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.