Who Gets to Play with the Robot? Examining CS Education Tangibles and Accessibility

Brief Paper (Asynchronous) ID: 59655
  1. aaa
    Caroline Hardin
    Western Washington University
  2. aaa
    Parama Chaudhuri
    Indiana University, Bloomington
  3. Yasmine Elglaly
    Western Washington University

As computer science plays a crucial role in our technology connected world, many school districts now require their K12 schools to provide at least some curriculum on CS or computational thinking skills (Jamshidifarsani et al., 2019). For many schools, the many CS educational robots, devices and tangibles are an attractive option. Using robotics to teach the abstract concepts of CS is playful and engaging and affords concretizing the abstract so children can observe the direct results of their programming commands on the robotics (Bers, 2018). A comprehensive accessibility landscape remains a gap in literature. This paper answers three research questions: 1) Does the manufacturer’s website provide information about the device's accessibility? 2) Can it be used by students who are blind, color blind, or deaf or hard of hearing? 3) Does it need other supportive devices like ipad or a laptop and internet connection? By analyzing almost 90 different device's websites we were able to show that accessibility of the devices is rarely communicated by the manufacturer. Three popular devices were analyzed and found to have often unexpected accessibility issues. Finally, two of the devices analyzed were found to require the use of apps which had a variety of accessibility issues. This research demonstrates both the need for improved accessibility in CS Education tangibles and better communication on the part of manufacturers about which students will be able to use their devices.

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