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Twitter Chats are powerful Engagement tools

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Twitter Chats are powerful Engagement tools

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For educators who thrive on connections, Twitter chats may be the perfect form of professional development. They're free. They focus on just the topic you need. They happen regularly. And they give you access to an instant community, complete with networking opportunities, emotional support and the chance to give back.

Participating in chats even aligns with the ISTE Standards for Educators because they allow you to improve your practice by learning from and with others to explore proven and promising practices that leverage technology to improve student learning.

"The collective intelligence of a chat can provide educators with classroom-tested lessons, a variety of perspectives on specific problems or an introduction to emerging technologies," says Daniel Krutka (@dankrutka), who uses Twitter to connect to his students and the rest of the education community. "Chats also offer leaders opportunities to expand their audiences and influence, and they give voice to teachers who might not otherwise have the chance to exercise leadership outside their classrooms or schools."

But with hundreds of ed-related chats, how do you know which ones are worth giving up an hour of your day?

First, pick your angle. Some chats, such as#edchat, tackle a broad range of education issues, while others are based on shared interests in a particular topic, content area, grade level, job type or geographical region. Next, try out a couple that fit your criteria and see which community you feel most at home in.

To get you started, check out this list of 41 education chats curated by the ISTE community, organized by chat type. If you don't find something for you on this list, check out Participate.com, which hosts an easy to use list of chats organized by topic and even highlights happening each day.

General education chats

#engchat (Monday, 4 p.m. PT/7 p.m. ET)
Where English teachers share ideas, resources and inspiration.

#nt2t (Saturdays, 6 a.m. PT/9 a.m. ET)
For educators who are new to Twitter.

#OK2Ask (every other Thursday, 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET)
Friendly chat with lots of classroom resources shared.

#satchat (Saturdays, 4:30 a.m. PT/7:30 a.m. ET)
For current and emerging school leaders, #satchat became so popular it spawned two geographically specific offshoot chats:#SatchatWC for West Coasters and #SatchatOC for educators living in Oceania (Indonesia, Polynesia, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, etc.).

Job role chats

#1stchat (Sunday, 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET)
Chat about first grade teaching.

#kinderchat (Mondays, 6 p.m. PT/9 p.m. ET)
For anyone interested in kindergarten and early-childhood education.

#mschat (Thursdays at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET)
For middle school teachers.

Topical chats

#AppleEDUchat (Tuesdays, noon and 6 p.m. PT/3 p.m. and 9 p.m. ET)

#AR4Learning (Thursdays, 6 p.m. PT/9 p.m. ET)
Focused on augmented reality in the classrooms.

#ARVRinEDU (Wednesdays, 6 p.m. PT/9 p.m.ET)
Discussion about augmented and virtual reality in education.

#BookCreator chat (Last Thursday of the month, 11 a.m. PT/2 p.m. ET)
Over the course of the chat, participants collaborate on a book and publish it online.

#EdTechChat (Mondays, 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET)
Focuses on topics related to edtech.

#FlipClass (Mondays, 5 p.m. PT/8p.m. ET)
For those interested in the flipped classroom model.

#formativechat (Mondays, 4:30 p.m. PT/7:30 p.m. ET)
Discussion of topics related to formative assessment, from giving effective feedback to giving students more ownership of their learning.

#Games4Ed (Thursdays, 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET; Sundays, noon PT/3 p.m. ET)
For those interested in game-based learning and gamification.

#iteachphysics (Saturdays, 6 a.m. PT/ 9 a.m. ET)
Bi-weekly chat for physics teachers.

#kidscancode (Tuesdays, 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET)
For educators interested in helping students learn to program.

#LearnLAP (Mondays, 5 p.m, PT/ 8 p.m. ET)
Focuses on strategies for creating a student-led classroom.

#pblchat (Tuesdays, 6 p.m. PT/9 p.m. ET)
For project-based learning fans.

#PersonalizedPD (Tuesdays, 6 p.m. PT/ 9 p.m. ET)
For those interested in customizing professional development to meet the needs of each educator.

#plearnchat (Mondays, 4 p.m. PT/7 p.m.ET)

Topics focus on personalized learning, learner agency, changing culture, voice and choice, and strategies to transform teaching and learning.

#Read4fun (Every other Sunday, 4 p.m. PT/7 p.m. ET)
Connects passionate educators with books, and with each other.

#Shiftthis (Tuesdays, 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET)
Focuses on implementing gradual change for massive impact in the classroom.

#sschat (Mondays, 4 p.m. PT, 7 p.m. ET)
For social studies educators.

#TLAP (Mondays, 6 p.m. PT/9 p.m. ET)
For educators who embrace David Burgess' approach of teaching like a pirate.

#WeirdEd (Wednesdays, 7 p.m. PT/10 p.m. ET)
Focuses on positive issues, taking action and the kids.

#whatisschool (Thursdays, 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET)
Educators discuss shaping the future of school.

#XPLAP (Tuesdays, 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET)
Based on Explore Like a Pirate, chat focuses on gamification.

Regional chats

#CAedchat (Sundays, 8 p.m. PT/11 p.m. ET)
California educators discuss education topics relevant to the West Coast.

#NCed (Tuesdays, 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET)
For North Carolina educators.

#UrbanEdChat (Thursdays, 7 p.m. PT/ 10 p.m. ET)
For educators who want to discuss urban education.

#UTedChat (Wednesdays, 8 p.m. PT/11 p.m. ET)
Focuses on education topics relevant to Utah and the general education landscape.
This post is an updated version of an article originally published on May 19, 2015.

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40 education Twitter chats worth your time

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For educators who thrive on connections, Twitter chats may be the perfect form of professional development. They're free. They focus on just the topic you need. They happen regularly. And they give you access to an instant community, complete with networking opportunities, emotional support and the chance to give back.

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Learners differ in the ways that they perceive and comprehend information that is presented to them. For example, those with sensory disabilities (e.g., blindness or deafness); learning disabilities (e.g., dyslexia); language or cultural differences, and so forth may all require different ways of approaching content. Others may simply grasp information quicker or more efficiently through visual or auditory means rather than printed text. Also learning, and transfer of learning, occurs when multiple representations are used, because they allow students to make connections within, as well as between, concepts. In short, there is not one means of representation that will be optimal for all learners; providing options for representation is essential.

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Learners differ in the ways that they perceive and comprehend information that is presented to them. For example, those with sensory disabilities (e.g., blindness or deafness); learning disabilities (e.g., dyslexia); language or cultural differences, and so forth may all require different ways of approaching content.

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UDL For teaching Face to Face and Online

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UDL For teaching Face to Face and Online

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Mar

05

Posted by rkizilboga on March 5th, 2018 Posted in: Adult Learning Principles, Blog, Instructional Design, News, Teaching Technologies, Training Tips

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an approach to teaching and learning aiming at minimizing barriers to maximize learning. In order to achieve this goal, UDL helps educators to make curriculum understandable and accessible for everyone. UDL was first developed for the people with disabilities to make their access to the buildings easier. However, considering Neuroscience, UDL is an effective framework for teaching and learning as well. Because UDL offers guidelines that meet with the need of our brain's network. These networks are 1) affective networks, which controls the 'why of Learning', 2) recognition networks, which controls the 'what of learning', and 3) strategic networks, which controls the 'how of learning.' UDL basically suggests using multiple means to promote teaching and learning.

1. Multiple means representation stimulates the recognition networks and affects the what of learning. Therefore, teachers should support their instructions utilizing multiple ways of representation.

2. Multiple means of action and expression excites the strategic network and support the how of learning. It is associated with allowing and encouraging learners to use multiple ways to reflect their learning.

3. Multiple means of engagement is associated with the affective networks. By providing learners with multiple means of engagement, educators support the why of learning domain and might increase learner's engagement.

