AccessComputing News

This past summer, Anna Cavender, Lindsay Yazzolino, and I led thirty blind youth ages eight to twelve in two different Computer Science Unplugged activities. The Computer Science Unplugged program introduces youth to computing concepts without the use of computers. One group of fifteen students learned about sorting in a hands-on activity using different algorithms, including insertion sort, selection sort, and bubble sort. They sorted themselves by first name, birthday, and length of cane using the different algorithms.

In the fall of 2008, Professor Harry Lang from the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology delivered a lecture titled "The Genius of Community: Technology as Friend and Foe in the Lives of Deaf People" to an audience of 150 people at the UW. In his lecture, Lang traced the invention of the teletypewriter (TTY) to a small group of determined deaf people who wanted to access the telephone in the 1960s.

ACM’s Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI) is the world’s largest organization dedicated to the study of how humans interact with interactive technologies. Since 2011, the SIGCHI Executive Committee has been discussing ways to become more inclusive of researchers and practitioners with disabilities.

Every October, one of the largest assistive technology conferences in the country occurs in Minnesota. The conference, called Closing the Gap (CTG), focuses on computing tools and education. Each year, DO-IT projects participate by hosting an exhibit and delivering presentations. For the past two years AccessComputing resources and activities have been highlighted.

The fifteenth ACM SIGACCESS International Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2013) was held October 21–23, 2013 in Bellevue, Washington, just across Lake Washington from Seattle. The ASSETS conference is a major forum for research in the design, evaluation, and use of computing and information technologies to benefit people with disabilities and older adults.