Technology for Orientation and Mobility Educators
This post outlines the creative ways orientation and mobility (O&M) teachers use various technologies as instructional tools. I hope this blog post will be helpful to other O&M instructors who want some ideas to start incorporating tech into their teaching practices.
If you’re new to this space, O&M training teaches techniques for independent travel to those who are blind or have a vision impairment. Folks can receive this training at any time in their life, though some of these tech interventions are well suited for children.
This information was gathered through interviews with 16 O&M instructors as part of my internship on the Microsoft Ability Team in Summer 2021. I’m located in the US, so much of this is from a US perspective. The 16 interviewed were located in the US, UK, AUS, and IRE. The list I’ve generated through these interviews tends to be iPhone and apple product-centric.
📍 I’ve added tags throughout for technologies that could be used for remote or semi-remote teaching.
Table of Contents
- Mapping
1. Points of Interest Call-Out Apps
2. Personalized Tactile Maps
3. SAS graphics Accelerator - Prerecorded Audio and Video
1. Made by Instructors
2. Made by Students
3. Found Online - Speakers
1. Motion Activated
2. Bluetooth Speakers
3. Tile - Audio Games
1. For Listening Skills
2. For Quizzing
3. For Analytics - Video Calling
1. Whiteboarding
2. Instructor Outdoors
3. Student Outdoors
4. Both Indoors - Miscellaneous
1. Light detector
2. Compass
3. Try Before you Buy
4. Online Community
Mapping
1. Point of Interest Call-Out Apps
Apps with point of interest callouts, including BlindSquare and Soundscape, can help with teaching mental mapping of a new area. One instructor asks parents to download one of these apps and run it in the car while driving anywhere with their child who is learning O&M skills.
“I don’t want them to totally have a complete map in their heads, but I want them to know that they live near this highway, And they live near this main intersection and stuff like that just so that they could start piecing it all together.”
Similarly, camera-based detail could come from having an app like SeeingAI continuously running. Callouts include text, person, and object recognition.
2. Personalized Tactile Maps
Many instructors create personalized tactile maps for their students using Wheatly kits. For a more permanent, techy, solution several instructors I spoke with use a printer and fuser to create these maps. One instructor utilizes computer software to generate printable maps.
First, the map will need to be converted to simple black-and-white text. I’ve had relative success using an application called Mapscii to do this. Mapscii generates symbolic maps, using characters like colons and dashes. Pictured below are two images from mapscii, one of several states (including California, Nevada, and Utah), and one of the street layout of a random neighborhood. I’ve used images instead of pure text for the sanity of screen reader users, but the text is generated! If using a screenshot, the colors should be inverted before fusing, otherwise, the text can be directly copied and pasted into a document to print.
📍If working remotely, these maps can be sent by mail or dropped off for a student.
Fuser: https://www.americanthermoform.com/product/swell-form-graphics-ii-machine/
Wheatley kit: https://www.aph.org/product/picture-maker-wheatley-tactilediagramming-kit/
Mapscii: https://osxdaily.com/2017/06/23/maps-command-line-ascii-mapscii/
3. SAS Graphics Accelerator
This is a chrome extension that allows you to sonnify marked locations on Google’s MyMaps tool. It seems to be most frequently used for learning campuses. Orientation and mobility instructors might use this for giving students an idea of the distance and position of familiar locations. One instructor who uses this tool with a student describes it as “this giant cane and you’re sweeping it in a circle. You’re the center point and then it’ll, it’ll give you a sound chime [when it hits a building.]” It uses tonality to convey distance from you at the center and spatialized audio to convey position relative to you.
To use it, you’ll need to be on chrome and download this extension. You can then go to any map on google my maps that have points of interest placed (here’s a big list of them).
In the lower right you can “accelerate” the map to listen to it.
Prerecorded Audio and Video
“The benefit of the audio, again, is that they can always pause it, rewind it, or not rewind it, but you know back up. Or scrub over it a couple of times so that they can really focus in on — how do you hear the sound change?”