According to a report released by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in 2013, 10.8% of the students in higher education in 2008 were disabled. Also, in another NCES report in 2010, the percentages of the students based on their specific disabilities are showed in the Table 1.

Table 1. Percentages of Students with Disabilities

One of the most important things to keep in mind is that UDL principles do not only suggest incorporating multiple technology options into lessons, but it also promotes utilizing multiple techniques or strategies. The choices of tools, methods, and strategies might differentiate based on the types of teaching. However, there are some general rules that should be followed by instructors especially when teaching online, such as color use with care, web-friendly font selection, use of bulleted points or numbered list, and use of headings and subheadings.

Here are some examples of how to design teaching activities align with the UDL principles:

Click through for a text-based list of UDL strategies for face-to-face and online teaching.

Face-to-Face
Multiple Means of Representation

Start your lesson with clear and measurable objectives

Make the content accessible to the learners

Give learners some time to familiarize with the goals and content

Provide your learners with alternative format of your teaching

Alternative text to images

Closed captions for video materials

Lectures

PowerPoint presentations

Online presentation tools (Google slides, Nearpod)

Handouts

Printed materials

Guest speakers

Video and video materials

Multiple Means of Action and Expression

Clearly state the expectations from the learners

Give learners some time to familiarize with the expectations

Provide multiple options for students to showcase their understanding/learning.

Make sure all the students have access to at least an option

Provide support for learners when needed

Allow students to be able to reflect their knowledge on various devices

Presentations

Group and individual activities

Twitter discussions

Online meeting rooms (Todaysmeet)

Bring Your Own Device (Laptop, Tablets, Smart Phone)

Audio and video materials

Multiple Means of Engagement

Offer multiple fun activities to stimulate learners' interest.

Increase learners' participation

Allow students to be able to reflect their knowledge in a device that they feel comfortable with.

Bring Your Own Device

Gamification

Twitter

Online
Multiple Means of Representation

Start your lesson with clear and measurable objectives

Make the content accessible to the learners on various devices

Give learners some time to familiarize with the goals and content

Provide your learners with alternative format of your teaching

Alternative text to images

Closed captions for video materials

Use color with care

Record your teaching

Clearly state contact information, technical requirements, prerequisites (if exists).

PowerPoint presentations

Online presentation tools (Google slides, Nearpod)

Printable materials

Guest speakers (Online)

LMS (Moodle, Canvas, Desire2Learn, Blackboard)

Video and audio materials

Flipped classroom

WebEx technologies

Zoom, Skype

Multiple Means of Action and Expression

Clearly state the expectations from the learners

Give learners some time to familiarize with the expectations

Provide multiple options for students to showcase their understanding/learning.

Make sure all the students have access to at least an option

Provide support for learners when needed

Allow students to be able to reflect their knowledge either writing or speaking

Provide clear guidelines for your learners how to submit assignments

Twitter discussion or other discussion boards

LMS (Moodle, Canvas, Desire2Learn, Blackboard)

Online quiz

Multiple Means of Engagement

Offer multiple fun activities to stimulate learners' interest.

Increase learners' participation

Allow students to be able to reflect their knowledge in a device that they feel comfortable with.

Twitter discussion or other discussion boards

Video or audio materials

Group activities

Useful links:
http://udlguidelines.cast.org/
http://www.cast.org/ http://www.udlcenter.org/ References
National Center for Education Statistics (2010). Profile of Undergraduate Students: 2007-08. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2010/2010205.pdf#page=150

National Center for Education Statistics (2013). Fast Facts of Undergraduate Students: 2007-08. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=60

ABOUT rkizilboga

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UDL for Teaching Face-to-Face and Online

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Mar 05 Posted by rkizilboga on March 5th, 2018 Posted in: Adult Learning Principles, Blog, Instructional Design, News, Teaching Technologies, Training Tips Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an approach to teaching and learning aiming at minimizing barriers to maximize learning. In order to achieve this goal, UDL helps educators to make curriculum understandable and accessible for everyone.

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Such a great way to connect and engage online learning in an accessible manner!

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We express ourselves in different ways. On Flip, you can use our simple and fun built-in camera to record your thoughts, add effects and share within your Flip group as video, audio only or text in your web browser or mobile app.

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Flip is a video discussion and sharing app, free from Microsoft.

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Flip (formerly Flipgrid) is a video discussion and video sharing app, free from Microsoft, built for classrooms and beyond. Learn more.

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Student learning outcomes depend on the depth and quality of their engagement in learning. Since the early 2000s, the concept of engagement has gained a lot of attention from researchers. Scholars often define engagement as a complex construct that consists of behavioral, cognitive, and emotional components, and argue instructors should attend to each one of these components to effectively engage their learners. In agreement with Fredricks, Blumenfeld, and Paris [ 1] and Finn and Zimmer [ 2], we propose that "sustained student engagement (a) functions as a facilitator of student learning, (b) leads to meaningful outcomes, (c) prevents students from dropping out, and (d) prevents boredom and lack of respect for authority" [ 3].

The behavioral component of engagement would require the learner to be physically oriented towards the instructor or materials [ 1, 3]. In an online setting, that entails accessing and manipulating the content (e.g., reading posted materials or submitting the assignments). The cognitive component of engagement involves cognitive processing of information as demonstrated by responding and posting questions, and attending to learning tasks [ 1, 3]. Lastly, the emotional component of engagement refers to student motivation to learn and their emotional responses to learning tasks [ 1, 3]. In addition, researchers examining student engagement argue engagement is "malleable" [ 4] and as such can be impacted by student characteristics as well as the quality of instruction.

Online learning environments may present some inherent barriers to student engagement [ 3], therefore both synchronous and asynchronous instruction requires intentional and meaningful design. This article begins with a discussion of possible barriers to student engagement in online learning, followed by a description of "Universal Design for Learning" (UDL), and concludes with practical strategies that align with UDL and have a potential to boost learners' engagement.

Barriers to Engagement in Online Environments

The quality of student engagement correlates directly with the quality of student learning: An engaged student learns better. While convenience, accessibility, and flexibility attract many students to online learning, the learning environment can be alienating if not thoughtfully designed.

The learners drawn to online learning bring an increasing diversity of abilities and represent vast differences economically, geographically, racially, linguistically, religiously, culturally, and sexually [ 5]. As a result, traditional online instruction that is, for example, text-based, driven by information provision, and assessed through regurgitation will not offer the flexibility to meet the variety of learning needs [ 3, 5]. In this light, the role of the instructor and the design of the learning environment are the primary determining factors in student engagement [ 6, 7].

The behavioral, cognitive, and emotional components of engagement are elusive in the absence of deeper relationships with the instructor, other students, and the material itself. Online learning environments deprived of these relationships can leave students feeling isolated and unsuccessful [ 5]. As the student population for online learning presents increasingly complex needs and characteristics, instruction and instructional design should adapt to increase student engagement:

Distance and post-secondary education instructors face increasingly diverse students with disabilities, language and cultural barriers, and significant skill deficiencies. In spite of this demographic diversity, the type of education delivered has not significantly changed. Individual accommodations have been applied, but the structure and culture of higher education, and the nature of what constitutes knowledge, its acquisition, and its expression in practice, have not responded [ 8].

In this light, UDL can provide an effective bridge to support student engagement in online learning.

Universal Design for Learning

Thoughtfully designed online instruction has proven to enhance learner's engagement with the course, the instructor, and with one another [ 9]. Universal Design for Learning is an instructional design framework offering flexibility and adaptability to meet the needs of increasingly diverse learners and maximizing engagement [ 10, 11]. In online as well as any learning context, it provides an intentional and systematic approach for building an environment that accommodates diversity and difference between and among the students.

