Jutta Treviranus

PEBBLES: A Personal Technology for Meeting Educational, Social and Emotional Needs of Hospitalised Children

Abstract: Wayne Gretzky’s PEBBLESTM (Providing Education By Bringing Learning Environments to Students) is a unique example of a personal technology, one in which PC-based video-conferencing is used to make a real-time link between a hospitalised child and his or her regular classroom. The system provides an opportunity for children who are in isolated situations, such as hospitals, to maintain a meaningful link with their regular educational and social environments, thereby minimising many of the secondary problems that may develop as a result of long-term illness and hospitalisation. The objective of this paper is to illustrate the impact that PEBBLES had on one child who directly benefited from the system and on the people with whom she interacted (classmates, parents, teachers and hospital staff). These results were used to explore how exposure to this personal technology influenced the behaviours and attitudes of those involved in this study. The results indicate that, overall, PEBBLES has a very positive effect on both the young and adult participants; the most dramatic effect of all was on the ill child who used PEBBLES to attend school.

Developing a Video-Mediated Communication System for Hospitalized Children

When a student is away from school for an extended time due to illness, he/she is provided with a tutor or access to in-hospital classrooms to keep up with his/her studies. This isolates the child from normal classroom experiences. A remote-control videoconferencing system (VCS), P.E.B.B.L.E.S.trade mark (Providing Education by Bringing Learning Environments to Students), was developed to allow a student access to his/her regular classroom from the hospital. Remote control is provided by a game pad, which allows the student to direct the system. The first iteration, P.E.B. B.L.E.S. I, tested feasibility. The design of P.E.B.B.L.E.S. II provides an integrated version of the system with user interface aimed at children. Four studies examined its efficacy in allowing a student to participate in typical classroom activities and in providing him/her a sense of presence in the classroom. Results indicate that the system can be used with relatively few errors when set to perform the majority of required activities. The study-participants reported positive experiences using the system, and remote users appeared to have a sense of presence in the classroom.

Creating a global public inclusive infrastructure

As we move more to a digital economy and integrate technology every more completely in all aspects of life there is a looming crisis for a growing number of increasingly marginalized individuals. The accessibility technologies we have are meeting the needs of only some, at high cost - and will not work with many new technologies. In addition, the pace and path of technological change predestines these approaches to fail in the very near future. At the same time, the incidence of disabilities is increasing as our population ages. The same technical advances however hold the key for a radical paradigm shift in our approach to accessibility that can harness the pace of innovation and have it work for us rather than against us. Proposed is the development of a Global Public Inclusive Infrastructure (GPII) that can tap the unprecedented ability to pool resources and match demand with supply enabled by the Cloud to deliver accessibility to every individual where they need it, when they need it and in a way that matches their unique requirements; automatically so that they do not need to negotiate, explain, qualify or justify.

An overview of human-computer interaction techniques for people with physical disabilities

Abstract Access to computer technology is of vital importance to people with disabilities. This paper reviews a broad range of state-of-the-art solutions to the problem of human-computer interaction for users with physical impairments. Within the context of an ideal access system, it describes the modification and replacement of standard input devices such as the keyboard and mouse, and the provision of alternative input techniques using switches. It is recognized that physically disabling conditions have many broad effects on access to information technology that are not solved by physical adaptations alone. However, this paper is limited to such adaptations.

The global public inclusive infrastructure (GPII)

The incidence of disabilities is increasing as our population ages and we find that access to ICT is becoming mandatory for meaningful participation, independence, and self-sustenance. However we are not only nowhere near providing access to everyone who needs it, but we are actually losing ground due to reasons such as technical proliferation across platforms, increasing product churn (breaking existing solutions), decreasing social resources to address it, and an inability to effectively serve the tails of these populations because of the higher cost to do so. This poster describes the Cloud4all and Prosperity4All projects and progress in building the Global Public Inclusive Infrastructure (GPII), an infrastructure based on cloud, web and platform technologies that can increase dissemination and international localization while lowering the cost to develop, deploy, market, and support a broad range of access solutions.

Adding haptics and sound to spatial curriculum

A large number of learners with disabilities (e.g., blindness, learning disabilities) rely heavily on touch and tactile manipulation to take in information. This information or mode of control is not available in distance education delivery systems to date. The purpose of the research was to explore the expression of spatial concepts such as geography using several non-visual modalities including haptics, 3D real world sounds, and speech, and to determine the optimal assignment of the available modalities to different types of information. The ultimate goal is to integrate these modalities into curriculum delivered at a distance and in the classroom, thereby benefiting students with and without disabilities.

The evolving global public inclusive infrastructure (GPII)

We are facing a perfect storm where, just as access to ICT is becoming mandatory for meaningful participation, independence, and self sustenance, we find that we not only are nowhere near providing access to everyone who needs it, but we are actually losing ground due to reasons such as technical proliferation across platforms, increasing product churn (breaking existing solutions), decreasing social resources to address it, and an inability to effectively serve the tails of these populations because of the higher cost to do so. At the same time the incidence of disabilities is increasing as our population ages. This paper describes the Cloud4all and Prosperity4All projects and progress in building the Global Public Inclusive Infrastructure, an infrastructure based on cloud, web and platform technologies that can increase dissemination and international localization while lowering the cost to develop, deploy, market, and support a broad range of access solutions.

Mastering Alternative Computer Access: The Role of Understanding, Trust, and Automaticity

Many individuals use computer-based assistive devices as alternatives for the fluent, automatic skills of speech, writing, and touch-typing. This paper proposes that controlling an alternative access technique should become as automatic as touch-typing or speech. The process of acquiring a cognitive-motor skill is discussed. Prerequisites to skill acquisition and impediments to motor automaticity are outlined. Factors that promote or impede skilled control of alternative computer access systems at each stage of the design, assessment, prescription, training, and evaluation process are reviewed. Several case examples are used to illustrate relevant issues.

The value of the unpopular: Counteracting the popularity echo-chamber on the Web

Theoretical proofs and empirical evidence show that diverse perspectives benefit groups, society and individuals. Current Web applications, by artificially emphasizing popularity, discourage this diversity. This paper examines the effect of the popularity “echo-chamber” on diversity, minority views and innovation. Applications and practices to counter this cascading trend and promote divergent thinking and minority perspectives are explored in a new project “unpopular.ca”.

Synthetic speech in foreign language learning: an evaluation by learners

Can synthetic speech be utilized in foreign language learning as natural speech? In this paper, we evaluated synthetic speech from the viewpoint of learners in order to find out an answer. The results pointed out that learners do not recognize remarkable differences between synthetic voices and natural voices for the words with short vowels and long vowels when they try to understand the meanings of the sounds. The data explicates that synthetic voice utterances of sentences are easier to understand and more acceptable by learners compared to synthetic voice utterances of words. In addition, the ratings on both synthetic voices and natural voices strongly depend upon the learners’ listening comprehension abilities. We conclude that some synthetic speech with specific pronunciations of vowels may be suitable for listening materials and suggest that evaluating TTS systems by comparing synthetic speech with natural speech and building a lexical database of synthetic speech that closely approximates natural speech will be helpful for teachers to readily use many existing CALL tools.