Classroom Accessibility as a Sociotechnical System: The Case of Data Visualization Literacy

• In Event: Sunday Roundtable Session 11:25 am
  In Roundtable Session: Centering Affective, Accessible, and Inclusive Perspectives in the Learning Sciences (Table 7)

Abstract

Increasingly, data about the world is communicated visually through maps, graphs, and diagrams. Advances in technology have also increased the accessibility of such visual information for blind and low-vision (BLV) populations. However, most such efforts lack sufficient attention to the broader sociotechnical systems—interactions between educators, students, tools, curricula, and meaning-making practices—that BLV students navigate as they learn to access and interpret certain visual content. Drawing from the Visual Impairments Field and the Learning Sciences, we propose a framework to systematically consider how data visualization literacy might be supported for BLV students across a variety of accessibility tools, visualization types, and student-instructor interactions. This framework repositions technological tools alongside general education and specialist teachers, data reasoning practices, and student agency.

Authors

• Erin Foley, San Francisco State University

• Michelle Hoda Wilkerson, University of California - Berkeley