Let’s talk about designing with Accessibility in mind
Whether you are teaching online or onsite, do you have accessibility in mind when you are designing a learning or putting together a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)?
Today I want write about why it is significant to pay attention to accessibility when designing a learning and what innovative tools are available to use in making learning experience efficient one for everyone.
Accessibility in mind is a design process that considers the needs of people with disabilities, including visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, language, and learning.
Since over 1 billion people are estimated to live with some form of disability, which corresponds to about 15% of the world’s population,
One thing that it is the right thing to do to make web content accessible, the other is that it is a legal requirement, which ultimately has implications for Higher Education.
Benefits of designing learning with accessibility in mind
If you design your course and your learning activities in line with accessibility guidelines you can:
· provide all students with better opportunities to succeed in education;
· reach out to students who you could not have otherwise, and this may mean increase the demand for your teaching, particulalry in Higher Education
·create the conditions for your learners to both acquire knowledge and participate in constructing the knowledge with their equal peers;
· allow your students to learn together; having equalised the learning conditions among your students, the interaction between your students may contribute to the development of knowledge in your field;
· contribute to attainment and disability employment gap by not denying your teachings to them
Challenges of making education accessible
In my reading so far, there is one widely made argument against making education accessible. It is argued that implementing Accessibility is difficult task, time-consuming and expensive.
I do not believe that is good reason sit back and do not do anything about it. While technology is this advanced and every part of our life is impacted by digital technology, if today is not the right time, when is.
There is a wealth of resources are now available to support educators and institutions seeking to improve accessibility of their educational provisions. Furthermore, these resources can help you save time, as well as unshackle them from their limitations.
Innovations in accessibility
I found the following four innovations most promising to be used for online teaching, blended teaching and MOOCs:
· Animated avatars which are able to perform sign language
· Speech recognition and, specifically, digital personal assistants
· Artificial intelligence, specifically machine learning
· Virtual reality and the re-emergence of virtual worlds
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I am unsure if any Universities are still offering teaching on Campus or onsite in Europe or elsewhere. However, I know for sure that many academics and scholars are experimenting and expanding the use of technology in their teaching. Therefore this is a good time for Universities and educators to have accessibility in their mind when designing a course/module or a learning activity for maximum impact.
