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[Music]
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>>Narrator: Sheryl Burgstahler
shares historical highlights
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and tips to create accessible
online learning activities.
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[Music]
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>> Sheryl Burgstahler:
I’m going to share with you
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a little bit about
access to online learning,
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what instructional designers and
faculty members need to know.
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Often when I’m talking
about this topic,
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faculty members will say,
"I don’t have enough time,"
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and then, if it’s not that,
"I don’t have enough funding."
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That gets some support.
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"And I don’t have enough
technical support for me."
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Well, what I can come back with,
politely, of course,
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is there are some things
that we can all do.
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We don’t need to
do them all at once.
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We can do them incrementally
but make our courses accessible.
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That led to this particular
publication called
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20 Tips For Teaching An
Accessible Online Course.
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And so I’m going to go
through that a little bit.
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It’s part of our
AccessCyberlearning project,
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one of our resources
for other projects.
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And I’ll just step back
for a minute, back to 1995.
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I actually taught
the first online course
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here at the
University of Washington.
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That’s kind of a little known
fact about me.
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It was in 1995 and I’m still
shocked to this day
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that they hired
an 18-year-old girl
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to be offering these courses!
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[Audience laughs]
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But I was quite precocious
so, I offered the class
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with Dr. Norm Coombs at the
Rochester Institute of Technology.
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He and I had been giving talks
on accessible technology
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around the country
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and the University of Washington
had a very extensive
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distance learning program,
all based on the postal mail system.
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And so they mailed out things
including videos to students.
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And they proctored their exams in
proctoring centers
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around the country
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so it was pretty elaborate
what we had here.
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And I wanted to make sure, my
kind of somewhat hidden agenda was
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I wanted to make sure
these online courses
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would be accessible to
individuals with disabilities
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but I also was kind of curious if you
could really deliver a class online
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that was anything close to
what you could do onsite.
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Particularly something like
assistive technology,
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which usually people touch things
and manipulate things.
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So I recruited Norm Coombs
to teach this class with me,
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Adaptive Technology for
People With Disabilities.
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Now back then, for those of you
that are old enough to remember,
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people communicated using email
and we had discussion lists, email-based,
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and we had a Gopher server - Gopher from
the University of Minnesota, of course.
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It was kind of an online
catalogue system, all text-based.
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We’d get into a little outline
of your resources,
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and then it would link to
resources around the country.
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And we actually received an award for
having the most comprehensive Gopher server
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for people with disabilities
in the world.
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And I don’t know if
we had any competition.
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But anyway, that was
our course library.
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Then we used Telnet,
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which allowed us to log onto
NASA and other big computing systems.
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The students had to actually
learn a different language
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to correspond with these systems, with each
one,
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because they developed their own interface.
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And then we used File Transfer Protocol
to move files around,
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to get images, whatever,
that we wanted to move around.
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So it was pretty basic technology.
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All the materials that we had
we put in text format.
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You kind of had to.
It was on Gopher.
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So we did that.
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We did use postal mail.
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We mailed out publications,
we mailed out videos.
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DO-IT was around.
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We had already made some
DO-IT videos on VHS tapes
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and they were captioned and
audio described, believe it or not.
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And we mailed those out to
the participants in the class.
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We kind of got the class
pretty much together.
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I gave them Norm Coombs’ resume
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and they approved him as an instructor
here at the University of Washington.
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And then it sort of came out
in the meeting one time
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when we were talking about
proctoring exams
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and I said, "Well, we really
can’t do proctoring exams
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in these different locations because
people write those out longhand
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and Norm Coombs is blind
so he won’t be able to read those
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if they’re not in electronic form
and I’ll have to grade all those myself
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and I’m really not interested
in having to do all that work.
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Or we have to hire somebody
to go over to RIT and read to him."
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Now I have to say that the
program people were not amused
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by the fact that I kind of
dropped this idea,
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this piece of information about
Norm Coombs being blind.
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I thought it was a little bit humorous
and I really didn't think
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it had anything to do with them
accepting him as an instructor
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even back in those days.
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And so they allowed us to go forward
with this
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and we offered this course
to be fully accessible
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and the distance learning program
kind of the end of the first time we offered
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it
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she said, "Well tell me, Sheryl,
I mean after all this work,
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how many people with disabilities
even took this course?
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So how do you even know
if it's successful?"
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And I said, "Well I am proud to say
we have absolutely no idea
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how many people with disabilities
took this course.
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Because we just designed it
to be fully accessible."
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No one had to disclose.
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So they weren't exactly amused
but we continued to teach that class.
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But I'm happy to say our
first class was fully accessible.
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In applying universal design
to online learning,
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we provide multiple ways to gain knowledge,
interact, and demonstrate knowledge.
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We have this publication
that we've created on
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20 tips for teaching an online course
that is fully accessible
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to people with disabilities.
