Please note that Soundscape is a navigation aide, not a primary navigational tool, and should not be used in lieu of mobility skills and good judgement.
Hello, Soundscape enthusiasts (or soon to be enthusiasts?)
I’m Marie Trudelle and I teach Orientation and Mobility (O&M) at LightHouse for the Blind (opens in new tab) in San Francisco, California. Prior to working at LightHouse, I taught K-12 at California School for the Blind. I love teaching and learning—there’s something magical about stirring one’s curiosity and creativity. I’ve found that when learning is fun, then comprehension and engagement can catapult. Today, I want to share a Soundscape lesson that feels so magical, it even involves Harry Potter. So, grab your ‘wand’ and ‘broomstick’, launch the Soundscape App, and get ready to soar through your city with Soundscape’s 3D audio technology as one of your tools!
Meet Sam
My student, Sam, is a teenage boy living in Silicon Valley with low vision and a mild memory impairment. He is an avid power walker, a huge Taylor Swift supporter, and brilliant at mental math. We have been working together for eight months.
Prior to the California moving into ‘lockdown’, Sam’s Orientation & Mobility (O&M) lessons focused on developing spatial awareness —enhancing his egocentric frame of reference and developing his allocentric frame of reference—in relation to his school campus. The egocentric and allocentric framework, two fundamental O&M concepts, describe how individuals process and act on spatial information. When using an egocentric frame of reference, Sam describes the location of a place relative to his current location (self-to-object). With an allocentric framework, Sam learns that the positioning between two places or objects are fixed, and do not change with self-movement (object-to-object). The two spatial relation concepts work in tandem to help individuals with visual impairments maintain orientation before and during travel.
During a recent remote O&M lesson, I learned that Sam was in the midst of reading the Harry Potter series. Sam is captivated by gold Galleons, herbology class, quidditch, and of course, all of the characters. As a Harry Potter fan myself, I enjoy spending a few minutes at the start of our lessons chatting with Sam about the chapter he just finished reading. His enthusiasm for the wizarding world led to a series of Harry Potter themed O&M lessons which combined spatial and sensory awareness concepts and the Soundscape app.
Why Soundscape?
Soundscape is a great tool to support general navigation and wayfinding in several different ways.” With a simple user interface and engaging user experience, Soundscape allows Sam to gain greater awareness of points of interest (POIs) on a micro and macro level. He can set “Markers” to landmarks in his neighborhood and add an ‘annotation’ (which is a customized description) about the area. In addition, his instructor can create and share personalized “Markers” for him. This lesson series is intended to help Sam become familiar with Soundscape features and improve his orientation to POIs.
The Wizarding O&M Series
Learning objectives:
- Sam will improve his spatial awareness of the area within a 3-mile radius of his home. He will set an Audio Beacon on selected POIs and use cardinal directions to verbalize where the destination is located in relation to his house. Sam will practice using an allocentric frame of reference by describing the location of his school in relation to the city park.
- Sam will review sensory awareness components by creating short annotations for selected Markers. The description may incorporate information about multi-sensory features of the POI, tips for maintaining orientation, or steps to complete a simple route.
- Sam will practice utilizing the following Soundscape features — the Audio Beacon, Markers with annotations, and the bottom navigation buttons. Note – Sam was introduced and oriented to Soundscape in a previous lesson.
Lesson description:
Sam received a virtual parcel from Hedwig explaining the assignment.
“Greetings Sam!
News flash – Harry and his friends are planning a trip from Hogwarts to Silicon Valley, next week. They have never been to this area before! They asked for help navigating around the Bay Area and need assistance locating a few destinations. I think you’d be the perfect virtual tour guide.
If you are up for the challenge, you will need to do the following:
- Review the items on “Silicon Valley ‘Magical’ Destination List.” Note – you can find this on page two.
- Identify ONE location per item.
- Use the Soundscape App to search for the location AND create a Marker at the location.
- If the item requires an annotation, be sure to add a short description to the Marker. Remember, Harry and his friends are new to the muggle world— they need help navigating!
