COBRIX: A Physical Computing Interface for Blind and Visually Impaired Students to Learn Programming
Abstract: Despite national attention on computer science, there is a significant lack of educational resources for visually impaired or blind population to get introduced to learn to program. This population should be active participants, rather than passive users, in the learning process. This paper seeks a way to introduce the basic principles of computer programming and computational thinking to visually impaired/blind population. To address this goal, the paper introduces a physical computing interface, COBRIX, developed by authors. COBRIX enables visually impaired/blind learners to solve problems by constructing physical code using LEGO bricks. Therefore, this article discusses design and underlying theories of this new interface that could introduce computing concepts to blind and visually impaired users.