdam at Royal Dutch Visio Center of Expertise, for blind and partially sighted people. I'm going to tell you about total preparatory topographical methods. They're called "An and Jan" and "Where am I?" We know that blind children often have, lack tactile spatial skills. And that is because such is a sequential process. It takes time to gain the real, the complete concept and Marianne van der Vinne, she's an itinerant teacher, and she comes into regular schools and she also found that this is really, really a problem to learn the, the pupils' topography. So what she did is she inverted a game, with a board, and two characters and some other objects. And thus her project was born. I'm going to introduce you to "An and Jan". This is An, the yellow one, and this is Jan, the blue one. And we have a tree. A goat. And a house. These are the other members of the project group, another itinerant teacher, Yvette Verweij, And Stephanie van Lenningh, teacher at the Visio school. On this photo, you see the geometrical book and we really recommend to start with this, because in this hour, for instance, the requirements before starting with millennium, and then there is a manual and it... actually there are two parts, and part one is the 3D printed board, the lessons, then those transition from 3D to 2D graphics, and a third part is about mathematics, also with the same materials. Here we see Marianne, and Isa, and Isa is a blind pupil of nine years old, and she always loves to test things for us. She really, really is very... "Do you have anything you... Can I do something for you?" She asks, and the target group are Braille readers from the age of six to 12 years. Here we have some of the materials I showed, An and Jan, there are houses, two trees, ticket, and then the project extended and materialized, doing that largely, because we now also have buildings. And on the top, on the roof of the buildings, there are Braille letters. So according to the lesson, this can be a shop, this can be a farm. So whatever is needed. There's also a tower. And two more figures, and this one can be either a princess or a fairy. We have one with a head, and, for instance, a pirate, or a cowboy, whatever you like to use. They all go on this 3D printed boards, it's got compartments. So your kids won't shift. They just go in like that. And there is a book with tactile graphics, For better performance. Now I'm going to... So this is an example of one of the drawings. The lessons go from not quite easy to more and more com- complex, there is, the amount of textual information is growing and I'm going to make an example of the first lessons on the board. OK, this is lesson 6.1, I already... gave an honorary position, which is E9. We have a house on C6. Now a cat comes on E4... I need a tree. And the tree comes on H5. And of course, you need Jan. And the position of Jan is G2. Now, An wants to walk to Jan, and therefore she's using lots of continuous lines and also influence. So, here she goes. She has to pass the House, cats and a tree before she goes to Jan, and those who just do, to get an impression. So this is an easy lesson and here the lesson's going to be complicated because you also have lines which are interrupted and even sections with a combination of continuous and interrupted lines. So this was just an example of one lesson and you move on to the next subject. Of course, coordinates are very important. They link together, and work at scale, to follow routes and to get to wherever our reference for plans. So this is an example of coordinates. And now the blue board has become a sea. And in the sea are islands. And there is a story about pirates and Jan. And they have to, to reach their own island in a storm, but they are given the coordinates. So in the lesson, they reach their islands in time, of course. Then the third part, and there are eight lessons in this part, and the pupils learn about circumference, area, and knowledge. And the lesson of bar charts, I will make this on the boards, and then you can see how this is done. So there are four chips: A is apple, B, banana, C, cookie, and D, donut. And every part has a different picture. There are four different pictures and they represent in the heart of children. So in this lesson the children have to learn to calculate how many children had a banana snack, how many had a donut snack, And this is being done with this board. And with this box. Then for An and Jan we have some short film fragments, and Marianne is asking her, giving her the coordinates, so she is able to place the object on the right coordinate. And she is also working towards the islands, every one of the islands in tactile graphics. Marianne (teacher): [Speaking Dutch] Isa (student): [Speaking Dutch]
Anneke: [in English] And next comes "Where am I?" "Where am I?" can be given after "An and Jan", and because we thought doing the last step before going to the method of schools. And so this is based on the on the map of the Netherlands. We have 12 provinces in the Netherlands and there are also characteristic features for every province, and it goes like this every time three provinces are in, they have to go into the port and then eventually there are 12. I will show this on the board. I'm going to show you the first three provinces on the board, and I start with Zeeland. This is a province in the south west of the Netherlands. It's got an engine house and a lot of water and it goes here. And for this, the object is a lighthouse. Then comes South Holland, it goes on the side of... And this one has got a blue mill. And on this board, you can feel the rivers, dikes, and also natural areas, and they are printed into the board. The third province, next to the North Sea, is more homes. And for this one, an airplane, which is representing Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. I'm going to show you the book with the graphics, which comes with all these rosters. Here we have a map of the Netherlands And here... The provinces, one by one. And we meet again An and Jan, because An is living in the south of the Netherlands, and Jan is living in the north. So An has to make a route to go... Well, and she crosses several provinces, and this is done between B6. And the last lesson. In this lesson, it is important to see if all the information has been processed. And so this is in the... This is a game. There are several questions and the people has to say, "Ah, this is North Holland, ah, this is Zeeland." And they are in print and in Braille. So for questions, we have a mailbox, An and Jan, and it ends in the touch. And also information can be found on the official website, "Tactile Reading 2021" Thank you very much for the convention, and please send the email.