I-Corps: Real-Time Graphical Presentation for Visually Impaired STEM Students

视障（VI）学生在学习科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）课程中高度视觉化的内容时面临挑战，这些课程使用的非视觉技术只能描绘有限的细节，无法实时呈现。尽管越来越多的VI个人寻求更高的教育经历，但只有不到三分之一的人获得了高中文凭。这种情况在STEM领域被夸大了，在这些领域中，许多内容严重依赖于可视化呈现的图形信息。这些不幸的事件并不是因为VI个体不能取得高的学术成就，而是因为他们所获得的技术和资源不足。随后，人们迫切需要一种便携的、可刷新的、通过非视觉反馈的图形信息实时显示设备，这种设备可以很容易地集成到教室环境中。这个学习团队项目旨在评估基于触摸屏的教育课程的商业可行性、市场潜力和技术影响，这些课程将通过视觉、听觉和振动反馈实现实时图形信息的呈现。拟议中的创新利用了商业上可用的触摸屏和以Android应用程序形式创建的定制软件，将屏幕上显示的视觉内容转换为可以感知（通过振动）和听到（通过声音）的内容。提出的创新有可能弥合这一技术差距，并为VI学生开辟这些新的学习机会。这项工作中的基础设施和软件将促进一个转变的课堂，在这个课堂中，患有VI的学生可以通过触摸屏与他们的视力正常的同龄人和小学课堂老师进行实时的独立互动。每个学生都有一个触摸屏，可以与同学和老师的触摸屏（或智能板或笔记本电脑）无线联网。当老师在他或她的输入设备上画一个图形或数字时，同样的图像会立即以多模态的方式“出现”在所有学生的触摸屏上。虽然视力正常的学生可能主要使用视觉显示的信息，但具有VI的学生可以利用振动和/或听觉反馈（使用耳机）来探索图形内容。这项工作为以Android应用程序的形式创建基于触摸屏的教育课程奠定了基础，这些应用程序将(1)满足客户对便携式、多模式、实时图形信息展示平台的需求，(2)通过使用现有硬件实现课堂集成，(3)通过在线应用程序市场的分发鼓励广泛采用。这项工作的影响不仅将解决VI学生（STEM中代表性明显不足的人群）图形信息传递的几个障碍，而且还将为创建一个通用设计的、以学习者为中心的触摸屏框架奠定基础，该框架可能使所有人受益，提高保真度，并在我们的指尖创造新的学习维度。

Visually impaired (VI) students are challenged with learning highly visual content in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) courses using nonvisual technologies that portray only limited details and cannot be presented in real-time. Though there is a rising number of VI individuals seeking higher educational experiences, just under a third have attained a high school diploma. This situation is exaggerated in STEM fields, where much of the content relies heavily on graphical information presented visually. These unfortunate events are not due to VI individuals being incapable of high academic achievement, but rather, due to inadequate technologies and resources provided to them. Subsequently, there exists a dire need for a portable, refreshable real-time display of graphical information via nonvisual feedback that can be easily integrated within a classroom setting. This Innovation Corps for Learning Team project aims to assess the commercial viability, market potential, and technological impact of touchscreen-based educational curriculum that will enable real-time graphical information presentation through visual, auditory, and vibratory feedback. The proposed innovation leverages commercially available touchscreens and custom software created in the form of Android applications to translate visual content displayed on-screen into content that can be felt (through vibrations) and heard (through sound). The proposed innovation has the potential to bridge this technological gap and open up these new learning opportunities for VI students. The infrastructure and software in this work will promote a transformed classroom in which students with VI are independently interacting with their sighted peers and primary classroom teacher, in real-time via touchscreens. Each student would have a touchscreen that is wirelessly networked to their peers' and teacher's touchscreens (or smart board or laptop). As the teacher draws a graph or figure on his or her input device, this same image will immediately "appear," in a multimodal sense, on all of the students' touchscreens. While sighted students may primarily use the visual display of the information, students with VI can leverage vibratory and/or auditory feedback (using headphones) to explore the graphical content. This work lays the foundation for the creation of touchscreen-based educational curriculum in the form of Android applications that will (1) meet the customer need of a portable, multimodal, real-time platform for graphical information presentation, (2) enable classroom integration through the use of existing hardware, and (3) encourage widespread adoption through distribution in online application markets. The impacts of this work will not only address several barriers of graphical information transfer for VI students (a significantly underrepresented population in STEM), but will also lay the foundation for the creation of a universally-designed, learner-centered framework for touchscreens that may benefit all people, enhancing the fidelity and creating new dimensions of learning right at our fingertips.