About the project

Tactile, three-dimensional, open.

A two-year cooperation partnership designing the next generation of tactile teaching aids for blind and visually impaired students — and putting them in the hands of teachers across Europe, for free.

The gap we are addressing

Most blind and visually impaired children in our partner countries attend mainstream schools. Their classmates learn from textbooks, diagrams and slides that are increasingly visual. The adapted materials that exist today are mostly two-dimensional tactile pictures — useful, but limited. They cannot convey volume, depth, the relationship between parts of an object, or how a system works in space.

Teachers in inclusive classrooms know the gap. They improvise, adapt, and often go without. Specialised schools have the pedagogical knowledge to do better, but lack the digital fabrication skills to design and produce three-dimensional aids at scale.

I can touch it connects those two worlds.

Objectives

  • Develop a standardised methodology for designing pedagogically sound 3D tactile aids
  • Train teachers and adapters in 3D modelling and printing for inclusive education
  • Build an open-access repository of 3D models, guidelines and best practices
  • Strengthen cooperation between specialised schools, mainstream schools and digital fabrication labs across Europe
  • Produce video guides for classroom use of every aid in the library

How we work

Five organisations, four countries, one pipeline:

  • Map primary school curricula in each country to find shared, recurring themes
  • Train the consortium in TinkerCAD, Cura and 3D printing for accessibility
  • Design and print 3D tactile aids matched to those themes
  • Test aids in mainstream schools with blind and visually impaired students
  • Document what works and publish it openly

Programme priorities

I can touch it is a KA220-SCH Cooperation Partnership in School Education funded by Erasmus+. It addresses two programme priorities:

The project also contributes to the digital transformation of education and to the inclusion of learners with special educational needs in mainstream schools.