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
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