Deaf or hearing impaired

The Connect Ability Challenge, which challenges developers to build accessible technology solutions for people with disabilities using only existing and affordable mainstream platforms, announced the winners of a USD$92,500 (AUD$125,381) prize pool last Monday.

For students with diverse learning needs, the use of captioned content in the classroom is the best way to gain access to context and information for learning experiences using media. When captions are not available, the fall-back position for teachers has often been the use of transcripts.

Specialist education roles, such as Itinerant or Supporting Teachers of the Deaf, have a strategic and practical role in promoting the use of captions in school.

In late May, Dr Scott Hollier travelled to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to teach a web accessibility course to 22 students. As part of the assignment work, the students learnt how to use the basic functionality of screen readers and other Assistive Technology (AT). While the work went well, it quickly became apparent that there were a number of issues relating to the way in which Arabic was supported by the tools, and how those tools interacted with the web.