SCoPE Seminar: Accessibility of eLearning: December 4 - 17, 2006

Good Morning from Kitchener.
My name is Ivan LeBlanc and I am a quality assurance analyst with a software company that develops online learning products.  We are currently looking at accessibility issues within our products. 

Ivan

My name is Parker Owens and I am the Web Accessibility Coordinator at Eastern Kentucky University in the US. We use blackboard, and I would be especially interested in any workarounds for some of the problems there.

Hi all - I'm Sherri Yerk-Zwickl from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA.

I'm the instructional technology team leader here and we are becoming more aware of accessibility & learning disability issues and how to address them in our face to face & online courses.

Hello! I am an instructional designer of online instruction at a community college in the US. Designing online learning that is accessible for all students is essential to the community college mission, which is to serve the educational needs of the entire local community. I would like to broaden my understanding of accessibility issues and particularly explore design practices that may target accessibility for a specific "disability," but will benefit a broader population in ways that we might not initially expect (which I suspect many strategies do).
-Heather

Good morning.

My name is Denise Weir and I am the Director of Distance Learning at Northeastern University in Boston.  I would like to learn about the current availability of assistive technology for e-Learning for both students and instructors.

Hi

I'm Claudius Soodeen, Assistant Manager of the University of Winnipeg Instructional Network (Centre for Distributed/Distance Learning).

My interest in this topic ties into the online and telecourses that we offer, especially since we offer courses in Disability Studies.

Accessibility to our online course environments and to whatever websites are created for courses is important and since I'm directly involved in these endeavors, any knowledge I can gain will be helpful.

c

In response to your request for introductions, let me also say "hi".

I'm from the UK and I'm an academic researching and teaching computer science at undergraduate and postgraduate level. In addition to this I also support disabled students on our computer science programmes and am regularly exposed to issues of interaction between advanced assistive technology and advanced learning technology.

Brian

TechDis is a UK organisation funded by the funding bodies for university, college and other post-16 education to uncoverm develop and disseminate good practice in teaching and learning with respect to technologies and disabilities. Hence I am very interested in the topic of 'Accessibility of e-learning' from two perspectives:
1. How e-learning can be used as a force for increased accessibility (i.e. as a tool it broadens the teacher's palette of tools available therefore if employed correctly it should broaden the range of learners who can be taught without the need for separate modifications)
2. How assistive technologies and specific modifications can be made to traditional e-learning (i.e. through VLEs such as BlackBoard, or discussion boards, or WEb2.0 technologies) to enable users with non-traditional needs to participate on an equal footing with their peers.

We have a range of resources relating to this topic that are freely available on our website, but I am particularly interested in finding out about specific instances of practice anywhere in the world that we could learn from in the UK.

Hello from Calgary,

I am a disabilities service provider at Mount Royal College in Calgary. I am interested in hearing other's experiences in providing accessible web-based instruction. I am particularly interested in (in)accessibility issues with Blackboard and Web CT.

Good Morning to All,
My name is Paul M. Szymanowski and I am a Manager & Advisor, @ Student Accessibility Services at Dalhousie U and a Disability Resource Facilitator, for the Nova Scotia Department of Ed.
My interest in this topic is in the context of Universal Design - eLearning as a means of providing services to Students with Disabilities and non-disabled students, at the same time.

Hello,

I am Lou Fraise, ITS-Training Services at University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.  Within the past year, I have become involved in the use of adaptive technologies for Disabled Students Services, through specific requests for training on Dragon,Kurzweil, and OneNote.  I survived a brain injury in 1977, and in most respects made what appeared to be a complete recovery.  I have been teaching Computer Applications for 20 years, and have only recently begun to realize the extent to which I use the computer to compensate for effects of the brain injury.  Working with Students with Disabilities has really brought me home to my own disabilities.

Sorry for the late start.  I just received an email re this seminar.  Trying to get myself registered, situated and into the moment.

