Last November, we had the wonderful opportunity of meeting the Educational Vision Services (EVS) team in New York, during their Chancellor’s Conference Day Staff Development.  

EVS is part of the New York City Department of Education and provides services to students, between the ages of 5 and 21, with visual and hearing disabilities. EVS teachers provide instruction in Braille, assistive technologies and compensatory techniques.  They also offer orientation and mobility instruction that give the students greater confidence and safety during their trips.

About 100 people, most of them teachers, attended our workshop “Let’s Go to the Movies,” which always provides a perfect opportunity to show the teachers the enriching possibilities of video description. 

In addition to the workshop, we presented our new application GoCC4All and other projects we are working on. GoCC4All provides deaf-blind people the possibility to select the way to receive information that best suits their situation.  The person can choose between listening to the subtitles of a TV broadcast in a smart phone or reading them on a Braille device connected to the phone.

It was very important for us to introduce the teachers to our application. Their comments are very relevant to our purpose of developing technology that respond to the user’s real needs and to be user friendly.

We thank our advisor Susan LaVenture, who kindly introduced us to EVS Director, Gregory H. Santamoor, and helped us make this wonderful meeting possible. Our gratitude also to Gregory for making us part of the Chancellor’s Conference Day Staff Development at EVS.  

Note: The concept and development of GoCC4All is a joint effort of the University of Central Florida, the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and Dicapta Foundation.