In our learning resource students are introduced to the basics and fundamental concepts of programming by creating a basic game using the Scratch’s [1] programming language. This resource is extremely flexible to diverse learners such as english language learners and hearing impaired students. However, scratch will not be a good resource for visually impaired students.

Another option for visually impaired students is Microsoft’s Code Jumper [2]. Code Jumper is very similar to scratch with the difference that it allows students to use physical pods and connect them together to create blocks of code. These pods make noises to signify certain errors or successful connections.

The combination of physical blocks and noises to code makes this a perfect alternative to Scratch that allows for inclusion of the visually impaired. This could be implemented alongside the Scratch resource when needed, making the resource be inclusive for hearing impaired, visually impaired, and english language learners.

In response to the final prompt, even though this isn’t a universal design I think it also be an inspiration that leads to a universal design. It would be a really amazing thing to see this Code Jumper product develop into something that can be integrated across many different development environments and even get to a point that could allow the visually impaired with complete loss of vision to become software engineers.