The UDL framework is nested in neuroscience with a particular focus on how the brain works and which parts of the brain are activated during the learning process [ 12]. The objective of UDL is to first identify and overcome unnecessary barriers to instruction, then systematically plan for embracing diversity of all learners by providing flexible methods and assessment, accessible materials, and meaningful learning goals [ 11, 12]. The flexibility of instruction is built through three principles of multiple means of engagement, multiple modalities of instruction, and multiple means of assessment as well as additional guidelines and checkpoints, which all together constitute the UDL framework.

Six Example Strategies for Online Teaching Aligned with UDL

To illustrate how UDL-based instruction can support student engagement in an online environment the following section focuses on six selected teaching strategies and their alignment to each of the three UDL principles. These six strategies were selected from a longer list of strategies compiled from research on UDL in online teaching [ 3]. A set of practices aligned with the UDL framework should not replace systematic and thoughtful planning for learner diversity. In other words, these practices are only examples and should not be perceived in isolation independent of a larger UDL framework.

The Center on Applied Special Technology (CAST) offers a detailed description with examples of what each of the guidelines and checkpoints within each of the UDL principles means. The following sections focus on two selected strategies that align with the multiple means of engagement principle of UDL.

Multiple means of engagement. The first of UDL principles focuses on ensuring that learners are provided with a variety of ways to engage with materials, the instructor, and each other. This principle supports the affective parts of the brain and corresponds to "the why" of learning, which means that it helps create learners who are vested in the learning process because they feel motivated and understand why they are learning. To achieve that, instructors should focus on strategies that stimulate students' interests, strengthen their effort and persistence, and support self-regulation.

1. Weekly written communication with students. Weekly communication between an instructor and learners (either as a group or individually) can serve multiple purposes [ 8, 13]. First, weekly communication builds a stronger sense of community and strengthens connection between the instructor and learners. It shows the learners that their instructor is equally committed to learners' success and engaged in the online course.

Weekly messages from the instructor may motivate learners to stay on task and help them refocus on the online course. To further align with UDL framework, such weekly correspondence should include multiple formats so the students have a choice in how they engage with information. For example, instructor's written message could also contain a link to a brief video and/or audio recording conveying the same message. Additionally, such weekly check-in from an instructor may encourage learners to respond with any questions or requests for clarification they would not otherwise voice. For the instructor, a weekly calendar reminder to send a message to the learners is an easy strategy to ensure consistency in communication.

2. Note takers for synchronous sessions. Many online instructors prefer to offer weekly or monthly synchronous sessions to ensure all learners participate in a lecture or group activities and have an opportunity to work together via video conferencing software like Zoom, BBCollaborate, or Go to Meeting. It is a great strategy but due to the nature of video conferencing it may be challenging to gauge how much learners are actually learning during synchronous sessions and how engaged they are.

Rose, Harbour, Johnston, Daley, and Abarbanell suggest assigning a new student each time to take notes during the synchronous session may be highly beneficial [ 14]. This strategy puts a responsibility on a selected student to provide notes to all classmates after a synchronous session. That way, other students can focus on actually engaging with the activity or lecture knowing that they will be able to supplement their notes with the ones from an 'official' note taker. Moreover, the instructor should supplement the written notes from an "official note taker" with audio and video recording of the synchronous session so the students have a choice of format.

Additionally, assigning a different note taker for each synchronous session allows each student to have a sense of responsibility for their peers' learning and participation. In larger classes, an instructor can either assign groups of note takers or seek volunteers for note taking as an extra credit assignment or engaging students in name drawing to select note takers.

Multiple means of representation. The second of UDL's principles addresses the recognition parts of the brain to provide "the what" of learning. In other words, it refers to the content of learning and its presentation. In particular, the goal of this principle is to create learners who know how to access information and have resources to do so by providing them with alternatives for receiving information, options for supporting language and symbols recognition, and options for comprehension. The next two sections describe two strategies aimed at providing learners with a variety of ways in which information is presented to them.

3. Posting flexible presentations. The majority of online content consists of assigned readings, assignments, and content-rich presentations. Rao [ 5], He [ 13], Rose et al. [ 14], Lowrey et al. [ 15], and Smith [ 16] all argue instructor's presentations are more accessible to students and ultimately more effective if they consist of multiple ways of representing the content. These scholars suggest instead of posting static slides, instructors should provide students with a combination of slides with text, links to video clips, audio recordings, and graphics. This way, a learner has autonomy to decide whether to learn from written text, a video representation, a graphic, or a combination of all of these formats.

4. Accessibility of digital materials. Online learning revolves primarily around digital materials. With the intention of overcoming barriers to instruction and supporting learners with diverse needs, instructors need to ensure that all digital materials are accessible to learners [ 8, 14, 15]. In fact, Lowrey et al. [ 15] proposes "distance education coursework is required to meet federal accessibility standards" and "representation of digital materials from an accessibility perspective means that users will be able to perceive, understand, navigate and interact with digital content."

Digital materials are more accessible when presented in multiple formats. For example, a digital textbook should be accessible through enlarged font, contrasted text color, or through text-to-speech application. Instructors utilizing Blackboard, Moodle, or Canvas learning management systems may want to explore the Ally software, which assists with ensuring accessibility of online content by assessing instructor's materials as well as providing students with options of a variety of formats [ 8].

Multiple means of action and expression. The third principle of UDL addresses the strategic parts of the brain, or the "how" of learning. Consequently, the ultimate goal of implementing this principle is to develop learners who can set goals for their learning and are strategic in how they express their knowledge and skills. Specifically, this principle is addressed by providing learners with a variety of opportunities for physical action as well as options for communication and expression, and multiple chances for improving executive function (i.e., strategic planning and executing steps of a learning task). The following two strategies exemplify the principle of multiple means of action and expression in online instruction.

5. Choices in demonstration of knowledge. The most fundamental yet complex strategy aligned with the principle of multiple means of action and expression requires instructors to offer their learners choices in how they demonstrate knowledge. Rogers-Shaw et. al [ 8], He [ 13], Rao [ 15], and Smith [ 16] all argue learners benefit from more than one option for demonstrating their skills and knowledge. Having a choice in expression may benefit the student by leading to a greater sense of ownership of learning.

In practice, it means that for each assignment an instructor provides more than one way in which students can show their learning. Instructors need to realize that allowing options for student knowledge and skill demonstration does not lower the rigor of the assessment. For example, learners may have a choice to either write a 10-page paper, or prepare narrated slides, or create a website, or submit an audio recording of answering the assignment questions.

Depending on the assignment, the number of learners in a course, and other contextual factors, an instructor may want to provide students with a menu of three to five options or leave it completely open-ended. As with any assignment, it is more beneficial to the learner when a rubric accompanies any given option for assignment submission to clarify instructor's expectations and ensure consistent assessment criteria regardless of a chosen submission format.

6. Interactive online discussions. One of the typical components of online coursework includes peer-to-peer discussion. Rao and Tanners [ 17] suggest traditional online discussion has a risk of being static and inauthentic and instructors should explore better alternatives that give learners' options for expressing themselves. Some of the traditional LMS discussion boards include options for creating posts as written text, or embedding videos, or audio recordings though these might not be very intuitive and most learners end up relying on written text. Some other alternatives include programs like VoiceThread or FlipGrid. For example, in a VoiceThread-based discussion each participant has an option of expressing themselves in a variety of formats. Participants can comment on each other's recordings and post questions or comments to slides submitted by the instructor. Having a variety of means to express oneself builds a more authentic conversation around a topic posed by the instructor than a traditional discussion board would provide.

Conclusion

Online learning environments present certain barriers to student engagement but UDL as a thoughtful and systematic instructional design framework has potential to overcome those barriers. Beginning the design process with learner variability in mind, followed by an intentional design of accessible materials, flexible methods, goals, and assessments, UDL-based environments can facilitate learner engagement and lead to meaningful learning outcomes.

