Abstract
the purpose of this study was to examine whether visually impaired students can build educational robots and program them if they receive adapted materials and instructions with guided instruction from well-trained educators in the fields of inclusive STEM Classrooms. Discussion of the technologies and our experimental approach is presented in this paper and validated through the continued successful effort with visually impaired students for two years of the program and specialists in the field of visual impairment and STEAM, we also validated our approach by performing experimental classes for students with different visual impairments and ages. The results indicated that the approach used by BASAER team was successful in enabling the blind and visually impaired students to build and program educational robotics and to participate effectively in national and international STEAM programs and competitions, with some limitations and Challenges encountered and explored during this research. The results from this study will be used to suggest a fully adapted system to support full inclusion for blind and visually impaired students in educational robots in STEAM context and to promote the adoption of this study and similar studies toward Inclusive STEM Classrooms.
Highlights
Impaired and blind students need exposure to real-world situations and to be provided with such opportunities from an early age to remain competitive in the world of science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics (STEAM) [1]
BASAER team efforts differ from other related projects in its attempt to engage Visually Impaired students by focusing on accessible resources for robot building and programming plus educator training and awareness
An experimental project was launched under the name of BASAER team in order to advance the development of blind and visually impaired students' abilities to build and program robots, and in order to answer the question of whether Visually Impaired students can build and program educational robots, this experimental approach has five steps: 1. Determining problems 2
Summary
Impaired and blind students need exposure to real-world situations and to be provided with such opportunities from an early age to remain competitive in the world of science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics (STEAM) [1]. The education community needs to develop new and exciting learning models for teachers who work with blind or visually impaired students, bringing these students closer to real-world scenarios to expose them to careers in science and technology. BASAER team efforts differ from other related projects in its attempt to engage Visually Impaired students by focusing on accessible resources for robot building and programming plus educator training and awareness. This project aimed to provide engineering and computing content via robotics as a delivery mechanism while providing infrastructure to engage Visually Impaired students in STEAM classes. The first step was Researching the literature for studies and analyses of similar projects, The second step was to search for educational Robotic technologies available on the market that would facilitate teaching Visually Impaired students or could be modified to facilitate such training, The third step was to provide the educators of this program with the specialized training they required, The fourth step was to create a modified hands-on curriculum for introducing robot building to visually impaired students that engages them in the engineering design necessary to accomplish the program objectives, In the fifth step, current educational programming software and interfaces were investigated and compared so that Visually Impaired students could access robotic programming activities, the sixth step entails the development, implementation, evaluation, and refinement of BASAER project in collaboration with the Blind Academy for the Visually Impaired and the Ministry of Education
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