Top Tech Tidbits (2026)

04/09/2026

Braille Is Beautiful, and Braille Is Literacy | By Dr. Kirk Adams | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-Op
https://drkirkadams.com/braille-is-beautiful-braille-is-literacy/

Here, Dr. Kirk Adams makes the case that braille is not an enrichment activity or a nostalgic craft, but literacy itself. He begins in his own first-grade classroom at the Oregon State School for the Blind, where a teacher named Mrs. Summers taught him to read and write braille after his retinas detached in kindergarten, and where the code became privacy, independence, and a lifeline through long hospital stays. From there he draws a distinction the field often blurs: speech can tell a reader what a sentence says, but braille lets them examine how it is written, the spelling, the punctuation, the whole architecture of the language. Sighted children are not told that audiobooks make print unnecessary, and blind children should not be told that synthetic speech makes braille optional. The right principle, he argues, is not braille or technology but braille and technology, chosen to fit the task and the person.

He then does something advocates rarely do, which is fact-check his own side. The familiar claim that only 10 percent of blind people read braille turns out to rest on a 1979 National Library Service report and American Printing House Federal Quota data, neither of which was designed to measure braille literacy across the whole blind population. He holds the often-quoted 90 percent employment figure to the same standard, noting that it came from a 1996 study of 74 adults and showed an association rather than a cause. Better evidence is finally arriving, through the ICEVI and World Blind Union 2026-2027 Global Braille Literacy Campaign and a 2024 workplace study in which 66.1 percent of 304 employed blind participants used braille on the job. Adams closes by pointing readers toward the places braille is actually grown, the NFB BELL Academy, Braille Institute's Braille Challenge, and free adult instruction from Hadley and others, and toward the documentary BRAILLED IT, touring nationally this September, where he will join the panel discussion after the Seattle screening on September 20.

04/09/2026

🎙️ Remarkable World Commentary Episode #110: One Size Does Not Fit All | By Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-op
https://donnajodhan.com/rwc-09-02-2026/

In this reflective episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA presents her first solo podcast for September and builds it around a single argument: one size does not fit all. Thanking listeners who have written in, she makes the case that no template can meet every situation, because every person with a disability has a unique requirement and a unique set of needs, a mistake she admits making herself at times, and one she calls a lack of respect. It applies, she says, whether you are a phone rep, an agent, a teacher, a government department, or any other type of entity.

She then unpacks the assumption that lies underneath it. People hear blind or vision impaired and conclude the person has no vision at all, which she calls a very false statement. She walks through the range instead: functional vision, where a person moves independently but needs glasses for distance or close reading; low vision, where a screen can be read only with special devices and only slowly; minimal vision, her own, where light, dark and shadows come through; and no vision at all. The same spread exists for hearing loss, she notes, a person may be categorized as having hearing loss, but how much? Her story of the month comes from a listener who used her Mental Stretch technique, built on drawing on the different senses, after unwittingly becoming a victim of online dating. A perpetrator nearly extracted a large sum with an untrue story, but the listener sat down, gathered their resources and their thoughts, spoke to trusted friends, and recognized the scam just in the nick of time.

04/09/2026

🎙️ Remarkable World Commentary Episode #104: Ask Advocate Donna | Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA
https://donnajodhan.com/rwc-08-02-2026/

Here Donna Jodhan steps into what she calls her Ask Advocate Donna shoes for her second solo episode of August, presenting stories of advocacy and inviting listeners to send in their own. She opens with a quote she came across and likes: speak in such a way that others love to listen to you, and listen in such a way that others love to speak to you. Then she runs her favourite word game, offering two pairs of words that advocates meet constantly. Action or conversation: action means getting involved, getting your hands dirty and your feet wet, the hardcore end of advocacy, while conversation means sitting down to listen and discuss, which is more passive. Intention or ex*****on is the opposite pairing: intention is being ready and willing to get something done, ex*****on is having actually done it. Donna is careful to say there is nothing wrong with either side of either pair, and that it depends on the advocate and where they want to go.

