Towards Economical E-Learning Educational Environments for Physically Challenged Students

Abstract

The World Health Organization defines Disability as follows: "Disabilities is an umbrella term, covering impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions. Impairment is a problem in body function or structure; an activity limitation is a difficulty encountered by an individual in executing a task or action; while a participation restriction is a problem experienced by an individual in involvement in life situations. Thus disability is a complex phenomenon, reflecting an interaction between features of a person’s body and features of the society in which he or she lives[1].” Disabilities could be natural or could happen due to accidents. Technology could be used to create new software/hardware tools to help the disabled to participate in a creative collaborative educational environment. In this chapter, we introduce two economically feasible solutions to aid physically challenged young students. They want they do (TWTD) is a simple system to help young students with hand disabilities interact with computers using web-camera and set of markers. The solution has been tested in some local schools and the results are promising [9]. Section 3 will introduce more details about version 2 of TWTD. Autistic Touchless Board (ATB) is a system to help autistic children interact with computers with their hands. The system teaches autistic kids basic math and skills by projecting the problems on any surface (walls could be used) and the students interact by pointing to the wall without the need for extra tools. Section 4 will introduce more details about the design of ATB. The rest of the chapter will be organized as follows:  Section 2 will include the frameworks used to develop the e-learning environments.  Sections 3,4 will include the two main developed environments. Each one will include the following points:  Problem  Solution LESS