Hi Again Stefik: That is a daunting project. It is, however, the only type of project that makes sense to me. I am an old-timer and have been involved in some larger projects so sort of have an idea of the non-technical problems that are the type of things that usually kill this type of effort. You mention you have been pulling together various groups. Have you set up a National committee to oversee the process? Also, I know you are involved in developing technologies but the real meat of something like that would be a central group, committee or some other formal structure, whose members would head up various facets of the project and interface with their respective client groups on behalf of the program.
For example:The group may have divisions and one head for each Division. I can imagine a division to interact with the W3C group made up of members interested in Online accessibility standards and software as used at various Universities. Another Division may target Educational Software itself like BlackBoard or other software products the Universities may be using. Of course, a Division for Programming or related Software products used by Educational Institutions and for classes in those subjects. Other areas are also open for work such as the translation of Educational Materials and the interactions with students themselves - the place they go for first contact with the National Support Program. The reason I mention this is that by gihaving a formal structure and having individuals vested in their Division's Prospects it gives members incentive to continue building their groups without any one individual trying to do more than one person is capable of. Also, it gives experts from various disciplines a place to discuss ideas at meetings and exchang ideas. This should help build a group with a National group identity. This is just my thoughts on the subject. The program you have started could quickly spin out of control without formal structure and guidelines and fragment into a bunch of seperat projects which is sort of which we already have. Well, I'm no genius so I'll sign off for now but I think you are sure heading in the right direction for what's worth.
Rick USA----- Original Message ----- From: "Andreas Stefik" <stefika@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: "RicksPlace" <ofbgmail@xxxxxxxxx> Sent: Saturday, April 09, 2011 2:22 PMSubject: Re: Searching for blind programmer to start a school for blind programmers
Hi Rick (and others), Here's a few quick thoughts off the top of my head, for what it's worth: 1. I'm actually a university computer science professor in Illinois, not at the WSSB. I have a National Science Foundation program to put a nation-wide architecture together for blind programmers, starting at specialized schools. We're starting this by integrating into a few additional schools per year. This year, the WSSB is participating. Next year, two more schools are joining in, and the year after that there will be five. After that, we need more funding, which I'm working on getting applying for soon. 2. Part of our work, besides the outreach component, is analyzing the technology involved for blind programming, which is what we have with Sodbeans and Hop. Basically, we are running lots of experiments, field studies, observations, and such to try to discover what kinds of tools would be the most helpful. If we've learned anything, it's that existing technology that's out there has significant problems. Of course, I say that here and people are like, "Duh, we've been saying that for years!" But, I say that at academic conferences and people oddly find it controversial ... for some reason ... 3. Our initial data from work at these schools looks good, and our analysis with the tools has been overwhelmingly positive. With that said, we're taking our approach slowly, because there is a ton of work to do, and changing large scale systems is tedious and difficult work. In other words, when we apply for the next grant, to expand the program or to allow us to keep testing, we want to make sure that the technology is pretty solid, so that all of the schools can use it largely without a hitch. So far, I'd say that, in that respect, we've been pretty successful. Sodbeans is hardly perfect, but we've made solid, consistent, improvements, and things are really starting to gel. So, to answer your question as to whether anyone is working on blind programming as a national project, I definitely have, cause that's what my research group is doing. We have a bunch of universities involved, tons of schools for the blind, support from other accessibility teams, Oracle, and other groups that really, really, want to see some of these problems get solved. It's going to take time, and there's lots of areas where more people can help out, either by fixing bugs on tools, funding more work on the research, or other ways, but we're sure trying to make this happen. It is definitely not a simple problem to try and solve. Anyway, I don't know if that answers your questions, but that's my take on things, Stefik On Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 12:01 PM, RicksPlace <ofbgmail@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Andreas: Since you are at Washington State School for the Blind you would seemingly be in a position to make some real world comments on this thread.First: I really discount the process of setting up an Acreddited Universitylevel program without some massive resources. Second, It would seem that a formal education is the best method for learning to become a Professional Computer Programmer at any level. That said, I see where there is a real need for a central repository where students can find out about accessibility tools, techniques and resources. In addition a central location where they can go to find Professional Mentoring, Tutors and a list like this where they can ask and answer questions in general. In other words, a place where a new student taking their first class in Programming can be sent to where they can ask initial questions, findtutoring for particular Programming Related issues and find Experts in theirparticular fields for mentoring. Most Universities have Accessibility Representitives but the Universityitself may not have the experienced blind individuals to provide this levelof help. Combined, they, and us, would provide a massive amount of support to blindstudents but so far as I know nobody has ever attempted to coordinate such acentralized repository of tallent, resources and help for blind students. Being at a specialized University for the Blind you might be in a position to consider the potential process, difficulties and benefits of such a program.That said, it is what, in my opinion, would provide the biggest bang for thebuck as a NationWide project. Have you heard of anyone working on something like this?Get the right people and Universities involved in it and it could be a gamechanger for Blind folks at Universities around the country. Rick USA ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andreas Stefik" <stefika@xxxxxxxxx> To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: "Jamal Mazrui" <empower@xxxxxxxxx>; "Bill Cox" <waywardgeek@xxxxxxxxx> Sent: Saturday, April 09, 2011 9:26 AM Subject: Re: Searching for blind programmer to start a school for blind programmersLooks like I'm coming late to this thread, and I'll admit I haven't read everyone's comments yet (I've been swamped submitting papers and with teaching duties). We would certainly be willing to let any such effort use any and all of our tools, or to advise bill or others in whatever way folks found helpful. Just in case people don't know as well, my lab has begun teaching programming at the Washington State School for the Blind this semester, using Sodbeans/Hop, etc, and teachers are writing to us that things are going great. So I'm personally highly encouraged that others want to get more blind folks involved in computer science education. Anyway, for what it's worth (maybe nothing), that's my two cents, Stefik P.S. If anyone cares, Sodbeans 2.0 is coming out in July. Linux support, a rewrite of our text-to-speech engine that will now also be available separately on sourceforge outside of Sodbeans for others to use, lots of little audio hints to turn those visual features into aural features, new changes to Hop which our studies are showing makes it easy to understand,new Hop language features like exceptions, a new auditory tutorial system that teaches how to use Sodbeans and programming, and a gadzooks of bug fixes. Anyway, lots of fun stuff happening. On Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 7:19 AM, Jamal Mazrui <empower@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:Andreas may also have some interesting perspective on this given his workin developing teaching tools and curriculum for programmers at schools for the blind. Jamal __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind__________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind__________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind
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