Generative AI is increasingly used in learning environments, but most systems focus on generating responses rather than supporting interaction. This limitation is especially important for blind and visually impaired (BVI) learners, who rely on non-visual ways to navigate and understand programming tasks. We present findings from a co-design study with BVI high school students exploring expectations for AI assistants in expressive computer science learning. Participants described how AI could support accessible interaction, guide learning, and empower learner agency. We derive two design principles for inclusive AI assistants: (1) situated multimodal interaction and (2) scaffolded iterative interaction. These principles shift the focus from adapting outputs (e.g., audio) to designing interactions that support how learners navigate and engage in the CS learning context. Our work highlights the importance of interaction design in accessible AI and the value of involving BVI learners in the design of AI-powered educational technologies.

Several countries legally require computing programs to ensure their graduates can develop accessible computing solutions. Computing Science Curricula 2023 (CS2023), developed by a joint task force from ACM, IEEE-Computer Society, and AAAI, likewise mandates coverage of accessibility and provides guidance on how to integrate accessibility into computing curricula. Yet the accreditation criteria used by ABET's Computing Accreditation Commission (CAC) -- which accredits more than 650 computing programs in 25 countries -- do not currently require graduates from these programs to know about computing accessibility. Adding accessibility to the CAC accreditation criteria would be transformative in closing the growing gap of accessibility skills in the computing industry, and ensuring new computing technology is accessible to all.

Expressive computer science (CS) learning environments teach coding through the creation of an artifact, such as audio or video output.EarSketch is an expressive CS learning environment designed to teach computing through music production, mixing and arranging sounds using code.In this paper, we explore the accessibility challenges of using EarSketch for learners who are Blind and Visually Impaired (BVI).We present key findings from co-design studies with teachers and students at an institution specializing in BVI education, focused on gathering both groups' unique perspectives about EarSketch's ability to support teachers' curricula, students' workflows using the system with accessibility software, and challenges faced by users who are BVI.

Developing voice programming systems involves integrating the strict constraints of programming languages with the variability of spoken language.While much of the research has focused on technical system design, relatively little work has explored structured methodologies that bridge programming logic with natural vocal expression.In this paper, we present a taxonomy of programming expressions and a Kencode method for generating concise and effective vocal instructions, using a Grounded Theory approach to reduce syntactic constraints and avoid unnecessary verbosity.We propose a standard rule set to generate and validate vocal programming instructions and evaluate the performance of multiple automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems in transcribing these instructions.Our experimental results demonstrate that ASRs, including five modern ASR systems, a cloud-based service, and an offline model, can accurately and reliably recognize the vocal instruction inputs defined by the proposed approach.Furthermore, we illustrate that applying basic natural language processing (NLP) techniques, such as normalization, significantly improves transcription accuracy.These findings underscore the critical role of NLP in enhancing the overall performance of voicebased programming systems.Overall, our study demonstrates the feasibility and effectiveness of building a robust method for vocal programming that mimics programming expression, offering a promising direction for voice-based programming.

In pursuit of making the benefits of learning to code more accessible to young learners, numerous block-based environments have been developed. This study attempts to identify key design features within these applications that support student learning; aiming to enhance existing environments, guide future design efforts, and assist educators in selecting platforms tailored to specific educational needs. Through in-depth computer science $\mathrm{K}-8$ teacher interviews and a thematic analysis, we uncovered 96 key concepts, categorized into three themes: design features, user aptitude, and pedagogical strategies. Teachers emphasized usability heuristics such as user control, flexible modalities, clear visual cues, and context-rich error notifications to enhance programming environments. They also stated coding applications need to support pedagogical strategies including pair programming, clear rubrics, appropriate scaffolding, and differentiated instruction.

The study, using Jakob Nielsen’s Usability Principles, aimed to identify usability challenges in the Canvas LMS. Conducted by University of North Texas computer science students familiar with usability evaluation, it selected students for the sample. The research method served as a pilot, guiding future investigations. Ten students participated, with the questionnaire’s Cronbach’s alpha at 0.969, showing high reliability and consistency in the tools used.

