SXSW Accessibility Panels

I’m headed to Austin tomor­row, here is a list of some of the pre­sen­ta­tions specif­i­cally on accessibility:

• Catch­ing up with Acces­si­bil­ity: The Basics QuicklyShawn Henry.
• Acces­si­ble Rich Media by Shar­ron Rush, Susan Ger­hart, Becky Gib­son and Lisa Pap­pas
• Every­thing I Know About Acces­si­bil­ity I Learned From Star Wars by Derek Feath­er­stone
• Cook­ing up Acces­si­ble Video for the Web by Pat Ram­sey
• Core Con­ver­sa­tion: How Acces­si­ble Should Your Site Be? by Jeff Beck­ham
• Tar­get­ing Your Web Site: Acces­si­bil­ity Lit­i­ga­tion Update by Ani­tra Pavka and Michael Wasy­lik

In addi­tion there are ses­sions on inter­na­tion­al­iza­tion, web stan­dards and the ongo­ing browser wars. Audio from each of the ses­sions will be recorded and at some point made avail­able on the website.

Any ses­sions that I missed? I hope to see some of you there, you can get in touch with me here.

Mobile Education and Access for Students with Disabilities Webcast

The National Cen­ter on Dis­abil­ity and Access to Edu­ca­tion is host­ing a free audio Web­cast titled Mobile Edu­ca­tion and Access for Stu­dents with Dis­abil­i­ties on Wednes­day, April 26th at 1pm Moun­tain Time (3:00PM East­ern). A descrip­tion of the Web­cast from the NCDAE website:

As tech­nolo­gies become smaller, sleeker and eas­ier to carry can they be devel­oped and used so that no child is left behind? That is the ques­tion we will address dur­ing NCDAE’s April 26, 2006 web­cast enti­tled, “Mobile Edu­ca­tion and Access for Stu­dents with Dis­abil­i­ties.” Join us at 1 PM Moun­tain Time (3 PM EDT) for a dis­cus­sion of tech­nolo­gies, prac­tices and stan­dards related to this increas­ingly pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion deliv­ery method.

The dis­cus­sion will be mod­er­ated by Marty Blair and will include a panel of John Peifer, Ed Price and Paul Baker. Reg­is­tra­tion is not nec­es­sary. If you miss the Web­cast then check back later at their page of archived Web­casts where you can access pre­vi­ous Web­casts such as:

• Stu­dent Infor­ma­tion Sys­tems and Indi­vid­u­als with Dis­abil­i­ties,
• Acces­si­ble Dis­tance Edu­ca­tion Tech­nolo­gies and Tech­niques and
• Acces­si­ble Edu­ca­tion Pol­icy: Points of Pos­si­ble Influ­ence.

If you haven’t vis­ited the National Cen­ter on Dis­abil­ity & Access to Edu­ca­tion web­site it is a great resource, with sec­tions on Tools and Tech­nol­ogy, Com­mu­nity and Part­ners and News and Activities.

World Usability Day

From the newly designed Accessify.com, comes a great link to the upcom­ing Acces­si­bil­ity Chan­nel being held on Novem­ber 2nd and 3rd to cel­e­brate World Usabil­ity Day. There look to be some great ses­sions, includ­ing A Broader View of Web Acces­si­bil­ity and Usabil­ity and Acces­si­bil­ity: Twin Fos­ter Chil­dren. Unfor­tu­nately (and iron­i­cally), the page states, “you will be able to see and hear these pre­sen­ters on any Win­dows PC with a broad­band con­nec­tion.” Maybe they are assum­ing that PC users are the ones who need the most help in this area…

On a side note, I found this great list of usabil­ity demon­stra­tions at the IDEAL Group, Inc., one of the hosts of the Acces­si­biltiy Channel.

Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust (POUR) Free Webcast from WebAIM

Paul Bohman from WebAIM is host­ing a free web­cast on “the next gen­er­a­tion of Web acces­si­bil­ity work in which prin­ci­ples, rather than tech­niques, take the cen­ter stage” this Thurs­day, July 14. They have also pub­lished Part 1 of a great arti­cle on Con­struct­ing a POUR web­site. You can reg­is­ter for the web­cast here.

