{
  "id": 8908752,
  "title": "Students at the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired make coding more accessible",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/21/students-at-the-indiana-school-for-the-blind-and-visually-impaired",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-09-21T11:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Chalkbeat",
    "slug": "chalkbeat",
    "url": "https://www.chalkbeat.org/indiana/2026/09/21/school-for-blind-students-help-expand-coding-to-visually-impaired/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Arabella Zink, a seventh grader at the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, is using a laptop to build code, dragging and dropping elements to transform the educational technology micro:bit into a die. Micro:bit, a small piece of educational technology, encourages students to learn block code, a highly visual activity. Despite being blind, Arabella, along with six other students at ISBVI, have helped develop a new accessibility feature for micro:bit, making coding more accessible for blind and visually impaired students. The initiative began last year when the Micro:bit Educational Foundation approached the school's media specialist, Shawn Humphrey, seeking blind students who could read Braille to provide input on screen reader compatibility and the accuracy of Braille instructions for visually impaired students. Through editing Braille materials and testing screen reader compatibility within the Microsoft MakeCode program, Arabella and her peers made the micro:bit compatible with computer screen readers, enabling visually impaired students to understand what is on their screen. This accessibility feature, developed with the foundation and Microsoft MakeCode, extends to other coding programs built on Blockly’s software. Recently, Arabella learned how to turn the micro:bit into a die that lights up with a number from one to six when shaken, allowing students to identify the number by the number of beeps emitted after shaking the device. Humphrey expressed excitement about the opportunity for visually impaired students to engage in coding, calling it \"one of the coolest things\" he's ever heard in education. Seventh grader Maddilyn Peters, interested in coding to create robots for horror films like \"Five Nights at Freddy’s,\" aims to make animatronics that won't harm people.",
  "summary": "Arabella Zink softly touches the keys of her laptop, leaning forward to listen to the voice coming from the computer speakers. The seventh grader is building code, dragging and dropping elements on a screen to turn the educational…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}