Lou

I'm Deirdre Bonnycastle. I was an instructional designer at the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />University of Saskatchewan and I'm going to play the devil's advocate here. Five years ago, I did extensive research into online course accessibility and we came up with some minimum standards and did various training sessions. http://www.extension.usask.ca/extensionDivision/about/accessibility/index.html<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

We spend a lot of money making online courses accessible and in 5 years of a hundred courses per year, we never had a student with a disability register. All that work we did is now out of date. In the end, it would have been cheaper to wait for a student and make the necessary changes then.

This comment doesn’t apply to the university website which is more public and has its own accessibility team.

Hi, I am Claude Almansi and I live in Switzerland. I am not an IT professional, but I became involved in advocating web accessibility from having been involved in advocating the respect of physical accessibility  norms when my husband was in a wheelchair for the last 5 years of his life. For instance I made a podcast by recording a simulation of a screenreader, because a lady teaching the use of IT in education locally had exclaimed "but how can a blind person use a computer anyway?" when I told her that the VLE platform she had chosen was not accessible to blind people. And tomorrow I'll participate in a round table about accessibility laws and their implementation in Switzerland and Italy (http://www.adisi.ch/accessibilita/).
Best
Claude

My name is Shawn Draisey I am the owner and CEO of a small career consulting firm in London Ontario. I am launching a pilot project with a client organization who want to see how VLE's can be used with barriered clients in need of career consulting. I am here to listen, read and soak in wisdom.

Good morning,

I am a Usability Specialist at Desire2Learn.  My goal is to make our platform easier to use for all learners.

I am quite interested in learning about what roadblocks people encounter when using an LMS to make an accessible course.

Janna

Hi

I'm Sidney Tyrrell from Coventry University where we have used WebCT since 1999 and now are experiencing WebCT Vista (very successful introduction of that this year) which I am not too impressed with.

We have particular problem with students who are blind or partially sighted though fortunately have a member of staff, Anne Dickinson, who is both familiar with the problems of visual impairments and with the wokings of all the finer points of WebCT, all editions, so she guides students through the best strategy for them for coping with this VLE.

 

My interest is with the partially sighted and using PowerPoint with sound, and streamed, as an alternative to Flash for animations/learning objects.

 

Hi,
I am Technical Director of XML Workshop, a consultancy in Dublin, Ireland.
I have a number of different perspectives, some of them
possibly conflicting, but here goes anyway.

- We are working with a 3rd-level college which is shortly
  going live with its first elearning course for distance
  learners, and I may be providing remote and classroom
  tutorial support.

- We are developing our online Word to HTML conversion service
  to specifically support elearning materials, and
  are also integrating it with Moodle, so I am always
  interested in how people create such materials, and
  whether they are accessible.

- We provide various accessibility auditing and consulting
  services, including conversion of materials into accessible
  HTML and sometimes accessible PDF format, usually from Word
  or QuarkXPress format.

Hello everyone.  My name is Carole Cotton.  I retired early from the local community college where I worked as a career and employment specialist, so I could spend more time learning and teaching in the online environment.

Currently I am on the faculty of the Career Development Practitioner Program http://www.conestogac.on.ca/career/ at Conestoga College, Kitchener, Ontario  http://www.conestogac.on.ca/  This program is offered fully online.  As well, I facilitate a career portfolio course delivered online for OPSEU (Ontario Public Service Employees Union).  I live in Hamilton, Ontario.

Hello,

I am Jayne Butler from the University of Guelph in Ontario Canada. I work with faculty to design and develop distance education courses. I am currently working on a project to make one course as accessible as possible to see what we can learn. My interest in accessibility is personal as well as professional since I have a son who has low vision. I am very interested in research that sheds light on how the accessibility approaches taken in online courses either help or don't help the people the approaches are designed for. It's not easy information to find and I suspect in many cases doesn't exist at all.

