Abstract

BIDARRA, Jorge; BOSCARIOLI, Clodis  and  PERES, Sarajane Marques. Software Xlupa: um ampliador de tela para auxílio na educação de alunos com baixa visão. Rev. bras. educ. espec. [online]. 2011, vol.17, n.01, pp.151-172. ISSN 1413-6538.

The Brazilian education model has undergone many transformations. Some of these are related to at least two factors: the need for including students with special needs in the educational system, and the use of computers in learning-teaching processes in order to enhance such students' learning outcomes. Despite the efforts applied to both the issue of educational inclusion and to promoting computer access to educational activities in school environments, the major difficulty is how to adequately serve those students who currently represent a significant portion of the population enrolled in public, or private, school systems. Among the special needs students, there are those with a significant degree of reduction in visual acuity, called "Low Vision". Knowing that the use of computers in Brazilian schools has increased, there are strong reasons to believe that the gap currently inherent in the education of these individuals may be minimized by promoting access to computer resources in the learning-teaching process. In this paper, we describe the computer tool called xLupa, a screen magnifier, applied to images and texts, for students with low vision. To this end, the topics covered in this paper are: a) description of the tool specification and development process, which involved a study of the target users' visual needs, and the continuous interaction between developers and users, b) presentation of xLupa and its functionalities; c) assessment of how its use can help students and teachers in daily school activities.

Keywords : Special Education; Digital Accessibility; Low Vision; Technology and Education; Equipment for Special.

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