ASTRONOMY FOR BLIND AND DISABLED Erasmus Project

Project Title

ASTRONOMY FOR BLIND AND DISABLED

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Disabilities – special needs; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Access for disadvantaged

Project Summary

This project aims to create innovative applications for visually impaired and disabled people. Our main idea is to make Astronomy accessible to visually impaired and disabled people. Visually impaired people cannot view astronomical images and have difficulty in perceiving them. We are proposing an application that can aurally interpret an astronomical image as sounds. The selected astronomical images will be scanned producing a specific series of sounds. When the software detects an astronomical object e.g. a planet, a star, or a galaxy then the sound tone, volume and frequency change following the respective form of the object and its dimensions. Furthermore, we wish to make our application compatible with mobile devices, so visually impaired people can detect interactively on the touch screen the respective astronomical objects. Following the same technique with sound changes after finger-touching searching someone can discover the form and size of an astronomical object. Additionally, we propose the creation of a database of astronomical objects. Towards this direction we developed an unofficial collaboration with Astronomical Society “ORION” and also included a partner that can provide astronomical data from an Observatory. Towards the same direction, the Experimental High School of the University of Patras will establish a collaboration with Observatories sited at Greece. The enrichment of the database will be the main responsibility of partners from Spain, France and the aforementioned Greek school. Straight after the enrichment of the database, we will construct a website specially prepared for disabled people. This website will provide access for disabled people to astronomical data from their homes. Phone instructions, phone orders and distant requests for astronomical data and objects will be some of the basics of this website. The construction of the website will be the main responsibility of the University of Patras as well as the development of the applications. Of course, the University of Patras will supervise all stages of the project providing all necessary directives.
Following the first stage of preparing and constructing digital tools, we need to apply, test and evaluate our tools. Thus we carefully selected partners that are experts in special education for visually impaired people, or disabled people. Three out of seven partners are schools for students with special needs. In the second half of our project, we will visit one by one these schools applying our digital tools, evaluating the applicability, functionality and effectiveness. Then we will further proceed to changes and upgrade our prior versions. We finally wish to provide publicly some really useful scientific tools for people with special needs. We strongly believe that a disabled person must have free access without any obstacles to scientific resources, but even more, we believe that technology must serve the special needs of humans in any way, even “visualizing” astronomical images for visually impaired people.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 322541,56 Eur

Project Coordinator

PANEPISTIMIO PATRON & Country: EL

Project Partners

• Liepajas Neredzigo biedriba
• CEIP LA JARA
• Experimental High School of University of Patras
• COLLEGE EMILIEN ADAM DE VILLIERS
• Stowarzyszenie Przyjaciol i Wychowankow Zespolu Szkol nr 6 w Rybniku – Dla Dobra
• Eidiko Sxoleio Paidikou Anarrotiriou Erythrou Stavrou