A look at educational settings, curriculum, and some of the challenges in educating children with visual impairments
Source: National Federation of the Blind
General Teaching Tips Resources
These resources for teachers offer advice, professional supports, and explanation of team roles and responsibilities in the education of students who are blind or visually impaired.
Treasure Baskets are collections of real objects that encourage a child to explore different sensory characteristics. This article offers suggestions of items to include in the baskets and discusses some of the educational benefits for young children.
Source: Nursery WorldThis section of the interactive website includes information about products and instructional materials for teaching science to students with visual impairments.
Source: Perkins School for the BlindIn this webcast, Perkins science teacher Kate Fraser outlines teaching strategies and adaptations to make science lessons and activities accessible to students who are visually impaired. Find even more resources more at the Perkins Accessible Science website.
Source: Webcast, Perkins School for the Blind"The AccessSTEM website is a space where K-12 teachers, postsecondary educators, and employers learn to make classroom and employment opportunities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) accessible to individuals with disabilities, and share promising practices."
Dr. Bruce shares examples of action research studies that were conducted at Perkins School for the Blind.
Source: Perkins eLearning, Perkins School for the BlindThis is an excerpt from Dr. Lilli Nielsen's book, Early Learning Step by Step. It outlines her Active Learning Approach and explains the importance of the learning environment for childen with visual impairments and multiple disabilities.
Source: Future Reflections, 2004, National Federation of the Blind (NFB)Outlines Head Start policy and practice for accommodating and integrating children with disabilities into its programs.
Source: HeadStartRead the full page of resources here, and browse the links below for additional information specific to children who are blind or visually impaired, deafblind, or who have additional disabilities including visual impairment.
Source: Center for Parent Information and Resources (formerly NICHCY)AAAS publishes the journal Science, as well as other publications. They have a large number of programs designed to bring science literacy to all. They have resources for businesses, scientists, teachers, and students. One of their many endeavors, Project 2061 has developed highly regarded science curriculum benchmarks. The AAAS signature program is called Entrypoint, providing internship opportunities in science, engineering, math, computer science and some fields of business for students with disabilities. Many program alumni are now working in the science fields.
Dr. Jan van Dijk describes his educational approach, including the topics of attachment and the development of communication.
Source: National Consortium on Deaf-BlindnessStacy Shafer outlines some of Dr. Lilli Nielsen's recommendations for designing a learning environment for a child with visual impairments and multiple disabilities.
Source: Future Reflections, 2005, National Federation of the Blind (NFB)The Quick Tips video series provides weekly ideas (under 5 minutes) for incorporating American Printing House for the Blind (APH) resources into your lessons. Bookmark this idea bank and visit often!
Source: American Printing House for the BlindIn this 60-minute presentation Frances Mary D'Andrea addresses the importance of monitoring students’ progressive skills as they develop as readers and writers.
Source: Perkins eLearning Tutorial and WebinarThis site features two newspaper articles about "small but significant breakthroughs" in science education for students who are blind: Camp Eureka, a natural history camp in Montana; and a dissection class at Colorado Center for the Blind.
Source: National Federation of the Blind (NFB)
Each vendor at Blind Mice Mega Mall is visually impaired, so when you shop on-line through this website you are benefiting the VI community.
There is NO fee to sign up to purchase items on Blind Mice Mega Mall.
Product selection is wide ranging and can vary by vendor. We noticed product selection for cooking, outdoors, body care, and food (just to name a few). Blind Mice Mega Mall also offers descriptive videos.
From the Blind Mice Mega Mall website:
"Blind Mice Mega Mall is designed to operate with screen reader and low vision software! No matter what link is "Clicked", the new page will always be displayed at the top of the web site!
Just use the keyboard command "Control" + "Home" to jump to the top of Blind Mice Mega Mall (and the old page will be right below it!) It is so quick and easy to navigate & shop at Blind Mice Mega Mall! "
Bookshare provides accessible books without a fee for students with print disabiities. Students with visual impairment can access both textbooks and books for personal reading through Bookshare.
The following description is from the Bookshare website:
Bookshare® is the world’s largest accessible online library for people with print disabilities. More than 425,000 people in 70 countries have access to Bookshare's collection of over 460,000 titles. More than 820 U.S. and international publishers contribute to our social mission by donating their digital files, making it possible for Bookshare to serve users around the world and ensuring that content is available to people with print disabilities at the same time as their peers.
Bookshare® opens up the world of reading for people with print disabilities.
If you cannot read traditional print books because of a visual impairment, physical disability or severe learning disability, Bookshare can help!
Our books are “accessible,” which means you can read our books many different ways.
Bookshare offers the world’s largest collection of accessible titles. As a result, people of all ages, as well as schools and many organizations around the globe can access the books they need for school, work, career advancement, skill development and the simple love of reading in formats that work for them.
How can you read Bookshare books?
- Listen to books with high quality text-to-speech voices
- Hear and see highlighted words on screen
- Read with digital braille or enlarged fonts
- Create physical braille or large print
- Read directly from your Internet browser
Textbooks for Science
The following are steps to download a science textbook from Bookshare for a student. Only the teacher sponsor (TVI) is able to asssign a textbook. The student can't assign it to himself.
Please see the Bookshare website for more detailed info:
Basic Steps for Bookshare:
- The TVI becomes a sponsor for Bookshare
- The TVI adds the student to a roster on Bookshare
- The TVI assigns the NIMAC book (textbook) to the student's account.
- The student searches for the book. It will appear on his account once assigned by the teacher.
- Either the TVI or the student can download the book. If the student has his/ her own electronic device, it is usually preferable for him to download the book. If not, the teacher can download it for him and save it to a thumbdrive for the student. The student is then able to read the material on a braillenote or other device with a braille display.
Reproduced by Duxbury, Inc., world leader in software for braille and braille translation. These are print resources for students and teachers of braille.
Source: Duxbury Systems, IncNFB offers many braille-related programs through its Jernigan Institute, including the Braille Certification Training Program for people who want to become braille transcribers.
Source: National Federation of the Blind (NFB)The Braille Superstore offers a wide variety of Braille books as well as housewares, travel products, low vision products, toys and games,Braille teaching tools, a copy center, math and measurement, etc.
Of particular interest for science are some of the items in the Math and Measuring section, including the talking calculators and the length measurement tools.