Universal Design of a Cursor for the Learners with Visual Impairment

A formative assessment-based mobile learning approach to improving the learning attitudes and achievements of students

The purpose of the present study was to design a mobile learning environment that enables the use of a teleconference application used in simultaneous e-learning with mobile devices and to evaluate this mobile learning environment based on students‘ views. With the mobile learning environment developed in the study, the students are able to follow a teleconference application realized by using appropriate mobile devices. The study was carried out with 8 post-graduate students enrolled in Karadeniz Technical University (KTU), Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technologies (CEIT), Graduate School of Natural and Applied Science. The students utilized this teleconference application using mobile devices supporting internet access and Adobe Flash technology. Of the 8 students, 4 accessed the system using EDGE technology and 4 used wireless internet technology. At the end of the application, the audio and display were delayed by 4-5 seconds with EDGE technology, and were delayed by 7-8 seconds with wireless internet technology. Based on the students‘ views, it was concluded that the environment had some deficiencies in terms of quality, especially in terms of the screen resolution. Despite this, the students reported that this environment could provide more flexibility in terms of space and time when compared to other simultaneous distance education applications. Although the environment enables interaction, in particular, the problem of resolution caused by screen size is a disadvantage for the system. When this mobile learning application is compared to conventional education environments, it was found that mobile learning does have a role in helping the students overcome the problems of participating in learning activities caused by time and space constraints.

Mobile learning is gaining popularity as it modifies the conventional definition of teaching and learning by using portable devices. In order to cope with identified limitations of mobile learning, while maintaining its transformational potential of using mobile technology in higher education, we proposed a blended mobile learning environment. In this study, we described the mobile blended learning environment and examined its applicability in theatre arts classrooms by presenting and discussing how mobile devices were used in three blended theatre arts classes at a comprehensive university in Macau. Survey and interview data showed that though challenges exist, the fusion of the multichannel teaching approach (m-learning, blended learning, in class/online lectures) has greatly enhanced teaching and learning experiences.

Supporting efficient data access in the mobile learning environment is becoming a hot research problem in recent years, and the problem becomes tougher when the clients are light-weight mobile devices such as cell phones whose limited storage space prevents the clients from holding a large cache. A practical solution is to store the cache data at some proxies nearby, so that mobile devices can access the data from these proxies instead of data servers in order to reduce the latency time. However, when mobile devices move freely, the cache data may not enhance the overall performance because it may become too far away for the clients to access. In this paper, we propose a statistical caching mechanism which makes use of prior knowledge (statistical data) to predict the pattern of user movement and then replicates/migrates the cache objects among different proxies. We propose a statistical inference based heuristic search algorithm to accommodate dynamic mobile data access in the mobile learning environment. Experimental studies show that, with an acceptable complexity, our algorithm can obtain good performance on caching mobile data.

In successful mobile learning (ML) integration, factors associated with live-ware, software, and infrastructure are important. The main objective of this study is to investigate and model the influencing factors for learners and teachers at once to adopt ML in higher education. The proposed model consists of five impact factors: teacher, learner, mobile devices, ML tools, ML contents, communication technologies, and higher education institutes. Then the proposed model was implemented using a modified Moodle mobile application and evaluated using 60 teachers and 60 learners attached to the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka in 2021. According to the experimental research design approach, the proposed impact model was assessed as pre-test and post-test surveys using seven questionnaires. According to the Pearson correlation coefficient test, the most significant factor for learners and teachers to adopt ML is the mobile device. Learning content and communication technology were elected as the second most significant adoption factors for teachers and learners consecutively. However, higher correlation values were obtained for all factors denoting that they are greatly influenced the participant to adopt ML. The significant influencing factor of each impact factor was also investigated. In conclusion, it was recommended that featured smart devices, quality learning content, user-satisfied communication technology, academic enriched ML tools and higher education institutes with sound educational facilities are crucial for the university community to adopt ML in higher education. These findings help design academic community acceptable ML environments for higher education context.