- If the item asks for a verbal description, you will share it with your mobility instructor during the Zoom lesson.
What do you say? Are you up for helping Mr. Potter?
Sincerely,
The Transportation Coordinator of Hogwarts School”
Harry’s Silicon Valley destination list
- A field to practice Quidditch.
[Teacher note: Ask your student to provide a verbal description about where the field is in relation to their house? Your student should use cardinal directions in their response.] - A place to study for Professor Sprout’s herbology final exam.
[Teacher note: Ask your student to set a Marker at a location with an extensive garden. Your student should add an annotation to the Marker noting the various smells, sounds, sights, and textures Harry might experience when he first enters the garden area.] - A library to study.
[Teacher note: Ask your student to think about quiet places to study. Perhaps it is their school library? Have your student create a Marker at the location and add an annotation to describe the route Harry would take to navigate from the parking lot to the library. Note the sounds in the parking lot and additional ambient sounds.] - A grocery store to purchase a refreshing drink (Hermione is not accustomed to the hot Silicon Valley summers!)
[Teacher note: Ask your student to create a Marker at a local grocery store. Add an annotation to describe what items or smells might be found at the store entrance.]
- A bank to exchange Galleons (gold wizarding money) for dollars!
[Teacher note: Ask your student to set an Audio Beacon on the bank closest to their home or the bank they visit regularly. How far away is the bank in relation to the student’s home?] - A bus stop. Harry will need to catch the Knight Bus to meet Hagrid at Starbucks.
[Teacher note: Ask your student to create a Marker and annotation at the bus stop closest to their home. The annotation should include the names of the nearby cross streets.] - A place to purchase Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans. Ron will probably eat the whole box on the train ride to Silicon Valley!
[Teacher note: Ask your student about where Harry can purchase some Jelly Beans? Set an Audio Beacon on this location. Where is it in relation to them? Encourage your student to use cardinal directions and/or distance units when describing the location.] - A path Harry and Ron can walk to stretch their legs after the long train ride from Hogwarts.
[Teacher note: Ask your student to provide a verbal response to the following question. “What side of the path should Harry and Ron walk on? If they were using a long cane, what textures would they feel from their cane tip?] - A train station. Unfortunately, Harry, Ron, and Hermione can’t stay in the muggle world forever. They will need to return to Hogwarts at the end of the weekend.
[Teacher note: Ask your student to create a Marker at the train station closest to their house. In the annotation, have the student state what platform Harry would go to if he wanted to catch the northbound train. What about the southbound train?] - Shh… this is a secret note from Dumbledore!
Imagine it is July 30th—tomorrow is Harry’s birthday! What store or bakery should we buy his cake or dessert from?
[Teacher note: ask your student to place an Audio Beacon on their favorite dessert spot? Where is this in relation to their school?]
Sam read the letter aloud during our O&M Zoom lesson—his smile stretched wider and voice climbed in pitch as he uncovered each task. Sam could not wait to jump into action. Mission accepted.
Lesson Progression
Step 1:
- Identify cardinal directions. Sam used the ‘My Location’ button in Soundscape to locate north and name the other cardinal directions.
- Orientation to the immediate environment. Sam squared off at the North wall and proceeded to trail the walls around the room, naming each one according to their cardinal direction and distinguishing feature.
Step 2:
- Name neighborhood landmarks. Discuss the location of key landmarks (i.e., his school, the boulevard perpendicular to his street, and frequently visited walking path) using an egocentric frame of reference.
Step 3:
- Review Harry Potter’s POI List. Read through and start completing items on “Harry’s Silicon Valley Destination List.”
[Teacher tip: We started with the items that required verbal answers. We then transitioned to the questions that involved setting an Audio Beacon on a destination, and finally, the tasks that included creating Markers and annotations. It takes Sam several minutes to type an annotation. Since I wanted Sam to focus on the description within the annotation, I typed about half of the Markers with annotations and sent them to him. This worked well and enabled us to stay focused on O&M concepts instead of tech skills.]
