ADAPTIVE TECHNOLOGY FOR THE VISUALLY IMPAIRED IN GEOSCIENCE

The teaching of the sciences to students involves not only vision but also the use of hands-on manipulatives in order for them to gain better knowledge of the subject area being taught. Students with visual impairments have been at a disadvantage in the past due to the limited number of resources available to them for the conceptualization of visual graphs, diagrams and charts that are used in teaching science. Using technology now available, the visually impaired students are at much less of a disadvantaged on this point. Through the use of the of computer hardware and software programs that convert diagrams, figures and charts to tactile images the visually impaired student is on a learning level comparable to the students without vision impairment.

One such piece of equipment that is used to do these conversions is the Tiger Advantage Tactile Graphics Embosser by ViewPlus Technologies, used in conjunction with Microsoft Word, and graphics software. Diagrams, figures and charts are produced or scanned from existing printed material, then manipulated using graphics programs such as Microsoft Paint or Adobe PhotoShop to simplify the drawings. The drawing is then imported into a Microsoft Word document, text boxes placed on the graphic where needed for placement of text, and then embossed (Brailled) using the Tiger Advantage Tactile Graphics Embosser. A recent upgrade to the Tiger Advantage enables graphics to be printed in 3-dimension. The visually impaired student can detect differences in height as well as texture using the 3-dimension when to the image is embossed at different levels of dots. Presenters will include the producer of these graphics and one user of them, a geology major who is blind. Examples of the graphics will be available for viewing.