Category: Vision Impairments

Guide to Visual Disabilities and Online Learning

Online education is designed to open doors for students. Many students who might not be able to become a full-time residential student at a college or university  or who want a particular course, find online courses of value. However, for prospective students with visual impairments, online learning may create more barriers than gateways.

Obtaining a college education is no easy task, but for students with visual disabilities, the path to completing a degree program is lined with unique challenges and barriers. Accessible Colleges Online has prepared a resource exploring  how visual impairments impact the educational experience, what colleges  can do, and includes numerous resources, including insight and tips from students and experts in the field.

To read the entire resource, visit: A Guide to Visual Disabilities: How Colleges Help Visually Impaired Students Succeed

Accessible Colleges Online is designed to help students and parents identify colleges, degree programs, scholarship opportunities and more that fit their respective academic and financial wants and needs.  The site is also designed to help educate students and parents about the importance of accreditation.

Adaptive Technology – For Us, by Us

David Hayden, an alum of Arizona State University, demonstrated that the best technologies are those that engage the user in the design and development process. He illustrated this point when he helped the school’s researchers develop technology that would help him access the blackboard in his classes.

David has a visual impairment and needed assistance taking notes and seeing the blackboard in class. He helped develop an application that allowed him to view the blackboard on half of his mobile tablet while using a “notes” interface on the other half of the screen. Then he was able to link sections of the notes to the frames in the video. Dubbed the “Note-Taker,” the app enabled David to better access information in class. David is now manufacturing his Note-Taker prototype to be used by others.

Full Story: The Best Adaptive Technologies Are Designed by, Not for, People with Disabilities, Slate, Mar. 3, 2015, available at
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/03/03/the_best_adaptive_technologies_are_designed_by_people_with_disabilities.html