How to manage slow-working students in your classroom — from blog.neolms.com by Diana Z

Excerpt:

If you have slow-working students in your classroom and want to help them catch up and reach milestones, you should first make sure to rule out any possible psychological barriers that could affect their processing speed or other cognitive issues.

Next, you should devise an intervention scheme that is structured on the three A’s principle:

  • Accepting means that the students need to feel accepted in the learning environment and teachers can provide them a safe place for growth;
  • Accommodating refers to the due diligence a teacher has to exercise to provide a suitable learning environment for all students;
  • Advocating implies the support teachers offer slow-working students throughout their learning journey. It also involves other stakeholders, such as parents and the community, who can also support students.

From DSC:
This is an important topic, because not everyone can work with the (often) fast pace of the current train. One of our daughters has experienced this first hand, and I continue to learn from/through her experience.

K-12 education in America is a like a quickly moving train that stops for no one.

 

Can A New Online Learning Platform Improve Employment For Those With Visual Impairment? — from edsurge.com by Daniel Mollenkamp

Excerpt:

A workplace technology report from the American Foundation for the Blind, published this month, notes that many people who are blind, have low vision or are deafblind say that they experience difficulties with accessibility for workplace training.

According to researchers from the foundation, the participants in the study described problems with online trainings that were incompatible with screen-reading software or visual adjustments like changing the font size, with quizzes that didn’t work with a keyboard and with educational images and videos that weren’t verbally described.

Many of the participants say they needed to get help from a manager or coworker to complete mandatory training, the report notes, causing delays and feelings of exclusion.

 

 

Lawsuit Addressing Failures to Provide Course Materials to College Students with Disabilities May Head to Supreme Court — from accessibility.com by Daphne Wester

Excerpt:

Students with vision disabilities found themselves unable to participate in coursework in the Los Angeles Community College district when, as a rule of practice, necessary course materials like textbooks and syllabi were not provided in Braille or audio formats. Students, along with disability rights organizations, subsequently filed suit against one of the largest community college districts in the country in 2017, and in 2019 the case was decided in favor of the plaintiffs.

 

What’s new on the WCAG 3.0 working draft? (December 2021) — from uxdesign.cc by Daniel Berryhill
AGWG just released a new Working Draft for WCAG 3.0. Let’s see what’s new.

Excerpt:

While the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AGWG) is still working on getting WCAG 2.2 finalized, they are also working on the upcoming WCAG 3.0 standards.

[On December 7th, 2021], they released a new Working Draft of WCAG 3.0. We’ll go over the changes made from the previous Working Draft that came out in June 2021.

 

28 Website Accessibility Terms to Know in 2022 — from blog.hubspot.com by Jamie Juviler

Excerpt:

No matter the type of website you run or the industry that you’re in, prioritizing web accessibility is key to your success.

To ensure your website meets today’s standards for web accessibility, you’ll first need to understand the terminology. Accessibility is a big, dense area with a lot of jargon, acronyms, and codes — enough to steer a new website owner away from the topic altogether.

That’s why we’ve put together this glossary of 28 essential web accessibility terms any website owners should be aware of. By knowing the language, you’ll find it much easier to adopt accessibility principles on your own site and better serve visitors with disabilities.

Addendum on 12/31/21:

Accessibility awareness is on the rise, but is it turning into action? — from techcrunch.com by Joe Devon

Excerpts:

Harris Poll reveals that more than half of American adults increased their online activities because of the pandemic. That number grows to 60% for people with disabilities.

The increase in online activities does not mean that everyone is able to achieve their goals. So, what kind of impact is the crisis having on accessibility? Are organizations finally getting the message on the importance of accessibility?

With that, here are the key results from the Alexa top 100 website testing:

    • Out of the websites tested, 62% were accessible to screen readers, up from 40% in 2020.
    • Every single page passed for having the valid document “lang” attribute.
    • Only 11% of websites tested had errors in input field labels.
    • The most common error was the use of ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications specification)
    • The second most common error was color contrast.

From DSC:
That last article linked to:

 

Guide to Trade School For People with Disabilities — from primeweld.com, with thanks to Sarah Breckon for this resource.

Per Sarah:

The guide includes advice on what people with disabilities should look for in a trade school, common challenges they may face, where to find additional resources, as well as career options in the trades available to people depending on their disability.

Excerpt:

Professionally successful people living with a disability sometimes credit their impairment for boosting their career prospects, because it taught them perseverance and commitment. Others believe that their physical or cognitive differences in certain areas have led them to develop stronger abilities in others.

Choosing a trade school is an opportunity to assess one’s traits and capabilities, and find the right career for applying them.

Jump to a section:

 

Understanding the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) for Learning Disabilities — from inclusionhub.com by Meredith Kreisa
Following the WCAG for learning disabilities can make your content more accessible to the millions of individuals with dyslexia, dyscalculia, and other conditions

Excerpt:

Advancements in digital technology have made disseminating information to the masses quick and easy. Unfortunately, your audience might not be as big as you think. For millions of people with learning disabilities, some content may be prohibitively challenging to read. This effectively renders information that many take for granted inaccessible to others.

Luckily, by using simple, common-sense methods, your content can be more approachable for those with learning and other types of disabilities. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) maintains Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to provide guidance on supportive techniques.

How Does WCAG Apply to Learning Disabilities?
While cognitive and learning disabilities are distinct conditions, they can lead to similar accessibility issues. Therefore, WCAG groups them together. WCAG’s cognitive and learning disability guidelines fall into eight main objectives:

 
 
 

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.

 
 

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!

 

Holt (1923 – 85) homeschooling and unschooling — from donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com by Donald Clark

Excerpt:

John Holt graduated from Yale in 1943 but signed up to be a submariner in WW2. On discharge, he eventually became a teacher, in various schools. This led to a disillusionment with the US education system so deep that he became an advocate for homeschooling and unschooling. This emerged from his belief that education was so deeply embedded, structurally and culturally, that it was unreformable. Neither did he believe that alternative schools were the answer. He retains his reputation as the founding father of homeschooling.

National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI)

Excerpt:

NHERI is the National Home Education Research Institute. NHERI conducts and collects research about homeschooling (home-based education, home schooling), and publishes the research journal called the Home School Researcher. The institute has hundreds of research works documented and catalogued on home schooling, many of which were done by NHERI. Simply put, NHERI specializes in homeschool research, facts, statistics, scholarly articles, and information.

For those interested in home-schooling -- NHERI

Homeschooling – home education or home-based education – has grown from nearly extinct in the United States in the 1970s to just over 2 million school-age students. NHERI focuses on homeschooling research, homeschool facts, homeschool fast facts, and in-depth scholarly articles.

The Home School Legal Defense Association

 

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.

 

Some psychological benefits of remote learning in k-12 sector — from by Tony Bates

Excerpt:

There have been many criticisms of the move to remote learning during the pandemic for students in schools, but there also appear to have been some unexpected benefits. This article looks at these from a psychological point of view, and how some of these benefits could be continued post-pandemic. The article lists the following benefits…

 
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