is a companion system for students with low vision to let them follow the blackboard in class
Per WHO 2010 estimates, there are over 17 million people of age between 0 and 14 with low vision problems. These people, although assumed blind, are capable of visual perception when the content is close to the eye and is enhanced for better contrast. Due to blindness assumption and lack of specialized content, these people have difficulty in integrating with the social life, particularly during education. Especially for those in school age, infrastructure and content in schools and curriculum are not designed accordingly and this causes two major problems:
student cannot have the mandatory education
student is isolated from the social life.
Low Vision Assistant by Aurvis is composed of an IP camera, a wifi network (either present or easily established with a plug-play type router) and a tablet. The IP camera is positioned in a class such that its point of view covers the blackboard. During class, the camera captures the board content in real-time. The data is transferred over the network and sent to the tablet computer in front of the student. On the tablet, the board view is enhanced to provide a zoomed, high-contrast (preferably reduced to two color) image so that the student can easily read the content. In addition, using computer vision techniques, the proposed solution provides a teacher-free version of the board where only the content on the board is shown on the tablet without the teacher.
Considering that students with low vision are slow-readers and a teacher in front of an already filled part of the board may occlude the board and prevent the student to read that part, this makes it easier for the student to follow the content without obstruction.
The solution also records the board content and teacher narration so that the student can review the course at home and catch-up even if he / she loses track during in-class activity.
Lastly, our solution is composed of consumer-level hardware and software so it is both affordable and scalable economically, thus can be bought separately by parents or bought in batch by government or schools.
With the help of our Low Vision Assistant solution, students with low vision can,
follow the course in class at the same speed with other students
participate in class (answer asked questions, join discussions etc)
sit in any chair in class and overcome the psychology of isolation
review the course after class from recorded content so that he / she can follow the course and increase his / her success
On the Left: original video frame. On the Right: Our Teacher Removal technology, which removes the teacher and presents an unoccluded content to the student
Student can zoom in on the image and view the image as either contrast enhanced or in two color with different color pair options.
