Abstract
One of the subthemes of the 2018 CWUAAT is “Breaking down barriers between people with impairments and those without impairments.” This chapter describes an innovative undergraduate class that has, over a 10-year period, broken down barriers between undergraduate computing students without disabilities and computer users with disabilities. The chapter discusses the need for teaching about ICT accessibility within the computing curriculum, and offers details on how to implement innovative approaches in an undergraduate class, including field trips, and one-to-one partnerships between students and computer users with disabilities outside of the university community.
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Acknowledgements
The author of this chapter would like to acknowledge the time contributed by the employees at the field trip sites: MDTAP, NFB, BISM, and LBPH, to providing excellent educational experiences for the students. The author would also like to acknowledge the work of the partners in projects from previous semesters: the US Department of Agriculture, MD Department of Disabilities, the Baltimore County Public Library system, and the Office of Technology Services at Towson University. The author would also like to gratefully acknowledge the 27 partners from the National Federation of the Blind, who collaborated with students at Towson University during the Spring 2017 semester.
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Lazar, J. (2018). Breaking Down Barriers Between Undergraduate Computing Students and Users with Disabilities. In: Langdon, P., Lazar, J., Heylighen, A., Dong, H. (eds) Breaking Down Barriers. CWUAAT 2018. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75028-6_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75028-6_15
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