Inside this book are reflections on the nature of vision and blindness.
Further, there are explorations of interpretive research, and
presentations of some seminal and contemporary publications in the field
of blindness. The other major fodder for conversation with you the
reader is an elaborated example of empirical research entitled Blind
Online Learners. Each element of this inquiry is explicitly reflected
upon as an example of interpretive research. This book is intended for
four intersecting groups of readers. If you are a philosopher, closet or
sanctioned, then you cannot ponder the nature of being without due
consideration for vision, and cannot contemplate the role of seeing in
our lives without listening to the stories of those who are blind. The
tales within this text are particularly contemporaneous because they are
contextualized by the cyber-phenomena of online learning. This segues to
the second group of readers, as the described empirical research was
originally intended to bring greater depth and breadth of understanding
to the field of educational technology, particularly as it intersects
with disability studies. There is a paucity of published literature that
has inquired into disabled online learners, and this research study
responds to that call. Third, this book may be used as a textbook on
approaches to interpretive empirical research. It is as close as one may
come to a recipe, walking students through a specific example. Because
it is situated in actual empirical research, the intention was that it
avoid the trap of being prescriptive or formulaic. Finally, the text is
intended for readers interested in the field of blindness. The text
reviews some of the seminal and contemporary research on blindness, and
then presents an elaborated example of what we can and should expect to
emerge in the knowledge production industry, changing what it means to
be blind.
