Українська   Русский
DonNTU   Masters' portal

Development and research of adaptive system of teaching people with limited eyesight

Contents

Introduction

For a long period of time in our country disabled people have had an opportunity to study only at special educational institutions corresponding to specific character of the disease. As a rule, the process of education of disabled people is limited either by frames of studying at school or by vocational training institutions which have a small range of proposed professions and occupations. Nowadays one of the main goals of modern society is becoming humane attitude to disabled people. It means that these people as well as healthy ones have the same right to get good education.

Taking into consideration achievements in sphere of typhlopedagogy it is necessary to work out the adaptive educational system for visually impaired people. Thus with the help of personal computers to involve them into socially useful activity by means of creation of equal with other citizens possibilities for taking part in life of modern society.

1. Relevance of the adaptive teaching system development for visually impaired people

Due to the social politics of our state towards disabled people which is more directed at their active involving into socially useful activity it is very important to provide visually impaired people with infrastructure by means of PC.

One of the progressive directions in the adaptive educational system development is programmed teaching. Programmed teaching is teaching with the help of special programmed textbooks. While teaching visually impaired people it is very useful to measure and strengthen knowledge they have got. It is possible with the help of specially prepared texts [1–7].

2. Analogues for training with a PC

2.1 Jaws (screen reader)

Jaws (job access with speech) is a computer screen reader program for microsoft windows that allows blind and visually impaired users to read the screen either with a text–to–speech output or by a refreshable braille display.

Jaws is produced by the blind and low vision group of freedom scientific, st. Petersburg, florida, usa.a may 2012 screen reader user survey by webaim, a web accessibility company, found jaws to be the most popular screen reader worldwide; 49.1% of survey participants used it as a primary screen reader, while 63.7% of participants used it often. Jaws supports all versions of windows released since windows XP. There are two versions of the program: standard, which works on home windows operating systems, and retails for us $895, and professional, which works on all windows operating systems, and retails for us $1,095. a dos version, sometimes also known as jdos, is free. The jaws scripting language allows the user to use programs without standard windows controls, and programs that were not designed for accessibility [8–9].

2.2 Function VoiceOver

Voiceover — voiceover is a feature of ipods and iphones that allows the device to speak the names of onscreen menus and other items to the user. It was introduced with the third–generation pod shuffle.

Voiceover is a featured designed to make ipods usable for customers with visual impairments who can't see onscreen menus. It offers a default, computer–sounding voice. However, a preference allows users to choose more human–sounding voices installed on their computers to read the menus.

Beyond reading the contents of the screen to users, voiceover also allows users with visual impairments to interact with ios devices via gesture combinations. More detail about these gestures can be found at apple's accessibility page [10].

2.3 NVDA (Non Visual Desktop Access)

NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) is a free, open source, portable screen reader for Microsoft Windows. The project was started by Michael Curran in 2006. The latest stable version is 2014.

NVDA is programmed in Python. It currently works exclusively with accessibility APIs such as Microsoft Active Accessibility, IAccessible2 and the Java Access Bridge, rather than using specialized video drivers to "intercept" and interpret visual information. It is licensed under the GNU General Public License.

History. In April 2006, concerned with high cost of existing screen readers, Michael Curran began writing a Python-based screen reader with Microsoft SAPI as its speech engine. It provided support for Microsoft Windows 2000 onwards, and provided basic screen reading capabilities such as basic support for some third–party software and web browsing. Towards end of 2006, Curran named his project Nonvisual Desktop Access (NVDA) and release version 0.5 the following year. Throughout 2008 and 2009, several versions of 0.6 appeared, featuring enhanced web browsing, support for more programs and braille display output, as well as number of supported languages grew. To manage continued development of NVDA, Curran, along with James Teh, founded NV access in 2007.

NvDA's features and popularity continued to grow towards end of 2000's and into early 2010's. 2009 saw NvDA supporting 64-bit versions of Windows, NvDA became more stable in 2010 and major code restructuring to support third–party modules, coupled with basic support for Windows 8 became available in 2011. Throughout 2012, NvDA gained improved support for Windows 8, ability to perform automatic updates, included add–ons manager to manage third–party add–ons, improved support for entering CJK characters and introduced touchscreen support, the first of its kind for third–party screen readers for Windows. NVDA gained support for Microsoft Powerpoint in 2013 and was updated in 2014 to support Powerpoint 2013. Also in 2013, NV Access introduced restructured way for reviewing screen text and introduced a facility to manage profiles for applications, and added enhanced ARIA support in 2014.

Features and accessibility API support[edit]. NVDA uses eSpeak as its integrated speech synthesizer, and also supports SAPI synthesizers.Output to Braille displays is supported officially from Version 0.6p3 onwards.

Besides general Windows functionality, NVDA works with software such as Microsoft office applications, WordPad, Notepad, Internet Explorer, google chrome, etc. It supports the basic functions of Outlook Express, Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Excel. Support for the free office suites LibreOffice and OpenOffice.org requires the Java Access Bridge package. NVDA also supports Mozilla Firefox (version 3 or higher).