Learners consume video-based learning content on various mobile devices due to their mobility and accessibility. However, most video-based learning content is originally designed for desktop without consideration of constraints in mobile learning environments. We focus on readability and visibility problems caused by visual design elements such as text and images on varying screen sizes. To reveal design issues of current content, we examined mobile learning adequacy of content with 681 video frames from 108 video lectures. The content analysis revealed a distribution and guideline compliance rate of visual design elements. We also conducted semi-structured interviews with six video production engineers to investigate current practices and challenges in content design for mobile devices. Based on the interview results, we present a prototype that supports a guideline-based design of video learning content. Our findings can inform engineers and design tool makers on the challenges of editing mobile video-based learning content for accessible and adaptive design across devices.

Whether online or in a classroom, learners have long suffered from a lack of interactivity, several mobile learning system provide recorded lectures, which only enhance passive learning. Thus and in order to improve interactivity and motivation into the learning process, we propose in this paper a conceptual framework to be efficiently integrated into the learning process. This framework describes the design requirements of a mobile learning environment that can deliver live broadcast of real-time classroom teaching to online student with mobile devices. It suggests five perspectives: generic mobile environment, mobile learning context, learning experience, social learning strategy and learning objectives. It also clarifies how to apply these last perspectives and build a mobile learning application efficiently.

Orientation and Mobility is a uniquely crafted pedagogical practice blending specific microteaching skills to enable students with vision impairment to achieve functional interpretation of extra-personal and peri-personal space. Linked to student wellbeing, social participation, employment and self-determination, Orientation and Mobility is a cornerstone of equity and access for students with vision impairment. Despite this, in mainstream primary education little is known about Orientation and Mobility learning and teaching and how it aligns with the Australian Curriculum. Orientation and Mobility learning and teaching is examined from the perspectives of three female primary school students with vision impairment, a parent, a teacher, the researcher, and a panel of Orientation and Mobility specialists. These perspectives are interwoven with a detailed reflexive interrogation of the Orientation and Mobility lessons over one school semester within the contexts of the Far North and North Queensland Department of Education regions and the Australian Curriculum. This study explores how one Queensland Orientation and Mobility teacher, the researcher, explicitly communicates nonvisual, visual, tactile, and auditory concepts to primary school students with vision impairment. Drawing on Bronfenbrenner's bioecological systems theory, the Orientation and Mobility learning experiences are captured through an interpretative methodology comprising narrative inquiry and autoethnography, both underpinned by hermeneutic phenomenology. Insider researcher data are gathered from semi structured interviews, online panel responses, and audio recordings of the Orientation and Mobility lessons. Autoethnographic field notes, document materials, and reflexive teaching journals are used to support the thematic and discourse analysis. Results confirm that for the non-expert participants there was a substantial lack of awareness of the impact of vision impairment on learning and development, and the potential contribution of Orientation and Mobility. Systemic and cultural barriers to equitable inclusive education for these North and Far North Department of Education students with vision impairment were uncovered. Orientation and Mobility learning and teaching was clearly shown to overlap with and embed content from the Australian Curriculum. A key finding was the isolation of a core set of micro-teaching skills pertinent to Orientation and Mobility learning and teaching. These skills were identified as: Orientation and Mobility teacher attention to dialogic language and feedback, extended interaction wait times, and shared attention to spatial and contextual environments within the Orientation and Mobility lesson. As this skill set can be used to design Orientation and Mobility learning and teaching experiences that explicitly scaffold the development of non-visual, visual, tactile, auditory, and kinaesthetic pre-cursor concepts, it was given the appropriated name of practice architecture. An important practical outcome of the research was the formulation of an ontogenetic model of Orientation and Mobility learning and teaching. This model, which closely follows the natural development of each student with vision impairment, may serve as a tool that enables teachers to more systematically chart the biophysical attributes of the student with vision impairment. It thereby provides a learning and teaching framework for designing interactions with students with vision impairment. The ontogenetic framework has the potential to facilitate greater integration of what–and–how learning occurs in Orientation and Mobility with what–and–how learning might occur in the regular classroom.