Jayne Butler

Distance Learning Specialist

Office of Open Learning

University of Guelph

Hi,

My name Is Patrice Wheeler. I'm the Assistive Tech person on the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />North Idaho College campus (USA). I work for the office that provides accommodations to students with disabilities (Center for Educational Access, CEA). I assist students with hardware, software, seating issues. I also assist students who are blind or low-vision with access to everything from Braille, e-text, to lab science classes. We have 5 satellite campuses in our region and I'm responsible to maintain the same level services & access at these sites as we have on the main campus. The number of students (with & without disabilities) who access online courses and our satellite campuses is growing each semester, so I'm very interested in how online courses and assistive technology can work well to provide access for students

Patrice

 

Greetings,
I am Cath Stager-Kilcommons, a web accessibility and assistive technology specialist at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado.  I have been involved in getting students access to their learning materials for ten years.

Currently, I am involved in an grant to institutionalize universal design for learning theories and best practices into the training currently available at the university.

Our university is starting to implement v 6 of WebCT, (full implementation Fall 2007), and we are looking for more information on best practices in e-learning. We are looking for what new issues and barriers this version is presenting.

We ultimately want to have a demo course that is maximized for accessibility, to offer templates to help create more usable course materials, and to have more resources for instructors wishing to follow-up on their own.  We would love to collaborate on this as well. 

Good Day

I am Tanieth Dale, Information Technology Support Services - University of Saskatchewan.

I will be investigating Universal Accessibility here at the  UofS and hope to gather  information from  the experiences  and expertise  of  others participating in this seminar.

I am interested in the range of definition that is currently understood by "Accessibility" as well as examples / benefits / limitations of accessibility technologies currently being used  / investigated.

Tanieth

Greetings!  I am Karen Parrish Baker from Morehead State University in Kentucky (USA).  I am an associate professor, master degree level adult and higher education administration program, and online instructor.  My interests are two fold.  First, I am a 2006-2007 University of Minnesolta PASS IT Fellow (see descriptive passage below) charged with facilitating professional development opportunities about Universal Instructional Design at my campus and to colleagues in my academic areas of expertise.  For those who may not be familiar with PASS IT:

PASS IT (“Pedagogy and Student Services for Institutional Transformation") seeks to address a compelling need in higher education by developing a corps of trainers to facilitate professional development workshops in the implementation of Universal Design (UD) and Universal Instructional Design (UID) in higher education. UID, an adaptation of the architectural concept of Universal Design, is a relatively new model for providing access to higher education for students with disabilities. Through UD and UID, staff and faculty create more welcoming spaces for all students by rethinking professional practices to develop curricula and programs that are inclusive for all learners. When faculty and staff implement UD and UID as they begin planning for a course, program, or activity by taking into consideration the strengths and challenges of all students, they reduce or eliminate the need to provide last-minute accommodations or to segregate students on the basis of individual needs. (Excerpt retrieved 12/4/06 from: http://www.education.umn.edu/passit/articles/celebrateGrant.html.)

Second, as an online instructor, I have my own concerns about accessiblity issues as our university moves more of its courses and academic programs online.  Consequently, I view this discussion opportunity as part of my own professional development to enrich my understanding and applicabilility of strategies for increasing accessibility for students, faculty and staff.

Hello everyone,

I am currently working on my PhD in Instructional Design for Online Learning but my MS and current teaching jobs are in math and science.   I teach College Algebra for two online colleges. 508 guidelines are very much needed and I believe in following them.

I have a totally off-the-wall topic here to bring up.  There are many students who are disabled (actually crippled) by math anxiety or test anxiety. Should this be a part of this discussion? It is not really an accessibility issue but it is something that might need to be considered in course design.  I am interested in any comments or criticisms

Dawn

Hello to everyone,

I'm Janice White, an instructional designer with the University of Queensland (Australia) and previously worked in the TAFE sector in NSW as a teacher (disability support, communication, basic IT and language,literacy and numeracy). I've been involved in design, development and delivery of training using online, blended and F2F modes.

Many of the postings express interest in topics I will be 'zeroing' in on such as universal design, the work-arounds and/or building blocks plus inexpensive or free alternatives available to fully enable students with disabilities to use LMSs (eg Blackboard). The ideal is that the technology can be transparent/seamless/'just a tool' with the learning and engagement with content, peers and instructors as the primary focus.