The design of software influences its usability and user satisfaction. To ensure an effective user interface, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) identifies several heuristics to follow when developing applications. Conducting heuristic evaluations can help identify potential design flaws and usability issues. User reviews are commonly used for requirements elicitation, but can also be analyzed for mentions of heuristics and HCI concerns. In this study we analyzed 300 random user reviews, scraped from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, for three popular coding apps for children: CodeSpark, ScratchJr, and Tynker. These applications allow young people to create programs through block-based, drag-and-drop methods. A team of three researchers then codified the reviews based on Jakob Nielsen's 10 HCI heuristics. We found that users of novice coding applications most frequently discussed user control and freedom, flexibility and efficiency of use, error prevention, and consistency in online user reviews. These usability heuristics were mentioned as being present in highly-rated user reviews (4 or 5 stars) and absent in lowly-rated user reviews (1or 2 stars). Consistency and error prevention were found to have a statistically significant impact on overall user satisfaction. Knowing the most critical usability heuristics for end users can effectively guide the design and development of coding applications for novices.

The visual and mouse-centric nature of block-based programming environments generally make them inaccessible and challenging to use by users with visual impairments who rely on assistive technologies to interact with computers. This prevents these users from participating in programming activities where these systems are used. This paper presents a prototype of an accessible block-based programming library called Accessible Blockly that allows users to create and navigate block-based code using a screen reader and a keyboard. This is an attempt to make the famous Blockly library accessible through a screen reader and keyboard. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of Accessible Blockly. We also discuss the evaluation of the library for block-based code navigation in a study with 12 blind programmers. Analysis of the study results shows that Accessible Blockly effectively aids users with reading and understanding block-based code. Participants found Accessible Blockly easy to use and less frustrating for navigating block-based programs. The participants also expressed enthusiasm and interest in using the keyboard and screen reader to navigate block-based code and in the accessibility of block-based programming.

Block-based programming environments pose a challenge for people with upper-limb motor impairments. This is because they are highly dependent on the physical manipulation of a mouse or keyboard to drag and drop elements on the screen. Our research aims to make the block-based programming environment Blockly, accessible to users with upper limb motor impairments by adding voice as an alternative input modality. This voice-enabled version of Blockly will reduce the need for the use of a pointing device, thus increasing access for people with limited dexterity. The Voice-enabled Blockly system consists of the Blockly application, a speech recognition API, predefined voice commands, and a custom function. A usability study was conducted using a prototype of Voice-enabled Blockly. The results revealed that people with upper-limb motor impairments can use the system. However, it also exposed some shortcomings of the tool and gave some suggestions on how to fix them. Based on the findings, changes will be made to the system, and then, it will be evaluated in another user study in the near future.

Understanding accessibility and how it relates to artificial intelligence (AI)-based technology is an imperative skill for computing students from both an ethical and employment standpoint. Unfortunately, AI courses do not typically cover accessibility. When teaching ethics in AI, discussions on bias and fairness cover user diversity in terms of gender and race, but not disability. To address the lack of teaching accessibility in AI courses, we conducted a pilot study to explore what and how accessibility topics can be integrated into an AI course, titled Natural Language Processing (NLP). We added to the NLP course some general and quick accessibility topics through means such as a short guest lecture, a programming assignment and a final project that connect accessibility and AI. We gathered student feedback through a pre-survey, a post-survey and interviews with five students. The course we looked at took place synchronously in an online setting using Zoom. In this context, we observed how implementing accessibility topics remotely into the course affected students in their knowledge of accessibility and disability.

The past five years have witnessed an increase in research to improve the accessibility of block-based programming environments to people with visual impairments. This has led to the creation of a few accessible block-based programming environments with some researchers considering tangible alternatives or hybrid environments. However, the literature says little about the learning experiences of K-12 students with visual impairments on these systems in educational settings. We try to fill this gap of knowledge with a report on an interview study with twelve teachers of K-12 students with visual impairments. Through the lens of the teachers, we discovered that factors such as the students background, the teacher's CS background and the design of existing curricula influence the learning process of students with visual impairments learning how to code. In addition to discussing how they go about to mitigate the challenges that stem from these factors, teachers also reported on how they compensate for the lack of accessible block-based languages. Through this work, we offer insights into how the research community can improve the learning experiences of students with visual impairments including training teachers, ensuring students have basic computing skills, improving the curriculum and designing accessible on-screen block-based programming environments.

