[Athen] BB Collaborate versus Zoom

[Craig Levins]

Thank you all so much, this is very helpful.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!


Broward College
Craig Levins
Associate Vice President, Institutional Accessibility & ADA Coordinator, Broward College
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From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> On Behalf Of Jeffrey Dell
Sent: Friday, June 12, 2020 8:29 AM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] BB Collaborate versus Zoom

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The problems I ran into with collaborate were using the controls for recording a session with my screen reader. The problem that we ran into with students using collaborate this past spring was for students that use ASL interpreters in collaborate. It is not possible to control completely the video feeds that you see. With zoom a student can go on to gallery view and select to pin video sources to their screen. You do not have the same controls with collaborate. When we were doing demos to see how interpreting would work in collaborate any time people would speak it would bounce the interpreter off the screen. It’s even further complicated when using to interpreters or when the class size is large.
Jeff

Sent from my iPhone.  please excuse errors from using Apple's dictation feature.


On Jun 12, 2020, at 1:10 AM, Wink Harner <foreigntype at gmail.com<mailto:foreigntype at gmail.com>> wrote:

HI Craig et al ATHENites

I am speaking from personal experience with both Zoom and Collaborate platforms as an instructor with disabilities. I agree with Lucy with the challenges a Collaborate host has with the platform when using adaptive software. I am a Dragon NaturallySpeaking user and for those of you who may not know this, the verbal commands are built using the same Aria coding used with screen reader software so essentially neither the blind/VI screen reader user nor the speech-to-text user can use the software to navigate the site, the menus or the commands easily (or at all). Zoom is definitely less problematic.

Another bonus? Zoom allows saving a caption transcript, as well as allowing easier access for a CART transcriptions, allows for a split screen so the user can see the instructor’s screen/presentation and either an ASL interpreter or the CART transcription in a side-by-side window set up.

The AI used in Collaborate to generate automatic captions is very low in accuracy and is considerably more complicated to set up. As an instructor, I have no choice the LMS platform the college(s) choose. Thankfully (I guess), I’ve had years of experience troubleshooting these problems for students. Now I am McGyvering solutions for ME to access!

I hope this personal experience is helpful.

Wink Harner
Foreigntype at gmsil.com<mailto:Foreigntype at gmsil.com>



On Thu, Jun 11, 2020 at 7:36 PM Lucy GRECO <lgreco at berkeley.edu<mailto:lgreco at berkeley.edu>> wrote:

I have not done a full comparison of both but every incident that I've had to use collaborate was a very difficult problematic experience especially if the person with the disability is the host

On Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 6:47 PM Craig Levins <clevins at broward.edu<mailto:clevins at broward.edu>> wrote:
Hello Everyone,

I am beginning to assess the accessibility of Blackboard Collaborate versus Zoom, and am wondering if anyone has gone through this process. If so would you be able to share what you have found? Additionally, if you have used either, or both, and have any opinions, suggestions, etc. and are willing to share I would be very grateful.

Thank you in advance.

Best Regards,
Craig

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