The long term goal for us is to systematically create a parallel curriculum, teaching material, exercises, and lesson plans, to the material in cspathshala.org. As it exists, the content is meant for sighted children. No considerations have been mentioned for accommodating children with diverse learning abilities as well as children with disabilities. We will focus on creating this curriculum focused on children who are blind or low vision with the understanding that such material will be useful to all children as an alternate perspective on the concepts being addressed. The current pedagogy is also based on the conventional approach of specific lesson plans, exercises, and tests to ascertain the learning of children. However, this is far from the best approach, especially for computational thinking, since CT concepts pervade everyday life and so there are so many exciting and joyful ways of learning these concepts. So the second objective of this work is to imbue the ludic design approach to the pedagogy and content.
The most evolved toolkit with us at this time is the accessible playing cards that have been built in collaboration with Vision Empower Trust over the past 9 months. The second is CodeJumper which has excellent potential for all children. But at this time, it is stymied by the uncertainty around the availability in India and the price point. The third toolkit that may become available by Jan-Feb 2021 time frame is the Braille Factor Blocks. However, we need to have a three month period for field testing of this before we can look at incorporating this in the CSpathshala curriculum. The fourth toolkit is the set of apps being built on Android and the games on the PC as part of the digital skilling program. We need to match these with the parts of the CSPathshala curriculum and tools. The fifth element is the spatial audio toolkit that is yet to be explored beyond the accessible gaming perspective. This needs further exploration since one of the early ideas was that audio is a powerful alternative to the vision for children who are blind are low vision (BLV): we wanted to explore rhythms, patterns, and beats for these children to play with while picking up CT concepts.
To summarize:
1. Accessible playing cards
2. CodeJumper
3. Braille Factor Blocks
4. Android apps
5. Responsive spatial audio Cloud and toolkit.
A guiding principle in this effort is to set aside questions about the merits of the CSPathshala curriculum as well as the pedagogy being used and simply focus on finding alternate content for children who are excluded by the current content and material. In our efforts with schools for the blind, we will use the Ludic Design approach for delivering these. This will ensure that we are not answerable to the questions about the choice of the content. We simply point out to the CSPathshala.org and mention that top CS experts in the country have arrived at the curriculum.
The following are the key themes of the curriculum: Systematic listing, counting and reasoning ● Iterative patterns and processes ● Information processing (Data) ● Discrete Mathematical Modelling ● Following and Devising Algorithms (Algorithms) ● Programming ● Digital Literacy
These themes are covered across grades 1 to 8 with the following resources for each grade and each lesson. 1. PPT for the teacher 2. Worksheet for the children 3. A lesson Plan document 4. teaching resources
Our objective is to create parallel content for each of the lessons, aimed at children who are BLV. As an example, looking at the resources for the 01-DL-01-LP, it is clear that there are a number of exclusions already present: Let me list some of them. First, the assumption that the teacher will have a computer and projector to use a PPT. Second, the story in the PPT is about a family with a computer, internet connection, and grandparents who live elsewhere with an internet connection. Third, the quizzes in the PPT assume that the children can see and or not learning disabled. The underlying limitation is the attempt to use a story (one story for ALL) to introduce a computer through a presentation. A simpler and more engaging approach is to invite the children to come and explore the computer present in the classroom itself (based on the first assumption). The quizzes are ill-formed and ambiguous. Essentially, an exciting exploration of new technology has been reduced to a set content, worksheet, and test!
However, cpathshala.org is not a regulatory body and hence the resources are only provided as pointers and references and the teachers have been encouraged to come up with their own methods of teaching as well as resources to support their work in the context of their schools. One is hopeful that the diversity of schools and teachers will encourage a diversity of teaching and learning approaches around the country.
For teachers of CBLV, we will provide possible ways of introducing computers as well as start them off by letting them play some audio games on the computers. rather than a passive touch and name monotony. For children who are blind, the monitor is a useless appendage, but they need to be aware that sighted users depend on it and also for them to understand the term 'screen-reader'!
Modification to the guiding principle: we will use the CSP curriculum as the reference, but will modify it to suit the needs of children who are BLV. It should be noted that low vision is a spectrum and it is hard to provide a single learning path that is effective for the children in this spectrum. Hence, the learning has to be guided by the individual student's capabilities.
Blind children have a learning deficit in terms of their mental model of the world in many aspects due to a multitude of reasons. hence the first year of their school should be on understanding and exploring the physical world, learning to read and write in Braille and picking up competence in numeracy, communication and interacting with other students, mobility and orientation, etc. Hence it is recommended that digital devices (PCs/smartphones) etc are NOT introduced till their second grade in the formal curriculum. Depending on the socio-economic background, some children may be familiar with smartphones and computers at their homes. But that is part of the diversity of the student body in any school for the blind. Hence we will restructure the CSP curriculum with the Digital skills part moved to the second year.