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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

"You know how haunted houses have creaky doors or creepy monsters? I made the story go real loud, but real slow to make it seem scary," Tariq Trowell, a seven-year-old at Breckinridge-Franklin Elementary in Louisville, KY who is visually impaired, tells me.

Tariq is talking about using Code Jumper, a coding language developed by Microsoft for children who are blind or visually impaired. Different from computer-based programming languages such as Python and C++, Code Jumper is an educational tool comprised of modular, physical pieces students can string together to create code.

It makes coding tactile and fun -- and it's highly customizable. Students can play single musical notes or complete songs, tell stories, use pre-set sounds and make their own sounds. They have control over speed, pitch and volume, too, which is what Tariq played with to make his ghost story.

[...] There are 63,357 children who are blind or visually impaired in the United States, according to a 2017 APH annual report. Cornell University Disability Statistics estimate that only 15.7 percent of people who are blind or visually impaired complete a bachelor's degree or higher, based on 2016 American Community Survey data. That means fewer than 10,000 of those 63,000-plus children who are blind or visually impaired will earn advanced degrees if this trend continues.

[...] Each Code Jumper kit has two main components – a hub and several pods. The hub is a hand-sized white plastic device that runs on four AA batteries. It has a large circular blue play button and a slightly smaller circular blue stop button. It also has a built-in speaker, volume control and four ports that look like traditional headphone jacks.

Pods are smaller white plastic devices you attach to the hub via the ports. Each pod represents a line of code and has its own ports so you can continuously connect additional pods like a massive centipede, until you run out.

[...] "We're looking at this [Code Jumper] as a career piece," Meador says. Microsoft, Apple and Google accessibility teams have spoken with him about the shortage of programmers who are blind or visually impaired. They're in high demand.

"You can be blind and become a programmer. There are a lot of blind programmers out there," he adds.

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