IEP Plan :  Expanded Core Curriculum Games for Visually Impaired Students

IEP Technologies

ObjectiveEd.com is our new organization where we are building Expanded Core Curriculum interactive simulations for blind and low vision students, based on the child’s IEP . 
The student’s advancement in acquiring skills in our curriculum-based games are preserved in a private secure cloud, accessible to the IEP team in a web-based console . 
If you are a Special Ed Teacher , press for additional details on using these types of games as part of maximizing student outcomes, relating to their 
504 Education Plan .

Cars and Engines

I just received this email about how to improve the game from Jessica…
“I’m a technology teacher for the visually impaired, and I recently heard the AppleVis podcast that talks about the Blindfold Racer game. I thought it was incredibly awesome on so many different levels!! I enjoyed hearing about the therapy uses that you discussed. But because I’m also legally blind since birth, and have sometimes dreamed of driving, I thought it was a totally, totally, incredibly liberating idea!!”
“I have never tried the game before, and I don’t own an apple device yet, but we use such devices where I teach. I’ve been teaching clients to use Voice-overs for just a few months now. (I’ll definitely tell my clients about your game!) You said in the podcast that you’re still interested in receiving ideas for making it even “funner”, so here’s one I thought of.”
“What if you let players select different types / makes of cars and have the game use their authentic corresponding engine sounds, recorded from inside where the passenger would normally be hearing it. that would be SOOOOO COOOOLLLL!!! My dad was always pretty handy, and so I have a bit of a soft spot in my heart for any of the classics from the 50s or 60s.”
I’ve heard this suggestion several times from different blind gamers. My initial response was that part of the magic of the game relates the fence music – the music you hear in your left and right ears to indicate how close you are to the fence – and that if we replace that with engine noise, the game won’t be as much fun.
In the version we are testing, we allow the gamer to use an engine sound to indicate speed – slow engine sound, medium engine sound and fast engine sound. We’ll investigate how to combine several ideas together and see what we can come up with. If you have an idea on how we can solve this, please write to me.