A Free Program for Using and Teaching An Accessible Electronic Wayfinding Device

Abstract

Accessible Global Positioning Systems (GPS) are changing the way many people with visual impairments (that is, those who are blind or have low vision) travel. GPS provides real-time orientation information so that a traveler with a visual impairment can make informed decisions about path of travel and destination. Orientation and mobility (O&M) specialists are often asked to teach their clients how to use GPS. Finding the time and resources to learn new technology, however, can be challenging. O&M specialists are often juggling large caseloads and have limited budgets for professional development. Although accessible GPS is becoming a commonly used orientation tool in the field of visual impairment, many O&M instructors are unsure of how to include GPS in daily travel problem-solving processes or how to request training in its use. To help meet this need, staff members of the California School for the Blind have created a free curriculum guide, Finding Your Way: A Curriculum for Teaching and Using the BrailleNote with Sendero GPS. The curriculum was designed for O&M instructors who want to learn how to use the Sendero GPS with BrailleNote and then teach it to their students. It can also be used by consumers who wish to teach themselves GPS skills. The curriculum was born from a partnership between Maya Delgado Greenberg, an O&M specialist, and Jerry Kuns, an assistive technology specialist, the two authors of this piece. By applying a practical understanding of real-time orientation needs, the team dis covered and developed strategies to make learning the BrailleNote GPS fun and successful. They made notes on experimental lessons that worked well and recorded areas that could be improved. They put their final observations together to create a framework of successful lesson plans and teaching tools for GPS. The authors now do outreach and training to other O&M Specialists who want to learn how to teach the BrailleNote GPS to their clients. PURPOSE Finding Your Way is designed to address the needs of many O&M instructors who do not know braille, how to use a BrailleNote, or even exactly what GPS is. The curriculum is broken into short chapters that introduce new categories of GPS skills. Each chapter contains a description of selected GPS functions, vocabulary lists, keystroke summaries, suggested activities, a worksheet, and a quiz. There are accompanying small portable keystroke summary cheat for each chapter that can be used as a memory aid in the field. The curriculum and the summary sheets can be downloaded for free from the California School for the Blind website at . DESIGN The curriculum addresses the many ways in which accessible GPS can be applied to teaching and reinforcing O&M skills. For example, GPS can be used to introduce cardinal directions and address systems to preschool and elementary students. GPS can be used to help students search for nearby businesses and then locate addresses and phone numbers before making travel plans or paratransit appointments. High school and college students can use GPS to map their way around sprawling outdoor campuses in only a few O&M lessons. A sample GPS lesson might focus on helping a student, Carla (a pseudonym), learn how to use the GPS route function to travel from her house to her new job at a nearby restaurant named Sweet Tomatoes. The lesson would begin in Carla's living room with the instructor using the curriculum as a reference while talking Carla through the steps to search for Sweet Tomatoes in the Sendero with BrailleNote GPS database. After virtually locating the restaurant, the O&M instructor shows Carla how to create a vehicle route to her destination. While still relaxing in her living room, they use the GPS to review the route together, discussing the major streets to be traveled and the general shape of the route. …