Advanced and Emerging Solutions: ICT and AT in Education of Low Vision and Blind Students

This keynote gives an overview to emerging Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and its impact on low vision and blind people (LVBP). The transition into the information society makes established structures more fluent what supports inclusion in almost any domain. We will reflect selected aspects of these developments, in particular for education of LVBP. Education plays a key role both as a domain where ICT gets intensively used and as the field which is in charge of forming the skills needed, both technical and social, for advancement. Expectations but also fears in this process of change are high asking for careful reflection. Therefore, besides offering a structure for discussing the wide range of emerging technologies, we will argue that a) emerging technologies, to beneficial, have to seamlessly integrate into proven ICT and Assistive Technology (AT) interaction standards, b) skills in using AT/ICT have to become part of all levels of education, both for learners and teachers, and c) elaborated methods, techniques and competences of LVBP in interacting with content must not get lost but adapted for advanced ICT solutions.