Test smells are defined as sub-optimal design choices developers make when implementing test cases. Hence, similar to code smells, the research community has produced numerous test smell detection tools to investigate the impact of test smells on the quality and maintenance of test suites. However, little is known about the characteristics, type of smells, target language, and availability of these published tools. In this paper, we provide a detailed catalog of all known, peer-reviewed, test smell detection tools.

With an increase in the use of block-based programming environments in k-12 curriculum, the need for accessibility exists in order to serve all students. Accessible block-based systems are in their infancy. Such systems would provide students with visual impairments the opportunity to learn programming and take part in computational thinking activities using the same systems that are found appealing to most sighted learners. However, with the presence of these systems little is known about their long-term use in the educational milieu. As a result, we conducted a survey with twelve teachers of students with visual impairments to learn about the use of these systems in teaching their students and to understand the barriers that students face in the learning process. Our study reveals that only one block-based programming environment is common among teachers and that several challenges exist. These challenges range from limited learners’ preparedness through difficulties editing and navigating code, to ineffective system feedback.

With an increasing demand for computing professionals with skills in accessibility, it is important for university faculty to select effective methods for educating computing students about barriers faced by users with disabilities and approaches to improving accessibility. While some prior work had evaluated accessibility educational interventions, many prior studies have consisted of firsthand reports from faculty or short-term evaluations. This paper reports on the results of a systematic evaluation of methods for teaching accessibility from a longitudinal study across 29 sections of a human-computer interaction course (required for students in a computing degree program), as taught by 10 distinct professors, throughout four years, with over 400 students. A control condition (course without accessibility content) was compared to four intervention conditions: week of lectures on accessibility, team design project requiring some accessibility consideration, interaction with someone with a disability, and collaboration with a team member with a disability. Comparing survey data immediately before and after the course, we found that the Lectures, Projects, and Interaction conditions were effective in increasing students' likelihood to consider people with disabilities on a design scenario, awareness of accessibility barriers, and knowledge of technical approaches for improving accessibility - with students in the Team Member condition having higher scores on the final measure only. However, comparing survey responses from students immediately before the course and from approximately 2 years later, almost no significant gains were observed, suggesting that interventions within a single course are insufficient for producing long-term changes in measures of students’ accessibility learning. This study contributes to empirical knowledge to inform university faculty in selecting effective methods for teaching accessibility, and it motivates further research on how to achieve long-term changes in accessibility knowledge, e.g. by reinforcing accessibility throughout a degree program.

LEGO is a construction toy familiar to many students. Creating software, regardless of scale, is often similar to building with tangible objects, such as houses or bridges--an analogy that is often used in the classroom. In this workshop, we will show how to use LEGO as an engaging medium to introduce students to concepts of iterative development, software interfaces, team velocity, and distributed software projects. LEGO-based analogies and case studies enacted as hands-on exercises for student teams help develop a better understanding of the underlying concepts, while keeping students deeply engaged in the course material. This workshop is intended for faculty teaching undergraduate and graduate courses focusing on software development, software engineering, and related concepts. This workshop will also benefit other educators looking for ways to supplement their courses with engaging and playful hands-on activities aimed to strengthen the teamwork, oral communication, problem solving, and design skills of students. We will practice several hands-on LEGO-based activities during the workshop. Specific topics of these activities will include change management and object-oriented interfaces, as well as activities specific to the phases of software development. Workshop participants will learn about other LEGO-based activities that focus on a broad range of topics including requirements engineering, architectural design, and software dependability. A laptop is not required for this workshop. This work is supported in part by the National Science Foundation Awards 1611905, 1709244 and a 2015 ACM SIGCSE Special Project grant. For more information visit http://www.cs.ccsu.edu/~stan/sigcse2020/

