5 Ways to Make Edtech More Inclusive — from techlearning.com by Erik Ofgang
Better communication with students and more representation within edtech are just some ways we can better serve all special education students with technology, says University of California, Irvine’s Gillian Hayes.

Excerpt:

Making edtech accessible to all students has always been important but as it is now an essential part of the classroom, it has never been more vital.

Gillian Hayes, vice provost for graduate education and dean of the Graduate Division at University of California, Irvine, has studied edtech accessibility extensively. Making technology more accessible in the classroom is one of her goals at The Connecting the EdTech Research EcoSystem (CERES), which she coleads with UCI colleague Candice Odgers.

She shares strategies for how educators, programmers, and researchers can help foster more accessibility in edtech.

 
 

The Great Education Unbundling and How Learning Will be Rebundled — from gettingsmart.com by Nate McClennen, Tom Vander Ark

Key Points

  • The pandemic accelerated the great unbundling of learning – at least for those with access, agency, and advocates.
  • While unbundling will expand, how learning is rebundled will emerge as the next innovation — accessible, personalized, accountable and massive.

Excerpts:

By removing the barrier of full credit/school offered, schools become more robust in terms of richness of offerings as well as more personalized to meet the needs of students and communities.

The majority of unbundled experiences still fall back on the course level as the smallest granular level of choice. Following the lead of industry, unbundling in schools should mean a reduction in grain size so that skills are the level of unbundling rather than courses.

 
 

National Disability Employment Awareness Month 2021 — from dol.gov

Excerpt:

The theme for NDEAM 2021, “America’s Recovery: Powered by Inclusion,” reflects the importance of ensuring that people with disabilities have full access to employment and community involvement during the national recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

NDEAM is held each October to commemorate the many and varied contributions of people with disabilities to America’s workplaces and economy. Browse our website for ideas and resources for employers, community organizations, state and local governments, advocacy groups and schools to participate in celebrating NDEAM through events and activities centered around the theme of “America’s Recovery: Powered by Inclusion.”

The 2021 NDEAM poster is available now!

 

Living With a Learning Disability: Challenges, Helpful Advice & Improvements — from inclusionhub.com by Meredith Kreisa

Excerpts:

While it is critical to remember that symptoms, comorbidities, and coping mechanisms vary, we’ll outline some of the challenges individuals with learning disabilities may face and highlight common strategies utilized by community members to address them.

Also see:

Improving Digital Inclusion & Accessibility for Those With Learning Disabilities — from inclusionhub.com by Meredith Kreisa
This comprehensive guide outlines common learning disabilities, associated difficulties, accessibility barriers and best practices, and more.

 
 

The Story is in the Structure: A Multi-Case Study of Instructional Design Teams — from the Online Learning Consortium by Jason Drysdale (other articles here)

Excerpt:

Given the results of this study, it is recommended that institutions that are restructuring or building new instructional design teams implement centralized structures with academic reporting lines for their teams. The benefits of both centralization and academic reporting lines are clear: better advocacy and empowerment, better alignment with the pedagogical work of both designers and faculty, and less role misperception for instructional designers. Structuring these teams toward empowerment and better definitions of their roles as pedagogy experts may help them sustain their leadership on the initiatives they led, to great effect, during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study also revealed the importance of three additional structural elements: appropriate instructional design staffing for the size and scale of the institution, leadership experience with instructional design, and positional parity with faculty.

Also see:

A Practitioner's Guide to Instructional Design in Higher Education

 

More Companies Are Looking to Hire Accessibility Specialists — from wsj.com by Ann-Marie Alcántara
Effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, lawsuits, and diversity and inclusion efforts explain the increase in accessibility job postings, advocates and executives say

Excerpt:

Accessibility jobs, ranging from “head of accessibility” to “accessibility analyst,” are increasing at a rapid pace across industries as companies strive to make their products and services more tailored to people with disabilities.

The number of job listings with “accessibility” in the title grew 78% in the year ended in July from the previous 12 months, LinkedIn said in response to a data request from The Wall Street Journal. Such listings had risen 38% in the year between August 2019 and July 2020 compared with the previous year, according to the professional networking site owned by Microsoft Corp.

 

4 Digital Accessibility Features That Benefit Everyone – from boia.org

Excerpt:

Accessibility affects everyone, and all types of digital content can be improved by following the principles of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Over the last decade, we’ve seen many accessibility features become popular with audiences outside of the disability community.

Some features were originally developed to make the web more useful for people with disabilities, while others were refined over time with input from the accessibility community. In either case, these features demonstrate how focusing on accessibility makes content more usable for your entire audience — not a select group of users.

 

7 Good Chrome Extensions for Students with Dyslexia — from educatorstechnology.com

Excerpt:

In today’s post I am sharing with you this collection of Chrome extensions to help particularly students with dyslexia enhance their reading skills. The tools bring added functionalities to Chrome browser converting it into a clutter free space where students can focus on their reading.  Most of these extensions offer features such as annotations, OCR services, speech to text, special fonts, dictation, and many more.

From DSC:
Here are some other resources that have to do with accessibility and Google as well:

 

The Beginner’s Guide to Web Accessibility — from deque.com

Welcome to the Beginner’s Guide to Accessibility! We’re glad you’re here. This guide is designed to teach you enough about the ins-and-outs of accessibility to get your bearings and to serve as a springboard for deeper investigation into the areas of accessibility that are most relevant to you and your needs.

If you’re completely new to accessibility, we recommend starting at the beginning and reading the sections in order. However, if you aren’t a complete beginner, are pressed for time, or simply prefer to jump around in order of personal interest, each section was written to stand alone as it’s own little module of information.

Table of Contents

  1. Digital Accessibility: What It Is and Why It Matters
  2. How People with Disabilities Use the Web (and Mobile Apps)
  3. Accessibility Compliance: Regulations and Requirements
  4. How Do You Know If You’re Accessible?

Over a billion people have a form of disability, plus lawsuits are up 12% from 2019, plus everyone benefits when sites and learning materials are accessible

 

10 Best Accessibility Tools For Designers — from hongkiat.com by Hongkiat Lim

Excerpt:

Today is the world of inclusive technology – websites, apps, and tech gadgets that are made for people with different kinds of abilities and inabilities. So when you’re designing a website, you include features that make your design accessible to as many people as possible. And this is where accessibility tools come into play.

Instead of creating everything from scratch, here’s a list of cool accessibility tools for designers. From creating color combinations according to WCAG standards to adding different reading modes to your website, these tools are a must-haves for every designer. Take a look at the list to know about each tool in detail.

 
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