Remote laboratory access for students with vision impairment

The delivery of laboratory exercises to students that are unable to attend in person due to physical disabilities is a significant issue. Both Netlab and Packet Tracer are inaccessible to many students who use assistive technology, perticularly those with vision impairment. This paper presents the development of an accessible, cost effective, remote laboratory and describes the modification to laboratory sessions necessary for the blind to undertake CCNA laboratory sessions remotely and with full accessibility. Also discussed is the development of an accessible network simulator, iNetSim, illustrating possible methodologies that may be applied to make existing simulation packages accessible to those with severe vision impairment

A pedagogical rich interactive on-line learning platform for Network Technology students in Thailand

Internetworking enables communication between networks and forms the foundation of the Internet. Internetworking teaching is typically conducted in a traditional face-to-face classroom, but nowadays it can be conducted online. Online learning environments have many advantages that include allowing remote students’ access to not only curriculum but also lecturers and other enrolled students. However, unlike some other disciplines, teaching internetworking courses online is problematic because students need to be given access to internetworking equipment. It is technically possible to provide remote access to online students in order to compensate for the lack of direct physical equipment access, which normally is offered to traditional students. However the standard method of remote access only provides students with a limited text based method of configuring internetworking devices. Internetwork simulators are of value but they cannot provide students experience working with real devices. A pedagogically rich, interactive on-line learning environment using low-cost, assistive multi-media based technologies was therefore developed. This paper presents details of the platform and results of its deployment from an Australian university to a small group of students in Thailand.

Advanced IT education for the vision impaired via e-learning

Lack of accessibility in the design of e-learning courses continues to hinder students with vision impairment. E-learning materials are predominantly vision-centric, incorporating images, animation, and interactive media, and as a result students with acute vision impairment do not have equal opportunity to gain tertiary qualifications or skills relevant to the marketplace and their disability. Due to its logical, rather than physical, nature IT help desk and network administration roles are ideal for people who are blind. This paper describes the development of a fully accessible e-learning environment to deliver advanced IT network curriculum to adults with acute vision disabilities. The components include a virtual classroom, accessible learning materials, a remote computer laboratory, and delivery of the learning materials by vision impaired instructors. Industry standard courses in advanced IT were redeveloped, and the accessible on-line learning environment was developed to deliver the courses. Vision impaired students who excelled in the pilot project were trained as instructors, gaining industry-standard instructor certifications. These instructors were used to assist with the design of accessible methods and delivered the materials to the vision impaired students.The project has been operational for four years with a pilot project being conducted over a two year period, followed by the delivery of the courses both local and remote vision impaired students across the globe using this accessible e-learning environment for the past two years. Evaluation results indicate that vision impaired students situated both locally and remotely gained equivalent grades to their sighted counterparts given additional time to comprehend and experiment via the virtual classroom and remote computer laboratory. In addition, the use of vision impaired instructors has resulted in more innovative approaches to accessible teaching methods and delivery of the curriculum

Use of technology as a tool for learning the blind and low vision students

Jedan od velikih problema studenata oštećena vida tijekom studija bio je pristup obrazovnim materijalima kao što su knjige i nastavni materijali. Situacija se znatno poboljšala posljednih godina, budući da su materijali sve više dostupni u elektroničkom obliku, što studentima oštećena vida omogućuje pristup pisanom sadržaju s pomoćnim tehnologijama kao što su računalo s čitačem zaslona ili Braillev redak. Osim pristupa pisanom sadržaju studenti oštećena vida uz pomoć tehnologije mogu kreirati vlastite sadržaje i aktivnije sudjelovati u obrazovnim aktivnostima. Iako im je tehnologija od velike pomoći, nailaze na različite teškoće ili izazove za vrijeme studija. Cilj ovog istraživanja je bio utvrditi koji elektronski alati olakšavaju proces učenja slijepim i slabovidnim studentima u suočavanju s izazovima koji se javljaju tijekom studija. Istraživanje je provedeno na uzorku od deset studenata oštećena vida na Zagrebačkom Sveučilištu. Rezultati istraživanja su pokazali da većinu svojih zadataka slijepi i slabovidni studenti obavljaju pomoću računala s čitačem ekrana. Ispitanici korisnim smatraju upotrebu računalnih programa (Word, PDF, PowerPoint), E-učenje i internet.One of the greatest problems of visually impaired students at college is the access to the educational materials such as books or teaching materials. However, during the last few years, a tremendous improvement occured that made materials available in electronic form. Because of that, students with visual impairments could access the written information with the help of assistive technologies like screen readers or Braille display. Except the access to written information, technology enables students to create their own contents and be activly included in all of the educational activities. Inspite of all the benefits of technology, students still encounter some difficulties and challenges through the college. The aim of this study was to determine the electronic tools that ease the process of studying so that visually impaired students are able to face the challenges during the college time. Study included the sample of 10 visually impaired students on University of Zagreb. The results indicate that the majority of their tasks, blind and partially sighted students performed with the help of a computer with a screen reader. Students agree that the use of computer programs (Word, PDF, PowerPoint), e-learning and internet are useful

