Active Looking LabLook. Explore. Experiment.

Need an idea?Try the Apps

About Active Looking Lab

Active Looking Lab is a collection of simple, web-based apps and activities that support early visual learning and purposeful looking — for learners with CVI (cortical/cerebral visual impairment), visual impairments, developmental disabilities and complex needs, and for the teachers, specialists and families who support them.

Each app is built to make access easier: less clutter, clearer choices, simpler interactions and more ways to take part. Adults can adjust color, movement, pacing and touch to fit each learner.

Start with these

Wonder Button

Video, music and photo players with simple ways to choose: One Button, Next / Go, Direct Touch and Swipe + Touch.

LOOK Books

One clear picture. A little movement. A reason to look.

Spark

Touch it and something happens: cause and effect with light, color and motion.

Practice Lab

Experience stories, step-by-step tasks, picture connections and turn-taking, inspired by Perkins, Paths to Literacy and TEACCH.

How I ended up in the Lab...

I started in schools. A young teacher with a backpack and coffee walks into a school building. Note: Working with learners with visual impairments and complex needs.

Wait… Did you see that? A teacher and a girl in a wheelchair look at a glowing light on a screen. Notes: less clutter, more time, bigger, brighter, try it again.

Exposure. A teacher holds a glowing ball and a flower beside a fishbowl, with Flash the firefly flying by. Text: You can't learn from an experience you never had. Notes: What do you like? What CAN you see? Banner: Access → Opportunity → Experience.

The first Lab table. A teacher in a lab coat holds a flask as Flash the firefly buzzes past. Speech bubble: What if we made looking easier? Lab flasks labelled Contrast, Time, Movement, Simplicity, and a jar labelled Clutter with a note: less of this.

The chalkboard. A teacher points at a chalkboard while a dog and Flash the firefly watch. The board reads: Look, Wait, Look → Touch → ?, Access = Opportunity, and Try one. See what happens. A note asks: Ideas, Questions, Experiments, A project?

The computer. A man sits at a computer showing a flower, with sticky notes reading Look, Spark, Stories?, Find It, Follow It. Thought bubble: What if an app did almost nothing? Answer: Okay… what if touching it did something? A mug reads: Good ideas take time!

The apps escape. A startled man is surrounded by apps jumping out of a box marked APPS: LOOK Books, Spark Worlds, Spark Tales, Glow Stories, Firefly, Track It, and CVI Explorations, with a sleeping dog nearby. Notes: This may have gotten out of hand. Everybody deserves a questionable app. Not everything needs a lesson.

Now what do I do with all these? A man sits buried in a pile of ideas, apps and tools while Flash the firefly asks: Okay… now how does anybody know where to start?

Flash builds the machine. A teacher holds instructions beside a contraption labelled Flash's Activity Generator with a funnel marked Ideas go in, a note reading Turn. Pull. Press. See what happens!, and a card saying An activity for you! Flash says: That shouldn't have worked. Notes list: Look, Touch, Follow, Find, Together, Fun.

Back where we started. A teacher and a girl in a wheelchair look at a glowing light on a screen, with a sleeping dog and Flash the firefly. Notes: Maybe we practice looking. Maybe we learn something. Maybe we discover something they love. Maybe we just enjoy it together. Try something. See what happens. That's pretty much the Lab.

Try something. See what happens.

Explore the Apps Not sure where to begin? Where Do I Start →