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Blocks4All: making block programming languages accessible for blind children

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Lauren R. MilneAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGACCESS Accessibility and Computing, Issue 117

Pages 26 - 29

https://doi.org/10.1145/3051519.3051525

Published: 09 February 2017 Publication History

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Abstract

Block programming languages, such as Scratch and Blockly, are being used as to introduce children to programming, but because they rely heavily on visual aspects, blind children are being left behind their peers in access to computer science education. We propose finding new techniques to make these types of programs accessible to blind children. We plan to use an iterative design process to create a web-based application on a touchscreen laptop, where children can synthesize music using different instruments and recordings of themselves. We plan to work with students at a local school to test and refine initial prototypes in a workshop setting. We will then evaluate the final prototype in a longitudinal study with students: collecting the programs that they create over a two-week period, and conducting observations and interviews throughout that period in order to evaluate Blocks4All.

References

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Cited By

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Smith JMcGill MStephenson BStone JBattestilli LRebelsky SShoop L(2024)The Landscape of Disability-Related K-12 Computing Education ResearchProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 210.1145/3626253.3635552(1820-1821)Online publication date: 14-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3626253.3635552
Amaral ÂAparecida Paris Baston CBorges M(2024)Assistive Toolkit for Teaching Programming to Visually Impaired ChildrenHCI International 2024 – Late Breaking Posters10.1007/978-3-031-78561-0_12(119-127)Online publication date: 30-Dec-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-78561-0_12
Do Nascimento MBrandão ADe Oliveira Brandão LCasal T(2023)Towards iVProg4All: An Accessibility Test with Blind2023 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE58773.2023.10343224(01-05)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE58773.2023.10343224
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Blocks4All: making block programming languages accessible for blind children
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs

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Blocks4All: Overcoming Accessibility Barriers to Blocks Programming for Children with Visual Impairments
CHI '18: Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Blocks-based programming environments are a popular tool to teach children to program, but they rely heavily on visual metaphors and are therefore not fully accessible for children with visual impairments. We evaluated existing blocks-based environments ...
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Blocks-based programming environments, such as Scratch and Blockly, are designed to make learning programming easier for young children. They are increasingly being used for both formal and informal curriculum, such as many of Code.org's hour of code ...
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Block-based programming environments such as Scratch are designed to make programming easier to learn for both children and adults. Unfortunately, these environments rely so heavily on visual features that they are inaccessible to people who are blind ...

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cover image ACM SIGACCESS Accessibility and Computing

ACM SIGACCESS Accessibility and Computing Just Accepted

January 2017

36 pages

ISSN:1558-2337

EISSN:1558-1187

DOI:10.1145/3051519

Editor:
Hugo Nicolau

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Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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Published: 09 February 2017

Published in SIGACCESS , Issue 117

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Smith JMcGill MStephenson BStone JBattestilli LRebelsky SShoop L(2024)The Landscape of Disability-Related K-12 Computing Education ResearchProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 210.1145/3626253.3635552(1820-1821)Online publication date: 14-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3626253.3635552
Amaral ÂAparecida Paris Baston CBorges M(2024)Assistive Toolkit for Teaching Programming to Visually Impaired ChildrenHCI International 2024 – Late Breaking Posters10.1007/978-3-031-78561-0_12(119-127)Online publication date: 30-Dec-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-78561-0_12
Do Nascimento MBrandão ADe Oliveira Brandão LCasal T(2023)Towards iVProg4All: An Accessibility Test with Blind2023 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE58773.2023.10343224(01-05)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE58773.2023.10343224
Okafor O(2022)Helping Students with Upper Limb Motor Impairments Program in a Block-Based Programming Environment Using Voiceundefined10.12794/metadc1985949Online publication date: Aug-2022
https://doi.org/10.12794/metadc1985949
Rocha FGuimarães GGonçalves DPires AAbreu LGuerreiro T(2021)Fostering collaboration with asymmetric roles in accessible programming environments for children with mixed-visual-abilitiesProceedings of the 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3441852.3476553(1-4)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3441852.3476553
Wu ZYu CXu XWei TZou TWang RShi YKitamura YQuigley AIsbister KIgarashi TBjørn PDrucker S(2021)LightWrite: Teach Handwriting to The Visually Impaired with A SmartphoneProceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3411764.3445322(1-15)Online publication date: 6-May-2021
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Koushik V(2020)Making block-based programming accessible to people with cognitive disabilitiesACM SIGACCESS Accessibility and Computing10.1145/3386280.3386285(1-1)Online publication date: 2-Mar-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3386280.3386285
Barbareschi GCostanza EHolloway C(2020)TIP-Toy: a tactile, open-source computational toolkit to support learning across visual abilitiesProceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3373625.3417005(1-14)Online publication date: 26-Oct-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3373625.3417005
Koushik VKane SBrewster SFitzpatrick GCox AKostakos V(2019)"It Broadens My Mind"Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3290605.3300744(1-12)Online publication date: 2-May-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3290605.3300744
Koushik VGuinness DKane SBrewster SFitzpatrick GCox AKostakos V(2019)StoryBlocksProceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3290605.3300722(1-12)Online publication date: 2-May-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3290605.3300722
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Blocks4All: Overcoming Accessibility Barriers to Blocks Programming for Children with Visual Impairments

Blocks4All Demonstration: a Blocks-Based Programming Environment for Blind Children

Blocks4All: Making Blocks-Based Programming Languages Accessible for Children with Visual Impairments

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