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The Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award
Letter of Recommendation Form
Thank you for your support of the Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards program.
Please complete the form below to submit your letter of recommendation in support of the award nominee. Recommendations cannot exceed 800 words. You will not be able to submit your recommendation if the maximum word count exceeds 800 words.
Please note that recommendations should come from someone other than the person who nominated the candidate.
Please note that required fields on this form are indicated by an asterisk (*).
* Nominee Name:
* Your First Name:
* Your Last Name:
* Your State:
* Your Phone Number:
* Your Email Address:
* Your Relationship to Nominee:
Please enter your letter of recommendation in the text area provided below:
Dear Esteemed Members of the Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award Committee: I am glad for the opportunity to express support for Sam Dooley's nomination for the Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award. I first met Sam Dooley when he visited me and my student, Harley Fetterman, during the classroom visits that the Pearson TestNav development team completed so they could meet blind students and their teachers, as they created the math equation editor. I was impressed with the time he took to understand student's needs. I also served as a subject matter expert (SME) for some of the follow up sessions to help Sam and the team to continue with their learning of student needs. I have continued to have contact with Sam as I have participated as a SME on several Pearson projects. Recently I attended a workshop where Sam introduced the Equalize Editor. I have not been as excited by a tool for students in their math journey as this one in a long time. While I teach students to use the Nemeth editor on the BrailleNote and also the JAWS accessible editor in Word, my students dislike that they have to leave their document to go to these editors and then paste the results back to their document. This becomes especially frustrating when they find they have made a mistake. Being able to complete their whole math assignment in one document and correct errors within that same document is exciting. I have a current student that is excited to learn this tool as he prefers using a laptop with JAWS and braille display and dislikes having to go to a different device for his math work. This braille and text interface will lower barriers between the blind students and their teachers and other classmates. Teachers will be able to see the students work on the screen as he/she produces it and provide immediate feedback to the student. While I have been in the field for 39 years and have a good grasp of braille and Nemeth codes, I see newer teachers struggling with this. I work as an intern supervisor for students completing their certification to work with students with visual impairments. I also mentor new teachers in the surrounding districts where I live. The equalize editor can help these new teachers more effectively support students as well as strengthen their own knowledge at the same time in a way that has not been available to date. I urge you to choose Sam Dooley as a recipient of the Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award during the 2024 NFB convention. This would be a great honor for Sam, but would also allow him to continue to work on enhancements and raise awareness about the availability of this tool that he is providing for free so that blind students can enhance their study in STEM fields.
To avoid multiple recommendation submissions, please click submit one time only.
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