A current project focuses on modelling Universal Design of Learning to trainee teachers in supporting students with diverse needs, including those with a disability. Philosophy, pedagogy, technology, software, anecdotes and for sure other aspects I haven't thought of interest me. Looking forward to engaging with you all and accessibility in elearning! :-)

Hi everyone,

Greetings from Sydney. I currently work in the LMS area (from a web development role) and have been working/researching on web accessibility issues. Of particular interest to me is the accessibility of Learning Management Systems (LMS) and other related third-party products used with LMS.

Cheers,
Wai-Leng

Hello,

My name is Raena Jackson Armitage and I work for a local vendor of a largish content management system.  We don't do heaps of eLearning but I'm very interested in accessibility and people's experiences with online/Web based tools in general.  I'm sure I'll do a lot of reading and not a lot of talking. :)

Hi All,

My name is Di Paez and I am the Project Manager, Australia for the Liberated Learning Consortium which has been involved in a Joint Study Agreement with IBM for the past seven years. I am located at the University of the Sunshine Coast, in Queensland, Australia.

The aim of the Consortium is:

Through collaboration, Liberated Learning will advance speech recognition technology and techniques to create and foster barrier-free learning environments where all learners have equal access to information.

Under the Joint Study Agreement, IBM have developed ViaScribe which automatically captures a transcript, audio and PowerPoint slides and can be synchronised with video presentations for use as an blended or e-learning tool. The transcript can be used for soft braille or used by screen readers in word, it can also be annotated in real-time.

The output can be in Real, HTML, SAMI or customised and the student can chose if they want transcript, audio, video or Powerpoint as well as other multimedia combinations of the presentation.

I have attached a screen dump to show you what Real and HTML of the outputs might look like.

A new feature of ViaScribe is the ability to develop talking books and we are also developing the ability to capture multiple speakers using voice recognition.

For more information on the Consortium log onto www.liberatedlearning.com or contact me.

I am an associate professor in the department of information technology at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) where I teach in the MS in Learning & Knowledge Management program.  I am also a doctoral student in Fielding Graduate University's Media Psychology program.  I am interesting in accessibility issues and online collaboration - RIT is home of NTID (National Technical Institute for the Deaf).

Hi, I am Klaus Reich from Innsbruck, Austria. I am working as a researcher for a small research institute and as the managing director for a network of evaluators.
More in relation to the topic of the seminar: I am enrolled in a two year course at the University of Linz (Austria) on eAccessibility, design-for-all and barrier-free webdesign.
Current focus in my research is set to the needs of elderly persons in relation to ICT based learning, e.g. the development of a VLE for older learners, the development of a train-the-trainer course focussing on this target group etc.

klaus

Hallo everybody,

I guess I jumped into the subject without introducing myself - sorry about that.  So here is my introduction, I guess better late than never, eh Greetings from Lambton College in Sarnia, ON.  My name is Ingo Niestroj, my position is learning strategist and assistive devices technologist.  I am trying to include technology into learning where ever possible.  One of my big beefs about assignments is listen to it before you hand it in.  Our primary way of communicating is in general by voice, therefore we may be much better in hearing mistakes than seeing them.

I am looking forward for new information and good discussions!

greetings,

Ingo

Wow, what a varied gang of people on this. My name is Susan Alcorn MacKay and I've been the director of disability services at the Glenn Crombie Centre at Cambrian College in Sudbury, Ontario. We have about 700 students with disabilities annually. Nice to see so many people I know on this webinar! I'm interested in all ascpect of access to learning for persons with all disabilities. We currently have a student who is using her eyes as the mouse to access the computer for self-directed learning and access to the Internet - she is so proficient that she can access anything she needs with only her eyes.

I'm interested in WebCT/Blackboard as a service provider and course developer, and course taker.

A big topic that would make everything more intuitive would be if everyone used the principles of Universal Instructional Design in planning their course work and implementation..

