Collaborative Research: BPC-DP: Building an Educational Infrastructure for Students at K-12 Schools for the Blind to Broaden Participation in Computing

南伊利诺伊大学爱德华兹维尔分校和华盛顿州立大学提议开发一种新的K-12教育基础设施，旨在增加盲人在中学以及最终在本科计算机课程和软件工程专业的参与度。在计算机编程方面，与视力正常的人相比，盲人和视障人士处于显著的劣势。计算机编程是一项高度可视化的任务，现代编程工具几乎完全是为有视力的用户设计的。此外，盲人学校的计算机课程几乎不存在；那些能够进入计算机专业的少数盲人基本上是自学的。这是一种不幸的状况，因为计算机编程为盲人提供了一个可以探索的丰富世界--一个可能通过精心设计的听觉线索就能到达的世界--以及一条有利可图的职业道路。拟议的项目将与五所K-12盲人学校和一个由成功的盲人程序员组成的导师委员会合作，开发并经验性地评估新的盲人教育基础设施。它有三个关键组成部分。第一个是为盲人的特殊需求量身定做的新型听觉编程环境。第二个是基于工作室的新计算课程，让学生参与构建、定制和共享听觉虚拟世界，目标是教授计算机编程技能，并激励学生将计算作为一种职业。第三个是一个盲人访问的基于网络的社区门户网站，旨在促进同伴指导和支持，并为学生提供与克服视力障碍并在计算机专业取得成功的榜样互动的机会。拟议的项目将解决两个重要的研究问题：如何通过由基于音频的编程环境、专业课程和基于网络的社区门户组成的计算教育基础设施，使计算机编程这项高度可视化、认知复杂的任务对初中和高中盲人学生既容易获得又有吸引力？如何才能最好地设计这样的计算机教育基础设施，以促进K-12盲人学校广泛采用它们，并扩大盲人人口对计算机的参与？

Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville and Washington State University propose to develop a new educational K-12 infrastructure aimed at increasing the participation of blind individuals in secondary schools, and ultimately in undergraduate computing programs and the software engineering profession. When it comes to computer programming, blind and visually impaired individuals are at a significant disadvantage compared to their sighted counterparts. Computer programming is a highly visual task, and modern programming tools are designed almost exclusively for sighted users. Moreover, computing curricula at schools for the blind are nearly non-existent; those rare blind individuals who are able to enter the computing profession are largely self-taught. This is an unfortunate state of affairs, as computer programming offers the blind population both a rich world to explore -- one that is potentially accessible through carefully designed auditory cues -- and a lucrative career path. The proposed project, in collaboration with five K-12 schools for the blind and a mentorship board of successful blind programmers, will develop and empirically evaluate a new educational infrastructure for the blind. It has three key components. The first is a novel auditory programming environment tailored to the special needs of the blind. The second is a new studio-based computing curriculum that engages students in the construction, customization, and sharing of auditory virtual worlds with the goals of teaching computer programming skills and inspiring students to consider computing as a career. The third is a blind-accessible, web-based community portal designed to facilitate peer mentoring and support, and to provide opportunities for students to interact with role models who have overcome their visual impairment and succeeded in the computing profession. The proposed project will address two significant research questions: How can the highly-visual, cognitively complex task of computer programming be made both accessible and engaging to middle and high school blind students through computing education infrastructure consisting of an audio-based programming environment, specialized curriculum, and web-based community portal? And how can a such a computing education infrastructure be best designed so as both to facilitate their wide-scale adoption by K-12 schools for the blind and to broaden the participation of the blind population in computing?