Cover Page Information

Beneath the title and author's name, there are three graphic images that represent the transition from a 3D multimedia world to a 2D tactile graphic one. The top image shows a 3D Haiku poetic cube with the beginning of each of the text lines marked by a number indicating its position in the 3D Haiku cube. The top image is in the virtual world created by the computer and cannot be seen by a blind reader. The middle image shows a 3D printed 3D Haiku cube in the real world that duplicates what is present on the 3D multimedia version but now this object can be touched and the position of the Haiku lines can be sensed and imagined in the mind of a blind reader. One cannot underestimate the importance in the learning process especially with complex images to construct ways for the blind learner to develop a mental perspective of what they are studying and how it appears in the real world. The bottom image shows an iPad Pro with holders showing a screen image that is exactly similar to the raised line graphic on the right that now serves as a tactile template. When the tactile template is laid atop the iPad Pro surface, a touch to any of the buttons will now generate the audio for that specific line in the original 3D Haiku poetic cube. The numbers 1 - 9 overlying each image have been added to show the correlation of the lines beginning with the 3D Haiku cube in the multimedia world and where they appear in the real world 3D print and eventually on the 2D surface of the raised line graphic that becomes an audio-enriched tactile template when laid atop an iPad or iPad Pro with corresponding audio buttons.

The side story of how the thinking emerged to use a 2D tactile template laid atop an iPad to retrieve audio of the 3D Haiku lines links interestingly to the argument between Stephen Hawking and Leonard Susskind that information is not lost when it enters a black hole (see book authored by Leonard Susskind at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/black-hole-war-leonard-susskind/1100270735 ). In this book, it is proposed that 3D information is spread across the event horizon of a black hole in 2D form. This has led to the thought that we are living in a hologram universe where all information about us, our world and the universe is stored in 2D form at the periphery of the universe. It is this possibility of jumping between the 2D information spread across the edge of the expanding universe and the 3D information that we experience as our view of this information in holographic form that set the stage for seeing a way for blind students to read 3D poetry that exists in the virtual world by using a 2D audio-enriched tactile template. This infusion of the arts in the form of poetry into a discussion of STEM produces the well-known acronym STEAM.

Accessible 3D Poetry

Michael A. Kolitsky, Ph.D.

Address all correspondence to Mike Kolitsky at mkolitsky@nextgenemedia.com