Instructional eLearning technologies for the vision impaired

The principal sensory modality employed in learning is vision, and that not only increases the difficulty for vision impaired students from accessing existing educational media but also the new and mostly visiocentric learning materials being offered through on-line delivery mechanisms. Using as a reference Certified Cisco Network Associate (CCNA) and IT Essentials courses, a study has been made of tools that can access such on-line systems and transcribe the materials into a form suitable for vision impaired learning. Modalities employed included haptic, tactile, audio and descriptive text. How such a multi-modal approach can achieve equivalent success for the vision impaired is demonstrated. However, the study also shows the limits of the current understanding of human perception, especially with respect to comprehending two and three dimensional objects and spaces when there is no recourse to vision

Developing a Framework and Pedagogies for the Delivery of Remote Accessible Laboratory Systems in Science and Engineering

The teaching and learning methods applied to the in-person classroom are not entirely capable of addressing the requirements for an online laboratory environment. The aim of the study is to create the pedagogies for remote laboratories. Therefore, a test environment was developed and user observations were captured over four years. This research proposed an educational framework for online science and engineering laboratory and summarized the most significant aspects to be included in the laboratory design

An investigation into internetworking education

Computer network technology and the Internet grew rapidly in recent years. Their growth created a large demand from industry for the development of IT and internetworking professionals. These professionals need to be equipped with both technical hands-on skills and non-technical or soft skills. In order to supply new professionals to the industry, educational institutions need to address these skills training in their curricula. Technical hands-on skills in internetworking education can be emphasised through the practical use of equipment in classrooms. The provision of the networking equipment to the internetworking students is a challenge. Particularly, university students in developing countries may find that this equipment is ineffectively provided by their teaching institutions, because of the expense. Modern online learning tools, such as remote access laboratories, may be used to address this need. However, the provision of such tools will also need to concentrate upon the pedagogical values. In addition, traditional remote access laboratories provide only text-based access, which was originally designed for highly professional use. Novice students may struggle with learning in these virtual environments, especially when the physical equipment is not available locally. Furthermore, non-technical skills or soft skills are social skills that should not be neglected in graduates’ future workplaces. A traditional model of developing soft skills that was used in face-to-face classroom may not be as effective when applied in an online classroom. Research on students’ opinions about their soft skills development during attending internetworking courses is needed to be conducted. In order to address both research needs, this study was focused on two research aspects related to online learning in internetworking education. The first focus was on research into providing a suitable technical learning environment to distance internetworking students. The second focus was on the students’ opinions about their non-technical skills development. To provide a close equivalent of a face-to-face internetworking learning environment to remote students in Thailand, a transformation of a local internetworking laboratory was conducted. A new multimedia online learning environment integrated pedagogically-rich tools such as state model diagrams (SMDs), a real-time video streaming of equipment and a voice communication tool. Mixed research data were gathered from remote online and local student participants. The remote online participants were invited to use the new learning environment developed in this study. Qualitative research data were collected from twelve remote online students after their trial usage. Concurrently, another set of research data were collected from local students asking their opinion about the development of soft skills in the internetworking course. There were sixty six participants in this second set of research data. Although the research data was limited, restricting the researcher’s ability to generalise, it can be concluded that the provision of multimedia tools in an online internetworking learning environment was beneficial to distant students. The superiority of the traditional physical internetworking laboratory cannot be overlooked; however, the remote laboratory could be used as a supplementary self-practice tool. A concrete learning element such as a real-time video stream and diagrams simplified students learning processes in the virtual environment. Faster communication with the remote instructors and the equipment are also critical factors for a remote access network to be successful. However, unlike the face-to-face laboratory, the future challenge of the online laboratory will creating materials which will encourage students to build soft skills in their laboratory sessions

Remote and local delivery of Cisco Education for the vision impaired

Vision-impaired students face tremendous obstacles in their quest to access learning materials delivered in web-based and other electronic formats. The predominance of visual prompts, use of flash and animation and the inability of screen reading applications to interpret images all contribute to make much of the current e-learning materials associated with computing studies inaccessible by blind or vision-impaired students. This paper describes a university research project undertaken to improve the accessibility of Cisco e-learning materials for vision-impaired computing students. The network architecture which supports the delivery of the Cisco courses to both local and remote vision-impaired students is also presented