Accessible Synchronous Communication

Does it exist? I suppose that depends on who you ask– many vendors are quick to tout the accessibility of their synchronous communication tools, but in reality it seems that most have a ways to go. In the past couple of weeks I have looked at the following tools:

HorizonLive claims it is accessible to persons with disabilities and even has an accessibility page with an archived accessible presentation that you can try out and some accessibility tips for screen reader use. It looks like there are quite a few frames in the presentation window, but there are shortcut keys set for most of them, although I’m sure they would take some getting used to. Also, this app is platform independent– available on a Mac, PC or Unix system. I have taken part in a couple of these presentations that I enjoyed.

I have heard some good things about Centra, but from the get go I was out as a Mac user, it is PC only. Further, the only thing I could find about accessibility on their website was an obscure reference in the description of a white paper. I have put in a request for more information on accessibility of their product, I’ll post their response as soon as it comes in.

iVocalize Internet Conference is another option. It is used by EASI for their online workshops. iVocalize gives no mention of accessibility on their website besides a list of shortcut keys. However, Talking Communities, which uses iVocalize, does mention its accessibility features- iVocalize is PC only as well.

Some other systems that I haven’t had time to look at include NetMeeting, WebEx, Interwise and I’m sure there are a host of others out there as well. Does anyone out there have experience with these or any others? If so, I’d love to hear from you, please leave a comment so others can see what you have to say as well.

Lastly, an brief article titled Online Learning Management Systems: Accessibility of Tools for Synchronous Communication for the 2003 CSUN conference (courtesy of Online Learning Update).

Distance Education Resources

I have developed a few distance education resources for staff at the Institute for Community Inclusion and thought that some of you might find them useful. Enjoy and please let me know if you have any feedback. The resources include an overview of distance education, understanding listservs as well as some examples of streamed, captioned videos.

In addition, I am currently evaluating three course management systems– Moodle, ATutor and Prometheus (now owned by Blackboard). I have setup a sample course in each of the three systems, if anyone is interested in looking at the courses, let me know . I would also love to hear about the experiences that any of you have had working with any of these systems.

Access for EVERYONE

I’ve been thinking about accessibility in little different terms lately. More and more I’m embracing a wider concept of accessibility and access that extends far beyond the disability community. It is the idea that wherever content can easily be made freely accessibly to be used by the masses, it should be. Too often, the free exchange of information is being stifled by copyrights, password-protected directories and content distributors. However, there is a lot going on to create more open content, with projects such as Creative Commons and MIT OpenCourseWare and thinkers such as Lawrence Lessig, Stephen Downes and David Wiley .

It seems that battle lines are being drawn, one side being those who want more control over how their content is distributed and used vs. those advocating for granting more access and usage rights for users. While the free content movement has been somewhat on the fringes, it is showing up more and more in mainstream media. Over the next few years there will be more and more discussion around this topic as both sides seek to defend their position and convince (or constrain) the general public to adopt one way of thinking or the other.

Some learners are faced with a double barrier. They may 1) be unable to access and use content because of cost or copyright and 2) there may still be accessibility issuess once those barriers are overcome . Hopefully in the continuing dialogue on these issues society and our lawmakers can forge and accept new ideas about the way we think about content in the 21st century.

Free Clinic: Design and Implementation of Web-Enabled Teaching Tools

The Equal Access to Software and Information (EASI) website offers monthly training in the form of online courses and clinics on various aspects of accessible information technology. This month they are offerring a free a free clinic titled Design and Implementation of Web-Enabled Teaching Tools. The clinic will be offered on February 26th and Mary Hricko will be the presenter. Mary has written a book with the same title as her presentation that addresses accessibility in distance education. You can sign up for the clinic online, hope to see some of you there!

I have not yet taken any of their courses, so buyer beware, but they also have some interesting tuition-based clinics and courses coming up. Barrier-free E-learning begins today taught by Professor Norm Coombs and a clinic on How to Maximize Accessibility While Using Synchronous Video and Audio Instruction from some folks at WebAIM. I’d love to hear from any of you who have taken one of these courses.

Lastly, they also have archives of some of their past presentations available, enjoy!