Teaching Internet skills to pupils with a severe visual impairment

Abstract

In Scotland, national guidelines were laid down for the content of, and the targets to be attained in, Information and Communication Technology, for all 5-14-year-old pupils. This article gives an account of the planning, design, implementation and evaluation within a specialist school for blind and partially-sighted pupils of a teaching programme to enable them to access and use the web as part of this curriculum. An analysis was made of the specific core skills required by visually impaired students for the Searching and Researching Strand of the Guidelines. The problems encountered by the teacher-designer and pupils with different degrees of residual vision are described, and an assessment is offered of the impact and success of the teaching programme. The importance is stressed of web-site designers to be sensitive to the needs of visually-impaired users when preparing their information sites.