She then works through three stories sent in by listeners, applying the same frame to each one: what is advocacy here, who gets involved, why is it necessary, how do you get involved, and when. A parent, Isabel, is handed a single plate at a fundraising dinner for a dance troupe and told to share it with her daughter Dania, until the two raise their voices in unison, politely and effectively, and the host backs off and provides a second plate. A caregiver asks a patient's daughter, who is vision impaired, to pay extra for the meals she is served, and Donna lays out the options for how the daughter might respond, from asking exactly what she is being charged for to simply saying it is out of the question. And a senior named Harry, standing first in line, is waved to the back by a dismissive ticket agent with no explanation, which leaves Donna asking what she would do in his place. She wants listeners' feedback on these, and asks them to write to her at [email protected].

04/09/2026

🎙️ Remarkable World Commentary Episode #109: Ask Advocate Donna | By Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-op
https://donnajodhan.com/rwc-09-01-2026/

In this practical episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA presents her September Ask Advocate Donna feature, opening with a favourite quotation, speak in such a way that others love to listen to you, listen in such a way that others love to speak to you, before turning to her recurring word game. She contrasts two pairs of advocacy words: commitment versus compliance, where committing is proactive and complying is merely following the leader, and afterthought versus forethought, illustrated with website developers who bolt on accessibility features at the end and managers who only remember employees with disabilities once the plan is already written.

She then works through three listener-submitted stories, running each one through the same four questions, what advocacy is here, who gets involved, why it is necessary, and when you step in. A listener reports drivers occupying wheelchair parking spaces they do not need, and Donna argues the response belongs to everyone, built from the ground up through awareness and escalation to community members and elected representatives. Marissa asks her condo management for a talking elevator and gets a proactive yes, which Donna celebrates as a success story of two parties working together. Chris, who is vision impaired, is refused entry to a restaurant with his guide dog; his friends rise in unison to back him, police are eventually called, and the owners comply, a case Donna frames as standing on rights that Canadian law already guarantees. She closes by inviting listeners to send their own stories.

04/09/2026

🎙️ Remarkable World Commentary Episode #103: Entity or Customer | Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA
https://donnajodhan.com/rwc-08-01-2026/

Here Donna Jodhan opens the month of August with a solo commentary she frames as entity versus customer, and she puts her opinion on the table straight away. When a form is inaccessible and the customer agent tells a blind or vision-impaired customer to go and find someone else to help them, whose responsibility is that really? Donna argues it belongs to the company and its agent, not to the customer: the form comes from the company, it does not come from her, and it is up to the agent to find a solution rather than to send someone elsewhere. She recounts what happened a few months ago with ServiceOntario, where an agent told her she had to find someone to assist her and she refused, in the most courteous way she could, then phoned again and again until she reached genuinely helpful, supportive agents who helped her complete and submit the form to renew her company's business. She asks whether what is really at work is a lack of work ethic or an unwillingness to look for a solution, and puts herself out on a limb to say the duty sits with the customer agent.

She closes with a story sent in by a listener who had been scammed. Being scammed hurts anyone, Donna says, but when you have a disability and a really terrible scammer finds you, it hurts even more. The listener wrote to tell her that while facing the homework of getting their money back, they used the hints and tips from her Mental Stretch to steady themselves, sitting down and meditating on the senses of touch, taste, smell, hearing and sight. It helped them stabilise their minds, their actions, and their decisions about what to do next. Donna says she has been preaching for years that the Mental Stretch can be used in many ways to handle very unexpected and horrible circumstances, and that she is simply happy it continues to help people. She invites listeners to write to her at [email protected].

03/09/2026

When Speaking Up Feels Dangerous: We Need Community More Than Ever | By Dr. Kirk Adams | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-Op
https://drkirkadams.com/when-speaking-up-feels-dangerous/

Here, Dr. Kirk Adams, Executive Director of the Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion, argues that many people working for diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, belonging and human rights have stopped asking whether their organizations are moving fast enough and started asking whether it is safe to speak up at all. Pointing to a federal terrorism case arising from a July 2025 protest in Texas and to criminal charges now facing the Southern Poverty Law Center, he is careful to add that whatever our individual political perspectives on those particular cases, what they illuminate is larger: the perceived cost of advocacy is rising, and different people carry different levels of risk.