In this paper, the authors present their proposal for adaptation of educational contents of learning objects to a particular mobile device and a specific learner. Content adaptation in mobile learning objects implies user adaptation and device adaptation, and requires additional metadata categories in comparison with SCORM 2004. This learning object content model, ALMA (A Learning content Model Adaptation), inherits from the SCORM standard a subset of metadata categories, and extends it with three top level metadata categories for content adaptation, i.e., Knowledge, Use, and Mobile Device Requirements (Castillo & Ayala, 2008). For user adaptation, the authors developed NORIKO (NOn-monotonic Reasoning for Intelligent Knowledge awareness and recommendations On the move), a belief system based on DLV, a programming system based on Answer Set Programming paradigm. For device adaptation the authors designed CARIME (Content Adapter of Resources In Mobile learning Environments), which uses transcoding and transrating to adapt media content to suit the device characteristics.

With the popularity of mobile devices, learning through mobile device proliferated in the education sector. Now a day's mobile devices and mobile technologies are advancing rapidly. Therefore, mobile learning surpassing all other educational servicing methods. On the other hand, human life style averts stagnated education and demanding synchronous mode education such as learning while working. In this study we set out to look-over influencing factors on mobile devices for applicable and sustainable mobile learning environment. In this study we propose an impact model consists six influencing factors i.e. screen size, supportive software, screen zooming, video playback control, touch screen keyboard, and language predictive tools. 120 university teachers and learners with equal portion in each category participated on the model evaluation through pre and post survey questionnaires. Initially they faced pre survey questionnaire with their prior mobile learning experience and finally took the post survey questionnaire after successfully working on the Moodle mobile app modified by first author. The results revealed that the most significant impact factor in the proposed model was `screen zooming'. Hence, when designing applicable and sustainable mobile learning environment it should be considered that, the screen zooming as the most significant mobile device feature for learner and teacher to adopt in mobile learning.

Mobile technology is not only transforming how individuals interact in their consumers' experience, but is also gaining prominence in education. Mobile learning, commonly known as M-learning, is a relatively new tool to help in pedagogy. This is accomplished with the use of small, portable computing devices, including smart phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and similar handheld devices. M-learners typically view content or lessons or both in small, manageable formats that can be utilized when laptop or fixed station computers are unavailable. To date, their applications (apps) are used in educational, governmental, and industrial settings (McConatha, Paul, & Lynch, 2008). Increasingly, a common feature for mobile technology is the touch screen interface found in tablet PCs, PDAs, and smart phones (Kane, Bigham, & Wobbrock, 2008). Yet touch screen technology can present significant accessibility barriers for blind users. Many touch screens do not provide audio or tactile feedback, making it difficult or impossible to locate items on the screen. For this reason, if a device does not have screen reading technology, users with visual impairments may need sighted assistance to be shown the locations of on-screen objects. They may require an alternative accessible interface or, in worst cases, may be completely unable to use a device (Kane et al., 2008). While accessibility is one concern, understanding how to use the device is another as the trend is moving towards mobile technology. According to a report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, consumer spending on all types of cell phones has soared while expenditure on landlines has declined (Kendall, Nino, & Stewart, 2010). One of the factors contributing to this phenomenon is the prevalence of smart phones. On top of the conventional features of a PDA--i.e., schedulers, contact management, and note-taking features--most smart phones have incorporated the functions of a personal computer with intuitive interface. Among the smart phones, the iPhone has emerged as one of the more popular smart phones. A feature that makes the iPhone popular to the user is the growing number of apps available through The App Store. Since the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, more than 3 billion apps have been either downloaded for free or sold via The App Store (Kendall et al., 2010). The App Store continues to grow at an unprecedented rate, with many institutions and businesses developing apps to offer customer convenience and to inspire loyalty. Further, there are many apps developed for teaching (Young, 2011). Among the many apps, a number are designed for people with visual impairments (AppAdvice, n.d.). Some are free of charge, while others require payment. Compared to the equivalent assistive technology products sold on the market, these apps are less expensive and emerge as competitive alternatives. The App Store has great potential for offering useful apps to the visually impaired community. The following are three examples: * Color ID: Developed by GreenGar Studios, this app helps people with visual impairment to identify colors. Some useful applications include independently selecting desired colored files or choosing the color of clothing. The app identifies and speaks the colors in real time. The app also announces the hex value of colors, allowing users to identify what the camera sees in color (Color Identifier, 2012). * Digit-Eyes: Developed by Digital Miracles for the visually impaired, this app scans barcodes of objects, which are usually in UPC and EAM format found on over 23 million products. Users are also able to create text or audio barcode labels that can be read back through the VoiceOver function or played back when scanned. For example, users can create expiry dates of products and paste them on containers or directly on the perishable item. By scanning the labels with the Digit-Eyes, information is read back to the user (Digit-eyes Audio Scanner, 2012). …

