Podcasting: A Technological Online Learning Tool for the Visually Impaired Learners

Abstract

People with special needs have always been an inseparable part of our society and that of our education system. If global figures are taken into consideration, we find that about 284 million people are visually impaired worldwide out of which 39 million are blind and 245 million have low vision. It also needs to be mentioned that 90 per cent of the world’s visually impaired live in developing countries including India. The development of education for special children has been significant since independence through special schools but it never equalised educational opportunities, rather created a feeling of differentiation among children. The National Policy on Education (NPE, 1986) thus, promoted the concept of integrated education. Despite the numerous advantages of the NPE a visually impaired child faces lots of difficulties in Integrated Education. Although efforts have been made to provide them with equal opportunities; the visually impaired are still faced with numerous hurdles in their journey/pursuit of mainstream education. In India, there is an urgent need to reform the educational
methodology for the visually impaired keeping in view their large numbers in the total population. The present paper tries to find out the possibilities of Podcasting as a tool for the effective learning of the visually impaired learners.