XO Accessibility
Introduction
This is an ILXO project. If you'd like to participate, please contact Mel Chua - collaborators and contributors welcome!
How can the XO be used by children with various learning and physical disabilities as a tool that they build themselves in order to differently interact with the learning environment that surrounds them? This research project will explore the usability of the XO and its various activities and modes from the perspectives of various types of "differently-abled" users. We will also be creating inventions and adaptations to make the set of core activities more usable by children with special needs. Universal design will be used rather than creating separate solutions for disabled and non-disabled users.
Budget
For planning purposes - this should be removed from the page once the budget is approved and placed on a subpage.
Mandatory
- $50 for physical hand braces, splints, restraints, earplugs, sunglasses
- $250 for books on assistive technology design (approximately 5-7 used books)
Would be nice
- $200 for an electronics prototyping toolbench - nonconsumables like a soldering iron, breadboard, wire cutter, AVR programmer
- $200 for electronics prototyping supplies - consumables like solder, wire, microcontrollers, switches, buttons, lights, etc.
- $500 to print circuit boards for successfully prototyped designs in order to make these more widely available to the community for testing (we can always request/find this funding when we have successful designs)
To do
- Create a list of the most common disabilities that children with XOs in a classroom may have to deal with.
- Create a list of core Activities and functionalities we want all children to have access to.
- Create a grid composed of the above two axes, and go through assessing the current accessibility options for each.
- Create options for those points on the grid that don't yet exist, and/or improve existing ones we don't think are "good enough" yet.