References

[1] Fredricks, J., Blumenfeld, P., and Paris, A. School engagement: Potential of the concept, state of the evidence. Review of Educational Research 74, 1 (2004), 59-109.

[2] Finn, J. and Zimmer, K. Student engagement: What is it? Why does it matter? In S. Christenson, A. Reschly, and C. Wylie (Eds.). Handbook of Research on Student Engagement. Springer, New York, 2012, 97-132.

[3] Hollingshead, A. Designing engaging online environment: Universal design for learning principles. In K. L. Milheim (Ed.). Cultivating Diverse Online Classrooms through Effective Instructional Design. IGI Global, Hershey, PA 018.

[4] Skinner, E., and Pitzer, J. Developmental dynamics of student engagement. Coping, and everyday resilience. In S. Christenson, A. Reschly, and C. Wylie (Eds.) Handbook of Research on Student Engagement. Springer, New York, 2012, 21-44.

[5] Rao, K. Universal design for online courses: Addressing the needs of non-traditional learners. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Technology Enhanced Education, Kerala, India. 2012.

[6] Pianta, R. C., Hamre, B. K., and Allen, J. P. Teacher-student relationships and engagement: Conceptualizing, measuring, and improving the capacity of classroom interactions. In S. Christenson, A. Reschly, and C. Wylie (Eds.). Handbook of Research on Student Engagement. Springer, New York, 2012, 365-386.

[7] Sharan, S. Student engagement in learning. In S.Sharan, and I. Tan (Eds.) Organizing Schools for Productive Learning. Springer, New York, 2008, 41-45.

[8] Rogers-Shaw, C., Carr-Chellman, D. J., and Choi, J. Universal design for learning: Guidelines for accessible online instruction. Adult Learning 29, 1 (2018), 20-31. https://doi.org/10.1177/1045159517735530

[9] Tobin, T. J. Increase online student retention with universal design for learning. The Quarterly Review of Distance Education 15, 3 (2014), 13-24.

[10] Meyer, A., and Rose, D. Universal design for individual differences. Educational Leadership 58, 3 (2000), 39-43.

[11] Rose, D., and Meyer, A. Universal design for learning. Journal of Special Education Technology 15, 1 (2000), 67-70.

[12] Meyer, A., Rose, D., and Gordon, D. (2014). Universal Design for Learning: Theory and practice. Wakefield, MA: CAST Professional Publishing.

[13] He, Y. Universal Design for Learning in an online teacher education course: Enhancing learners' confidence to teach online. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching 10, 2 (2014), 283-298.

[14] Rose, D. H., Harbour, W. S., Johnston, C. S., Daley, S. G., and Abarbanell, L. Universal Design for Learning in postsecondary education: Reflections on principles and their application. In S. E. Burgstahler and R. C. Cory (Eds.), Universal Design in Higher Education. Harvard Education Press, Cambridge, 2013, 45-59.

[15] Lowrey, K. A., Smith, S. J., and Khoo, J. Multiple means of representation in distance education. In L. A. Scott and C. A. Thoma (Eds.), Universal Design for distance education: A guide for online course development (pp. 29-43). XanEdu, Acton, MA, 2016

[16] Smith, F. Analyzing a college course that adheres to the universal design for learning (UDL) framework. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 12, 3 (2012), 31-61.

[17] Rao, K., and Tanners, A. (2011). Curb cuts in cyberspace: Universal Instructional Design in online courses. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability 24, 3 (2011), 211-229.

About the Authors

Aleksandra Hollingshead is an assistant professor of special education in the College of Education, Health and Human Sciences at the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho. She earned her doctorate degree from the University of Cincinnati. Her research focuses on student engagement in learning through a lens of Universal Design for Learning.

Davin Carr-Chellman is an assistant professor of education in the Adult, Organizational Learning and Leadership Program in the College of Education, Health and Human Sciences at the University of Idaho. His research focuses on individual, organizational, and community capacity building, especially within the framework of adult learning and agency. The specific contexts for his investigations include online education, religious organizations, public schools, and doctoral and graduate education.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

© ACM 2018. 1535-394X/19/02-3310383 $15.00

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elearn Magazine: Engaging Learners in Online Environments Utilizing Universal Design for Learning Principles

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Learner engagement in any instructional environment, including online, is critical to ensuring meaningful learning outcomes. Researchers discuss engagement as a complex construct consisting of emotional, cognitive, and behavioral domains. In e-learning, student engagement is difficult to achieve.

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Periodic Table of Microsoft Accessibility/Learning Tools 

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Periodic Table of Microsoft Accessibility/Learning Tools 

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Discover how Windows 10 is making the PC more accessible to everyone.

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Magnifier works like a digital magnifying glass, using the camera on your iPhone or iPad to increase the size of anything you point it at - from a prescription bottle to a candlelit menu. For those who are blind or have low vision and want more information about their physical surroundings, Detection Mode in Magnifier combines input from the camera, LiDAR Scanner, and on-device machine learning to offer intelligent tools like People Detection, Door Detection, Image Descriptions, Text Detection, and Point and Speak.

If you're standing in line, you can use People Detection to determine a person's proximity to you. Door Detection can help you navigate by identifying doors, text, and the presence of symbols - such as a restroom symbol, a no smoking symbol, or an accessible-entrance symbol - within a few feet of you. Image Descriptions and Text Detection let you hear more about people, objects, landscapes, and text in your camera's field of view. And Point and Speak makes it easier to interact with physical objects that have text, like household appliances, keypads, or labels on files. As you point and move your finger over or under different buttons or elements, your iPhone or iPad reads the text out loud, so you can perform everyday activities and tasks with more ease and independence.

Put moments into words.

Match your levels to your location.

Look down for a heads‑up.

Pinch.
Pinch.
Chat.

AssistiveTouch for Apple Watch lets people with upper-body limb differences use their Apple Watch without ever having to touch the display or controls. Using built-in motion sensors and on-device learning, Apple Watch detects subtle differences in muscle movements and tendon activity, letting you control the display through hand gestures like a pinch or a clench. Answer incoming calls, control an onscreen motion pointer, and access Notification Center, Control Center, and more. You can also use AssistiveTouch for Apple Watch to run shortcuts with Siri to complete tasks or modify VoiceOver and Switch Control settings on your iPhone.

AssistiveTouch for iOS and iPadOS helps you adapt standard gestures - like pinch, rotate, or swipe - to make them more comfortable for you. You can make other actions, like changing volume, accessible from the AssistiveTouch menu.

Cue
magic
here.

Let your voice call the shots.

Make your own calm.

This feature speaks for itself.

Assistive Access makes it easy for people with cognitive disabilities to tailor iPhone and iPad to reduce cognitive load and suit their specific needs. Designed with feedback from individuals with cognitive disabilities and their trusted supporters, this feature helps people focus on the activities they enjoy most and that are foundational to iPhone and iPad - connecting with friends and family, taking and sharing photos, and listening to music.

Assistive Access offers a distinctive interface with high-contrast buttons and large text labels, as well as tools to help individuals and trusted supporters focus the experience in specific apps - Phone and FaceTime (which have been combined into a single Calls app), Messages, Camera, Photos, and Music. You can also choose a more visual, grid-based layout for your Home Screen and apps, or a row-based layout if you prefer text.

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Apple products and services have built-in accessibility features to help you connect, create, and do what you love in the ways that work best for you.

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Learners differ in the ways that they can navigate a learning environment and express what they know. For example, individuals with significant movement impairments (e.g., cerebral palsy), those who struggle with strategic and organizational abilities (executive function disorders), those who have language barriers, and so forth approach learning tasks very differently. Some may be able to express themselves well in written text but not speech, and vice versa. It should also be recognized that action and expression require a great deal of strategy, practice, and organization, and this is another area in which learners can differ. In reality, there is not one means of action and expression that will be optimal for all learners; providing options for action and expression is essential.

