This action research project will explore how visually impaired (VI) students may be supported by a remote sighted (RS) helper to interact with visually complex teaching resources, as this support process is being evolved. We aim to document student and helper reactions to this novel method of support, and to evaluate whether RS helper support is comparable with, or has advantages over physically-present sighted helper support for some VI students and whether such support may usefully be provided in future. If RS helper support is seen to be advantageous in some situations, then guidelines will be drawn up reflecting best practice.
Specifically, we expect to consider the following questions:
- How does RS helper-VI student collaboration work?
- How can the particular requirements and study preferences of the VI individual be incorporated?
- What challenges are faced by each party?
- What strategies are used by each?
- What communications technologies are useful in facilitating communications, and how may they be well-used?
- Can good practice be identified for sighted helper support of VI students even where the support is not remote?
The context is the introductory programming block of TM111, based on the drag-and-drop visual programming environment OUBuild in which students create computer programs by manipulating coloured blocks representing code.
Although computer applications, including programming environments, are increasingly accessible to people with disabilities, or accessible in conjunction with assistive technologies (screenreaders, for example), some including OUBuild remain very difficult or impossible for VI students to interact with directly because of their fundamentally visual nature (Siegfried, 2006).
Hence until now VI students have typically needed a specialist sighted helper physically present alongside them to help navigate the TM111 OUBuild-based teaching materials, for almost all of their study of the programming teaching, across a study period spanning nearly two months. The sighted helper typically interacts with the programming environment as instructed by the student, describing the results to the student.
The processes involved in arranging physically-present support from an IT-literate specialist sighted helper can be complex and lengthy. In the current lockdown this model of support is impossible so emergency measures have been put into place for three VI students on TM111 20D, in which a helper will support these students remotely, using synchronous online communications software. This is new territory necessitated by an unprecedented situation but worth documenting and exploring since, even when lockdown restrictions end, remote support may be considerably easier to facilitate than physically-present support.
We expect the outcomes of the project to help support future VI students on TM111. They may also be of interest to those involved in supporting VI students in other academic areas where sighted helper support is required to navigate visually complex teaching materials.
Richard Walker project poster
References:
Siegfried, R.M. (2006) Visual Programming and the Blind: The Challenge and the Opportunity https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/1124706.1121427