On October 21, 2008, Afsaneh Sharif and Donna Scalzo of the Office of Learning Technology presented an online seminar on practices related to accessibility with two colleagues from Utah State University, John Louviere and Neal Legler. The seminar was the first one of the 2008-09 season for the Linked Campuses International Network (LCIN), a group of institutions interested in sharing best practices related to e-learning.
Online learning environments hold great promise for expanding access to education for students with time and geographic challenges. Providing a supportive learning environment involves considering the needs of a wide range of learners and instructors, including those with physical and cognitive disabilities or technical limitations. The ability to do this can be somewhat challenged within the structure of a course management system such as Blackboard (WebCT) Vista, as full control of the web interface may not be possible. In response to student and faculty needs, educational developers from two institutions, the University of British Columbia and Utah State University have worked to determine how some of the issues may be addressed through instructional design, rigorous web design methodologies and some technical applications. Please join us as we share current and evolving practices in this important area of online learning.
Anyone interested in practical advice on how to create accessible online learning environments will be interested in this presentation. You will need a headset to listen to this online talk. You will also need to make sure your computer is compatible with Wimba Classroom – the set-up wizard takes approximately 2 minutes. Users can use the participant login button on the Wimba Classroom website to view the talk.
View the talk here: http://lecture.wimba.com/launcher.cgi?channel=chico_2008_1021_1301_32