Recorded audio and video are fairly basic instructional tools, but there are many worthwhile ways to use them for orientation and mobility instruction. Instructors and students can sit together and go through a video to prepare for an outing, or a student can take it home to study. Students and instructors might even make the recordings together, to refer to in the future. For example, when learning a route, the instructor and student might talk about specific landmarks or issues that the same can return to next time alone.
📍Recordings can be used regardless of the weather outside or where you’re physically located.
1. Made by Instructors
Some instructors make field recordings to reuse with their students that demonstrate specific concepts (street crossings types by sound, near-parallel traffic sounds, etc.)
Others make highly specific field recordings tailored to a specific student. For example, a walkthrough of a school campus before the student is able to go themselves.
Using field recordings before going out to learn can take some of the pressure off of learning in the moment while the student is outside having the experience (street crossings can be scary!). You can also allow the student to have experiences that they might not yet have access to.
These recordings could be entirely audio with no explanations. You might then use these recordings with your student and pause to walk through a recorded route and explain as you go.
2. Made by Students
Having students create their own videos or online media can be a great teaching tool for orientation mobility. Some instructors have their students make videos of themselves as if they were teaching skills to other students. One student even went as far as to create their own Google classroom with demo videos of apps and invite their friends and fellow classmates to the classroom where they can share and comment about the videos.
This might be a good opportunity to involve family and friends. They can help record or act in the videos. One instructor mentions having parents record their kid using a cane so that she could observe and talk about it with the student later.
3. Found Online
There are already some pre-made recordings online! Huzzah!
Various Crossings
O&M with Linda is a YouTube channel that has a whole bunch of recordings of street crossings. This can be useful for comparing various crossings all at once with a student. It’s also great for previewing before you go out to experience it. Another great thing is that it’s repeatable! You can listen to the same car pass over and over, and even slow the playback speed if you want to listen or watch for something specific.
Travel Vlogs
Travel vlogs are a ton of fun to watch and provide insights on traveling with a disability. A favorite is Dr. Mona Minkara’s international travel vlog: Planes Trains and Canes. This might be a conversation starter or a good resource for a rainy day. You might also find relevant snippets of these clips to discuss with students at the beginning or end of a lesson.
Environmental Recordings
If you want to do some close listening exercises or get students accustomed to specific sounds, you might look for prerecorded environmental sounds. Spotify has playlists of city soundscapes like this one.
Free sound has a huge database of recordings — everything from clips of school bells to cityscapes.
Listening exercises might include:
“what are you hearing? What are you sensing? Can you hear the people walking by you? Can you hear the cars at the same time? Do you feel overwhelmed? Is it scary? Can you get a sense of what’s to your right and what’s to your left? Can they begin to tell me when it’s a car or a truck? Can they tell me whether the ground is dry or wet because the wheels are going to sound different? Can they tell me when a car is going to turn in front of them?”
O&M Skills
Blind on the Move is a channel made by Orientation and Mobility specialist Mike Mulligan. He does skill walk-throughs and product reviews. One instructor mentions reviewing lessons they had done in person using his videos while working with students remotely during covid.
Podcasts
One instructor mentions assigning listening to a podcast by Tracy Spohn, Home Bound for Adventure, for students during the pandemic. It seems targeted towards youth. This podcast is great because it gives students more context for the skills and terms they are learning and it's something they can do outside of lessons. This podcast was made specifically for learning during the pandemic, but could continue to be useful when in-person classes start again!
Speakers
1. Motion Activated Speakers
Door Bell
One instructor mentions using a motion-activated doorbell in lessons to let students know when they’ve crossed a certain barrier. This can be useful for teaching distances and letting a student gauge their walking pace.
Phone Sounds App
Another instructor uses a motion-activated sound effect app to motivate his students. The app plays sounds as you move or shake the phone. By attaching his phone to various objects (a student’s cane or meticulously hollowed out foam ball), he can then provide a thematic and fun mode of interaction for his students. This seems like a great method for getting youth excited about their canes.
This teacher also turns on guided access in the iPhone settings, which lets you lock the phone onto the app. Here’s a guide to setting up guided access on the iPhone:
Here’s an example of one such sound effect app available for Android:
2. Bluetooth Speakers
Quite a few teachers use Bluetooth speakers in their lessons.
