AI tools for blind & visually impaired students | Blindness Awareness Month

VICTA Changemakers
Blindness Awareness Month

Artificial intelligence (AI), much like the internet, has become an integral component of our daily lives in recent years. Despite popular scepticism fuelled by mainstream media and misinformation on social networks, AI plays an important role in improving educational accessibility. Specifically, for blind and visually impaired learners, AI tools can significantly improve the learning experience by providing personalised assistance, increasing independence, and improving the accessibility of educational content. In this article, details are presented of various apps and websites that utilise AI to assist blind and visually impaired people, particularly in educational settings.

NotebookLM

Created by Google, this powerful tool can transform potentially unengaging class notes into an exciting, and easy to understand podcast. If one is not a fan of reading and enjoys listening to podcasts then NotebookLM works by turning your notes, or any document into a conversation between two people in a podcast. They explain the information in a very relaxed tone, basing them on real life examples where appropriate.

Positives:

• Free service.
• Is a great tool for people who struggle with or do not like reading.
• It is possible to study on the go, while on the move walking, or before going to sleep.

Negatives:

• This can take a while to generate a podcast, depending on the length of the document.
• It only accepts PDF or TXT file format. Therefore, one would need to convert Word documents into one of these formats.

Visit the NotebookLM website: notebooklm.google.com

Be My Eyes to Be My AI

Be My Eyes was originally established as a service designed to connect blind people with sighted volunteers online, assisting them with tasks that require visual support. Volunteers may help with a range of tasks; for example, reading documents, identifying food items or even assisting in solving a technical issue. In addition to human volunteers, in 2022 Be My Eyes partnered with OpenAI to launch the Be My AI service. Be My AI is an advanced feature integrated into the Be My Eyes app, powered by the GPT-4 language model from OpenAI. This tool provides detailed AI-powered descriptions of images, enhancing the app’s functionality by offering an alternative to human volunteers. Users can take pictures of their surroundings and Be My AI will generate detailed descriptions. For students, this means they can independently access visual information in textbooks, classroom materials, and learn about their surroundings, fostering a more inclusive learning environment.

Positives:

• Provides detailed image descriptions using AI, which can help students understand visual content in textbooks and educational materials.
• Available 24/7, and is not dependent on volunteer availability, ensuring continuous support for learning.
• Supports follow-up questions for more personalised assistance, such as asking about specific details in a diagram or a graph.

Negatives:

• Lacks human judgement in complex scenarios, which can be challenging in educational settings where good understanding of a subject is required.
• Requires a stable internet connection for optimal performance, which might not always be available in all learning environments.
• Privacy concerns, as images uploaded to the service may be used to train AI models, which may be a concern for sensitive educational content.
• Does not provide instant image descriptions, and it takes approximately 20 seconds to process the image and any follow up questions.

Download for IOS from the Apple store >
Download for Android on Google Play >
Be My AI is also available on Windows.

Aira

Aira connects blind or low vision individuals with professional interpreters who provide real-time assistance through live video calls.  Similar to Be My Eyes, Aira also integrated AI technology into their app, known as Access AI. This can be useful for students, as Access AI is able to help with various tasks, including describing images or diagrams; or even more creative ways like asking it to explain a concept in a way that is easy to understand from a blind person’s perspective.

Positives:

• Professional interpreters can verify the accuracy of the AI description if the user requests it.
• Aira is a subscription based service; however, Access AI and AI response verification are free to use.
• Available 24/7, ensuring continuous support for students.
• Aira can help with a wide range of tasks on a professional level.

Negatives:

• Requires a stable internet connection, which might not always be available in all learning environments.

Download for IOS from the Apple store >
Download for Android on Google Play >

Seeing AI

Developed by Microsoft, Seeing AI is a free app that narrates the world around visually impaired people. Seeing AI can be particularly useful in educational settings, as it can read textbooks, identify classroom objects, and describe images using AI, making learning more accessible.

Positives:

• Completely free for all users.
• Can be useful in improving the accessibility of educational materials and enabling students to participate in classroom activities. For example, in a group activity, a visually impaired student can assist their peers by helping to analyse a trend in a graph and interpret what the graph is trying to show.
• A lot faster than Be my AI in regards to processing images.

Negatives:

• May individuals struggle with describing complex scenes or reading handwriting, which can be a limitation in educational settings where detailed understanding is required.

Lookout by Google

Similar to Seeing AI, Lookout uses AI to assist people with low vision or blindness by providing spoken feedback in regards to their surroundings. For example, reading text or identifying objects. In an educational context, Lookout can help students to navigate their learning environment, read educational materials, and identify objects in the classroom.

Positives:

• Provides spoken feedback regarding surroundings, helping students to navigate their learning environment independently.

Negatives:

• Available only on Android, limiting its availability to students with Android devices.

Download for Android on Google Play >

Voice Dream Reader

Voice Dream Reader is a text-to-speech app that reads text from various sources, including PDFs, web pages, and books. It supports multiple languages and offers a customizable reading experience. This app can be a powerful educational tool, allowing students to access and comprehend a wide range of educational materials independently.

Positives:

• Reads text from various sources, making a wide range of educational materials accessible.
• Supports multiple languages, catering to diverse student needs.
• Customisable reading experience, allowing students to tailor the app to their personal preferences.

Negatives:

• Paid app, which might be a barrier for some students.
• Occasional issues with complex formatting, which can affect the reading experience of educational materials.

Envision AI

Envision AI uses your smartphone’s camera to read text, describe scenes, identify objects and people, and even integrate with smart glasses for a more immersive experience. In an educational setting, Envision AI can help students access printed materials, understand their surroundings, and participate in classroom activities.

Positives:

• Supports automatic language detection, and is one of the most reliable apps to convert documents that contain images into an accessible text format that are written in a language other than English.
• Integrates with Envision smart glasses, offering a more immersive learning experience.
• Supports the import of files, such as Word and PDF, displaying them like a book, enabling users to navigate large files by pages, rather than a large amount of text on a screen.

Negatives:

• Smart glasses can be very expensive.

Conclusion

AI technology has made significant strides in improving accessibility for blind and visually impaired individuals, particularly in educational settings. Even though some of these apps offer similar functionality, a student may notice that one app is better at meeting their needs than the others, which is why it is difficult to answer the question of which app is the best, as it all depends on the student’s individual needs. For students, these tools can transform the learning experience by providing support to overcome accessibility barriers, and fostering a more inclusive environment. While each tool has its own positive and negatives aspects, I believe that the overall impact of AI in this field is undeniably positive. As AI continues to evolve, we can expect even more innovative solutions to emerge, further bridging the accessibility gap and enhancing educational opportunities for all learners.

If there are any AI tools or apps that you make use of that aren’t included in this article, please let us know in the comment box.

By Mohammed Alomrani