E-learning Design for Visually Impaired Students

Abstract

Some of the most common problems faced by students with serious vision impairment bring in inaccessibility of web sites. The guidelines for web accessibility for the visually impaired are not specific enough for the effective design of learning materials for the vision impaired. Additional teaching aids created specifically for vision impaired students are necessary to ensure the students understand the concepts being taught. This paper describes the development of an available e-learning environment to bring advanced IT network curriculum to visually impaired students. The program involves a virtual classroom, accessible learning materials, a remote computer laboratory, and delivery of the learning materials by trained instructors. Cisco Program course in advanced IT was improved, and the accessible on-line learning environment was developed to supply the courses. Trained instructors were used to assist with the design of accessible methods and provided the materials to the visually impaired students. The project has been operational for two years with an experimental project being conducted over two-year period in the School of Design of IADE, followed by the delivery of the courses both local and remote visually impaired students across Portugal using this available e-learning environment. Estimate results shows that vision impaired students situated both locally and remotely got equivalent grades to their sighted students, because of additional time to comprehend and experiment via the virtual classroom and remote computer laboratory. In addition, the use of trained instructors has resulted in more innovative approaches to available teaching methods and the successful of the program.

Keywords: Visually impaired, accessibility, e-learning

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1007275