Themes and questions explored

The workshop received contributions in one or more of these themes on education and visual impairment: novel interaction techniques, individual cognition and perception, collaborative learning and inclusion, design and evaluation.

• Novel Interaction Techniques: Researchers are developing increasingly novel interaction techniques that have the potential to support more engaging interactions, and off-the-shelf technology offer more advanced multisensory input and output capabilities. How do we leverage this potential to maximise educational benefits for people with visual impairments?

• Individual Cognition and Perception: sensory substitution studies contribute to our understanding of how the visual parts of the brain process other information in the absence of visual input. Digital interactive tools that introduce novelty and stimulate activity can play a powerful role in creating new neural pathways to support learning processes. How do we leverage this potential to maximise educational benefits for people with visual impairments?

• Collaborative Learning and Inclusion: learners with visual impairments have been entering mainstream education in growing numbers, how should technology-enhanced learning tools and environments be designed in such contexts to address the challenges they face in such settings? How do we design, develop and evaluate collaborative educational tools for learners with with mixed abilities? How can we go beyond assistive technology that only focuses on mitigating a functional limitation in the context of education?

• Design Education and Training: how can we include educators and learners in the process of designing educational technologies that support people with visual impairments? Involving populations with special education needs in design is more complex due to the range of additional support they may have during the design process. At the same time, as with any form of participation in decision-making in society, people with visual impairments have had limited opportunities to influence technology design in the educational context. Thus, how can we create more inclusive methods and co-design tools that help facilitate important dialogue both with learners with visual impairments, and further stakeholders? How can we provide specialized teachers with tools that are easy to adapt to the topic and audience?
• Evaluation: Schools, classrooms and learning environments in general are challenging for evaluation. Thus, new ways need to be explored to prove the value of novel HCI techniques in the educational contexts. How to develop appropriate methods to help evaluate impact on teaching and learning practices? Which criterias should be taken into account, and whose point of views?

Accepted workshop papers

1. Matthew Butler, Leona Holloway, Kim Marriott. Tackling Inclusive Education Through Innovations in Accessible Graphics
2. Alex Hadwen-Bennett, Anja Thieme. Inclusivity of Computing Education for Learners with Visual Impairments
3. Kristen Shinohara. Empowering Visually Impaired Students: Opportunities in Inclusive Education Technologies
4. Brianna J. Tomlinson, Bruce N. Walker, R. Michael Winters, Emily B. Moore, Taliesin Smith. Multimodal STEM Simulations: Design, Development, and Evaluation
5. Vikram Ramanarayanan, Jason White, David Pautler, David Suendermann-Oeft, Rodolfo Long. Leveraging Multimodal Dialog Technology for the Design of Accessible Science Simulations
6. Sooyeon Lee, Mary Beth Rosson, Jordan E. Beck, John M. Carroll, Xiying Wang. Remote Human Assistant Technology: Classroom Learning Accessibility for Children with Visual Impairments
7. Hyunyoung Kim, Céline Coutrix, Mauro Aliva, Anne Roudaut, Thomas Kosch. Using Shape-Changing Interfaces to Foster Inclusive Education for Visually Impaired People
8. Reeti Mathur, Erin Brady. Opportunities for Individual, Collaborative, & Community Accessibility on E-Learning Platforms
9. Doon MacDonald, Anja Thieme. A Voice-First Approach To Educational Technology: Opportunities And Challenges For Inclusive Design
10. Oussama Metatla, Clare Cullen, Taimur Ahmed. Aliens, Tangibles & Chatbots: Co-designing Inclusive Educational Technologies with and for Children with Mixed-Visual Abilities