Oussama Metatla, University of Bristol

Anja Thieme, Microsoft Research

Emeline Brulé, CNRS i3, Télécom Paristech

Cynthia Bennett, University of Washington

Marcos Serrano, IRIT-University of Toulouse

Christophe Jouffrais, CNRS, IRIT, and IPAL

braille displays to access and engage with educational materials, while also leveraging frequent support from a teaching assistant or the use of specialized tools. Although these are all important mechanisms to make educational content more accessible, they are inherently designed to be used by VI learners alone, often leaving the person isolated and excluded from learning activities with other students; meaning that accessible and assistive technology (AT) cannot alone foster connection among students with various abilities [ 1].

In this article, we outline three
areas of research and debate that
More than ever, digital content and
tools are being introduced and accepted
in diverse educational contexts,
offering opportunities for innovation
and for making learning processes
more encompassing, engaging, and
collaborative. Multimodal tools
fostering tactile, auditory, and spatial
learning promise increased access for
students with vision impairments (VI).

Yet many existing popular classroom technologies, such as Scratch for learning computer programming, rely heavily on visual content and interactions. In practice, this means that students with VI continue to rely on screen readers, magnifiers, and

MInsights → Truly supportive and inclusive learning environments foster social connections with others. → People with VI should be supported as creative agents and become teachers and leaders of inclusive technology design and research. → We should support approaches that promote understanding and augmenting peoples’ unique abilities and their ways of making sense of the world.

Toward
Classroom
Experiences
Inclusive of
Students with
Disabilities

I M A G E B Y T R A C Y S P O H N