His answer is community, not bravado: courage should not require recklessness. The Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion, now being built, intends to provide legal literacy and risk-aware advocacy strategies. He promises no one safety, only that nobody should have to navigate this moment alone. Readers are invited to the free livestreamed launch on September 1, 2026, and to ISDI's GoFundMe campaign for the community infrastructure behind it.

03/09/2026

Raising A Blind Child To Thrive: A Free Live Parent Masterclass With Kristin Smedley Of Thriving Blind Academy | By Dr. Kirk Adams | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-Op
📅 Monday, September 14, 2026
🔗 Learn More: https://parent.thrivingblindacademy.org/

📍 When & Where

Monday, September 14 • 7:00–8:30 PM Eastern • Live and interactive on Zoom • 90 minutes • Free, registration required.

❓ Why Attend

A conversation, not a webinar to leave running in the background. Members and mentors from the Thriving Blind community will join. If numbers allow, there are short optional breakout conversations. No one has to share — listening counts.

👤 Your Host

Kristin Smedley is a TEDx speaker, bestselling author of Thriving Blind, and founder of Thriving Blind Academy. When her sons Michael and Mitchell were diagnosed as blind, they were the first blind people she'd ever met. She was terrified. She grieved. Then she went looking for successful blind adults, brought them into her family's life, and raised her expectations. Michael and Mitchell are now two successful blind young men. Her words: "Blindness hadn't changed. What changed was what I could see."

🎯 What You Walk Away With

1️⃣ A bigger vision for what's possible — the stories around us quietly set expectations.

2️⃣ A way to separate the goal from the blindness — start from "What does my child want?" not "Can a blind person do this?", then name the tools, strategies, people and access needed.

3️⃣ A healthier view of independence and interdependence — thriving doesn't mean doing everything alone.

4️⃣ A practical next move — one action, not a list of theory.

👥 Who It's For

👉 Parents and caregivers of blind and low vision children, newly diagnosed or years in
👉 Families navigating school, college, employment or the transition to adulthood

💬 Why I'm Sharing This

I met Kristin when I first started at the American Foundation for the Blind.

She came from Philadelphia to the AFB offices in New York. We've given each other active, mutual support since then.

I was honored to be featured in her book, Thriving Blind.

I am not the parent of a blind child. I was that child — blind since I was five years old. I am recommending this masterclass from that lived experience.

Blindness brought real barriers into my life. But the goal is not blind children who have to be inspirational. The goal is a world where blind people thriving is an ordinary expectation.

📣 Pass It On

Kristin's ask, and mine: educators, blind adults, professionals, grandparents — think of a parent who needs more evidence of what's possible, and send this to them.

✏️ Register: free, at the link above.

03/09/2026

🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Jeremy Grandstaff, Executive Director, The Inspiration Foundation | By Dr. Kirk Adams | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-Op
https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-08-11-2026/

In this candid episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Kirk welcomes Jeremy Grandstaff, six months into a newly created role as executive director of the Inspiration Foundation, the nonprofit founded by Cleanlogic co-CEO Isaac Shapiro in honour of his blind mother, Bea. Kirk, who introduced the two, traces their friendship from a bench at a National Federation of the Blind conference through Jeremy's consulting work at the American Foundation for the Blind. Jeremy tells his own story: a county assessor who advised institutionalising him at age two and the father who gave the man two minutes to leave the property; school for the blind through fifth grade; a 12-year-old cold-calling publishers for accessible books in 1988; Bowling Green State University, IBM, and a master's in organization development. He is frank about two employers who told him he would never be as competent as a sighted person, and that he could always "just go on disability", the moment that made him say yes to this job.

The conversation then turns practical. Jeremy lays out the Foundation's two-sided strategy, grants that strengthen the pipeline of candidates, and the emerging Inspiration Seal that builds a pipeline of employers ready to hire and promote them, alongside a goal of raising the disability employment rate by 10% in five years. Kirk raises the contested ground of disability simulation, recalling the "hand gr***de" a proposed dining-in-the-dark event threw into an AFB staff meeting and the research that resolved it, and Jeremy explains how the Foundation has rebuilt the format as a Dining in the Dark and Executive Roundtable with education on both sides of the meal. They close on executive presence, Jeremy insisting on walking to the podium with his cane rather than being escorted, because the walk is the argument.

