[Athen] The accessibility issues nobody's discussing

[Travis Roth]

Hi Debee, 

You have a lot of interesting points. 

Juggling two screens is hard. 

As for your Zoom audio and handout issue, there is a solution for this one.
At least on Windows. You can go into Zoom Settings find keyboard, and in
here find keyboard shortcuts for actions including Mute/Unmute my audio. By
default it is Alt+a and is not a global shortcut, and here is the key. There
is a checkbox to make a keystroke global, so when this is on and you are in
a meeting you can mute/unmute the audio without switching to the actual Zoom
meeting window.

 

Travis

 

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> On Behalf
Of Deborah Armstrong
Sent: Friday, May 8, 2020 10:52 AM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: [Athen] The accessibility issues nobody's discussing

 

****Rant Mode on ******

 

 

As I take my Spanish class and talk with students using online platforms,
there are a few accessibility issues that keep coming up. I see all sorts of
training a bout equity and preventing racism, but what about people who
can't work in a synchronous class as fast as able-bodied folk? I think we
are being ignored in all this talk of equity!

 

Issue No. 1: shared screens. It's obvious that it's a problem for people
like me who use screen readers, but traditional online classes don't use
this feature so much. In a traditional online class, the instructor
typically has slides, videos and handouts that a student can download and
study ahead of time. So when class is in session, even when it is
synchronous, the student has the slides-handout-whatever to look at separate
from the zoom window. And it is assumed they studied this material.

 

In my Spanish class and in many other courses where the instructor is more
comfortable with face-to-face instruction, much of the in-class effort
revolves around a shared screen. The instructor plays a video that's not
available to download. Or he puts a handout up onscreen for the class to
discuss together, and of course it isn't offered anywhere else. Or, my
Spanish teacher flips through all the handouts she's got on her PC ,
randomly putting one up onscreen for us to discuss together. I keep telling
her I need to know ahead of time, so now she tells me about two minutes
before the handout is displayed. Then I have to frantically scramble through
my email where she's helpfully attached the file 15 seconds ago, open the
attachment and find where she's pointing in her shared screen! 

 

Shared screens aren't accessible to me, but even when I have the handout in
another window, I have a problem shared by many of our students. And for
many it causes great anxiety. Luckily I take courses for personal enrichment
but if I was depending on a good grade, I'd have anxiety too!

 

You have to look at the material, then flip back to the zoom window, find
the mute/unmute button, press it, make your aural contribution, remute
yourself, flip back to the handout - it's exhausting! And if the instructor
calls on you, you have to unmute, find the passage he's referring to, make
your comment, re-mute, and do it all with everyone waiting!

 

This just doesn't happen in traditional online classes where it's expected
you've reviewed this material before and won't have to constantly look at it
while discussing it. I know, I've taken a ton of online classes.

 

So can you remind instructors that having to keep multiple windows open and
flip back and forth constantly muting and unmuting while trying to
concentrate on the learning is nerve-wracking! It's not just my problem, I'm
hearing from lots of students with varying disabilities who are having the
same issue.

 

Issue no. 2: How-tos. I get email from students who can't find their class
recordings, can't figure out how to play recordings, can't figure out how to
submit an assignment, can't figure out how to post in a discussion etc. And
I know we're seeing that everywhere. Only a small subset of folk cope well
with written instructions. They need to see a video of people demonstrating
the task or better yet, have someone help them.

 

I know here in the CA community college system, our local online ed and the
CVC-OEI have some great videos on these topics, but how to find them? What
instructors really need to do, especially for visual learners is to always
post a link to a video demonstrating how to perform a Canvas task. So if the
instructor says "use conferzoom to join my class" then they need to follow
it with a link to a captioned and clearly explained video that shows that
task. If the instructor says "post your comments about this chapter on my
discussion board for chapter 3" they need to include a link to a how-to
video showing justhow.

 

Often instead, the instructor links to a generic site like the college's
student portal for online learning. There, the student has to sort through
lots of text and links to find the one video they need that shows them how
to perform a specific task. I'm good at this sort of thing, finding
information and following instructions. Few students are.

 

Issue no 3: Expectations. I think having low expectations leads to lazy
learning. One reason so much is done in-class in synchronous fashion is that
instructors expect that people haven't done their homework. It would be
better to assume they have, and if they have not, they snooze they loose.
This doesn't mean you don't offer help, but you keep your expectations high.
For example, one assignment could simply be for everyone to post questions
about the previous assignment: "tell me one thing you didn't understand when
you were preparing the homework". This invites people not to be perfect but
to still be engaged. If you expect people to get their work done you can
spend class time reviewing the work rather than actually trying to do it!

 

Issue no. 4: Organization: the more organized an instructor is, the better
learning experience. I know many faculty are just trying to keep up now, but
being organized is more important  I believe than anything else. If that
means one less quiz is posted because the instructor spent his time creating
a class calendar for the entire quarter, or that one assignment is graded
late, I still think that being organized is the best accessibility tool that
an instructor can offer. This means having a calendar that shows what is due
when. It means posting every piece of material that will be used in class a
few days before the class meeting. It means having a forum on Canvas for
questions  students can ask the instructor. It means organizing everything
in modules according to each instructional week rather than posting the
entire course content as a ton of announcements. It means offering a
consistent format for assignments and handouts. It means being consistent
with message threads - for example, not having the class all respond in one
single long thread to a variety of posts. 

 

It means having multiple short handouts rather than something as long as
this email!

 

***Rant Mode OFF***

P.S. feel free to forward!

 

--Debee

 

 

 

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