KUALA LUMPUR, 18 JUNE 2009 – New animated tutorials to help PC users with disabilities have been launched by Microsoft Malaysia at the 17th Commonwealth Education Ministers’ conference in Kuala Lumpur.
Microsoft Asia-Pacific public sector managing director, Mike Donlan said the company’s curriculum for accessibility and reach for education (CARE)—an online set of more than 60 animated tutorials and exercises)—would help students with disabilities, and their teachers, use computers more effectively.
“Accessibility to technology in the classroom can be a challenge across the world. However, for the disabled to get in front of a machine is sometimes just half the battle. CARE is about providing practical, immediate help to classrooms about how to get the most out of a computer,” said Donlan. “Empowering people with disabilities starts with schools. By providing students with access to all the knowledge the Internet can bring, by connecting them to social networks, by giving them skills for the workplace, we are empowering them to contribute to society, and therefore benefit from it as well.”
CARE was jointly developed with Japan’s ICT Education Consortium and seeks to demonstrate how ICT can support and empower people with disabilities. The launch comes at the midway point in the United Nation’s Asia and Pacific Decade for Disabled People 2003-2012.
UN: 400 million people with disabilities in Asia Pacific
Donlan said according to the United Nations, there are about 400 million people with disabilities in the Asia Pacific.
“Often they are unable to participate in computing classes as their disabilities prevent them from using a computer,” he said. “As a consequence, they might not develop skills that will allow them to benefit from, and contribute to their societies. Specialist equipment can be inaccessible or unaffordable.”
“Microsoft’s CARE is designed to offer practical training, through animated tutorials and videos, to access the built-in functionality of Windows that can make computer use easier and more fun for people with disabilities,” he added.
Donlan said teachers and students can go to the CARE website and listen to, or watch, animated characters showing them how to use computers in their daily lives more easily. “The theme will be space exploration, as using a computer can sometimes feel like space exploration for the disabled. There will be more than 60 animated tutorials and exercises aimed at children who, for example, cannot press two keys at the same time, or those who cannot control a mouse and a keyboard together. It will also coach students into developing more advanced skills, such as making presentations, using the Internet or creating Word documents.”
The invisible tribe
In addition, he said, the site uses animation software called MARVIN from Australia’s NTICED (Northern Territory Institute for Community Engagement and Development). “MARVIN was developed to help Australia’s indigenous children learn and discuss culturally sensitive issues in a more creative and less confrontational way. New Zealand’s WETA studios, digital designers for films such as Lord of the Rings, Superman III and King Kong, created the characters that will guide the students through what for some will be their first use of a computer.”
“We found in northern Australia that children with few ICT skills responded extremely well to the animated characters that MARVIN provides, and it worked well as an education tool,” said MARVIN’s creator J Easterby-Wood. “The concept here is for us to use MARVIN as a communication tool to soften the sometimes scary world of PC use, make it fun and accessible for students with disabilities, and take the message out globally that education and computing is for everyone.”
“People with disabilities are like an invisible tribe,” said former director of UNESCO Asia and Pacific Bureau for Education, Sheldon Shaeffer. “Because the world we have made for ourselves almost completely ignores them, we forget that they still have to cope with everyday life. Indeed, they want to cope with everyday life so as to be as productive as everyone else.”
“Education for All, a goal proclaimed by virtually every country of the world at the World Education Forum in Dakar in 2000, means every child in school (and every adult literate) receives an education of good quality by the year 2015,” said Shaeffer. “CARE shows how PCs can broaden the world of these children and describes the special accessibility options for making more effective use of the technologies that are available.”
