Introduction
There is a considerable percentage of students across the USA with limited access to educational resources because of a range of visual impairments: blindness, poor vision, or print disabilities. According to the 2019 American Community Survey (ACS) statistics, the number of visually-impaired children aged 0-17 years old exceeded 547,000 (AFB, 2022).
One of the effective, innovative technologies used to address the special educational needs of blind and partially sighted students is the Digital Audio-based Information System (DAISY). The DAISY Consortium emerged in 1996 to include numerous international and national organizations targeting equality and access in child education (The DAISY Consortium, 2022).
The DAISY approach has been adopted in many developed and developing countries within the past two decades. However, its use in the USA has been limited. This case study is aimed to prove the relevance and efficiency of DAISY technology use in American schools to raise the quality of education for the student group with visual impairments.
Case Study Plan
The Problem
- There are over 1.4 million blind children across the globe, with more than 19 million children under 15 years old experiencing some form of visual impairment (Iyer, 2021).
- Students with visual difficulties face challenges in accessing educational resources and curricula in mainstream schools.
- The problem is pressing in developing countries and most developed Western states.
Need for Innovation
- If the educational needs of the blind and partially sighted students are not addressed, this population group becomes more vulnerable in further employment.
- Equal access to printed educational information is a democratic issue, as visually impaired children do not enjoy equal learning opportunities with the general student population (Begnum, 2019).
- Without available DAISY books in all languages, students are consistently deprived of their right to access to education (Pozhidaev et al., 2021).
Description of the Innovation
- The DAISY format of educational audiobooks emerged in 1988 because of dissatisfaction with the existing systems for teaching the blind.
- It represented a new digital talking book technique with phrase-based storing of audio files to simplify content search and enable skimming for advanced learners (The DAISY Consortium, 2022).
- DAISY materials enabled bookmarking, text underlining, and note-taking for students in a convenient format.
Evidence of the Potential to Success
- The DAISY format is widely used in different countries globally to assist students with visual impairments in learning.
- A research group created the LUWRAIN platform in Bulgaria to give blind students an accessible environment for learning in the DAISY format (Pozhidaev et al., 2021).
- DAISY technology gives vital support to blind individuals in the schooling and work environments (Argyropoulos, Paveli and Nikolaraizi, 2018).
- A DAISY program implemented in Egypt improved blind students’ productive skills and enhanced their attitudes to education (Eid, 2020).
Required Resources
- Adequately trained professionals should develop more audiobooks in the DAISY format.
- DAISY learning materials should be integrated into library collections and programs (Dali and Brochu, 2020).
- Teachers should receive sufficient training in applying DAISY materials in the classroom.
- Students should be provided with technical resources (e.g., smartphone apps, iPads, or desktop apps) for unlimited access to DAISY materials.
Limitations
- The variety of DAISY books is currently very limited, with little attention paid to diversifying educational materials in the USA.
- There is a large-scale organizational resistance to incorporating DAISY materials in the curriculum because of the able-bodied privilege and status quo in U.S. education (Dali and Brochu, 2020).
Reference List
AFB (2020) ‘Statistics about children and youth with vision loss’. Web.
Argyropoulos, V., Paveli, A. and Nikolaraizi, M. (2018) ‘The role of DAISY digital talking books in the education of individuals with blindness: a pilot study’, Education and Information Technologies, 24, pp. 693-709. Web.
Begnum, M. E. N. (2019) ‘Why is DAISY fulltext valuable to print-disabled readers?’, IFLA. Web.
Dali, K. and Brochu, L. K. (2020) ‘The right to listen: a not so simple matter of audiobooks’, Library Resources & Technical Services, 64(3), pp. 106-119. Web.
Eid, M. M. E. (2020) ‘A program based on DAISY technology to enhance EFL student teachers’ speaking skills’, Journal of the Faculty of Education – Mansoura University, 111, 3-17.
Iyer, S. (2021) ‘Tackling childhood blindness: a global responsibility’, The Cambridge Global Affair. Web.
Pozhidaev, M., Mikhailova, S., Goloshunov, A. and Teplykh, E. (2021) ‘LUWRAIN books: DAISY for schools’, STEMEDU-2021, pp. 1-3.
The DAISY Consortium (2022) ‘About us’. Web.