WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:01.340 --> 00:00:03.940 [jaunty piano tune] 00:00:07.360 --> 00:00:10.559 Boon, he's very excited about the world. 00:00:10.560 --> 00:00:13.760 He's up for almost anything. 00:00:13.820 --> 00:00:19.500 He's a thinker and he likes to explore. 00:00:19.620 --> 00:00:21.680 He's not afraid to do things. 00:00:21.680 --> 00:00:26.200 I like computer programming. I might do some computer programming. 00:00:26.240 --> 00:00:33.600 And I also want to be maybe an inventor, a scientist, and an author. 00:00:35.020 --> 00:00:38.880 I don't know I guess if it's so important for him to learn coding 00:00:38.880 --> 00:00:42.990 but it's important I feel like for him to be at least introduced to coding 00:00:42.990 --> 00:00:46.220 and then it's his decision to pursue it or not. 00:00:46.220 --> 00:00:47.700 I'm Richard Ladner, 00:00:47.740 --> 00:00:50.540 professor emeritus at the University of Washington. 00:00:50.540 --> 00:00:53.160 I've been observing, you know, this movement 00:00:53.160 --> 00:00:56.300 to bring computer science into K-12 education. 00:00:56.380 --> 00:01:00.120 And I've noticed that a lot of the technologies 00:01:00.120 --> 00:01:03.480 that are being introduced to young children are not accessible, 00:01:03.480 --> 00:01:06.840 especially for young children who are blind or visually impaired. 00:01:06.900 --> 00:01:08.300 I'm Lauren Milne. 00:01:08.360 --> 00:01:11.020 I'm a graduate student at the University of Washington 00:01:11.060 --> 00:01:13.800 and I'm the inventor of Blocks4All. 00:01:13.800 --> 00:01:17.160 Traditionally, programming has been done with text-based editing 00:01:17.160 --> 00:01:23.880 so you just type in your program which is of course very accessible 00:01:23.880 --> 00:01:28.530 but more recently people have been creating these environments for children, 00:01:28.530 --> 00:01:31.840 these block-based environments, that have a lot of visual elements 00:01:31.840 --> 00:01:35.700 so they're really not accessible for a child with a visual impairment. 00:01:35.800 --> 00:01:39.580 We decided to design Blocks4All on a touchscreen 00:01:39.580 --> 00:01:44.600 because we found that a lot of children, especially children with visual impairments, 00:01:44.600 --> 00:01:46.920 are already using touch screens. 00:01:46.920 --> 00:01:51.980 The screen reader VoiceOver that comes with, for example, iPads, 00:01:52.080 --> 00:01:53.490 is very accessible. 00:01:53.490 --> 00:01:56.540 The outputs for the programs were typically visual. 00:01:56.580 --> 00:01:59.840 There were animations, and those weren't accessible either. 00:01:59.840 --> 00:02:03.920 Instead of having visual outputs we have tactile output 00:02:03.980 --> 00:02:05.200 which is using a robot. 00:02:05.320 --> 00:02:14.160 Drive forward. Turn left. Turn left. And then turn left again. 00:02:15.140 --> 00:02:18.500 [Screen reader voicing instructions] 00:02:20.240 --> 00:02:22.240 Here we go, Oh! 00:02:22.280 --> 00:02:24.540 [blocks clattering] 00:02:24.600 --> 00:02:28.439 Really what I'm envisioning is I see it as really a prototype 00:02:28.440 --> 00:02:29.660 where I try out a whole bunch of techniques 00:02:29.660 --> 00:02:32.040 and I'm hoping that other developers 00:02:32.120 --> 00:02:35.280 who are creating these blocks-based environments 00:02:35.380 --> 00:02:37.100 can use some of the techniques that I'm finding 00:02:37.100 --> 00:02:39.040 and make their own environments accessible.