[Athen] Accessible Classroom A/V Controls

[Weissenberger, Todd M]

Colleagues,

I just came from an interesting conversation about classroom A/V controls.  At Iowa, we've traditionally used push button control units that allow us to operate classroom technology like projectors, microphones, etc.  These boxes had limited controls and were relatively easy to use for users with and without disabilities.

Now these push button controllers are beginning to retire, and the new units are controlled via touchscreen.  I have to believe that these are inaccessible out of the box, although our vendor has an iOS app that supposedly can control the panel via iPad or similar.  Has anyone encountered any issues around inaccessible classroom A/V technology, or implemented any accessibility strategies to mitigate accessibility issues in A/V room controls?

Our vendor is Extron, for what it's worth.

Todd

T.M. Weissenberger
Web Accessibility Coordinator
Information Technology Services
University of Iowa

319-384-3323