For Skill Demonstrations
You can find some music with your student, place the speaker away from them, and have them go to it. As this teacher suggests:
“as they find a the speaker they’re like exhibiting cane skills or shorelining, or simply protective techniques where they have like their hand in front of their face you know“
For Environment Emulation
Using the environmental recordings and sound effects discussed above, some instructors mention simulating a city environment. Students can learn what a crossing signal sounds like and practice facing it from afar. Or you might have them practice walking parallel to the sound of traffic with appropriately placed speakers playing traffic sounds. It can be nice to have a way to practice these skills in a safe, low-key environment.
Students can sometimes be overwhelmed in busy areas when demonstrating their skills, so some instructors play crowd sounds while they practice to help them get used to it.
Other Use Cases
One instructor also mentions it might be useful for learning how to walk along an incline without drifting, although they hadn’t implemented this. They hypothesized that having a Bluetooth speaker set up playing music while the student traversed a driveway would give them some extra grounding to hear when they are drifting.
3. Tile
Tile is a company that makes small Bluetooth trackers that ring when you push a button on the phone app. These usually come in the form of keychains and stickers.
One instructor mentions using these in a similar way to the Bluetooth speaker mentioned above. You can place one or several and set them off in sequence or all at once. You can use this as a treasure hunt or as an orientation tool. For reorientation, place the tiles in meaningful locations such as above the door to their office. For a quick lay of the land, place them on different landmarks in a space and set them off at once to get a quick auditory view of the space.
Audio Games
Generally, games come and go from the App Store, but they can be useful for teaching sound localization in a fun and engaging way. I’ve listed a couple games here that I’ve been able to get from the Apple App Store, some of them do cost money, but I’ve noted that here.
📍All of the games listed can be played remotely or together.
1. For Listening Skills
FEER
Description: While perpetually moving forward, collect “lights” and steer clear of zombies.
O&M Application: Time / Distance education, directionality
Controls: Swipe left to move left, swipe right to move right. Three lanes available
Audio: Zombies, lights, and power-ups can be either to your left, right, or in front of you
Cost: $3.99
Platform: iphone, android
Audio Wizards
Description: Shoot spells at monsters that come from three different channels. High Production Value
O&M Application: Directionality, Time / Distance, Close listening
Controls: Swipe left / right / up / down to equip a spell. Swipe toward one of the channels (left-right mid) to hit a monster with it.
Audio: Monsters are panned left if left of you (same for right, or center). Each spell has a unique sound and an “equipped” sound before it times out. Voice acting. Monsters have slightly different sounds based on their element type.
Cost: $4.99
Platform: iPhone, android, pc
A Blind Legend
Description: Medieval story-centric game. Follow a character by listening to where they are coming from and turning then running toward them. Good Story Telling.
O&M Application: Directionality, environmental awareness
Controls: Swipe left / right to turn. Swipe up to run forward, down to step back. Hold any swipe to continue. Tap to hear a callout from the girl you follow.
Audio: Distinct stepping sounds for each control. Spatialized scenes that you run through and follow a voice within them. Voice acting.
Cost: Free
Platform: iPhone, android, pc
Potential Issues: Uses the word cripple and curses unnecessarily
Audio Game Hub 2
Description: Audio-based minigames with a range of themes. I’ve included a list of each below. Lots of different games, archery came up as something folks have used for source orientation.
O&M Application: Various
Games: casino games, animal escape, bomb disarmer, super simon, archery, hunt, samurai tournament, samurai dojo, labyrinth, memory, blocks, runner
Cost: paid, but can test for free
Platform: iPhone, android, pc
Potential Issues: First play on every game is free, then you must watch videos or pay. Need to turn your screen reader off and on. There are ads.
Vanished
Description: My personal favorite so far, stand up and turn your body to turn — makes spatial audio comprehension so much easier. You are exploring a spooky area to try to figure out what catastrophic event has happened.