We investigate the degree to which undergraduate computing students in a United States university consider accessibility several years after instruction. Prior work has found that cultural and ethical norms become ingrained early in STEM professionals’ careers; so, we focus on students approaching graduation and after an internship experience, who are just getting started in their career. In semi-structured interviews, a majority of these final-year computing students (14 of 16) indicated that they were not motivated to improve their skills in accessibility, attributing this to not being required to consider accessibility in subsequent work or classes, not seeing accessibility as an essential skill in their profession , and challenges due to a learn-it-on-your-own approach in computing. Participants suggested instructional methods and topics that they believed would have better prepared them for considering accessibility. A survey of 114 additional final-year students revealed similar themes, including that students did not personally view accessibility training as essential career preparation. Prior research has largely focused on evaluating short-term changes in students’ knowledge after an educational intervention. Therefore, by focusing on students several years after an intervention, this work highlights lingering barriers for university programs in promoting accessibility among rising computing professionals.

Case studies are one of the best active learning approaches for teaching software engineering in general and requirements engineering in particular. They offer an effective approach to understanding a system or a phenomenon that are too large or too difficult to represent in a lab setting. As a tangible manipulative, LEGO works well to support designing hands-on case studies that mix studying software engineering concepts with the elements of team building and playful creativity. In our project, we study the role that LEGO has in engaging students in software engineering through a set of activities that leverage the case study and play aspects. This paper presents our design approach for requirements engineering activities, as well as current results from classroom testing with a focus on student engagement with the subject matter.

LEGO is a construction toy familiar to many students. Creating software, regardless of scale, is often similar to building with tangible objects, such as houses or bridges--an analogy that is often used in the classroom. In this workshop, we will show how to use LEGO bricks as a surrogate representing the lines of code, software objects, or other artifacts in the process of constructing software systems. LEGO-based analogies and case studies enacted as hands-on exercises for student teams help develop a better understanding of the underlying concepts, while keeping students deeply engaged in the course material. This workshop is intended for faculty teaching undergraduate and graduate courses focusing on software development, software engineering, and related concepts. This workshop will also benefit other educators looking for ways to supplement their courses with engaging and playful hands-on activities aimed to strengthen the teamwork, oral communication, problem solving, and design skills of students. We will practice several hands-on LEGO-based activities during the workshop. Specific topics of these activities will include change management and object-oriented interfaces, as well as activities specific to the phases of software development. Workshop participants will learn about other LEGO-based activities that focus on a broad range of topics including requirements engineering, architectural design, and software dependability. A laptop is not required for this workshop. This work is supported in part by the National Science Foundation Awards 1611905, 1709244 and a 2015 ACM SIGCSE Special Project grant. For more information visit http://www.cs.ccsu.edu/~stan/sigcse2018/

Making technology and computer science learning experiences accessible to students with disabilities is an important step in preparing them to enter the workforce of the future--one in which many jobs will require skills to solve problems with technology. This paper presents the tool and curricular enhancements developed to make the Exploring Computer Science Robotics unit accessible to students with visual impairments (VI). It describes the evolution of enhancements, based on formative evaluation studies, to increase support as VI students engaged in building and programming LEGO Mindstorms robots. Results describe the ways in which enhancements were iteratively designed in response to student engagement and confidence, as well as their emerging understanding of top-down and bottom-up processes in robotics design and programming.

An increasing importance of accessibility awareness and knowledge emanates from a moral imperative and as an employment differentiator. It is important that educational programs have a demonstrated ability to teach these skills. In this paper, we focus on the role that educational courses can play in increasing accessibility awareness for undergraduate students. We review literature indicating that a number of accessibility teaching interventions have been reported; yet the evaluation of their effectiveness has not been conducted in a consistent manner. We report on our 3-semester evaluation of undergraduate students' accessibility awareness and knowledge following a week of accessibility lectures as part of courses on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), where a subset of students also interact with stakeholders with disabilities during the conduct of the course projects. Gains in awareness and knowledge occur when accessibility lectures were part of the course. These gains are compared across the teams who interacted with a person with a disability and teams with no such interaction. In addition, we provide the test battery developed to measure these skills, to enable other researchers to conduct evaluations of the effectiveness of interventions for teaching inclusive thinking in undergraduate computing at their own institutions.

Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) play an important role in the workflow of many software developers, e.g. providing syntactic highlighting or other navigation aids to support the creation of lengthy codebases. Unfortunately, such complex visual information is difficult to convey with current screen-reader technologies, thereby creating barriers for programmers who are blind, who are nevertheless using IDEs. To better understand their usage strategies and challenges, we conducted an exploratory study to investigate the issue of code navigation by developers who are blind. We observed 28 blind programmers using their preferred coding tool while they performed various programming activities, in particular while they navigated through complex codebases. Participants encountered many navigation difficulties when using their preferred coding software with assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers). During interviews, participants reported dissatisfaction with the accessibility of most IDEs due to the heavy use of visual abstractions. To compensate, participants used multiple input methods and workarounds to navigate through code comfortably and reduce complexity, but these approaches often reduced their speed and introduced mistakes, thereby reducing their efficiency as programmers. Our findings suggest an opportunity for researchers and the software industry to improve the accessibility and usability of code navigation for blind developers in IDEs.

With the increasing importance of accessibility awareness and knowledge as both a moral imperative and an employment differentiator, it is incumbent on educational programs to have demonstrated ability to teach these skills. We report on our year-long evaluation of university students' accessibility awareness and knowledge following a week of accessibility lectures as part of courses on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). We report gains in awareness and knowledge when accessibility lectures were part of the course. We describe the test battery developed to measure these skills, and describe our ongoing longitudinal research to measure the effectiveness of several interventions for teaching inclusive thinking in undergraduate computing courses.

Hands-on activities can reinforce a variety of Computer Science concepts covered in class. Active learning techniques that utilize tangible manipulatives such as LEGO or other simple objects provide unique opportunities for students to explore or reinforce topics during class in a playful setting. This kinesthetic learning approach can also provide a platform that has a low learning curve, can facilitate creative thinking, improve student engagement with content and peers while adding gamification elements to the course. Different Computer Science topics lend themselves to such activities to differing degrees and the logistics of conducting these activities in large classrooms requires careful planning and execution, especially where cost is a factor and replication is desired between classes. Some educators may have experience while others may be interested but do not know where to start. BOF attendees will hear from those who have used different types of manipulatives, applied manipulatives to different Computer Science topics, and utilized said activities in different scenarios and contexts (e.g. large vs. small classes, single student vs. team activities). The sharing of ideas, strategies, and resources, as well as potential collaborations is also central to the discussion. The audience is expected to consist of both university faculty/lecturers (especially those who teach lower division courses) and high school teachers of computer science who are interested in engaging students in course content via kinesthetic activities and tangible manipulatives.

Visual programming languages are commonplace in engaging novice programmers. Accessibility challenges persist in these systems. This study investigates whether auditory cues improves a visually impaired programmer's ability to navigate and understand source code in a block-based language. The type of auditory cue that best serves this purpose is also investigated. The participants' comprehension of source code using three trials with two tests each is presented, with each trial corresponding to a different form of audio cue. Participants are graded on how accurate their written source code is in comparison to the actual source code.

Assessing a user's situation awareness can provide a great way to learn about the user's mental model when performing related tasks. Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique (SAGAT) is one widely accepted measure to objectively capture a user's SA. In this work, we present our developed SAGAT probes to assess the situation awareness of blind individuals during indoor travel tasks. This work is part of our ongoing work to develop an objective method to facilitate blind travelers' situation awareness when traveling unfamiliar indoor environments. We present examples of our probes that were derived from our previously developed situation awareness requirements. Also, we briefly illustrate pilot study results with blindfolded participants.