Additional notes
Sam was reminded to select destinations that are within a 3 mile radius of his house. This constraint ensured Sam selects destinations that are relevant to his everyday life. For example, Sam chose Home Depot, a location he visits with his mom, as the destination for Harry Potter to study for his herbology examination. He chose a central park in his town for Harry to practice quidditch.
Key takeaways – Soundscape enables in-person and remote lessons to be:
- Personalized
- Highly engaging
- Based on O&M concepts
Conclusion
Yes, during this lesson, Sam set Audio Beacons, created annotated Markers, and described sensory information to help Harry Potter navigate Silicon Valley, during lockdown. However, and most importantly, the destinations selected are places Sam visits often OR are positioned near relevant POIs such as his school and local shopping center. When he visits the grocery store or on a walk with his parents, the Marker annotation will remind Sam to notice and make meaning of multi-sensory information and reflect on his position in relation to his home and other landmarks.
The lessons also provided a platform to discuss other O&M topics such as time distance and intersection analysis.
Content still open for debate
“Can Harry actually find Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans at Ralph’s (the local grocery store)?”
Sam fervently argues, “No, he needs to take Flying Ford Anglia, Ron’s magical flying car to Disney World. Or, maybe use ‘lumos’, the wand lighting charm, to walk day and night across the country to Disney World.”
What do you think?
I hope that this lesson provides a fun and rich learning experience to you and your students, wherever you live!
Thank you,
Marie
The Soundscape team would like to thank Marie for sharing this amazing story with us! We would love to hear about your experiences using Soundscape, so please do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected] (opens in new tab). For any other feedback, you can reach us at the Soundscape Community (opens in new tab) page.
Below are a few hints and tips which we think will be helpful for people trying to use Soundscape in this way.
Hints and tips
Soundscape and Mobility
Remember that Soundscape is a navigation aide, not a primary navigation tool, and should not be used in lieu of mobility skills and good judgement. Soundscape provide users with contextually relevant 3D audio information regarding their surroundings, such as shops, bus-stops, intersections etc. and general navigational information to enhance and enrich their understanding and awareness of a space, but it will not help users identify obstacles or objects in their immediate vicinity.
My Location
The “My Location” tool can be invoked in multiple ways while you walk. Firstly, it can be found at the bottom left of the Soundscape home screen. You can take the phone out, press it, and get the intersection information.
It can also be invoked from your headset by double tapping the play/pause button on your headset. Please note that for this button press to work reliably Soundscape needs to be the current media player.
Setting an Audio Beacon on a Bank
First, select the ‘Set Audio Beacon’ button on the Soundscape home screen.
From here, there are two different ways you can find the bank:
- If you know the name of the bank you are looking for, then you can select the search bar at the top of the screen and type in the name, and select the bank from the search results
- If you don’t know the name and just want to find a bank close to you, then select ‘All Places’, followed by ‘Set Filter’. From the list of filters that will open up, select ‘Banks & ATMs’, this will open up a list of all the banks and ATMs near you.
This also works for other places, not just banks. If there isn’t a filter for the type of place you’re looking for, then you’ll either need use the ‘All Places’ list, or search for it.
Marker annotations
You can add an annotation to a Marker when you first create it, or you can edit an existing Marker to add an annotation. When editing or creating a Marker, there is now an annotation text field underneath the name and address fields.
This annotation will be called out after a Marker has been announced. This could be when you approach it, or when you select one of ‘Ahead of Me’, ‘Nearby Markers’ or ‘Ahead of Me’ on the Soundscape home screen and you are close enough to the Marker for it to be called out.
Search filters
When you select “Set Audio Beacon”, or you create a new Marker on the ‘Select a Location’ screen there are already two filters that you can use. They are as follows:
- Public Transit – this will show places like bus stops or local taxi businesses
- Food & Drink – this will show restaurants, cafes and other places where you can eat and drink
- All Places – this shows a list of a variety of places and landmarks near to you; plus, you can find additional filters from here as follows:
- Things to Do
- Groceries
- Banks & ATMs