Smart students with Vision Impairment built AI robot to help with their exam revision
Students with Vision Impairment at The Royal National College for the Blind (RNC) in Hereford are making revision for their summer exams that bit less daunting with the help of an AI robot head named Atlas which is helping coach them for their exams.
Three students on the college’s Level 3 IT course, Ana Vindberg, 20, Rose Phillips, 16, and Ruben Morris, 17, built an AI classroom assistant from a plastic helmet and electronics gear around a specially configured smartphone linked to ChatGPT.
The students were keen to show off this very chatty chatbot, the result of their hard work and teaching that is fully inclusive and responsive to the latest developments in technology.
Atlas speaks to the students in voice-activated AI about their revision needs and guides them through topics they need to mug up on. Planning and developing Atlas also formed one of the student’s course units.
Ruben Morris, said: “We built Atlas for our project development unit. We’ve given it various parameters related to units that we’re studying but it learns as we go along, so it can help more based on the conversations we have with it.
“We ask it questions related to our units and it can answer them and we can go back and forth with it. It’s really customisable.”
The students are all experts with access technology: using a screen-reader, such as JAWS and NVDA, along with accessible software and systems, they built Atlas. Now it's up and running and helping them with their revision.
They developed key project management skills to plan the project and complete it and the students all plan to mention it when they apply for university courses and employment.
IT teacher, Nigel Lewis, said: “It’s all about preparation for the workplace because we want to make sure when they go into employment they are well prepared. In fact I think our students are more prepared for what’s coming than those without Vision Impairment because we make sure we cover as much as we can so they are really ready for it.
“We’ve got to get around this barrier that when employers find out a person has a Vision Impairment, they don’t know how to handle it. In fact when the students are as able as these are, there’s very little you’ve got to put in place for them.
“If you’ve got someone in the workplace that writes at a certain speed or types at a certain speed, these students can do ten times that. They can consume pages within minutes because the speed of their screen readers and ability to interpret them is so fast.”
The students complete work placements as part of their course and some of them are considering future careers in the IT field.
The students praised the specialist support they receive at RNC that enables them to succeed on a level playing field with sighted students.
Ana said: “It’s an awful lot easier when you go to someone for support and they know exactly what you are talking about.”
Jane Sharp, RNIB’s Senior Education Specialist, QTVI said:
“Providing young people with vision impairment opportunities to develop skills for their future is a fundamental principle of the Curriculum Framework for children and young people with Vision Impairment (CFVI). These students have benefitted from this best practice in their education and are now capable, confident young adults, keen to take their skills to employers and embark on careers in IT.”
Pupils are beginning Level three exams this month including A levels, NVQs and BTECs in subjects ranging from French and IT to Mathematics, Sports Coaching and Music Technology.
For full details about college courses and to apply, visit: https://www.rnc.ac.uk
For full details of RNIB’s support for education professionals and the CFVI visit https://www.rnib.org.uk/professionals/education-professionals/
