Enhancing Python and Data Science Education for Blind and Visually Impaired Students: Bridging the Accessibility Gap
Computer science education has traditionally posed several challenges for blind and visually impaired learners, often excluding these students and leading to a significant gap in opportunities. From inaccessible code editors to poorly designed documentation, these barriers have long hindered equitable learning.
Today, we'll show you how we made Python programming education accessible to blind and visually impaired students. Over the past year, our initiative has empowered over 140 students with visual impairments to learn Python, leveraging modern tools and innovative approaches to overcome the unique challenges they face.
Speakers
Jeff Bishop
IT Accessibility Consultant
He/Him/His
Jeff Bishop is an IT Accessibility Consultant at the University of Arizona, dedicated to making digital resources accessible to faculty, students, and staff. Passionate about empowering people through technology, Jeff is President of Blind Information Technology Specialists and serves on Arizona’s Governor's Council on Blindness and Low Vision. With over 25 years of experience, including a role as a product manager at Microsoft and extensive software development expertise, Jeff is a leader in the accessibility field. He is committed to community engagement and advancing STEM-related technologies, enabling individuals to embrace innovation and achieve success in every sphere of life.
Ken Perry
Senior Software Engineer
He/Him/His
Ken Perry has been working in Access Technology for 33 years and has been coding for longer. Ken began coding in 7th grade when he received his first computer for his birthday, a Commadore Vic-20. Ken joined the Air Force right out of High school following his father's footsteps as a Wideband Telecommunications electronics tech, until fate redirected his steps into retirement due to an injury that left him blind. Even though his life goal was to stay in the military until he retired, God had other plans.
With his newfound vision on life, Ken returned to college and earned a bachelor’s in software engineering.
During his college times and after, Ken worked as a self-employed programmer on an online game server, a volunteer facilitator for the Victoria Accessible Technology user group, an instructor of Microsoft Office at the Reger group, and an accessible technology consultant for the Salt Lake Community College, as well as for the Victoria Disability Resource Center.
Through college and work experience, Ken has become an accomplished programmer of more programming languages than should be listed and considers himself a successful master of his craft.
For the last 16 years, Ken has worked at the American Printing House for the Blind where he has combined his electronics knowledge with his software skills to led multiple software and hardware development projects, including accessible Snap Circuits sets, accessible coding learning tools, Graphiti (Tactile display), Orbit Reader 20 (Braille display), Orion TI-84 Plus Talking Graphing Calculator (the first handheld Graphing calculator for the blind), the Orion TI-30XS MultiView Talking Graphing Calculator, the Braille Plus 18 (the world’s first accessible Android smart phone/tablet with integrated braille display and keyboard), BrailleBlaster an automated braille translation and formatting software, and much more.
In his off-work hours, Ken continues to use his skills to volunteer as a programming tutor online for blinded students that are looking for help getting started. Recently he volunteered for the BITS group where they had 150 students sign up for a Python class.
Ken also continues to run an online game called Valhalla, which is now open source, that he has run for the last 26 years, and he gets involved in as many open-source projects as he can to help with accessibility, two of which are Liblouis and Sonic-pi.
Ken has also helped two award-winning authors by making their blind characters more realistic. He was thanked in the cover of Robert Soyer’s wave series and Carol Berg’s third book of her Soul mirror series.