03/09/2026

♿ Accessibyte Studio — Simplified Every Day Computing Tools For Home, Schools, Libraries, the Elderly And More | By Steve Barclay, Canadian Assistive Technology Ltd. | Courtesy of the PWD Media Co-op
https://canasstech.com/products/accessibyte-studio-annual

Most computers ask you to learn them before they will help you. Accessibyte Studio turns that around. 💻

It is a self-voicing Windows application that gathers everyday computer tasks into one calm, clutter-free place. Navigation runs on three keys — Up, Down and Enter. Most people understand it inside the first minute.

🗂️ WHAT'S INSIDE

Notes, a simplified web browser, email, YouTube, Books, Podcasts, Weather, News, an audio recorder, To-Do, Calculator, Dictionary, Encyclopedia, Contacts, Files and more. It turns print into speech, and every module shares the same navigation, voicing, visual settings and plain language — learn one part, and the rest already feels familiar.

👐 WHO IT'S FOR

🔹 People with or without vision — self-voicing, large text, high contrast, simple navigation from the first keystroke
🔹 Readers with dyslexia or other print-access needs — read-aloud support, font options, calm uncluttered screens
🔹 Deaf and hard-of-hearing users — spoken guidance is shown visually as well
🔹 Older adults, young students and first-time computer users — clear menus, consistent controls, flexible display

🌉 THREE WAYS PEOPLE USE IT

As a computer home — Studio opens full screen and starts automatically, so there is no Windows to manage and no app-switching.
As a screen reader bridge — start on built-in voicing, then add JAWS, NVDA or ZoomText skills at your own pace.
As a companion — experienced screen reader users run it as a streamlined, task-focused workspace.

It installs on Windows computers you already own and sits happily beside the screen readers and magnifiers already on the machine. 🏛️ Libraries, schools, workforce programs, correctional education, veterans services and aging services get one consistent accessible workstation that is far easier to teach and support than a bare desktop.

⌨️ Also from Accessibyte, we stock Typio, their accessible typing and braille tutor — six editions for home, school and institution, $105 to $150.

👉 WHY BUY IT FROM US

Accessibyte Studio Annual is $220 CAD, a 12-month licence for one Windows installation, and it is in stock today. Buying for a school, library or agency? Call us first and we will work out the right licensing before you spend a dollar.

🔗 Buy Accessibyte Studio: https://canasstech.com/products/accessibyte-studio-annual
📞 1-844-795-8324
✉️ [email protected]
📍 #106 – 828 W 8th Avenue, Vancouver BC

03/09/2026

🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Mindy Kolin, Director of Development & Industry Partnerships at Teach Access, and Kate Sonka, Executive Director
https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-08-06-2026/

In this warm anniversary episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Kirk opens from a smoke-covered Seattle with wishes for friends in eastern Washington, then welcomes Kate Sonka, executive director of Teach Access, and Mindy Kolin, who leads its fundraising, partnerships and communications. Kirk traces his own first encounter with the organization: a visit to Yahoo's accessibility team early in his AFB tenure, where Darren Burton and Mike Shebanek showed him a whiteboard tally of how many incoming computer science graduates had ever heard of accessibility, a lopsided count that became the case for Teach Access. Kate, who grew up at the Wisconsin School for the Blind where both her parents taught, recounts the April 2016 kickoff at Yahoo with Shebanek, Larry Goldberg and Jeff Wieland; Mindy recalls starting her career at the New York employment agency Eleanor Roosevelt and Orin Lehman founded, and finding Teach Access on Indeed 25 years later.

The heart of the conversation is strategy. Teach Access concentrates on educators rather than students directly, the multiplier being that one trained faculty member reaches 50 to 100 students a semester, and on "small teaching": folding accessibility into classes people already teach rather than fighting the years-long approval path for a new course. Kate walks through the Fellowship, the four-week Summer Institute, and the openly licensed Curriculum Repository; Mindy reports the headline result, a goal set in 2020 to reach 1 million students by 2030 that passed 1.5 million in 2025, five years early. They close on funding, on contract work with industry partners that keeps educator resources free, and on Teach Access Europe, where enforcement of the European Accessibility Act has made this a promising moment to expand.

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