Raising Awareness of Online Course Accessibility
As the University of Southern Maine steps forward with the use of online classrooms, such as Blackboard and WebCT, we as a university community need to work together to ensure that online resources are accessible for all students.
As we prepare for the fall semester, I encourage you to consider the following strategies, based on the concept of Universal Design for Learning, in the development of online courses at USM.
The following web site provides additional information about Universal Design for Learning (UDL) www.cast.org.
For UDL at USM contact Joyce Branaman, Director of Support for Students with Disabilities, or Emily Hallett, Adaptive Technology Specialist.
Instructional Strategies
- Use the Announcement page to give brief, clear directions; update announcements weekly.
- Organize curriculum into manageable units or modules.
- Chuck unit/module activities into small manageable tasks.
- Carefully state learning goals and performance outcomes at the onset of each unit/module.
- Differentiate instruction and appeal to various learning styles, including images, sound and text.
- Make printable versions of units/modules available.
- Choose texts that are available in electronic and audio forms.
- Provide pointed feedback during and after task completion.
Course Design
- Establish a consistent organization/flow for the course.
- Eliminate any unused menu items or areas.
- Avoid extensive layering of activities (i.e., folders within folders within folders, etc.).
- Minimize the need to scroll wherever possible.
- Use a consistent color theme to group points; avoid excess color.
- Select graphics that won't distract from the learning environment.
- Run all assigned web pages through the BOBBY test to ascertain accessibility.
- Include "alternative" text when embedding images or multimedia.
- Offer PowerPoint presentations in HTML formats so that they're accessible to screen readers.
The above information was taken from an article written by Lori Weir and can be searched at: www.thejournal.com/magazine/vault/A5352.cfm.
