[Athen] Question for Access technology instructors

[Joshua Hori via athen-list]

There’s also the Accessible Equation Editor<https://www.lakepinesbraille.com/ee/>, which would allow instructors to give them google docs of course content and they can either use braille to read it or a screenreader. The braille output by students would be readable by instructors too. Sam Dooley (the developer) may be able to run the course too.

I think your iPad solution is a great suggestion, but will they know how to use it? Combining it with an AI Advanced Audio feature, which has access to the camera, they could get audio descriptions of what’s around them. Writing something on the whiteboard? Google Gemini will describe it all (ChatGPT summaries the audio descriptions).      

I compared audio descriptions of Gemini and ChatGPT<https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ai-musings-bridging-tactile-chemistry-lecture-audio-joshua-hori-kyglc> back in February on LinkedIn. I already need to update the article as new features have become available.

Best,

Joshua


From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman22.u.washington.edu> on behalf of Karthikeyan, Ramya via athen-list <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Date: Thursday, September 25, 2025 at 12:42 PM
To: Deborah Armstrong <armstrongdeborah at fhda.edu>, Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Question for Access technology instructors

You are correct about the first need being teaching the "teachers" about assistive technology. California School for the Blind has a screen reader training website<https://srt.csb-cde.ca.gov/index.html> which can be used for both instructors and students to train.

There are accessible apps out there, just need to hunt them down..

APH's Braille Buzz<https://www.aph.org/product/braillebuzz-app/> is a great iOS/android app with interesting lessons and activities that might work with this population.

So is APH's Math Robot<https://apps.apple.com/us/app/math-robot/id704570512>, an iOS app.

Once the students are able to handle technology, they will be able to handle books digitally.

Hope that helps!

Best,
Ramya

Ramya Karthikeyan
Alternative Format Specialist
UCLA Center for Accessible Education
310-825-1501 (CAE line)

http://www.cae.ucla.edu/

________________________________
From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman22.u.washington.edu> on behalf of Deborah Armstrong via athen-list <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2025 11:17 AM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: [Athen] Question for Access technology instructors


I work at a college serving academic students.

But we have a community program called Hope for adults with developmental delays. Hope students do a variety of activities to help them become more employable. Many of them involve working on a computer. They read short articles about current events. They make movies. They play online educational games.  They do basic drills in spelling and math. Most of the students are on the education level of a second or third grade child, but being adults, they of course have greater maturity.

Recently the program has been getting more blind students and because the instructors don’t know anything about access technology, they don’t try to teach them how to use the computers, usually iPads and Macs.

But what’s happening is that the blind students are sitting around while the sighted students are doing things on computers.

I keep getting asked to produce Braille for the students, but the teachers don’t understand that not all blind people know Braille. One of the students does read fluently at a third grade reading level and I’ve been giving her children’s books like Henry Huggins and Magic treehouse. She is very articulate and clear about her needs.

But I haven’t figured out what to do with the other blind students. It’s not really my job but I keep getting asked for Braille math drills, Braille news articles, Braille spelling exercises, and when I do supply some Braille, I’m told it was too difficult for them to read. Terms like Grade 1 and Grade 2 and UEB don’t make any sense to teachers who have never worked with the blind.

Have any of you ever taught any access technology skills to adults who learn at a second or third grade level? Should I attempt to teach the instructors enough they can help their students use Macs or iPads, or do you think it won’t work because so much material intended for children that’s online will not be accessible, anyway? Ideally it would be great if we could find a way to integrate them better in to class, especially if it means less work for me. I’m not lazy but I don’t like working on a project that ultimately will fail.

I’m not a TVI and I have no idea what’s involved working with either kids or adults with developmental delays.

--Debee


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