Educational Games for the Blind and Visually Impaired

The case of Blindfold Racer

What makes videos games so attractive? Some might reply that it’s all about awesome graphics and hand-eye coordination. Given the powerful allure of the visual elements of games, it might be difficult to imagine that games can be leveraged to enhance the learning of the blind and visually impaired (BVI).

Marty Schultz thinks otherwise. For this blog, I watched a recorded webinar given by the entrepreneur in which he discusses how he got into designing games for the BVI, and how his most recent venture – ObjectiveEd – is finding ways to gamify education for the BVI (Perkins School for the Blind, 2019).

It all started when Schultz started working with the middle school his daughter was attending. He already believed that we live in a gamified world, where games have become a normal part of education, thanks to their ability to motivate learning. As he puts it, games make failure okay, and kids “love to learn because it helps them do better in the game” (Perkins School, 2019).

The school wanted him to work with students at the middle school to teach them how to build apps. Wanting to create something new, Shultz worked with the students to develop a racing game for the BVI, which a student later dubbed ‘Blindfold Racer.’ Together they created a 60-level game where players drive with their ears following aural instead of visual cues. After testing the game with BVI students, the game was released commercially and was a big hit on Apple’s App Store. Shultz established Blindfold Games in 2013 and has gone on to develop about 80 games for the BVI on the platform since then. Shultz states downloads of Blindfold Games products have reached approximately 500,000 (Millward, 2019).

“Blindfold Games” Logo, Image by DLPNG

ObjectiveEd

Recognizing rising investment activity for assistive technology at the global level (Millward, 2019), Shultz recently started a new initiative, ObjectiveEd. ObjectiveEd is a gaming platform designed to help the BVI to master the following competencies:

  • Sensory efficiency
  • Orientation and mobility
  • Social interaction (cooperation and leadership)
  • Braille literacy
  • Assistive technology
  • Expanded core curriculum standards (ECC)

(Perkins School, 2019)

ECC refers to the special forms of knowledge and skills that BVI students need to be successful in mastering state and national standards. In addition to the competencies mentioned above, they include compensatory skills, communication modes, independent living, career education, and self-determination (Willings, 2019).

The ObjectiveEd platform process works in the following way. First, learners are assigned learning games based on an individualized learning plan (IEP). The game adjusts for the initial skill level of the learner. As students play the game, the game evaluates their progress and readjusts the level of challenge in the game accordingly. Finally, teachers and parents can monitor student progress on the ObjectiveEd platform.

One example of a game is “Barnyard,” a game designed to teach the BVI orientation (e.g., right/left, east/west). The game has been shown to increase the speed at which learners recognize orientation. Another gamified application, “Braille Sheets,” include sheets that cover the screen of an iPad. When users runs their fingers over the sheet, the app speaks the words on the sheet. Students can then play an audio version of the classic Hangman game. They can also create their own stories in Braille and share them with other users by uploading them to the ObjectiveEd site. As of April, eight games were ready for use and dozens of other games are in development with pilot test groups (Perkins School, 2019).

For Shultz, it’s not just the intrinsic motivation and teaching of skills games provide that are valuable to the BVI. As audio games, the BVI are leaders in using games designed by Blindfold Games and ObjectiveEd compared to their sighted peers, giving these learners a sense of empowerment.

References

Millward, W. T. (2019, July 29). How tablet games can teach skills to students with visual impairments. EdSurge. Retrieved from https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-07-29-how-tablet-games-can-teach-skills-to-students-with-visual-impairments

Perkins School for the Blind. (Producer). (2019, April 10). Using gamification to maximize ECC outcomes [Webinar]. Retrieved from https://www.perkinselearning.org/videos/webinar/using-gamification-maximize-ecc-outcomes

Willings, C. (2019, August 4). The expanded core curriculum. Retrieved from https://www.teachingvisuallyimpaired.com/ecc.html

4 thoughts on “Educational Games for the Blind and Visually Impaired”

  1. Hi David!
    Thank you for sharing about the educations games. I never thought about it would be use for those disability learners which are impressed me a lot! Thank you very much@

  2. Thank you David for sharing information about this useful game. It is interesting to find out if this game is widely used in schools and how it is regarded by BVI students and their parents. From your post, one can suppose that this game can be considered as #1 assistive technology.
    I wonder what is the popularity of this game overseas and if it is available in other languages. Once this game will be accessible in other languages, its popularity might increase even more especially in developing countries where there is a shortage of availability of assistive technologies.

  3. Hi David,
    “We live in a gamified world.” What a genius! Thanks for making games a normal part of education motivating us to learn. My favorite part about educational games is that they make failure a normal and positive thing. Children would love to learn because it’s ok to fail, just try again and do better next time. Thanks for sharing this with us.
    Jie Yi

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