Blind Web Development Training At Oysters And Pearls Technology Camp In Uganda

Despite a growing emphasis and vocational demand for STEM education and code literacy, many coding resources and curricula are not easily accessible to individuals with vision impairments. Given the international demand for code literacy and web development skills, we must strive to create accessible educational materials that are effective across multiple cultures. In this paper we describe formative work in the development and evaluation of a 7-day course in web development that we taught at the Oysters and Pearls Technology Camp in Gulu, Uganda to 13 Blind and Low-Vision students who had no experience building websites. We describe our curriculum design, development of custom tactile and software educational tools, and student experiences taking the course. Students in the course learned new web development skills and self-reported a strong sense of pride and enthusiasm to continue their studies upon completion of the course. We make suggestions for future iterations of this curriculum and generalizable advice to others interested in developing accessible programming courses.