Since early 2009, NVDA supports the WAI–ARIA standard for Accessible Rich Internet Applications, so that in the future, web applications can be better used by blind users. Support for email is provided with Mozilla Thunderbird version 3 or higher [11–13].

3. Main ways to check the knowledge of the adaptive teaching visually impaired people

3.1 Checking the knowledge of blind with the help of testing

The research undertaken proved that the main way to check the knowledge of the adaptive teaching is testing. That is why it is very important to include them into the adaptive educational system for visually impaired people.

While working out tests for visually impaired people two moments should be taken into consideration:

3.2 Basic methods of working out tests for visually impaired people

Test composing starts with aim formulating depending on learners, course, occupation, degree of subject learning, forms of control (incoming, intermediate, border, final) etc. The best is considered the test in which more important and key elements in the structure of knowledge are distinguished [19].

While working out tests it is necessary to use the following types of questions:

Principles of teaching material selection for visually impaired people are given below. Depending on the working programme of the subject according to the level of learning it is possible to define the structure of teaching material selected for tests working out.

3.3 Computer–visually impaired people interaction

The structure of the adaptive educational system for visually impaired people contains three main conceptions of the alternative access to screen information:

The structure of computer–visually impaired people interaction.

Conclusion

To sum up this research it should be said that the adaptive teaching system for visually impaired people is directly a source of rehabilitation and involving them into socially useful activity with other citizens.

To achieve great results in teaching visually impaired people it is very important to keep the principles of teaching material selection, follow the steps of tests working out clearly. It is also necessary to use the right conseption of the alternative access to screen information depending on the type of visual impairment.

In writing this essay master's work is not yet complete. Final completion: December 2014. Full text of the work and materials on the topic can be obtained from the author or his manager after that date.

References

  1. Медынский Е. Н. Воспитание и обучение слепых и глухонемых людей / Е.Н. Медынский . – М.: Мир, 2004. – 231 с.
  2. Малых Р.Ф. Обучение слепых и слабовидящих школьников / Р.Ф. Малых. – СПб.: РГПУ, 2004. – 160 с.
  3. Солнцева Л.И Психолого–педагогические основы обучения слепых детей ориентированию в пространстве и мобильности / Л.И. Солнцева, Л.А. Семенов. – М.: ВОС, 2000. – 80 с.
  4. Солнцева В.П. Обучение студентов с нарушением зрения / В.П. Солнцева. – М.: 2006. – 72 с.
  5. Выготский Л.С. Избранные психологические исследования / Л.С. Выготский. – СПб.: Мир, 2001. – 150 с.
  6. Германов М.М. Луи Брайль и письменность слепых / М.М. Германов. – СПб.: РГПУ, 2002. – 241 с.
  7. Челышкова М.Б. Теория и практика конструирования педагогических тестов: учебное пособие / М.Б. Челышкова. – М.: Логос, 2002. – 432 с.
  8. Информация о VoiceOver [Electronic resource]. – Access mode: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/VoiceOver
  9. Информация о VoiceOver [Electronic resource]. – Access mode: https://www.apple.com/ru/accessibility/osx/voiceover/
  10. Информация о JAWS [Electronic resource]. – Access mode: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/JAWS
  11. Информация о NVDA [Electronic resource]. – Access mode: http://ru.nvda-community.org/
  12. Стернина Э.М. Теория и методика обучения слепых и слабовидящих людей / Э.М. Стернина. – Л.: ЛГПИ, 2000. – 197 с.
  13. Пальтов А.Е. Система технических средств обучения детей с тяжелыми поражениями зрения / Пальтов. – Л.: ЛГПИ, 2006. – 295 с.
  14. Рубахин В.Ф. Психологические основы обработки первичной информации / В.Ф. Рубахин. – Л.: 2006. – 296 с.
  15. Тамар Г.О. Основы сенсорной физиологии / Г.О. Тамар. – М.: Мир, 2004. – 164 с.
  16. Герцена А.И. Теоретические и методические вопросы обучения слепых и слабовидящих / А.И. Герцена. – Л.: ЛГПИ, 1999. – 94 с.
  17. Шоев Ф.И. Как обучать грамоте слепого / Ф.И. Шоев. – Л.: ЛГПИ, 2003. – 194 с.
  18. Особенности учебной и трудовой деятельности при глубоких нарушениях зрения / Межвуз. Сб., Л.: ЛГПИ, 1998. – 102 с.
  19. Сеногноева Н.А. Технология конструирования тестов учебной деятельности как средства оценивания результатов обучения: Диссертация на соиск. уч. степ. доктора пед. наук. – Киров, 2006. – 403 с.
  20. Романов Г.М. Человек и дисплей / Г.М. Романов. – Л.: ЛГПИ, 2008. – 102 с.