Technology Class For Blind and Low Vision Students

Project Summary

As the Rotary Club of Bostanlı with the support of the Rotary International Foundation,  we aim to create a technology class for individuals with low vision or no vision due to complete or partial loss of vision, and to contribute all the possibilities of the computer to the education of these individuals.

Within the scope of our project "Accessing Information is Important Also for Me", our aim is primarily to establish an alternative, up-to-date and effective education system for visually impaired individuals in school period to access information and to make this system reach the maximum number of users.

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According to OECD-EU and Turkey data, approximately 15% of the world's population consists of individuals with disabilities. In other words, there are 1 billion disabled people in the world. For this reason, they are characterized as the “largest minority” in the world. In Turkey, the rate of disabled individuals is 11% according to the National Disability Database (However, according to unofficial figures, it is thought that there are disabled individuals at the level of 13%). Visually impaired individuals constitute a significant proportion of the disabled people in our country.

Visually impaired people, like other individuals, need access to information for reasons such as education, lifelong learning, participation in business and social life and similar reasons. The three most important features of information are universality, shareability and accessibility.

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The most important requirement of today's information epoch is to create a common society where all users can always access information in any environment, and to eliminate their advantages or weaknesses arising from differences such as the elderly and disabled, regardless of user differences. Every individual living in the society has the right to benefit from opportunities and opportunities equally. Visually impaired people, like other individuals, need access to information in different areas of their lives such as education, employment, lifelong learning, participation in economic and social life. Visually impaired people also have all the rights that other individuals must benefit from the opportunities required by the information age. Visually impaired individuals experience various problems in accessing the information they need. These individuals can only overcome these problems with the help of another person.

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It is not a problem for a person to be visually impaired, the main problem is the inadequacy of the opportunities provided to that person. It has been proven that when visually impaired people are given sufficient technological opportunities, they can achieve equal success with sighted people in many subjects. The following Fully Equipped Audio/Augmentation/Embossed PlayStation is suggested, which should be in a technology classroom for our visually impaired and low vision students. In this proposed class, students with visual impairments and low vision will be able to do their education with this workstation, as if they were sighted alone, without any help from anyone. In this classroom, visually impaired students will be able to read their books on their own, do research on the internet, connect to other libraries and access domestic and foreign resources, and download the books they are looking for in both audio and text formats, both with audio and with enlargement and at the same time with braille alphabet. They can listen and record. In addition, they will be able to do everything that anyone who sees with all the possibilities of the computer can do on their own, without needing anyone.