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Learners differ in the ways that they can navigate a learning environment and express what they know. For example, individuals with significant movement impairments (e.g., cerebral palsy), those who struggle with strategic and organizational abilities (executive function disorders), those who have language barriers, and so forth approach learning tasks very differently.

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When you present slides, you can turn on automatic captions to display the speaker's words in real time. This feature works with the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari browsers.

Step 1: Set up your microphone

To use captions with Google Slides, your computer microphone needs to be on and working.

Devices and microphones vary, so check your computer manual for instructions. Microphone settings are typically in the System Preferences on a Mac, or the Control Panel on a PC.

Google Slides uses the computer's microphone or an external microphone paired with the computer.

Step 2: Present with captions

Tip: Captions are not stored.

Tips for using captions

If you present slides over video conferencing software (such as Google Meet), captions show up on the shared screen. To set expectations for your audience, it's a good idea to tell them that captions are from Google Slides, not the video conferencing software, and that only the speaker's voice is captioned.

Some people find captions distracting, so you might want to ask your audience before turning on captions.

Captions and your microphone automatically turn off if there's no activity on your computer for 30 minutes.

Troubleshoot captions

If captions aren't working, try these tips:

Reduce background noise or move to a quieter room.

In your system and browser preferences, check your microphone settings.

Plug in an external microphone.

Check that your microphone is plugged in and isn't being used by another application.

Change the input volume on your microphone.

Restart your computer.

Clear your browser's cache.

Tip: Caption text is powered by machine learning. It depends on audio input from the speaker, including the speaker's accent, voice modulation, and intonation. As language understanding models use billions of common phrases and sentences to automatically transcribe spoken words, they can also reflect human cognitive biases. As a result, captions might not be a complete and accurate transcription of the speaker's words. Google is committed to making products that work well for everyone, and we're actively researching unintended bias, mitigation strategies, and ways to improve quality.

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When you present slides, you can turn on automatic captions to display the speaker's words in real time. This feature works with the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari browsers.

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How to add closed captions to Power Point

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Depending on the version of PowerPoint you're using, you can use built-in features, an add-in, or workarounds to add closed captions or subtitles to videos and audio files in your presentations. Adding closed captions makes your presentation accessible to a larger audience, including people with hearing disabilities and those who speak languages other than the one in your video.

To read about best practices for accessibility, see Make your PowerPoint presentations accessible.

Beginning with version 2016, PowerPoint has a new, simpler format for caption files, called WebVTT. The video player in the following versions of PowerPoint can show those captions when you play the video:

The closed captions are stored in a text-based file with a .vtt filename extension. You can create a closed caption file on your own or use a caption-creation tool. To search online for available tools and detailed instructions, type "create vtt file" in your search engine.

For instructions on showing captions when watching a video in these versions of PowerPoint, see Turn on closed captions or subtitles.

Requirements for this feature

In Office 2016, the availability of the closed-captioning feature depends on the way Office was installed. Closed-captioning is only available for Office 2016 Click-to-Run installations; MSI-based installations don't have closed-captioning features. Read the next section to see whether the feature is available to your installation of PowerPoint 2016.

1. Open an Office 2016 application.

2. On the File menu, select Account.

3. For Office 2016 Click-to-Run installations, you'll have an Update Options button.

MSI-based installations don't have an Update Options button. You'll only see the About <application name> button.

If you have an MSI-based installation of Office 2016, read the instructions in the 2013 section of this article to see what captioning features are available to you.

Create closed captions

Prepare a text-based caption file with a .vtt filename extension before adding captions. For instructions on how to create the caption file, see Create closed captions for a video.

Add closed captions to a video

You can add captions to presentations that you've recorded with video narration, screen recordings, and any other video (except online videos) that you insert into PowerPoint. Currently, adding captions to an audio-only recording isn't supported.

1. Select the video on the slide.

2. On the Playback tab, click the Insert Captions button, and then select Insert Captions.

3. In the Insert Captions dialog, browse to your caption file. Select the file and then click Insert .

4. If you need to add another caption file, just repeat the process.

5. Play the video and check that the captions appear correctly.

Remove closed captions from a video

If you need to edit a closed caption file that is inserted in a video in PowerPoint, you can first remove the file, modify it, and then add it back to the video. Before removing the file from the PowerPoint video, make sure you have the original copy of the closed caption file stored on your PC.

If you have added more than one caption file to a video, the following process removes all caption files assigned to the video.

1. Select the video on the slide.

2. On the Playback tab, click the Insert Captions button, and then select Remove All Captions.

Related Topics

Accessibility features in video playback on PowerPoint

Make your PowerPoint presentations accessible

Accessibility support for PowerPoint

In PowerPoint 2013 and PowerPoint 2010, and the MSI-based version of PowerPoint 2016, STAMP (the Subtitling text add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint) lets you add closed captions to your video and audio files. If you work with captioned video and audio files that already have Timed Text Markup (TTML) files associated with them, this add-in lets you import them directly into your presentation. If you don't have a TTML file, you can add captions directly in your presentation by using the STAMP Caption Editor.

The STAMP add-in allows you to:

Import captions from a Timed Text Markup (TTML) file to create captions against an audio or video in the presentation.

Create and edit closed captions in PowerPoint 2010, 2013, or 2016.

Delete your closed captions.

Export captions to a TTML file.

Turn captions on and off when in presentation mode. Viewers who have this add-in installed can do this also.

Use a video/audio playback while editing Timed Text captions.

Align captions when they have moved, or if you re-size the video.

Import communicative text formatting information from the TTML file, for example: styling, color and alignment.

What do you want to do?

Download and install STAMP

Step 1: Confirm your version of Microsoft Office

Step 2: Download STAMP

Step 3: Install STAMP

Keyboard shortcuts

Create new captions using the Caption Editor

Import captions as a TTML file

Edit or delete captions in the Caption Editor

Align, show, hide, or remove captions

Align captions if you move or resize your video

Hide or show captions in the presentation

Remove captions from the presentation

Download and install STAMP

The add-in is designed for PowerPoint 2010, 2013, or 2016, and you must install the correct add-in for your version of Office (32-bit or 64-bit).

Step 1: Confirm your version of Microsoft Office

To check which version of Office you are using, and which installer you should download, do the following:

1. In PowerPoint, click the File tab.

2. Click Help.

3. Under About Microsoft PowerPoint is information about the version of Office that you have installed, including whether it is 32-bit or 64-bit.

Step 2: Download STAMP

After you are sure of the version you need, download the add-in by doing the following:

1. Go to Subtitling Text Add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint (STAMP).

2. Choose the correct version for your computer and save the .zip file to your computer.

3. Extract the files to a folder on your computer.

Step 3: Install STAMP

After you have downloaded the appropriate STAMP file, install it by doing the following:

1. Go to the folder where you extracted the installation files, and run STAMP Setup (32-bit or 64-bit).msi.

2. Follow the steps in the installation wizard.

To verify that the add-in installed correctly, do the following:

1. Open PowerPoint.

2. Click the File tab, and then click Options.

3. Click Add-ins, and verify that Sub-titling Text Add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint is listed under Active Application Add-ins.

After you have installed the STAMP add-in, you will see new options on the Playback tab in the Audio Tools or Video Tools group when you have an audio or video item selected in your presentation. The ribbon commands are enabled or disabled based on the media item selected and the captions already attached to it.

Keyboard shortcuts

The buttons on the caption editor can be accessed using standard Microsoft Windows Alt + key accelerators.

