Friends,
Recently, I have been involved in many conversations about accessible design. With the implementation of standards based instruction designed to ensure all learners have access to similar outcomes, the need to have inclusive, adaptive, and accessible materials. Adult education brings together diversity in learners and teachers often adapt materials to create their own resources. Accessiblity in design helps to create equitable learning opportunities for all students. As educators create and author their own content using a variety of tools, how do you address the importance of creating accessible documents? Does your program have an official policy? If so, are the staff members aware of these standards? What struggles, if any, do you have when designing and implementing accessible content?
I invite you to view these resources: FLOE Inclusive Learning and Web Accessibility Standards and share your struggels, concerns, strategies, and successes with designing accessible content..
Sincerely,
Kathy Tracey
@Kathy_Tracey
Comments
Thanks, Kathy, for bringing up a topic that I’m sure many have struggled with, as adult educators. While we differ from K-12 educators’, and the special education system’s procedural guidance and support, there are still many resources to help adult educators adhere to the law, as defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
MEMBERS: Is this an area where you would like to see more professional development opportunities from this community? Please give us a “Like” if you want to see some of this type of offering from LINCS.
Best,
Mike Cruse
Disabilities and Equitable Outcomes Moderator
Michaelcruse74@gmail.com
Our college has folks that push accessibility and provide a lot of support and encouragement. Our tech support and disabilities people interviewed studetns who use accommodations and accessibility features and made a video that was part of a presentation about how real the need is. Very effective :)
It *is* a struggle, though. THere's research showing that people attend and learn better from videos w/ just voice over, as opposed to voice over w/ text also on the screen. Oops, captioning...
I love FLOE because they go beyond sensory impairments. I yearn to get together with people to design cognitively accessible math curricula. If I could clone myself...
I saw this TED Talk a few years ago. While it's less than 10 minutes, I found the comments of Sinead Burke so meaningful that I now look at everywhere I go, and all the content I develop, to work for everyone. https://www.ted.com/talks/sinead_burke_why_design_should_include_everyone While I have a long way to go, I keep the challenge at the forefront of my design.
What are your takeways from this video?
Sincerely
Kathy Tracey