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Nine of the tips are about webpages
and documents, images, videos;
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and the other 11 are
instructional methods.
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And when I'm working with faculty
who are reluctant to admit
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that they might be able to adopt
some accessible technology practices,
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I ask them to really take the challenge
of selecting a few of these
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to make their courses accessible.
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And it really points out
how the faculty need
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to work with the technology people
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but also the designers in
developing their online courses.
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And I'm going to go
through these fairly quickly.
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But just to kind of
give you an idea
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of what things we tell
faculty members and designers
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to look for in online learning.
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Providing clear and consistent
layouts and organizational schemes.
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That is something that
every instructor should do
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to present their material clearly.
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Of course those layouts should be
apparent to someone who is blind.
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So we structure the headings to
make sure that someone can access them
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using screen readers and see
organization of the content
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rather than just dumping a bunch of text
that would have to be read
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from the beginning to the end.
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So this faculty member would also use
descriptive wording for hyperlinks.
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Since someone using a screen reader
might want to tab through
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and go to each one of the
web resources on a page
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so they could see
where they want to start
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or whether they want to go
to those resources at all.
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And so if you use the wording
on each of your underlined text,
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"click here,"
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that person is going to be able
to read all those no problem
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but what they will read is
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"click here, click here,
click here, click here."
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In contrast if you provide
descriptive wording that's underlined,
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that link might say
"DO-IT website."
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Then, that person would know
what they're going to be linking to
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and can decide then if that's
where they want to be.
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A very simple thing.
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This doesn't take any more time
than putting the "click here" there.
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But it makes it accessible
to people using screen readers.
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PDFs, kind of tricky.
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We can make them accessible
but you have to ask yourself,
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why again was I creating that PDF?
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Sometimes you're
forced to do it
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because it's a PDF that's
out on the internet.
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But if you're creating a lesson or even
your syllabus in your online class,
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do you want to include
that as a PDF file
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or do you want to cut and paste
the content right into the
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learning management system itself
into that window so it is text
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and then use the features within Canvas
or what other system you're using
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to structure the headings so you've
made it accessible that way.
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That's what I do.
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The text descriptions of the content
when images are provided.
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Whenever there is an image that's presented,
you just describe that text.
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And some learning management systems
actually prompt you to do that.
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So you're reminded but
even if it doesn't,
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you can put that in.
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So sometimes people will say,
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"Well, but it's just
a little logo here.
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It doesn't mean anything.
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Why do I have to have
the text description?"
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Well the person who's blind
and trying to access your course
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doesn't know that that image doesn't
include anything really meaningful.
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For our DO-IT website, we have on our logo
on our website we have "DO-IT logo"
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as an alternate text
for that image.
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Some people say we should
describe what it looks like.
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Other people would say it doesn't
really matter what it looks like
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but it's important that a person
who is blind knows that it's a logo
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that they do or don’t
need to pay attention to.
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Using large bold fonts on uncluttered
pages with plain backgrounds.
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With the PowerPoints we’re using,
we're assuming that their vision is such
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that it's difficult for them
to see the content
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and so we just automatically
provide large bold fonts
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on uncluttered pages
with plain backgrounds.
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High contrast color combinations.
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You usually can figure
this out on your own.
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Sometimes you go to a website
and it's light green on dark green.
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It's like what were people
thinking about that?
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And to avoid the problematic ones
for those are colorblind,
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so red and green, for instance.
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There are resources on the web actually
that you can test some of these things
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so it's not hard to find.
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Content and navigation is accessible
using the keyboard alone.
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Sometimes there's not
a lot you can do about that
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if it's the product that
you're using is the problem.
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But if there are things that
you have control over,
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then you need to be aware of that.
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But it's important to kind of
remember that, that issue,
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and to continually work like say
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in this Canvas work group
that we have going nationwide
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to give input to Canvas creators and others about the inaccessibility of something
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So it's good to kind of know that.
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Make sure that the videos are
captioned and audio described.
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Captioning first. Audio described
is important, too, but as I said
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if you're creating your own video,
often you can create it in a way
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that it's fairly accessible for people
who are blind right from the beginning.
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That is going to take some
technical support probably.
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You can read the content on
our Accessible IT website
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but you might have to have
somebody help you do that.
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Make sure that your course is designed
for a wide range of technical skills.
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This is another thing that doesn't take a
rocket scientist to figure out how to do this
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but so often we’re used to using
the technology that we’re using
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and we don't tell students
how to use it.
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We have to remember that even if you have
some tech savvy students in your course,
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they might never have
used that product.
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This might be the first
Canvas class that they've taken.
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So providing a little overview
of the technology you're using
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to deliver that class
and where they can get help,
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just include that in the syllabus or
in early instruction in a lesson or two.
