Developing inclusive outreach activities for students with visual impairments

Abstract

Despite advances in assistive technology, relatively few visually impaired students participate in university-level computing courses. Significant factors in this under representation include lack of relevant precollege preparation, lack of role models, access to resources, and the highly visual nature of modern computing. This paper describes the development of inclusive activities and materials for use in a summer workshop for precollege students with visual impairments. All activities utilized commercial technologies in the areas of robotics and programming using Lego Mindstorms NXT. The workshop activities are designed to provide a foundation in computing that encourages students to pursue computing in high school and beyond. In addition to activity design, initial results and lessons learned from the summer workshop will be presented.