Individuals who are visually impaired encounter a number of challenges when attempting to orientate their own position or the position of others in relation to them within an unfamiliar indoor environment. To design an orientation assistive technology, it is crucial to understand the factors that reduce the user's sense of orientation. In this work, we discuss the disorientation factors that resulted from three user studies, which were conducted to formulate the basic requirements for an orientation assistive technology to assist visually impaired individuals in unfamiliar indoor areas. Using the feedback we elicited from one survey and two interview studies, we shed light on the factors that reduce the user's sense of orientation in unfamiliar buildings such as noise and traffic levels.

Despite advances in assistive technology, challenges remain in pre-college computer science outreach and university programs for visually impaired students. The use of robotics has been popular in pre-college classrooms and outreach programs, including those that serve underrepresented groups. This paper describes the specific accessibility features implemented in software that provides an accessible Lego Mindstorms NXT programming environment for teenage students who are visually impaired. JBrick is designed to support students with diverse visual acuity and who use needed assistive technology. Field tests over several days showed that JBrick has the potential to accommodate students who are visually impaired as they work together to program Lego Mindstorms NXT robots.

This paper outlines the development of the AccessBraille framework, an iOS framework designed to provide a Braille keyboard to an iOS application. The proof-of-concept app developed with this framework is presented as an example of how the framework can be utilized, demonstrating its use across multiple contexts where Braille entry is used. The AccessBraille keyboard framework provides a natural way for blind users to enter US Type 1 or Type 2 Braille text into an app. The keyboard allows for users to customize finger placement for comfort and hand size.

We present an approach for on-line recognition of handwritten math symbols using adaptations of off-line features and synthetic data generation. We compare the performance of our approach using four different classification methods: AdaBoost. M1 with C4.5 decision trees, Random Forests and Support-Vector Machines with linear and Gaussian kernels. Despite the fact that timing information can be extracted from on-line data, our feature set is based on shape description for greater tolerance to variations of the drawing process. Our main datasets come from the Competition on Recognition of Online Handwritten Mathematical Expressions (CROHME) 2012 and 2013. Class representation bias in CROHME datasets is mitigated by generating samples for underrepresented classes using an elastic distortion model. Our results show that generation of synthetic data for underrepresented classes might lead to improvements of the average per-class accuracy. We also tested our system using the Math Brush dataset achieving a top-1 accuracy of 89.87% which is comparable with the best results of other recently published approaches on the same dataset.

Requirements elicitation can be a challenging process in many systems. This challenge can be greater with a non-standard user population, such as visually impaired users. In this work, we report our experience and results of eliciting user requirements for a situation awareness indoor orientation system dedicated to the visually impaired. We elicited our initial system requirements through three different studies that focus on users along with orientation and mobility instructors. Also, we performed a knowledge elicitation through our studies to formulate our system's situation awareness requirements.

We describe a three-stage model of computing instruction beginning with a simple, highly scaffolded programming environment (Kodu) and progressing to more challenging frameworks (Alice and Lego NXT-G). In moving between frameworks, students explore the similarities and differences in how concepts such as variables, conditionals, and looping are realized. This can potentially lead to a deeper understanding of programming, bringing students closer to true computational thinking. Some novel strategies for teaching with Kodu are outlined. Finally, we briefly report on our methodology and select preliminary results from a pilot study using this curriculum with students ages 10-17, including several with disabilities.

Many wonderful enrichment programs have been created to introduce young people to computing, but with little attention to making them accessible to students with disabilities. In this workshop participants will learn from practitioners who have introduced computing and programming to young people with disabilities. They will also learn first-hand from students with disabilities about their needs in learning programming. There will be breakout sessions for participants to apply what they have learned to improve existing enrichment programs such as Alice, Arduino, Scratch, Kodu, App Inventor, Greenfoot, Lego Mindstorms, Processing, and Computer Science Unplugged.

We present a multiple-view platform for low vision students that utilizes students' personal smart phone cameras and tablets in the classroom. Low vision or deaf students can independently use the platform to obtain flexible, magnified views of lecture visuals, such as the presentation slides or whiteboard on their personal screen. This platform also enables cooperation among sighted and hearing classmates to provide better views for everyone, including themselves.

Following along with course lecture material is a critical challenge for low vision students. Access Lecture is a mobile, touch-screen application that will aid low vision students in viewing class notes in real-time. This paper presents the system overview, features, and initial feedback on the system. Current status and next steps are also presented.

