LEGO BRAILLE BRICKS FOR STUDENTS WITH VISUAL IMPAIRMENT LAUNCHED IN SEVEN COUNTRIES
By VENKAT for The Assistive Technology Blog
Remember the Braille Bricks project Lego piloted last year? Those Braille Bricks have finally officially launched in seven countries – Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, UK and USA.
Braille Bricks are a fun way for children with vision impairment to not only develop tactile skills but also learn, and get comfortable with the braille system. The bricks have studs on the top that represent numbers and letters in braille as well as printed letters and numbers so that sighted friends, teachers, classmates and parents could play along too in a collaborative and inclusive way. Braille Bricks come in toolkits that consist of 300+ Braille Bricks covering alphabets and numbers in chosen language, and select mathematical symbols and punctuation marks.
Even though Lego bricks are typically considered fun activities, the Braille Bricks do come with pedagogical concepts so teachers could create learning activities in classrooms. All the pedagogical material can be found at www.legobraillebricks.com. That’s only part of the good news though! Lego is partnering with the American Printing House for the Blind to send Braille Bricks free of charge to school districts across the US. Schools that will not be opening this fall, Lego hopes that teachers and school administrators can send the bricks to registered students’ homes. The LEGO foundation will also work with not for profits in other countries to distribute Braille Bricks free of charge to select schools and institutions that work with students with vision impairment.
