[blindkid] Wii Device Teaches Visually Impaired to Walk with Canes

[Mike Freeman]

The below moves me to wonder what is so terrible about just spending more 
time using the cane rather than dreaming up all sorts of applications to 
*simulate* use of a cane? Although the game may be fun, it strikes me that 
nothing substitutes for the real thing, i.e., using a cane outdoors. I 
suspect that, deep-down, the O&M personnel who dreamed up this nonsense are 
just a wee bit suspicious about cane use and learning by trial-and-error.

Mike Freeman

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lenora J. Marten" <bluegolfshoes at aol.com>
To: <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, June 05, 2010 12:31 PM
Subject: [blindkid] Wii Device Teaches Visually Impaired to Walk with Canes


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> Interesting..... 
> http://www.ny1.com/content/ny1_living/health/118714/wii-device-teaches-visually-impaired-to-walk-with-canes/
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>
> Teaching the visually impaired how to use canes to get around is about to 
> become hi-tech. NY1's Health reporter Kafi Drexel filed the following 
> report.
>
> Instructors at the Jewish Guild for the Blind on the Upper West Side have 
> found a new use for Wii technology. They are testing out a new device 
> called the "WiiCane" to see if it can help improve mobility training and 
> use of the cane in young children.
> "One of the greatest challenges for an [orientation and mobility] 
> instructor, which I am, is trying to teach a student to travel and walk 
> outdoors in a safe line, in a straight line. And one of the greatest 
> issues is to try to prevent the students from veering which means angling 
> left, or right off their straight line," says Stuart Filan of the Jewish 
> Guild for the Blind. "So the WiiCane is like a super idea. It's a great 
> indoor training device to have our students get the feeling of what it 
> feels like to veer and how, independently, in real time, to correct that 
> situation."
> The training tool is being developed by the New York City-based design 
> team Touch Graphics. It uses Wii motion-tracking technology to help 
> students get the feel for not only walking in a straight line, but 
> practice turns. A computer receives movement data and dings if the student 
> remains on track or moves in the right direction.
> "Evidence shows that once learned, those skills are translatable into 
> actual outdoor travel, and that's huge," says President Steven Landau of 
> Touch Graphics. "Because then, people crossing the street won't veer into 
> oncoming traffic and lots of other things in the course of their 
> independent travel, where they need that ability to continue walking in a 
> straight line without a lot of external information."
> The Wii Cane training program is not meant to replace traditional training 
> methods, but is only a supplement. However, instructors at the Jewish 
> Guild for the Blind say their young students respond to computers and they 
> see responses in training in some of them that they haven't quite seen 
> before.
> "Some of the students are really getting off of it," says Filan. "They 
> keep talking about it, they can't wait to come back and to hold onto the 
> cane, work the receivers and manipulate their bodies through space to get 
> to see if they can walk the straight line."
> The WiiCane is also being developed for adults who are new cane users. It 
> is expected to be available for commercial use by January 2011.
>
>
> Instructors at the Jewish Guild for the Blind on the Upper West Side have 
> found a new use for Wii technology. They are testing out a new device 
> called the "WiiCane" to see if it can help improve mobility training and 
> use of the cane in young children.
> "One of the greatest challenges for an [orientation and mobility] 
> instructor, which I am, is trying to teach a student to travel and walk 
> outdoors in a safe line, in a straight line. And one of the greatest 
> issues is to try to prevent the students from veering which means angling 
> left, or right off their straight line," says Stuart Filan of the Jewish 
> Guild for the Blind. "So the WiiCane is like a super idea. It's a great 
> indoor training device to have our students get the feeling of what it 
> feels like to veer and how, independently, in real time, to correct that 
> situation."
> The training tool is being developed by the New York City-based design 
> team Touch Graphics. It uses Wii motion-tracking technology to help 
> students get the feel for not only walking in a straight line, but 
> practice turns. A computer receives movement data and dings if the student 
> remains on track or moves in the right direction.
> "Evidence shows that once learned, those skills are translatable into 
> actual outdoor travel, and that's huge," says President Steven Landau of 
> Touch Graphics. "Because then, people crossing the street won't veer into 
> oncoming traffic and lots of other things in the course of their 
> independent travel, where they need that ability to continue walking in a 
> straight line without a lot of external information."
> The Wii Cane training program is not meant to replace traditional training 
> methods, but is only a supplement. However, instructors at the Jewish 
> Guild for the Blind say their young students respond to computers and they 
> see responses in training in some of them that they haven't quite seen 
> before.
> "Some of the students are really getting off of it," says Filan. "They 
> keep talking about it, they can't wait to come back and to hold onto the 
> cane, work the receivers and manipulate their bodies through space to get 
> to see if they can walk the straight line."
> The WiiCane is also being developed for adults who are new cane users. It 
> is expected to be available for commercial use by January 2011.
>
>
> Lenora
> bluegolfshoes at aol.com
>
>
>
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