Hey there, @oct22-b-cohort! I’m looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow for our session on Accessibility and Inclusive Design. Here are the slides and handout.
Before we start the session, let me know:
Finally, please don’t forget to post your updates for the week under the Session 5: Meetings with Facilitator 1:1 thread!
See you all tomorrow!
Hey everyone,
I unfortunately can’t share anything that excites me about accessibility. Honestly, this topic is always the one that makes me nervous. I know these days (more than in 2018 when it was starting to be discussed initially) there are technology improvements built into courses and resources to assist with this. My college just got Panorama which is AMAZING! I am hoping that pressbook has this worked into their system as well.
I would say accessibility makes me more nervous than excited. Like Kiel mentioned in the meeting, it always feels like someone could be left out. I know there are guidelines in place to make sure the course is accessible to everyone, but of course, there is always room for improvement. At this point, I do not have any questions.
Hey @oct22-b-cohort,
Thanks for a great session! As usual, here’s the chat transcript. We had a lot of great discussion this week around accessibility, inclusive design, and how to apply these concepts to your OER projects and workflows. In the words of Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarsinha in their book Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice:
“When access is centralized at the beginning of every action or event, that is radical love.”
Below you’ll find a recap of the session and the homework activities for Week 6.
Accessibility is often thought about as just being for students with disabilities, but as we see it, accessibility benefits all. It’s about reframing accessibility as a proactive approach to designing inclusive teaching resources and experiences which are rooted in principles of care, humility, and social justice. Inclusive design, or the practice of inclusivity, is the belief that the design of a “thing” – whether it is a piece of technology, an activity, or even information itself – should be mindful of a broad range of users, their variable abilities, their variety of environments, situations, and contexts.
Access is one of the fundamental principles of the open movement broadly. Given OERs’ digital-first nature, this is all the more relevant as resources should not only conform to web accessibility standards, but they should also be designed with the human users in mind. In this way. we will think of technical accessibility, content accessibility, and even how this can extend into the accessibility of your human teaching interactions.
While no teaching technique or practice will ever be universally accessible for all, an inclusive education lens can be integrated into any and all approaches as long as you think about accessibility as an ongoing process that has you repeatedly cycle through the following three stages:
(1) Anticipating barriers and (2) finding ways to mediate these barriers (3) to enhance access for all.
We took a look at examples for the three dimensions of accessibility, namely:
With forethought and flexibility, accessibility is built into the process of publishing. Try not to be overwhelmed. Take small steps because these small steps will go a long way. And remember you are uniting your efforts with other people within your teams, within this cohort, within your institutions or beyond. If everyone chips away at a small task, you’ll bring the resource leaps ahead. Ultimately, it’s about giving your resource the best chance to make an impact and difference for people.
Many of you noted that accessibility tends to make y’all more nervous than excited because you don’t want to exclude anyone. A reminder that none of you are doing this alone, and as @emily.frank mentioned in session, “we never reach the “finish line” with accessibility but that is because we can improving, enhancing, learning more”. Each one of you is thinking about the end results for your students in terms of each dimension of accessibility - so fear not, you’re all in a really good spot!
Continue your team conversations around the accessible and inclusive design of your OER and work through the session activities [in Week 6 Handout] when convenient.
To let each other know of the progress you are making as you are working through the tasks of the week, post your reply to Session 6: Accessibility and Inclusive Design thread in the Discussion Forum prior to our next session:
What activities have you managed to complete this week?
What resources have you found that guide your work?
What challenges have you faced and what solutions have you found to address those?
Leave a few thoughts around the outcomes for Session 7: Content Creation [Read the initial 5 slides].
What excites you?
What would you like to know more or have questions about?
Enjoy your weeks!
Kaitlin