Computing professionals remain in demand. However, a gap exists in participation by students with disabilities, particularly those with visual impairments.  Due to the visual nature of many user interfaces, students with visual impairments need accomodating methods, support, and tools to support their exploration and participation in computing.  Project ACE (Accessible Computing Education) focused on addressing gaps in the preparation and encouragement that exists in computing participation by middle and high school students who are visually impaired.  Increasing such participation enables students to be prepared for post-secondary computing education and careers. Technical preperation in computer programming and hardware includded the use of robotics as the main platform to engage students.  The popularity of robotics in the pre-college classroom also served as a gateway to long-term engagement in computing after participation in the workshops. In order to address the preparation issue ACE has a student component and a teacher component. 

The student componenet consisted of ImagineIT workshops and the CS (Computer Science) Academy.  The student workshops, called ImagineIT workshops, were held throughout the academic year and summer for middle and high school students who are visually impaired.  The students were mostly mainstreamed, though several were either home schooled or attended independent schools (schools for the blind).  Seventy-six students participated in the workshops, representing a nationally, ethically, and socioeconomically diverse group of students of both genders.  In addition to learning fundamental programming, hardware and robotics concepts, participants also learned about computing careers and what types of high school courses are needed in order to pursue a computing career.  A large set of modular tutorials and design challenges were developed for the workshops, where the complexity increased as student skill increased.  The modular nature of the materials allowed for flexibility during planning week-long summer workshops versus the weekend-long workshops during the school year.  Students worked in small teams, where each team had a mentor to guide them through activities.  The programming language was text-based in order for the screen readers, braille displays and other assistive technology to support student learning and information access.  The modular lessons are shared with the public, including educators who wish to use the lessons with sighted or visually impoared students.  The lessons are created to use with two differeent programming languages, thus widenting their use with different Lego Mindstorms NXT programming languages (NXC or RobotC).  As for student learning, a sample of 30 students were given a quiz of understanding of programming and robotics concepts before and after their workshops.  Before the workshop, less than twenty percent of students correctly conveyed understanding of any of the seven concepts.  After the workshop 2 concepts were correctly understood by over 80 % of students, with the other 5 concepts being understood by over nearly 100% of the students.  Among all participants, over 80% definitely or ilkely would continue to take computing courses if one is available.

In 2011 a special event, called CS Academy, was held in conjunction with the National Federation of the Blind.  CS Academy brought together families with visually impaired teens as well as role models from academia and industry.  During CS Academy, 18 students and their parents had different sessions at times and combined sessions at other times.  Parents learned about computing careers, transitioning in college, assistive technology, and accomodations in college.  Students learned about car...

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