For more information
Robert Panoff, rpanoff@shodor.org
Robert Gotwals, gotwals@shodor.org

While organizations such as the Trace Center at the University of Wisconsin (see related article) are exploring ways to make computing and the information available on the Web directly accessible to blind users, a project of the Shodor Education Foundation, Inc., applies distance learning to train teachers, braillists, parents, and others who work with visually impaired persons in the technologies, techniques, and tools of braille writing and transcribing.

"Educators, producers of braille materials, parents, and other specialists need skills in a variety of braille codes," says Robert Gotwals, a computational science educator at Shodor, who is the project manager of the Braille through Remote Learning (BRL) project. "Written materials can be read independently by persons with severe visual impairments only if the materials are in a tactile reading medium, which is braille."

To become braille literate, they need instruction in various codes that fall under the braille umbrella, but there has been a persistent shortage of qualified personnel to teach these codes. In 1991, it was estimated that 1,400 certified teaching positions serving blind and visually impaired children went unfilled. Finding qualified instructors is further complicated by the fact that there are separate braille codes for literature, math, foreign languages, music, and computers.

ADDRESSING THE NEEDS OF AN UNDERSERVED POPULATION

Through distance learning, the BRL course hopes to remove barriers that may keep individuals from studying to become braille instructors. Participants in BRL complete courses in introduction to braille, braille transcription, and specialized codes in braille, all of which are delivered over the Web free of charge. In conjunction with the North Carolina Central University and the Governor Moreland School for the Blind--collaborators on the project--students can take the course for university credit or continuing education units, or they can opt for a version intended for personal or professional development. "Significantly, the students complete the course at their own pace and on their own time," says Gotwals.

The course is intended primarily for sighted participants, and relies heavily on graphics. However, understanding that some nonsighted individuals may also wish to participate, the site is compatible with speech readers and other accessibility software packages. For example, all of the course pages run through "Bobby" (see page 36), an online service that evaluates Web pages for compatibility with various accessibility software packages and Web browsers.

"Students with visual impairments are illiterate without braille skills, and cannot reach their full potential," says Gotwals. "Distance learning helps us create a geographically distributed population of qualified and up-to-date braille teachers and producers of braille materials."

"Every schoolchild must be educated for a productive and contributory place in an advanced information age...We must believe in all children so that they learn to believe in themselves." --Rita Colwell, NSF Director

Access and Inclusion | Touch the Future | EOT-PACI on. This tells some students...that they can't master science and math--that we do not expect them to succeed. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, damning to the student and destructive to