Several governments,
especially in the developing countries, where disabilities identification and
care are sometimes neglected, are investing computational solutions applied to
the learning process in all levels of school. There are several different
approaches being developed, and we will concentrate the scope of this work in
Tablet PCs, since there are strong indications that this device is contributing
to a better learning, when applied accordingly.
One particular success case is the excellent Classroom
Presenter software. Our solution for the competition is an extended version of
this software that contains several enhancements focused on the proposal’s
disabilities. In this abstract we are going to briefly discuss the enhancements
made to Classroom Presenter, and present how the usage of our solution can help
the students with disabilities.
Imagine a typical lecture using the active and
collaborative learning features Classroom Presenter provides, where students
are meant to send their solutions to problems proposed by the instructor. It is
mentioned in specialized literature that classes with more than 8 students, the
professor may have a hard time correcting them all. So, in this case the
instructor may miss some cases of learning difficulties caused by several sorts
of problems. We propose a solution where student’s exercises are organized in a
sort of Spiral Mode, according to a measure of similarity with a template. Answers
closer to the center of the spiral indicate that this solution slide is closer
to the template than others away from the center. This feature enables the
instructor to quickly identify students that are having problem in solving the
exercises, and it is connected to another feature that maps the class’
students, so the instructor is able to give individual attention to that
student. So, this feature helps identifying students with learning problems,
including those with disabilities.
In case of
vision impairment we provide a magnifier tool, which follows the instructor pen,
while he is writing or even allows the student to control it, and this
magnified view is displayed to the student. Also, we allow him to zoom in and
out the slide he is working on.
For others impairments, such as
learning and communication difficulties, we use a feature that allows the
instructor to record a video from his lecture in a screen cast format. This
content is made available to students, so they can study and review the
material presented in the lecture at their own pace. For students with hearing
difficulties we use speech to text tools to provide them with subtitles, both
at real time and in the screen cast generated. The important fact is that the
students have the opportunity to study a material taught by their own teacher at
lectures they attended, and not a pre-recorded and generic lecture.