Context. Given the need for digital transformation in education during the pandemic, this study focused on the Dell Accessible Learning (DAL) platform and its adaptation to the metaverse environment to improve learning for People with Disabilities (PwD). Goal. To analyze the viability of the metaverse environment in providing collaborative and accessible interaction for DAL students. Method: We conducted a prior literature review to align requirements with the State of the Art, considering collaborative learning and accessibility. Interviews and usability analysis were conducted with 9 PwD, DELL employees, corroborating the information in the literature. After usability evaluations and interviews, it was found that the third-party metaverse environment did not fully meet the accessibility criteria and usability. In response, DALverse was developed, a proof of concept integrated with DAL. Result. The results indicate benefits, including increased resources, multimodal interactions, and student retention. Future research should explore the use of DALverse in parallel with DAL courses, aiming to measure changes in indicators such as interaction, engagement, and performance. Furthermore, we provide an architectural model used in DAL and DALverse and implications for education, researchers, industry professionals, students and tutors.

This innovative practice full paper presents a Metaphorical Debugger Model (JAD) to support deaf and hearing impaired in the process of learning how to program in Java. In Brazil, 9.7 million people are deaf or hearing impaired (DHI). DHI people usually face several barriers to get proper education. During a series of Java classes conducted by our team, we verified that these difficulties were also related to the use of software that is not tailored for their impairment. We also saw that DHI students encountered many problems while developing and evolving their codes using the traditional tools, for instance, visual signs to perform tasks, can be difficult to understand, in addition, the high degree of abstraction required for the programming logic, can be an accessibility barrier for them. Thus, we decided to propose JAD aiming to provide accessible debugging for DHI. The JAD uses the concept of metaphorical interfaces, adopting appropriate symbols and signs borrowed from traffic to aid in the process of code debugging and evolution. In this paper, we present some user studies with JAD. The results suggest that Java programmers, DHI e non-DHI, had similar performance in task related to software evolution when JAD was used.

Teaching a programming language to a person who is deaf or hearing impaired (DHI) has, along with other challenges, the lack of signs to convey basic concepts in computing. This shortage of signs makes learning even harder for the DHI.

Growing demand for computer programmers presents a good opportunity for better paying jobs for those who are deaf. Our online java programming course designed for the deaf has staggering dropout rates. We introduce the JLoad, an e-learning object designed to smooth the learning curve of a remote deaf Java learner. JLoad has a simple IDE and collaboration tools to enable asynchronous and remote situated student monitoring and assistance. Such collaboration involves student, tutors and translators. We presented JLoad's prototypes to a community of deaf programmers and tutor for early validation. We discuss how they received JLoad and improved its prototypes.