The Desert Island Game is a text adventure game to help players understand the wicked problem of inaccessible technology-mediated education by playing from the perspective of a blind protagonist. The game narrative is grounded in Dr. Natalie Shaheen’s previous research with blind and low-vision teens, K-12 teachers, and district administrators, and the educational outcomes of Dr. Shaheen’s NSF CAREER grant: (#2334693) A11y in Sci.
The Education Now Lab is partnering with Dr. Shaheen in collaborative design-based research during game development. The Lab is focused on building educators’ epistemic empathy while avoiding the pitfalls of common empathy activities (e.g., disability simulations), which reinforce misconceptions (Silverman, 2015).
If you are an educator and are interested in joining our design research team as a beta-tester, a.k.a. playing early version of the game, please contact the Education Now Lab through Dr. Anna Smith amsmi11@ilstu.edu.