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1. A Tangible Block Editor for the Scratch Programming Language

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3411763.3451833  

   Goolsby, Bryson ; Pawluk, Dianne ; Kim, Hyun Woo ; Fusco, Giovanni ( May 2021 , CHI '21)

   null (Ed.)

   We describe a tangible block editor for the educational programming language Scratch that allows blind and visually impaired (BVI) students to learn computer programming concepts alongside their sighted peers in mainstream classrooms. In this late breaking work, we provide a description of the design that incorporates many of the key elements of the Scratch visual code editor that promote engagement and lower hurdles to programming. The environment allows a BVI student to work collaboratively with other BVI and sighted students, being accessible to all. Key elements of the design include: the use of magnets and local shape to ensure only blocks with valid syntax can be connected, the allowance of nested expressions through expansion of code structures with telescoping tubing, and a channel grid work surface that provides structure to aid students working with the much narrower field of view of haptics, as compared to vision. 

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2. Accessible AST-Based Programming for Visually-Impaired Programmers

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3287324.3287499  

   Schanzer, Emmanuel ; Bahram, Sina ; Krishnamurthi, Shriram ( January 2019 , SIGCSE '19 Proceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education)

   Most programmers rely on visual tools (block-based editors, auto-indentation, bracket matching, syntax highlighting, etc.), which are inaccessible to visually-impaired programmers. While prior language-specific, downloadable tools have demonstrated benefits for the visually-impaired, we lack language-independent, cloud-based tools, both of which are critically needed. We present a new toolkit for building fully-accessible, browser-based programming environments for multiple languages. Given a parser that meets certain specifications, this toolkit will generate a block editor familiar to sighted users that also communicates the structure of a program using spoken descriptions, and allows for navigation using standard (accessible) keyboard shortcuts. This paper presents the toolkit and a first evaluation of it. While the toolkit allows for full editing of code, we chose to focus strictly on navigation for this evaluation, using the navigation-only study design of Baker, Milne and Ladner. Visually-impaired programmers completed several tasks with and without our tool, and we compared their results and experience. Users had improved accuracy when completing tasks, were significantly better able to orient when reading code, and felt better about completing the tasks when using the tool. Moreover, these improvements came with no significant change in task completion time over plain text, even for experienced programmers who navigate text using screen readers set to high words-per-minutes. 

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3. StoryMakAR: Bringing Stories to Life With An Augmented Reality & Physical Prototyping Toolkit for Youth

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376790  

   Glenn, Terrell ; Ipsita, Ananya ; Carithers, Caleb ; Peppler, Kylie ; Ramani, Karthik ( April 2020 , Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems)

   null (Ed.)

   Makerspaces can support educational experiences in prototyping for children. Storytelling platforms enable high levels of creativity and expression, but have high barriers of entry. We introduce StoryMakAR, which combines making and storytelling. StoryMakAR is a new AR-IoT system for children that uses block programming, physical prototyping, and event-based storytelling to bring stories to life. We reduce the barriers to entry for youth (Age=14-18) by designing an accessible, plug-and-play system through merging both electro-mechanical devices and virtual characters to create stories. We describe our initial design process, the evolution and workflow of StoryMakAR, and results from multiple single-session workshops with 33 high school students. Our preliminary studies led us to understand what students want to make. We provide evidence of how students both engage and have difficulties with maker-based storytelling. We also discuss the potential for StoryMakAR to be used as a learning environment for classrooms and younger students. 

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4. Bonk: accessible programming for accessible audio games

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3202185.3202754  

   Kane, Shaun K. ; Koushik, Varsha ; Muehlbradt, Annika ( January 2018 , IDC '18 Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on Interaction Design and Children)

   Introductory computer programming presents a number of challenges for blind and visually impaired screen reader users. In addition to the challenges of navigating complex code documents using a screen reader, novice programmers who are blind are often unable to experience fun coding projects such as programming games or animations. To address these accessibility barriers, we developed Bonk, an accessible programming environment that enables the creation of interactive audio games using a subset of the JavaScript programming language. Bonk enables novice programmers to create, share, play, and remix accessible audio games. In this paper, we introduce the Bonk programming toolkit and describe its use in a week-long programming workshop with blind and visually impaired high school students. Students in the workshop were able to create and share original audio games using Bonk, and expressed enthusiasm about furthering their programming knowledge. 

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5. Accessible Block-Based Programming for K-12 Students Who Are Blind or Low Vision

   https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78095-1_5  

   Das M., Marghitu D. ( July 2021 , Human-Computer Interaction. Access to Media, Learning and Assistive Environments. HCII 2021)

   Antona M., Stephanidis C. (Ed.)

   Block-based programming applications, such as MIT’s Scratch and Blockly Games, are commonly used to teach K-12 students to code. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many K-12 students are attending online coding camps, which teach programming using these block-based applications. However, these applications are not accessible to the Blind/Low Vision (BLV) population since they neither produce audio output nor are screen reader accessible. In this paper, we describe a solution to make block-based programming accessible to BLV students using Google’s latest Keyboard Navigation and present its evaluation with four individuals who are BLV. We distill our findings as recommendations to developers who may want to make their Block-based programming application accessible to individuals who are BLV. 

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