The following keys have also been assigned to functions in the Caption Editor:

Create new captions using the Caption Editor

1 Play

2 Add caption

3 Set start and end time

4 Add or change caption text

5 Update captions

6 To add new captions to an audio or video in your presentation, do the following:

1. On the Insert tab, click the Video or Audio menu, and then select the media type and location that you want to insert into your presentation.

2. In Audio Tools or Video Tools, click the Playback tab, and then click the Add Captions menu.

3. Click Create Captions.

4. In the Caption Editor, Click the Play button to start playback of the audio or video.

5. With the media playing, listen for the dialog that you want to caption, and click New Caption to add a caption. The caption will be created with the current media playback time as the Start Time of the caption.

Clicking Start Time will reset the starting point of the active caption.

6. You can then do one of the following:

Click in the Caption Text field and type the text to appear in the caption; or

Click Set End Time to set the caption end time to match the current media playback position. You can also manually enter the end of each caption. If you leave the end time blank, it adjusts to the start time of the following caption.

7. Repeat steps 4 and 5 to create additional captions.

You don't have to create captions in order. To add a new caption between two existing captions, click Sort to put them into time sequence order.

Import captions as a TTML file

If captions for your media have already been created and saved as a TTML file, you can import them into PowerPoint by doing the following:

1. On the Insert tab, click the Video or Audio menu and then select the media type and location that you want to insert into your presentation.

See Add and play sounds in a presentation or Insert and play a video file from your PC or OneDrive for more information.

2. In Audio Tools or Video Tools, click the Playback tab, and then click the Add Captions menu.

3. Click Captions From File.

Edit or delete captions in the Caption Editor

When you select media that already has captions added you can edit the captions by doing the following:

1. On the Playback tab, click Edit Captions.

2. Click in the text area of the caption you want to edit, and then make the necessary changes.

You can delete a caption by doing the following:

On the Playback tab, click Edit Options.

To see the captions you have entered or modified, switch to Slide Show view of your presentation and then click the audio or video to start it.

Align, show, hide, or remove captions

Align captions if you move or resize your video

If you move or change the size of the video in your presentation, you can realign the closed captions by selecting the video, and then clicking Align Captions on the Playback tab.

Hide or show captions in the presentation

You can hide captions from view in your presentation by selecting the media, and then clicking Hide on the Playback tab.

Hiding captions does not remove them from the presentation.

To display captions that you have previously hidden, select the media, and then click Show on the Playback tab.

Remove captions from the presentation

To completely remove captions from the media in your presentation select the media, and then click Remove on the Playback tab.

Related Topics

Make your PowerPoint presentations accessible

In PowerPoint 2007, you can add captions by converting your presentation to a video, publishing it as a webpage, or using text boxes with animations. Newer versions of PowerPoint provide other ways of creating captions for videos.

By Glenna Shaw

Summary: Glenna Shaw discusses three things you can add to your presentation to compensate for auditory limitations, such as hearing impairments, background noise, poor sound equipment, or presentations delivered in a different language. By adding captions (words at the bottom of your slides that communicate dialog), subtitles (words at the slide bottom that translate dialogue), or annotations (words on your slide that either communicate or translate dialog), you can increase the reach of your presentation and ensure that your message is delivered clearly.

PowerPoint continues to grow as a medium for the dissemination of ideas, from traditional presentations to education to performance art. This is a wonderful thing since it makes loads of information readily available to a global audience. But what if your audience has an auditory limitation such as a physical challenge, a noisy environment, nonfunctioning sound equipment, or speaks a different language? The easy answer is to add visual dialogue to your presentation. The not so easy answer is how to do it well.

For general guidance on best practices for accessibility, see Make your PowerPoint presentations accessible.

Contents

Overview

Add captions or subtitles in PowerPoint

Annotations in Presentations

Subtitles in Presentations

Overview

The Difference between Open and Closed Captions, Subtitles, Annotations, and Transcripts

For the purposes of this article, the following terms apply:

Captions: A series of words superimposed on the bottom of a presentation that communicate dialogue

Subtitles: A series of words superimposed on the bottom of a presentation that translate foreign dialogue

Annotations: A series of words superimposed on the body of a presentation that communicate dialogue or translate foreign dialogue

Transcripts: A written record of dialogue

Open: Are always in view and cannot be turned off

Closed: Are turned on and off by the viewer

A Word about Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act

In 1998, Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act to require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. Under this act, once you add sound to your presentation, PowerPoint is classified as a Multimedia product: products that involve more than one media and include, but are not limited to, video programs, narrated slide production, and computer generated presentations. In order to meet the requirements of Section 508, presentations must adhere to the following standards in relation to hearing impairments:

All training and informational video and multimedia productions which support the agency's mission, regardless of format, that contain speech or other audio information necessary for the comprehension of the content, shall be open or closed captioned

All training and informational video and multimedia productions which support the agency's mission, regardless of format, that contain visual information necessary for the comprehension of the content, shall be audio described

Display or presentation of alternate text presentation or audio descriptions shall be user-selectable unless permanent

For more on other Section 508 requirements, see Make your PowerPoint presentations accessible.

The Methods Available

There are three basic methods to include visual dialogue with your presentations:

Convert your presentation to a video and add captions

Publish your presentation to a web page and include transcripts in your notes

Use text boxes and custom animations to create and animate the captions

Converting the presentation to a video with captions is the ideal method, but cannot be accomplished without third party software. Using the notes portion of the slide to display transcripts on a web page with frames is the easiest but least desirable method since it is not synchronized with the dialogue. There are a wide variety of techniques to use custom animations, however, creating the effect of traditional captions that scroll up from the bottom of the screen in sequence with the dialogue requires a bit of thought.

Open Captions for Presentations

In this section:

Add Caption Space to Slide Masters
Create Scrolling Effects for Caption Placeholders
Add Caption Placeholders to Slide Masters
Add Captions to Slides
Add Text to Caption Placeholders
Remove Superfluous Captions
Incorporate Custom Animations
Include Sound Effects
Record Narrations and/or Rehearse Timings
Create a Custom Caption Template
Haven't Upgraded to PowerPoint 2007 Yet?

Add Caption Space to Slide Masters

Unless you're going to use annotations for all your visual dialogue, the first thing you need to do is reclaim space on your slides to add captions/subtitles at the bottom of the screen. The best method to do this is using the slide master and custom layouts.

1. Adjust your design to make space for your captions. Insert a placeholder text box at the bottom of each of the slide master layouts used in your presentation with the following settings:

Size; Height: .75', Width: 10'

Position; Horizontal: 0', Vertical: 6.75'

Margins; Left: 1', Right: 1', Top: .05', Bottom: .05'

Vertical Alignment: Middle Centered, Horizontal Alignment: Center

Do Not AutoFit, Do Not Shrink Text on Overflow, Do Not Resize Shape to Fit Text, Do Not Wrap Text in Shape

Solid Fill: Black, Line: No Line

Font: Arial (Body) 12 pt., White

Remove Bullets

Remove tab stops

2. You can add your own text prompt to the new caption placeholder.

Before view of a Title and Content slide master layout

After view of a Title and Content slide master layout

3. Click on the outside edge of your caption placeholder and, using the arrow keys, move it directly below the slide.

4. Add a rectangle shape the same size and settings as the placeholder to the bottom of the slide. This will be the background on which your captions are displayed. You do not want any text on your rectangle, nor do you want it to be a placeholder.

Rectangle shape added to the slide master layout

Create Scrolling Effects for Caption Placeholders

You're now ready to create the custom animations that will allow your captions to scroll up from the bottom so they can be synchronized with your narration.

1. In the Up dialog box, on the Effect tab, change the Settings to Locked, and uncheck Smooth start and Smooth end.

2. Change After animation to Hide on Next Mouse Click.

3. Click on the Text Animation tab and change Group text to All Paragraphs At Once and uncheck Animate attached shape.

4. Click OK.

Add Caption Placeholders to Slide Masters

1. Click on the new caption placeholder and, using the arrow keys, move the new caption placeholder until it's directly below the first one.

