Making Your Course Accessible | Origin: EL111
This is a general discussion forum for the following learning topic:
Assistive Technologies for the Online Learner --> Making Your Course Accessible
Post what you've learned about this topic and how you intend to apply it. Feel free to post questions and comments too.
Consistency with grading among students is important, but "tolerance for error" with disabled students needs to be protected.
Online instructors should use multiple ways of assessing students abilities and address a variety of learning styles.
Comment on Douglas Neville's post: I agree. Including a written transcript for any video recording can be so helpful.
This course has made me more aware of my communication. For example, including captioning can help students with disabilities.
Make your course as accessible as you can.
I think the most important thing I learned in preparation in advance to make your course accessible will help all learners.
Wow, I never thought about using 'bold' text or colored letters. I never put much thought into allowing a lapse of time for a student with a disability time to answer or that clicking 'ok' with present a problem for someone.
"Online instructors should use multiple ways of assessing students’ abilities and address a variety of learning styles/preferences at the same time. "
There is a lot of pretending going on.
First, I will note that I use a lot of color in my CAD designs. But because I am aware of the common disabilities with color vision, I am careful to choose colors that are more easily distinguished. I also try to choose colors that will print in b/w with different shades of grey, and often also use line types (different kinds of dashes). Those may help some, but someone who is color blind will likely not be able to discern all the things in my drawings. But, I won’t reduce the use of color that will reduce the ability of most people to understand the drawings.
I disagree with some of the things in this course. For a minor, but clear example, we are tasked with creating content that strengthens the learning process. But, then things like "don't use color" are stated, even though the use of color has long been considered a good tool to enhance learning. So, the result is to reduce learning in the general population, to accommodate some, but pretend that it doesn’t.
It is somewhat like back when some K-12 schools started dumbing-down their education for the purpose of increasing graduation rates in the name of equity. Yes, more kids got diplomas. But those who could have benefited from the higher levels of education were made to suffer.
I really appreciated learning more about tools available to help make course content more accessible and the reminder to be proactive in building syllabi with a welcoming tone and good universal design built in rather than going back and trying to fit it later.
Use multiple methods for different types of disabilities, as well as different learning types. Videos should be transcribed, pictures should have ALT words
Captioning and transcribing can assest the online learner with disabilities. Online instructors can use multable ways to assess a learner's abilities.
In order to make a course accessible, it is recommended the instructor be proactive and plan ahead instead of retrofitting the content.
Making courses accessible and beneficial to everyone is important to all students success. Researching the many tools available is a good place to start.
At bare minimum, the instructor can record lectures and ensure that there is a text transcript for lectures available to students to ensure all knowledge is accesible for any student, no matter their disability.
It is important to have varying formats and designs for all online material to make all students, regardless of impairments/disabilities, feel welcomed and have every opportunity to succeed
I learned that we need to caption all our videos and recordings for students with disabilities.
I found the different ways to make the course accessible very interesting.