:) susan

Hi!

My name is Jane Jarrow and I am a private consultant, working in the area of disability and higher education. As the former Executive Director of the Association on Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD), I have been involved in the field for more than 25 years, but lately find myself focusing more and more on issues of inclusion for students with disabilities in online education. I am particularly interested in issues of programmatic access -- that is, transferring the kinds of accommodations we have traditionally made for students with disabilities in "seated" classes on campus to the virtual world.

I admit it -- I am one of the most technologically UNsavvy people I know. I understand most of the discussion about what needs to be done to make information accessible to students with disabiities using assistive technology, and about how to improve the accessibility/availability of information presented through the website and internet. But, to me, that seems a lot like making sure that the ramps and elevators are in place on campus. It is the "architectural accessibility" that is primary to the built environment of the internet. But after we got students with disabiities INTO our classrooms, we still needed to do more to get them access to the curriculum. I am working on the premise that the same is true for online education!

Janie Jarrow

Hi,

My name is Janet and I am an instructional designer for Online learning. In fact I am currently working with accessibility issues in a current project. Some of the issues that I deal with have nothing to do with the addition of alt text or closed captioning, but rather those who are requesting the instruction to understand the meaning of accessibility.

 Greetings all,

My name is Ian Calder and I work in London, UK. Currently I am involved in developing e-Learning materials, primarily delivered through the WebCT Vista virtual learning environment, but I have also looked after various educational websites. I always strive to make the materials I produce as accessible as possible, though often this is hampered because of lack of access to assistive technologies to properly test them out as well as vagueness of what does genuinely make them accessible to end-users. So, I am interested to learn as much as possible through these discussions and there have been some interesting points already.

Ian

 

Hi. I'm Jim Julius, associate director of Instructional Technology Services for San Diego State University. The California State University (CSU) system is currently making a very big push toward 508 compliance (US law regarding accessibility) in the areas of web accessibility, instructional materials, and technology procurement. I'm involved in our campus working groups on the first two of those three issues. Additionally, though SDSU offers very little distance education at this time, we have thousands of courses using Blackboard, and we have significant interest emerging in blended/hybrid and fully online course redesigns. I am hoping that accessibility and universal design can be built in from the beginning to faculty development efforts to support course redesign, and I would love to hear from others about effective practices for communicating with faculty and engaging them in faculty development.

Hi all

Late as usual - story of my life really. Thanks to Emma Duke-Williams who enlightened me about this seminar discussion. 

I'm based in Lancaster University in the North West of England and have the splendid title of Specialist Colleges and Accessibility Adviser.  Having read much of these discussions I now feel that I know absolultely nothing.  However, one point seems to be common to all these or other discussions on accessibility - we are all preaching to the converted.  How do we get the 'making your teaching accessible - is just good teaching' message to the mainstream lecturer/teacher?

Hello,

my name is Kaj Rietberg. I work as a teacher in special needs education. It's in the Netherlands. I have children with ADHD and Autistic spectrum disorder in my classroom. But beside that we see that most children have trouble with learning to write the language (looks like or is dyslexia) but also having troubles with maths (looks like or is dyscalculie). I'm interested in how learning with ICT can enhance the learning of these children. The age of the children is 8 until 10 years.

I think that the accessability on elearning for these children can be better. I think that the less information is better and the use of always the same picto for buttons is better. But also can elearning let children who have trouble to stay in a classroom learn in a safe place with a computer.

I think that cycling is the best sport in the world, so that's why I put in the picture of me cycling.

Hello everyone,

 

My name is Russell Solowoniuk and I work in the Services to Students with Disabilities department at Grant MacEwan College in Edmonton Alberta.

 

I've been frantically reading all the posts trying to catch up. There's so much good information being exchanged...it's awesome.

 

Part of my job is contacting publishers to request electronic files of textbooks. We've had good success with some publishers and not so good with others, as others here have mentioned.

 

Our college is upgrading to WebCT Campus edition 6 this spring and I am interested in any accessibility issues with this version.