2. Using the same technique, click on the new motion path and, using the arrow keys, move it until it's directly on top of the first motion path.

Tip: Holding down the CTRL key with the arrow keys let you move objects in smaller increments.

3. Repeat these steps until you have as many caption placeholders as you think you'll need.

Each caption placeholder will hold approximately 3 lines of text. Resize the screen as needed to see what you're doing. I created a total of 10 caption placeholders in my example. This will give me approximately 30 lines of text for my captions per slide. You have to be exact on the placement of the motion paths since they control the appearance of the text. However, you can spread the actual caption placeholders out more or less to accommodate editing them easily.

To add the captions to your remaining slide master layouts, click outside the area directly above and to the left of the caption background rectangle.

4. Repeat these steps for each of the slide master Layouts that you use in your presentation. Adjust other placeholders on these layouts accordingly to accommodate room for the captions.

Add Captions to Slides

Now that you've created your custom layouts with custom caption placeholders, you're ready to use them with the slides in your presentation. When you create a new slide using one of your custom layouts, your caption placeholders will be in the slide and ready to be filled out.

Apply Custom Layouts

Your caption placeholders may not appear on any or all of your existing slides. This is especially true if you're working on a presentation that was created in PowerPoint 2003. Apply your new layouts to any slides that do not show the caption placeholders. Make adjustments to the appearance of slides, if needed, to accommodate room for the captions.

Add Text to Caption Placeholders

This is the fairly easy part.

Starting with the first placeholder under the slide, type your text into each of the caption placeholders. Be careful not to enter too much into any one placeholder. If you've entered your text in your notes section, copy and paste the text from your notes into the placeholders in chunks. Don't worry about having too many caption placeholders yet. Complete all your slides.

Slide master with text in the caption placeholders

Remove Superfluous Captions

If you have too many caption placeholders, you won't really remove them since they're on the master layout. Instead you'll keep them from showing up by removing their custom animation.

1. Click on the Animations tab and Custom Animation to view the Custom Animation pane.

2. Click on the custom animation for the first caption placeholder.

3. Click on the drop down arrow and click on Copy Effects to Slide.

4. Now click the Remove button.

Now your empty caption placeholders will not show during your slide show.

Incorporate Custom Animations

You probably have your own custom animations that you've added to your slide show so you'll need to "weave" these into the animations for the captions.

1. Go to any slide that has custom animations and repeat the steps for copying the caption placeholder animations to your slide.

2. Then move your animations around on the Custom Animation pane to intersperse the captions into your own custom animations.

Keep in mind that the captions are set to disappear on next mouse click so you may need to change this setting and add exit animations for the relevant caption text.

In the example below, I have an animation applied to the picture of the children.

3. To accommodate this, I removed the Hide on Mouse Click setting from my first caption and added an exit animation for the caption to disappear when clicked after the animation of the picture of the children. Remember to change the timing settings of any exit animations.

4. Set Group text to All Paragraphs At Once and uncheck Animate attached shape. I also chose to have the next caption appear automatically after the exit animation of the first caption.

Make sure you test each slide to be sure your custom animations work properly.

Custom Animation pane with both custom animations and caption placeholder animations

Include Sound Effects

If you have sound effects in your presentation, add a description for them within your captioned text. Enclose the description in brackets [] to indicate that it's a sound, for example [wind blowing].

This may not be necessary for a presentation to be 508 compliant because it may not add/detract from the content of the presentation, but it's a considerate thing to do.

Record Narrations and/or Rehearse Timings

If this is a new presentation, record your narration and make sure you incorporate timings in your narration.

If this is an existing presentation and you don't want to re-record the narration, you can record and save timings only. This is done with the Rehearse Timings feature. This is also handy if you want a presentation with a fully readable visual dialogue whether or not you choose to narrate the presentation.

Create a Custom Caption Template

Now that you've created your custom caption placeholders and layouts, you may want to save them as a custom template so you can reuse them. You can customize this template with many different designs while maintaining the integrity of the caption placeholders and layouts.

Haven't Upgraded to PowerPoint 2007 Yet?

You can still add captions, but they won't be as flexible. Follow the same directions, except instead of creating custom placeholders, create textboxes on an individual slide and copy them to all your slides.

Annotations in Presentations

Since annotations a placed directly on a slide, they are particularly easy to do in PowerPoint.

Add Annotations to a Slide

First decide how and/or why you'd like to include an annotation and add it to your slide. For example, in the slide above I had a picture of children animated to peek in. I also have a sound effect of children laughing when this effect is played. So I might like to add an annotation that visually shows the children laughing sound effect. To do this I can add and animate a call out shape with the words [children laughing] in brackets to show there's a sound effect to go with the animation.

Slide with animated call out shape indicating the sound of children laughing

Annotations do not have to be in a shape but it helps to highlight them if you're going to use them. And you will need to accommodate them through the use of custom animations.

Subtitles in Presentations

Since subtitles are typically used for a foreign language, simply translate the text within your captions to the desired language and use the same techniques described in Add captions or subtitles in PowerPoint. Alternatively, you can also use annotations for your subtitles or a combination of the two.

Distribute Presentations

Since the ideal is that it should be the viewer's chose to view the presentation with or without captions and/or subtitles, you can accommodate this by distributing your presentation with both options: with captions/subtitles and without captions/subtitles.

Glenna Shaw is a Most Valued Professional (MVP) for PowerPoint and the owner of Glenna Shaw Visual Communications. She holds a Certificate in Accessible Information Technology and is a Certified Project Management Professional with the federal government.

Related Topics

Make your PowerPoint presentations accessible

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Add closed captions or subtitles in PowerPoint

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Depending on the version of PowerPoint you're using, you can use built-in features, an add-in, or workarounds to add closed captions or subtitles to videos and audio files in your presentations. Adding closed captions makes your presentation accessible to a larger audience, including people with hearing disabilities and those who speak languages other than the one in your video.

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Overview of Microsoft's Immersive Reader

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Overview of Microsoft's Immersive Reader

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Great option for text to speech content.

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A Short Overview of Microsoft's Immersive Reader

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Discover accessibility features in blackboard

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Understand, Empathize & Act

Teachers and students' fundamental goals remain the same, regardless of their physical or cognitive abilities. We must endeavour to fully understand the needs of people with disabilities. However, awareness is not enough. We must act.

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Blackboard's Commitment to Accessibility | Blackboard Ally

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Teachers and students' fundamental goals remain the same, regardless of their physical or cognitive abilities. We must endeavour to fully understand the needs of people with disabilities. However, awareness is not enough. We must act.

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Discover how AT works with Canvas LMS

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Skip navigation

Ensuring an accessible and pleasant experience to all users, regardless of disability, is a key focus of Canvas. The Canvas platform was built using the most modern HTML and CSS technologies, and is committed to W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative and Section 508 guidelines.

The Voluntary Product Accessibility Template, or VPAT, is a tool that administrators and decision-makers can use to evaluate Canvas' conformance with the accessibility standards under Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. View more information about the Canvas Voluntary Product Accessibility Template.

General accessibility design guidelines can be found in the General Design Guidelines for Accessibility lesson (accessibility document).
You can read more about the most recent accessibility and feature enhancements in the Canvas Product Release Notes. If you have additional suggestions, please contact accessibility@instructure.com.

Screen Readers and Browsers

Canvas officially supports the following screen reader and browser combinations:

Macintosh: VoiceOver (latest version for Safari)

PC: JAWS (latest version for Firefox)

PC: NVDA (latest version for Firefox)

There is no screen reader support for Canvas in Chrome

Official browser support means that these browsers are actively tested against Canvas code. Canvas may be able to be used in any other browser or screen reader not listed, but official support is not provided. Learn more about supported Canvas browsers.

