Leveraging an App to Support Students with Color-Vision Deficiency and Color-Blindness in Online General Chemistry Laboratories

Abstract

Assistive technologies remain important in supporting student learning in both in-person laboratories and the online laboratory environment. In this article, we describe an adaptation of a smartphone technology called the Color Blind Pal app to aid students in complementing online laboratory assignments in a general chemistry course. The app was integrated into three online laboratory experiments to help students collect data from simulated flame tests, atomic emission spectra, precipitation reactions, and colorimetric titrations. We share how incorporating the app has influenced our perspective on inclusive practices in the online lab curriculum as the app allows both users with color-vision deficiencies or color-blindness to make color observations and for instructors to simulate colorvision deficiencies when designing curricula. Given our use of the app as an assistive technology, we discuss implications for a shift toward universal design for learning (UDL) to proactively design inclusive online laboratory curricula.

Perspectives on Active Learning: Challenges for Equitable Active Learning Implementation

“…Based on DP, assessments must be designed with disabilities in mind, so these students receive accurate feedback on their performance. Students with disabilities should be supported with multimedia tools so they can fully engage in the educational process in active learning environments. − Likewise, accommodations like alternative desks/seating to allow students with physical disabilities to navigate groupwork without having to draw attention to themselves can be done by reserving easy access points near the front and exits. Text-reader friendly materials like Microsoft Word and PowerPoint allow students to customize their needs rather than using pdf documents that do not always have free built-in accessibility features .…”

Spatial Cognition Effects of IVE Teaching Resources on Red-Green Color Blindness

“…Yellow and blue can stimulate positive emotions of CVD (Jonauskaite et al, 2020), and these emotions can help learners connect with their environment and learning content, and enhance their sense of exploration (De Araújo et al, 2020;Keltner & Cowen, 2021). The latest research related to CVD mainly involves visual assistance in mobile or online learning environment, barrier-free color scheme and contrast model, emotional and social interaction (Hristov et al, 2022;Jonauskaite et al, 2021;Rezeanu et al, 2022;Wright, 2022), and less involves teaching and learning in new teaching environment. Immersive VR teaching resources can provide a safe learning environment and support problem-based or project-based inquiry learning (Molan et al, 2022), which is an important development direction of the future learning environment.…”

Modernizing Titrations in the Undergraduate Laboratory: No More Burets and End Point Confusion, Just a Top-Loading Balance and a Smartphone

“…12,16,17 Lately, however, smartphones have been introduced to numerous chemical analysis applications, 9,18−22 including the identification of titration end points. 3,9,22 Even smartphone apps that signal color changes at a titration's end point by making a beeping sound now exist to assist students with color vision deficiency (CVD) to fully engage in such experiments. 3,8,23 Here we demonstrate that smartphone color monitoring (digital image color measurements) can provide data to generate titration curves and accurately determine titration end point(s) by calculating and plotting their first and second derivatives.…”