Blind Skills

Introduction

Blind Skills is a directory of 83 free videos and podcasts that each teach a blindness skill: a technique for doing a task without sight. Skills here include cane travel, guiding, braille, cooking, dressing, labeling, handling money, and crafts.

A lesson is included when all of the following are true:

It teaches a technique a blind or low vision person can use to do a task nonvisually, or it teaches a guide or teacher how to support that technique. A talk about choices or experiences, however helpful, is not a lesson.
The technique applies generally. A lesson on one feature of one app or device belongs in Tech Training instead.
It is free, needs no sign-in, and plays at once: its address is either an audio file or a video page that the free mpv player, with yt-dlp, plays directly.
Its length and year are known. The year is the one its publisher states, or else the year its video host shows it was posted; the length is measured from the recording.

Structured discovery is the way the training centers of the National Federation of the Blind, and agencies that follow them, teach these skills. Instead of giving step-by-step answers, the instructor asks questions that lead the student to gather information nonvisually and solve the problem. Students with some vision often wear sleepshades so they learn to trust nonvisual techniques. A lesson’s Structured discovery field says Subject when the lesson is about the method, and Setting when a center or agency that teaches this way made it.

Lessons are grouped by kind of skill, under a heading at level 2 for each group, with a one-sentence definition. Each lesson title is a heading at level 3 and a link straight to the audio file or video. Under it comes a description of the lesson, then links to its source page and transcript where they exist, then its fields in alphabetical order: Audience, Length, Presenter, Series, Skill, Source, Structured discovery, and Year. A field appears only when a real value is known, except Length and Year, which every lesson has. Length is in whole minutes. Skill names the task the lesson teaches. Links were found on publishers’ own pages or in search results in October 2026; some video hosts ask a browser to press Play first.

The whole directory is also a play list. BlindSkills.m3u lists every lesson in the order of this page, with its title. Open it in FileDir’s Homer Player (Control+Shift+H) or Play List (Control+Shift+L), or in any player that reads M3U files, to hear the lessons one after another. In FileDir, the facts under each heading here, such as Length and Year, travel with the track when the page itself is opened as a play list.

The directory also comes as BlindSkills, a database included with DbDo, a free database program designed for screen reader users. There, Alt+Shift+P plays a lesson, and marked lessons play as a list.

Statistics come next, then a note on the major organizations of and for the blind. Four appendixes list the lessons again by source, by year, by title, and by skill, each linking back to the full entry.

Each lesson belongs to its publisher. This directory’s own text and arrangement are available under CC BY-SA 4.0. It is English-language in scope. Companion directories are Tech Training and Blind Movers.

Introduction
By the Numbers
Major Organizations
Braille (8)
Clothing and Dressing (6)
Cooking and Kitchen (16)
Crafts and Tactile Art (5)
Guiding and Being Guided (8)
Health and Personal Care (4)
Home Management and Organization (8)
Learning and Teaching Methods (2)
Money and Shopping (3)
Orientation and Mobility (19)
Recreation and Fitness (1)
School and Science (3)
Appendix A: Lessons by Source
Appendix B: Lessons by Year
Appendix C: Lessons by Title
Appendix D: Lessons by Skill

By the Numbers

83 lessons in 12 groups; the largest is Orientation and Mobility, with 19.
Together they run about 19 hours, yet half take 6 minutes or less: most teach one technique in a few minutes, while a recorded class teaches a whole project.
The largest source is Washington State School for the Blind, with 31 lessons.
The lessons date from 2008 to 2026; 16 of the 83 (19%) are from the last five years.

Major Organizations

These organizations were searched on purpose. Many of their recordings are meetings, news, or advocacy rather than lessons, so those are not listed.

