Teaching Methodologies or Simply a Question of Digital "Accessibility"
Nigel Dupree
Project Director at S.M.A.R.T. Foundation - also known as: Legin Nyleve, LeginNyleve and @l3gin on other Social Media
21st Digital Century "Reading Science" versus Industrial Model Education?
The difference between ease of "Digital Literacy" in the digital age providing "Accessibility to text" or expediently ignoring the common barriers founded in the 21st Century environmental life-style exacerbated by deprivation of natural daylighting near indoors and over-exposure to the near and close-up sub-optimally "Colour Contrast Calibration" of initially, someone else's smart screen device ?
Since the early days of display screens, the ubiquitous CRT TV screen in the corner of everyone's lounge in our houses that Mum insisted you didn't sit to close to or you would end up with square-eyes, little did she know how true that would turn out to be, creating a market for eye-drops to ease the initial visual repetitive injury of dry-eyes due to focusing on screens reducing natural "blink-rate" lubricating the eye.
Then "Screen Fatigue" became the next common euphemism for DSE operators eye-strain as sitting behind a desktop for longer and longer periods became the norm with the HSE raising the status of visual repetitive stress occupational health injuries by 2007.
However, by 2016 the WHO International Classification of Diseases included eye-strain and predictable impact on our visual system reaching the point of "adaptation exhaustion" following natural attempts to cope and/or tolerate discomfort as a "Global Epidemic" under the heading of "Asthenopia" with an up-dated name "Computer Vision Syndrome".
Triggering an on-going scale of studies and research into CVS and the debilitating affects on student populations in addition to the workplace.
This has resulted in some progress surrounding disability as those with preexisting visual impairments, Dyslexia or Neurodiversity were found to suffer a '4' to '7' fold increased risk of early onset vision stress manifesting in blurry, blurred or worse double vision by comparison with fluent reading neurotypical on-screen, the 20-20-20 rule for vision breaks.
Unfortunately, this has only been recognised in Accessibility Regulations for Websites and then only minimal "Colour Contrast Validation" in the 2018 WCAG 2.1 of 4.5:1 contrast ratio bizarrely excluding DSE custom "Colour Contrast Calibration" or "Reasonable Adjustments & Accommodations" for everyone stipulated in the 2010 Equality Act.
WCAG 2.1 minimal "Colour Contrast Validation" for websites.
The "Science of Reading" has also made significant steps forward in understanding the chain of causation of comorbidities presenting in the 21st Digital Century by comparison with "School Myopia" diagnosed as new visual hazard / risk from the beginnings of Mass Education.
So, following the work of Meares & Irlen, coloured overlays, along with Prof Arnold Wilkins and his development of a subjective "Colorimeter" for prescribing custom tints for children's glasses I/we at the S.M.A.R.T. Foundation UK set about developing an AI driven more objective approach to measuring, visual risk assessment and personally identifying best optimal "Colour Contrast Calibration" of their display screen in order to enable mitigation of binocular vision stress and optimise Accessibility.
At that time very early in the 2000's found enabling Digital Literacy allowed the functionally and digitally illiterate to both self-modify their more defensive behaviours and engage or voluntarily participate in learning something they were not used too in mainstream school.