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Lorem Ipsum Dolor Spring 2016
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The idea of learning the Unified English Braille code seemed to loom
over me. It was frustrating to know that I had just spent months trying to learn
one braille code and now suddenly everything was changing. I was not a fan
of having to undergo the transition. Finally, in July 2015, I took the time to
learn the Unified English Braille or UEB. Through use of the free UEB Braille
class on the website "uebot.niu.edu" I was able to learn UEB and comfortably
use it in one month. Transitioning from English Braille to UEB was a breeze.
The rules that I often questioned with the English Braille Code were suddenly
gone, and I could finally use "and" in Vandyke. While there are still quite a bit
of rules in UEB, the rules are much easier to make sense of. There are no
longer words that buddy together, there are less shared symbols and
contractions, and short-form words are more freely used. While it may seem
as though UEB is intimidating, I really did find that it was much easier than
English Braille. With UEB, I can braille a paper or a children's book without
questioning every two words whether or not a contraction should be used.
UEB makes it clear to the student what can and cannot be used, without
many of the "ifs" and "buts" that I felt English Braille contained.
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