O&M Application: Exploration Directionality Time / Distance
Controls: Turn your body to turn, tap and hold to walk, shake to attack
Audio: Explore the weird noises in an open map, there are bad guys that make various noises, sounds like a dystopian city
Cost: paid, but can test for free
Platform: iPhone
Potential Issues: Spooky! Maybe too spooky for little ones.
2. For Quizzing
Another notable use case of audio-based games is using them for quizzing orientation and mobility skills that they’ve already learned. This can be done asynchronously, or remotely over zoom, or as a fun end to an in-person class.
There’s a bunch of these different quiz apps out there, it’s a bit hard to find ones that are accessible and modifiable, unfortunately.
One option is to use the PowerPoint template here, it includes all of the Who Wants to be a Millionaire soundtrack, but you will have to read off the question and answers. Haven’t tried it with the software they recommend, but it works well enough just using PowerPoint for free.
3. For Analytics
Objective Ed (formerly blindfold games) is a paid platform that allows teachers to subscribe and use games with the students that collect data on their usage and progress. One specialist that I spoke to has used this in the past and appreciated that they could check in with their students over time to see how far they could get in games and how they were doing via the analytics tools.
Video Calling
📍 During the pandemic, lots of teaching was done over video calls! Even with classes going back to in-person, these strategies could be good for reaching more remote students.
1. Whiteboarding
Zoom offers a whiteboard tool that helped two instructors in their teaching low vision students. One mentions using it to draw out intersection types. Another mentions using it to map a student’s house with them.
2. Instructor Outdoors
A few instructors were leading virtual adventures with their students at home listening or watching. Students could be observers, asking questions as you go, or giving you directions as you go.
“I’d have them go online and try to give me walking directions to my local café”
Instructors would highlight sounds and talk about them, screen and audio share their navigation apps if they were using them, as they navigated residential neighborhoods and businesses.
This was generally done using zoom or facetime. Phone calls decrease the audio the student can hear.
If you are using zoom, I recommend turning on the setting for “original sound” this will turn off the audio processing the software does. Here’s a set of instructions for that.
3. Student Outdoors
Several instructors interfaced remotely with students while the student was traveling in their community. In this scenario, the student might have called with a question, or a parent was participating in their child’s lesson by holding the device as they traveled and accompanying them for extra safety.
4. Both Indoors
Video calls lend themselves well to teaching things like:
- Trip planning
- Money skills and apps (counting change, paying at the store, etc.)
- Time skills and apps (how to determine when to get off the bus, etc.)
- Social mobility techniques (how to ask for help, advocate for yourself, etc.)
- Social and cultural discussions (ableism, visibility, safety, etc.)
- App walkthroughs
Group lessons can also be useful in this scenario. One teacher asked each of their students to prepare skills or lessons to teach to other students.
If you’re teaching trip planning, one teacher recommends getting the student's friends or family involved and planning a trip that they will take together.
Miscellaneous
1. Light Detector App
Helps to teach folks with no light perception concepts of light and dark, can help with learning how to feel the sun and use that for navigating outdoors, or just generally to get a sense of concepts related to light. This might include using Seeing AI’s color detector channel in conjunction with the light detector to illustrate how color changes depending on exposure.
2. Compass App
iPhones have a built-in compass app that some instructors use for teaching directionality. Having the compass read out location as they move through a trip with a student helps them to solidify these concepts.
3. Try Before You Buy
This might not be exactly a teaching tool, but it is tech that students don’t have access to without the teacher. Some orientation mobility specialists buy various technologies to let their students try them out and see how they like them. This could be bone-conducting headphones or smart glasses, or even braille notes. Anything that would be a significant cost. That way the student can figure out if it’s something that they would actually want to use in the future.
4. Online Community
📍 Teaching students to use online forums and become part of online communities might not at first seem like an orientation and mobility teaching tool. But, learning to engage in communities of similar interests and find local events can be a significant motivator for getting out there. Platforms you might consider teaching about include social networking sites and forums like Facebook and Reddit. There are special interested Discord groups. Event-finding apps like Meetup and Eventbrite may be worthwhile to teach. Community organizations like Lighthouse for the Blind often have social and special interest events as well.