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

视障(VI)学生面临着学习科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)课程中高度可视化的内容的挑战，这些内容使用非可视化技术，仅描述有限的细节，不能实时呈现。尽管寻求高等教育经历的VI个人的数量不断增加，但获得高中文凭的人数略低于三分之一。这种情况在STEM领域被夸大了，那里的许多内容严重依赖于以视觉方式呈现的图形信息。这些不幸的事件并不是由于VI个人没有能力取得很高的学术成就，而是因为向他们提供的技术和资源不足。因此，迫切需要一种便携的、可刷新的图形信息实时显示，其通过非视觉反馈可以容易地集成到课堂环境中。这一创新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，该课程将通过视觉、听觉和振动反馈实现实时图形信息呈现。这项拟议的创新利用商用触摸屏和以Android应用程序形式创建的定制软件，将屏幕上显示的可视内容转换为可以感觉到(通过振动)和可以听到(通过声音)的内容。拟议的创新有可能弥合这一技术差距，并为VI学生打开这些新的学习机会。这项工作中的基础设施和软件将促进一个经过改造的教室，在这个教室里，使用VI的学生可以通过触摸屏实时与他们的视力正常的同龄人和小学课堂教师进行独立互动。每个学生都会有一个触摸屏，可以无线连接到他们的同龄人和老师的触摸屏(或智能板或笔记本电脑)。当老师在他或她的输入设备上绘制图形或图形时，同样的图像将立即以多模式的形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信息的视觉显示，但使用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，这些课程将(1)满足客户对便携式、多模式、实时图形信息呈现平台的需求，(2)通过使用现有硬件实现课堂集成，以及(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为VI学生(STEM中比例严重偏低的人群)解决图形信息传输的几个障碍，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，使所有人都能受益，提高保真度，并在我们指尖创建新的学习维度。

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.