With the rapid development of the Internet, mobile learning environment is rapidly and profoundly affecting the learning behavior of college students in the new era. This paper investigates the current situation and problems of college students' learning behaviors under the mobile learning environment by using a combination of questionnaire survey and interview with undergraduates in a certain university in a certain region as the research object. The survey results show that from the learning behavior of mobile learning environment, it can be seen that college students have a great demand for online learning, but most of them have not found a reasonable way of learning, resulting in low learning efficiency. In view of the existing problems, the author proposes corresponding online learning strategies, so that college students can exert greater learning potential in the mobile learning environment.

This paper presents the analysis of emerging data exchange technologies used for integration of mobile devices to image-based learning process of second language. Particularly, the design of portable personal spaces providing mobile access to multimedia documents based on XML technologies and creation of generic interfaces for learning environments have been carried out. For image-based languages learning that implies the image processing, recognition, and retrieval Two Segment Turning function has been proposed and analyzed for possible adoption in applications assisted by mobile devices. The evaluation of designed prototype of image-based language learning system for interpretation of Japanese kanji and Mayan glyphs on mobile devices is discussed in this paper. Additionally the performance of proposed approaches used in content-based image retrieval is evaluated for their possible integration within mobile learning environments.

Ocular causes of reading impairment following stroke include visual field loss, eye movement impairment and poor central vision. Non ocular causes may include cognitive errors or language impairment. The purpose of this study was to identify all patients referred with suspected visual impairment who had reported reading difficulty to establish the prevalence of ocular and non ocular causes. Prospective, multicentre, observation study with standardised referral and assessment forms across 21 sites. Visual assessment included visual acuity measurement, visual field assessment, ocular alignment, and movement and visual inattention assessment. Multicentre ethical approval and informed patient consent were obtained. A total of 915 patients were recruited, with a mean age of 69·18 years (standard deviation 14·19). Reading difficulties were reported by 177 patients (19·3%), with reading difficulty as the only symptom in 39 patients. Fifteen patients had normal visual assessment but with a diagnosis of expressive or receptive aphasia. Eight patients had alexia. One hundred and nine patients had visual field loss, 85 with eye movement abnormality, 27 with low vision and 39 patients with visual perceptual impairment. Eighty-seven patients had multiple ocular diagnoses with combined visual field, eye movement, low vision or inattention problems. All patients with visual impairment were given targeted treatment and/or advice including prisms, occlusion, refraction, low vision aids and scanning exercises. Patients complaining of reading difficulty were mostly found to have visual impairment relating to low vision, eye movement or visual field loss. A small number were found to have non ocular causes of reading difficulty. Treatment or advice was possible for all patients with visual impairment.

Visual Impairment Secondary to Congenital Glaucoma in Children: Visual Responses, Optical Correction and Use of Low Vision Aids