Unlocking Potential

TechDis workshop

Inclusive E-Learning – good practice becoming general practice

Dr Simon Ball

simon@techdis.ac.uk

17th January 2008

Unlocking Potential

The JISC TechDis Advisory Service

• TechDis supports the education sector in achieving greater accessibility and inclusion by stimulating innovation and providing expert advice and guidance on disability and technology.

• TechDis is a funded advisory service (Joint Information Systems Committee) based in York, that:• Advises funding bodies and policy makers.• Provides guidance to strategic partners and

intermediaries.• Provides advice for management, front line and

specialist staff.• Provides effective resources for practitioners.

Unlocking Potential

Conclusions

• Ambiguous instructions can be difficult to follow.

• Instructions and details should be tested to ensure they work as expected.

• Students with a disability may not be able to react in the expected manner. Students with a cognitive disability may react in an unexpected way – everyone’s instinct and interpretation will differ.

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Holistic Approach• We believe it is best practice to take a holistic

approach to accessibility.• Do not be afraid to add value in different ways

for different learners – everybody doesn’t have to access the same information in the same way, as long as the learning outcomes are met and the experience is broadly equivalent.

• Broadening the range of what is offered will increase accessibility overall, despite specific barriers that may arise.

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Staff Development & Support

• TechDis Online services www.techdis.ac.uk• Community site www.techdis.ac.uk/community • Staff packs www.techdis.ac.uk/staffpacks • Accessibility Essentials

• 1. Making your computer work better for you • 2. Producing Word documents that are more inclusive• 3. Producing inclusive PowerPoints and presentations• 4. NEW! Making PDFs as accessible as possible• www.techdis.ac.uk/accessibilityessentials

• Free Software www.techdis.ac.uk/getfreesoftware• HEAT Scheme www.techdis.ac.uk/index.php?p=2_1_7

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HEAT Scheme

• Allows academic, teaching and support staff to bid for technology to uncover or develop inclusive practice.

• Range includes podcasting, mind mapping, using hand held games, using a gyro-mouse and keyboard, and a Talking Tactile Tablet.

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HEAT example – Reflective Diaries

Hellawell and Priestley

(University of Bradford)

Dyslexic student used

handheld video recorder to

create mini documentaries

providing an opportunity for reflective learning.

These were edited and converted to a format

suitable for playing on PCs, and audio podcasts

produced, to be shared with future students.

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HEAT example – Gyromouse (anonymous input)

Chin (University of Hull)

Tyrrell (Coventry University)

Wireless mouse and keyboard passed to

students giving direct input into class discussions.

The lecturer was free to move around the

classroom and focus on individual students

where necessary.

Students were more likely to participate when

attention was not drawn specifically to them.

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HEAT Example- Multimedia accessibility

• Badge, Scott & Cann (Leicester Univ.)• Transformed PowerPoint into Breeze

(Adobe Presenter), Impatica & Flash.• Trialled with students identifying as

dyslexic, hearing or vision impaired, in addition to non-declaring control.

• Students with ‘disability’ were more active in using controls – used more features and more often – and located them more quickly.

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HEAT Example - Podcasting

• Gresty (Plymouth Univ.) – 96% of students felt more learning took place when using audio recordings of lectures. Most students reported using ‘dead time’ (on buses etc) to listen to the audio.

• Hindley (Nottingham Trent Univ.) - created tailored guides to an assignment previously found difficult – students were supported at their own pace at a crucial part of the course.

• Leng (Bath Spa Univ.) - took weekly lecture topics and related in her podcasts to current news stories to bring subject matter ‘to life’.

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HEAT Example – Talking Tactile Tablet

• Chevins (Keele Univ.) helped a blind and a VI student to understand Transmission Electron Microscopy. Using a cartoon of a cutaway of the microscope he created a tactile diagram using swell paper. He then used the T3 to add audio commentaries to each part of the diagram, so when touched, a contextual audio file was enabled.

• Cassella (Derby Univ.)found these were used bymany students with visualor auditory learning style.

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HEAT Example – Mind Mapping

• Romer (York Univ.) used mind mapping software to enable students to plan and write essays in a different way. Many found it a useful way of planning, especially those with dyslexia.

• Brown (Newcastle Univ.) used the software with a mature student who reported benefits to recall by being able to attach images to the map.

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First Steps

• There are many easy small steps that we can all make that will make a big difference to the student experience.

• Here are a few easy things you can do:

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Best Practice with Fonts and Colour

• Ideally when creating materials online allow users to select according to their own preferences.

• The chosen font (for on-screen) should be Sans Serif and be no smaller than 12 point.

• Avoid large amounts of underlining, capitalising or italicising.