Research and Development of Accessible Technologies Webcast

From the NCDAE site…

Join us on Wednes­day, Decem­ber 1, 2004, for a live audio web­cast enti­tled, “Research and Devel­op­ment of Acces­si­ble Tech­nolo­gies”. The web­cast will include pre­sen­ta­tions from national lead­ers in this area and will focus on research and devel­op­ment processes for acces­si­ble tech­nolo­gies, includ­ing the moti­va­tions for devel­op­ing acces­si­ble prod­ucts, the costs of includ­ing acces­si­bil­ity fea­tures, and the mar­ket­place for acces­si­ble tech­nolo­gies. Pan­elists will be announced soon. Par­tic­i­pant com­ments and ques­tions will be wel­come via email. The one hour web­cast will begin at 2PM Moun­tain Stan­dard Time (1:00PM Pacific; 3:00PM Cen­tral; 4:00PM East­ern). You can tune in to the broad­cast free of charge. You will be able to tune in using your com­puter using either Win­dows Media Player or Quick­time. Archives (tran­script and audio) will be avail­able shortly after the con­clu­sion of the broad­cast. The broad­cast will be cap­tioned for the Deaf and hard of hearing.

ILRU Webcast: Making the GRADE: Improving Access to E-Learning

This is late notice, but it looks to be an infor­ma­tive web­cast tomor­row on Improv­ing Access to E-Learning from a cou­ple of fel­lows who appear to know what they’re talk­ing about. The pre­sen­ta­tion is hap­pen­ing tomor­row, June 9 at 3pm East­ern time and you can sub­mit ques­tions before­hand. It looks like they will be talk­ing about their excel­lent cur­ricu­lum that that have made avail­able for free at www.accesselearning.net.

Kolabora Live! Web Conferencing Demonstrations

This Kolab­ora Live! Buyer’s Review is going to be a monthly event where soft­ware will be demon­strated fol­lowed by a ques­tion and answer period. The first event will be on Thurs­day April 22nd at 12pm EST. The event will be recorded and made avail­able for a fee. Kolab­ora also has an event com­ing up titled The Com­pet­i­tive Edge, I’ve already signed up for both.

Also a reminder of the PBS Event, Untan­gling the Web: Mak­ing Online Teach­ing and Learn­ing Acces­si­ble hap­pen­ing on the 22nd as well.

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!

Making Online Teaching and Learning Accessible Satellite Event

I’m back among the liv­ing and came across what looks to be an excit­ing event on the Dis­abled Stu­dent Ser­vices in Higher Edu­ca­tion List­serv yes­ter­day. Work­ing with the PBS Adult Learn­ing Ser­vice, the Uni­ver­sity of Mary­land Uni­ver­sity Col­lege is pro­duc­ing a live tele­cast titled:

Untan­gling the Web: Mak­ing Online Teach­ing and Learn­ing Accessible

From the descrip­tion, the areas that the tele­cast plans to cover are:

• How stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties are nav­i­gat­ing the Web, and how
  inac­ces­si­ble course con­tent impacts the work of fac­ulty and staff
• How to address acces­si­bil­ity prob­lems posed by course­ware, course
  man­age­ment sys­tems, mul­ti­me­dia, and use of audio and video in online
  courses
• What kind of col­lab­o­ra­tive mod­els have been devel­oped to help fac­ulty
  and staff meet the chal­lenge of online accessibility
• How to develop insti­tu­tional coor­di­na­tion poli­cies in your cam­pus or
  organization
• What fac­ulty and staff devel­op­ment pro­grams can do to enhance
  under­stand­ing of dis­abil­ity and technology
• What role good teach­ing plays in improv­ing online accessibility
• How Uni­ver­sal Design and Uni­ver­sal Design for Instruc­tion can inform
  the process of ensur­ing online accessibility

It is still 3 months away, but looks to be an excit­ing event.

On another note, I have recruited Jeff Coburn to share with us some of his acces­si­bil­ity wis­dom on Curb Cut Learn­ing. Jeff is our web spe­cial­ist at the Insti­tute for Com­mu­nity Inclu­sion and he is the guy I go to when I’m stumped with an acces­si­bil­ity ques­tion or am try­ing to fig­ure out a new tech­nol­ogy. Wel­come Jeff.