American Council of the Blind: five craft classes from ACB Crafters, taught by ear, on knitting, braiding, and braille drawing.
American Foundation for the Blind: two short videos on writing braille, by slate and by braillewriter.
CNIB: two videos on the sighted guide technique.
National Federation of the Blind: its seminar on structured discovery, plus a lesson filmed at the Colorado Center for the Blind, one of its three training centers. The centers post few lesson recordings; most of what they publish describes their programs.
RNIB: three videos on guiding.
Vision Support America: one lesson, on trailing a wall; its other videos are mostly tips for using remaining vision. It is a free initiative of Braille Institute.
World Blind Union: no lesson found; its recordings are mainly advocacy and policy.

Braille (8)

Reading and writing braille, by hand and by machine.

Braille Writing Devices: Perkins Braille Writer

The Perkins Brailler explained: its history, its six keys, and how it writes braille onto paper.

Length: 1 minute

Skill: Writing braille with a braillewriter

Source: American Foundation for the Blind

Year: 2017

Braille Writing Devices: Slate and Stylus

How the slate and stylus, the pocket tool for writing braille by hand, is loaded and used.

Length: 3 minutes

Skill: Writing braille with a slate and stylus

Source: American Foundation for the Blind

Year: 2016

Bringing Braille Basics Home, Lesson 1: Letters A to J

The first lesson of a home series, teaching how to form and recognize the letters a through j.

Length: 5 minutes

Series: Bringing Braille Basics Home

Skill: Reading the braille alphabet

Year: 2024

Tommy Edison, blind from birth, shows how he writes braille on a Perkins Brailler.

Length: 3 minutes

Presenter: Tommy Edison

Skill: Writing braille with a braillewriter

Year: 2012

Learn the Braille Alphabet and Numbers 1 to 10

An egg carton set up as two columns of three becomes a large braille cell for learning letters and numbers.

Length: 4 minutes

Presenter: Sassy Wyatt

Skill: Reading braille letters and numbers

Year: 2021

Learn the Braille Alphabet with a Muffin Tin

A muffin tin and tennis balls stand in for the braille cell, with extra spoken description for listeners who cannot see the screen.

Length: 7 minutes

Skill: Reading the braille alphabet

Year: 2020

Learning Braille as an Adult, and the Braille Alphabet

A presenter who learned braille as an adult explains how the code works and walks through the alphabet.

Length: 10 minutes

Skill: Reading the braille alphabet

Year: 2019

Slate and Stylus

A teacher of blind students demonstrates writing braille with a slate and stylus.

Length: 1 minute

Skill: Writing braille with a slate and stylus

Year: 2014

Clothing and Dressing (6)

Fastening, folding, matching, and caring for clothes by touch and by system.

Folding Clothes

A step-by-step method for folding clothes neatly by touch.

Introduction

Table of Contents

By the Numbers

Major Organizations

Braille (8)

Clothing and Dressing (6)

Cooking and Kitchen (16)

Crafts and Tactile Art (5)

Guiding and Being Guided (8)

Health and Personal Care (4)

Home Management and Organization (8)

Learning and Teaching Methods (2)

Money and Shopping (3)

Orientation and Mobility (19)

Recreation and Fitness (1)

School and Science (3)

Appendix A: Lessons by Source

American Council of the Blind (5)

American Foundation for the Blind (2)

Blind Abilities (1)

The Blind Life (1)

Blind on the Move (8)

BreakingBlind (1)

CNIB (2)

Hadley (8)

Henshaws (1)

Kansas State School for the Blind (1)

National Federation of the Blind (1)

Nebraska Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired (1)

Prevention of Blindness Society (1)

RNIB (2)

RNIB Scotland Youth Forum (1)

VisAbility (2)

Washington State School for the Blind (31)

Source not stated (14)

Appendix B: Lessons by Year

2026 (6)

2025 (4)

2024 (6)

2021 (4)

2020 (14)

2019 (2)

2018 (1)

2017 (2)

2016 (8)

2015 (1)

2014 (2)

2012 (7)

2011 (1)

2010 (1)

2009 (6)

2008 (18)

Appendix C: Lessons by Title

Appendix D: Lessons by Skill