• Try to achieve good contrast without the glare issues of black on white. Increase font depth for light text on dark background.

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Use of Styles and Formatting

• It’s easier to demo this than write about it on a slide:

• Unstructured document• Structured document

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Appropriate use of Images

• Insert Alternative Text where relevant (easy in Word – see Accessibility Essentials 2)

• Explore whether meaning is more difficult to grasp if whole image cannot be viewed at once – see next slides.

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Presentations and PowerPoint

• Face forward while speaking.• Ensure content is vocalised – don’t use the

classic ‘you can all read the slide so I won’t read it out’

• If a mike or audio system is available, use it.• If using animation or video, let it finish before

speaking.• Use the Notes field in PowerPoint!• Much more in Accessibility Essentials 3!

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Accessibility benefits of PDFs

• Reflow • Reflows the text of a document written in columns

so that it flows all the way across the page. Easier to read on screen – reduces the need to scroll up and down.

• BUT depends on the reading order being tagged properly when the document is created - needs to be checked.

Sample PDF

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Accessibility benefits of PDFs

• Automatically scroll • Automatically scrolls through document, speed

controlled by up and down arrows.

• Read out loud • Whole document or current page only. Voices can

be changed (edit>preferences>reading). • NB reading order needs to be checked.

• Accessibility preferences • Allows reader to customise the document. Useful

but limited to font and background colours.

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Accessibility benefits of PDFs

• Pages view• Shows each page as a series of thumbnails –

useful when looking for a particular image, allows reader to find it quickly.

• Bookmarks • Similar to Document Map in Word – allows faster

navigation through the document, reader able to jump to specific sections etc. Structure of Word documents picked up when converted to PDF format.

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Publishers Association work 1 Guide to Alternative Formats

• Document on how to obtain alternative formats in the quickest and smoothest way is in final draft stage and should be published shortly.

• It highlights the need for us to know exactly what we asking for and why, because the Publishers rarely understand the detail behind the request.

• Document draft

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Publishers Association work 2Publishers LookUp

• We are in the process of developing a subsite to our website called www.publisherlookup.org.uk – each Publisher will list on there exactly what formats they offer for which titles, the price, expected lead times for productions and so on – a one-stop shop for information on alternative formats

• Site due to go live mid-Feb - will be similar to US version – www.publisherlookup.org – but with much more detailed advice

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Resources you may find useful 1

• RoboBraille – www.robobraille.org• Simply email a Word document to one of their email

addresses e.g. britspeech@robobraille.org • You receive (normally about 5 minutes – it only takes

two hours when you’re demonstrating it in a presentation!) a high quality synthetic speech MP3 to download.

• When the URL of your MP3 comes back be aware they always put a full stop at the end which stops it from working!

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Resources you may find useful 2• TechDis Guide to Free and Open Source

‘Assistive’ Technologies• Separates tools into 7 ‘genres’ – Communication,

Planning, Writing, Recording, Reading, and Visualisation tools as well as Alternative Interfaces

• Gives description of technology and its potential pedagogic uses, location for download and sometimes a ‘movie’ showing how to use it or the tool in use.

• http://www.techdis.ac.uk/getfreesoftware

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Resources you may find useful 3

• Xerte is a Learning Object Generator that is both accessible to use and produces accessible learning objects (if you use its features correctly!)

• You can download the latest version of the tool from http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xerte/

• Guidance available at: http://www.techdis.ac.uk/community/course/view.php?id=86

• We’re linking this to the Accessibility Passport work.

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Technologies you may not have heard of

• Wink – tool for creating interactive learning resources – captures screenshots, add explanation bubbles etc – resulting ‘movie’ has audio, subtitles etc

• DSpeech – reads text with word highlighting and automatically generates audio file in MP3 as part of process

• Audacity – easy real-voice audio to MP3• Camstudio – easy screen capture with audio – open resulting

‘movie’ in Windows MovieMaker to add subtitles• Dasher – assistive technology at its simplest and best• See www.techdis.ac.uk/getfreesoftware

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Simulations: not the real thing, but they give some idea of what it’s like

• www.techdis.ac.uk/simdis

• www.webaim.org/simulations/...• …screenreader.php• …lowvision.php• …cognitive.php

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External Support

• TechDis www.techdis.ac.uk • Academy and Subject Network

www.heacademy.ac.uk • Netskills www.netskills.ac.uk • ALT/CMALT www.alt.ac.uk/cmalt • AbilityNet www.abilitynet.org.uk • SEDA www.seda.ac.uk

Unlocking Potential

Contact Details

JISC TechDis Service

Higher Education Academy Building

Innovation Way

York Science Park

York

YO10 5BR

helpdesk@techdis.ac.uk

www.techdis.ac.uk