The Diagram Center is a research and development center whose goal is to make it easier, cheaper, and faster to create and use accessible digital images. Bruce Walker recently posted an article about Sonification that details what sonification is, why it is beneficial and how it can be used in the classsroom. Sonification, the use of non-speech sound in an intentional, systematic way to represent information, is often used to make graphs accessible.
Included in Bruce’s article are line graphs with audio clips demonstrating sonification and with extra contextual information.
Bruce identified that “. . . there is a solid base of evidence pointing to the effectiveness for sonification both in real-world science (e.g., even NASA researchers use sonification), as well as in classrooms at all grade levels. Unfortunately, relatively few teachers are using sonification in the classroom. This is likely attributable to the relative newness of the technology and teachers and students being unaware of the benefits of sonification.”
Read Diagram’s Sonification article here.
By Diane Brauner