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Make sure the content is
presented in multiple ways
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and so if you're using
a video in the class,
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make sure it's captioned.
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A transcript is nice
but I also recommend
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that you provide sort of a
different version of it
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because we present content
differently when we're writing
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than is presented in a video.
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So many of our videos have a handout
connected with them online.
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I guess it's not a handout but it's
a publication with that content.
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But it's written in a way that you
normally would write that content.
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And so just because you have a video
doesn't mean you shouldn't do that other,
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and that can be within your lesson in a class
or it can be a separate document.
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So that's providing that
content in multiple ways.
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Acronyms and jargon,
we talked about that.
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Make sure you spell them out or
don't use them. And define them.
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Instructions and expectations.
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Make sure that they're really clear.
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Sometimes putting content
in the syllabus
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that maybe years ago
I would've maybe given later.
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I’d think maybe this assignment’s
only going to take a week
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so I'll give it in
the middle of the class.
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Well maybe it's going to take
somebody longer than that
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so give them the assignment
at the beginning.
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They shouldn't be penalized
for actually working ahead.
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Even if they can't do all parts of it
they can at least be thinking about it
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in terms of what you’re teaching.
And make the expectations clear.
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Use a rubric or use other techniques
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to make sure they know what they're
supposed to be able to produce.
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Make sure that examples and assignments
are relevant to a diverse audience.
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And so just sit back and think about it.
You don't have to survey your students.
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You can just think of a variety of people
that might be accessing that class.
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It might be an older student.
You've got male and female students.
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You might know that people from a lot
of different disciplines take your course
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whatever it happens to be on,
so try to have a few examples
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of a concept that might appeal
to a different audience.
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Make sure that outlines and other
scaffolding tools are provided
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so that's what would apply to online learning.
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Be sure to provide adequate
opportunities for practice
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so in an online class sometimes I would have
something required like required reading
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and then if I think some people might
want to have more instruction
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or it might be just a little diversion
of what we're talking about,
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then I put in all caps
the name of that lesson
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and in parentheses "optional"
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and so that is a cue for someone
who wants to do a little bit more,
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feels like they need more practice
or a little more information.
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But I’m not requiring that
all the students do that.
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People have different levels of knowledge
coming into your course
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but also different learning styles
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and it might take them longer
or a shorter period of time
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to learn something
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but also people require, some
require more practice than others.
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Provide adequate time for activities
and projects and tests.
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A lot of this as I said can be solved
by just putting it in the syllabus.
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Another thing that I've done
in teaching online learning
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is asked the program managers
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if I can open my class
a week before it really starts.
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And I've always gotten
permission for that.
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It makes it more difficult for
the instructor, I'll say that,
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because you've got students
who start early and move forward.
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Well, I figure that's my problem.
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And so I don't want to discourage
people from moving forward.
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Maybe they're going to be
really busy in a couple of weeks.
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So they want to get ahead but
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I make it real clear
what discussion we’re on
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and when we're discussing
certain topics
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so they have to kind of stay
with the class in that regard.
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And I always send out a notice
to the whole class
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saying "I opened this class a week early
so you people can get started.
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If you haven't started
you’re not behind.
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We're starting today."
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And so I kind of don't let
the class get away from me
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even if I’m letting
some students work ahead.
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Providing feedback on
parts of an assignment
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and corrective opportunities
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and so if you're assigning
a big project for a class
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to at least invite students
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to give you a draft of
what they're going to do
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and you can give feedback on it
or part of it say you're open to that
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or you can actually build it
into the assignments
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and say everyone has to turn in
an outline or whatever
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by such and such a date.
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So the students don't have
that experience
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where they finish the whole project
and then you look at it and say,
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"Oh they didn't understand
what I was asking for."
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And for options for
communicating and collaborating
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and for demonstrating learning so
sometimes you can just give students options
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and say the test is going to be
three different choices.
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You can present your knowledge
in three different ways.
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Or projects - the same thing.
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You can give them options for
what project they want to do
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or another way to do it is to have
just multiple things throughout the course
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so because sometimes you want everybody
to do things in a certain way.
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So you want projects and you want
to have short answer tests
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and you want to have true and false
and multiple choice and whatever it is,
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or students creating videos or
whatever you have in the class.
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Just make sure there's a variety
so that if someone isn't very good
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at one of those things, they can still
end up doing well in the class.
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So that's just a simple overview
of what you can do in an online course
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to make it more accessible
to students with disabilities.
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Not too difficult and
not too technical.
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And what I challenge
faculty members to do then,
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particularly the ones that say, "Well,
I just don't have time to do this,"
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is to look through here
and circle a few things,
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circle a few numbers of things
that they can do like right away.
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And no one has trouble finding them,
but even if you just did a few of these things
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given you aren't doing them already,
it would make a better class.