Case Study: Imperial Elementary School achieves improved access and interaction for visually impaired students with SMART Technologies' SMART Board

SMART helps visually impaired students

SMART Technologies’ SMART Board interactive whiteboard is helping a small special‑education program at Imperial Elementary in Anaheim Hills. Vision specialist Carol Anne McGuire works one‑on‑one with nine K–6 students—about half completely blind and half visually impaired—and had struggled with tiny laptop screens, hard‑to‑locate mice and weak audio that limited their ability to learn and participate.

By pairing a 66" SMART Board with a Macintosh, McGuire can teach braille, math and technology using touch interaction, louder speakers, audio/podcasting and video conferencing. The board lets low‑vision students see and control lessons, gives blind students clear audio access, enables global videoconnections, fosters side‑by‑side work with sighted peers, and has prompted the school to buy another half dozen SMART Boards.

Imperial Elementary School