SIGCSE's special projects grant program provides small grants to SIGCSE members to carry out computing education projects whose results generalize to the whole computing education community. This session is a "showcase" for five recent grant projects: a MIPS simulator extended into FPGA hardware, a study of informal learning of computing, software engineering learning modules for the visually impaired, a study of student projects in computing, and curriculum resources for computer security.

This article describes an outreach program to broaden participation in computing to include more students with visual impairments. The precollege workshops target students in grades 7--12 and engage students with robotics programming. The use of robotics at the precollege level has become popular in part due to the availability of Lego Mindstorm NXT kits. The robotics programming tools and materials used in the workshops are designed with an accessibility focus for participants with different degrees of vision. Through the use of available assistive technology and open source software, robotics is accessible to the visually impaired. The quantitative and qualitative results from three robotics workshops conducted during the past three years will be discussed, including some initial long-term results. Strategies, based on our experiences, will also be shared to promote accessible outreach. While many of the participants are in middle and early high school, findings indicate that participant interest in computing is high regardless of whether their schools offer computer science courses or not. Increased interest and confidence with robotics persists throughout follow-up activities.

Despite advances in assistive technology, relatively few visually impaired students participate in computer science courses. Significant factors in this underrepresentation include lack of precollege preparation, access to resources, and the highly visual nature of computing. This poster describes the development of a prototype to provide an accessible programming environment for Lego Mindstorm NXT. With the popularity of robotics in both pre-college and introductory programming classes, such an environment has the potential to better accommodate students who are visually impaired. JBrick's motivation in addition to its design will be presented.

Despite advances in assistive technology, relatively few visually impaired students participate in university-level computing courses. Significant factors in this under representation include lack of relevant precollege preparation, lack of role models, access to resources, and the highly visual nature of modern computing. This paper describes the development of inclusive activities and materials for use in a summer workshop for precollege students with visual impairments. All activities utilized commercial technologies in the areas of robotics and programming using Lego Mindstorms NXT. The workshop activities are designed to provide a foundation in computing that encourages students to pursue computing in high school and beyond. In addition to activity design, initial results and lessons learned from the summer workshop will be presented.

Undergraduate software engineering courses aim to prepare students to deliver software in a variety of domains. The manner in which these courses are conducted varies, though team projects with real or imaginary stakeholders are common. While the key course concepts vary from the entire lifecycle to specific aspects of design, concepts like accessibility are rare. This paper will present a study of team projects in a requirements engineering course. One group of students conducted projects with accessibility requirements while another group of students delivered projects without accessibility requirements. The course content was the same, including discussion of accessibility. To support the understanding of accessibility, stakeholders with disabilities were included in the requirements engineering process. Both teams benefited from the experience as indirect knowledge acquisition occurred. Students from a previous offering of the course, with no external stakeholder interaction, demonstrated lower levels of accessibility understanding.

First-year students select a program of study for a variety of reasons. As a result, many students are not familiar with the basic concepts and career opportunities that exist. At the Rochester Institute of Technology, first-year Software Engineering students participate in a seminar to orient them to the discipline. The course has been redesigned from a lecture format to an active-learning format. The new format uses a set of hands-on and community-building activities to demonstrate basic concepts, with little programming. The more engaging format enables students to explore concepts, gain experience working in teams, and have ownership over their own learning. The seminar structure and activities will be discussed, along with an analysis of student feedback, and lessons learned. The value of the seminar's approach can be used to introduce computing students to fundamental software engineering concepts in a variety of contexts.

At the Rochester Institute of Technology, the undergraduate introductory software engineering course has been redesigned from a lecture-lab format to a project-centric studio format. The new format blends the lecture material with the project work. As a result, students drive their own learning experience based on scaffolding created by the course design. The challenges faced and the techniques and strategies utilized in the planning and delivery of the course will be discussed, including the utilization of online learning support infrastructure. This paper presents instructor experiences, analysis of student feedback, lessons learned and recommendations for other educators considering an active learning approach for their courses.