Canvas Navigation with a Screen Reader

Canvas makes extensive use of ARIA landmark regions. Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) defines ways to make web content and web applications more accessible to people with disabilities. Therefore, the best way to get around in Canvas is to navigate via regions. Within regions, Canvas uses HTML headings, so navigating between headings can be helpful.

When using a screen reader, the Canvas page navigation menu is as follows:

1. Main navigation

2. Context navigation

3. Breadcrumbs navigation

4. Main region

5. Complimentary information

6. Content information

Canvas-wide Accessibility Components

Canvas contains several unifying accessibility features that can be found on various pages in Canvas.

Moving Content within Canvas

Wherever drag and drop is used to reorder components, the Move-to option is also available and allows both screen readers and keyboard users to move Canvas content. The Move-to option is available in the following features:

Accessibility within Specific Canvas Features

Several areas within Canvas have been specifically improved for accessibility. Other features may be limited at this time. This section highlights several feature areas and accessibility behaviors.

Font Sizing. The Canvas interface uses rem sizing for fonts so any typography will meet the following: it will zoom when the browser is zoomed, and it will scale if a custom browser sized font is chosen or set from a browser's setting.

Rich Content Editor. The Rich Content Editor supports multiple accessibility features for easy creation of accessible content:

Calendar. The Calendar supports Agenda View, which lists all assignments and events in a list or agenda format. Learn how to access the Calendar Agenda View.

Quizzes. Quizzes allows instructors to moderate a quiz for individuals requiring more time or who need multiple attempts. Learn how to grant extra time or attempts in a quiz.

Gradebook. Both the default (assignment) Gradebook and the Learning Mastery Gradebook support an individual view, where instructors can view assignments and grades for one student at a time. Learn more about individual view in the Gradebook and Learning Mastery Gradebook.

User Settings. The User Settings page hosts two feature options to enhance accessibility. Learn how to change user settings.

High Contrast UI: When enabled, this feature offers higher contrast in buttons, tabs, and other areas throughout Canvas.

Underline Links: When enabled, this feature underlines hyperlinks in navigation menus, the Dashboard, and page sidebars.

Chat tool. The Chat Tool has an option to enable audio notifications when new messages are posted.

tudents can now access annotations and comments with a screen reader, including information about the annotation type, author name, comment, and any reply comments at the end of the document. SpeedGrader/DocViewer/Annotations. S Please see blog post for more information.

Accessibility of Third-party (LTI) Integrations

Canvas offers many optional LTI app integrations as part of our commitment to open education. When we review new integration tools, accessibility features are always an important consideration. Unfortunately, as integrations are created by third-party developers and offered to Canvas clients as an optional service, we cannot always ensure that these integrations meet the same standards that we hold core Canvas to. Therefore, if an institution wants to incorporate an integration where additional features may be required, we recommend the institution contact the developer directly with any specific concerns.

Some integrations are non-optional hosted services within Canvas. Any accessibility issues for Canvas-hosted services should be submitted as a help ticket via the institution's support process. We are open to suggestions for new integrations and have an area in the Canvas Help Forums forums for feature requests.

Additional Accessibility Resources

The UDOIT. Universal Design Online content Inspection Tool, or U IT (pronounced, "You Do It") enables faculty to identify accessibility issues in their Canvas course content. It will scan a course, generate a report, and provide resources on how to address common accessibility issues. It was created by the Center for Distributed Learning (CDL) at the University of Central Florida (UCF).
Significant contributions to this guide were made by:

John Raible: Instructional Designer for the Center for Distributed Learning at the University of Central Florida

Nancy Swenson: Instructional Designer for the Center for Distributed Learning at the University of Central Florida

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Skip navigation Ensuring an accessible and pleasant experience to all users, regardless of disability, is a key focus of Canvas. The Canvas platform was built using the most modern HTML and CSS technologies, and is committed to W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative and Section 508 guidelines.

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How Moodle Works with various AT with links to accessibility

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Moodle is designed to provide equal functionality and information to all people. This means that there should be no barriers for people regardless of disabilities, assistive technologies that are used, different screen sizes and different input devices (e.g. mouse, keyboard and touchscreen).

Accessibility conformance

As part of our ongoing commitment to provide an accessible platform and to continuously improve our compliance with WCAG 2.1 Level AA, Moodle has been working with an external auditor to review the platform since January 2020. Key pages within Moodle, which are representative of its overall accessibility and functionality, were audited with automated tools and user journey testing. The WCAG 2.1 Level A and Level AA issues raised from this audit have all been addressed in Moodle 3.10 and Moodle 3.9.3 (both released on November 9th 2020). A large number of these accessibility improvements have also been back-ported to Moodle 3.7.5+ and Moodle 3.8.2+, where possible.

On 10 November 2020, Moodle received WCAG 2.1 Level AA accreditation based on successfully resolving the issues identified in the audit.

On 30 June 2021, the Moodle app also received WCAG 2.1 Level AA accreditation.

An overview of Moodle's conformance with the WCAG 2.1 guidelines can be found in our accessibility conformance report.

Authoring features

Moodle can be used by users to author content for other users. In some cases, accessibility features have been added to the authoring tools so that the content that is produced is as accessible as possible. An example is the "Atto text editor" which includes an "Accessibility checker" and an "Accessibility helper" which provide additional information for content authors on the accessibility of their content (like checks for sufficient contrast). The equations produced by the MathJax content filter have full accessibility enabled so they can be passed directly to the screen reader as maths content.

Coding standards

All components in Moodle need to be available to use by all users. Accessibility needs to be part of the design of every new feature in Moodle.

For simple features with no requirement for an advanced user interface, simple adherence to standard HTML5 does provide an accessible feature. In this case, it is better to use no ARIA than it would be to use it incorrectly ( W3C no Aria).

Bootstrap and Bootstrap components do not support accessibility by default and all features implemented with Bootstrap need to be checked and enhanced where necessary. The Boost theme contains an "aria" javascript module that does add accessibility to some default Bootstrap features (menus).

All text that is presented needs to be displayed in a colour with sufficient contrast to its background colour so that the text is legible for all users. The foreground and background colours should meet the WCAG requirement for contrast, which varies depending on the size of the text. This can be tested with the WebAIM Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool.

Additionally, colour alone cannot be used to imply meaning. An example of a failure for this would be to display error messages in "red" with no other information to convey that this is an error message.

WCAG use of colour

Icons (Images) can be displayed in a variety of ways, and the correct use of icons will depend on the context in which they are used.

WCAG requirement for text alternatives

Solitary Icons

Icons displayed on their own, as part of a link or as informative content must include accessible text to convey the meaning of the icon. For an image tag, this can be the "alt" attribute for the image tag. It can be valid to include both the "alt" attribute and the "title" attribute (shown when hovering with the mouse) so that all users can access the textual meaning of the icon.

Icons and Text

When an icon is displayed immediately before or after some text that also describes the meaning of the icon, it is redundant to repeat the same text twice. In this case, it is correct to hide the icon from screen readers by setting the "role" attribute to "presentation" or hiding it with the "aria-hidden" attribute set to "true".

Multiple icons

When multiple icons are displayed in a row as links, it is important that each icon is large enough and has sufficient space around it so the icon can be easily clicked with the mouse.

The minimum valid size for a link target is 44 by 44 pixels.

WCAG requirement for target size

Keyboard Support

All components should be entirely operable through a keyboard-only interface.

WCAG requirement for keyboard accessibility

Some important things to consider is that all components should be focusable with the keyboard (available in the tab sequence), and should allow the focus to be moved away using only the keyboard.

The element that currently has focus should have a visual focus indicator. ARIA focus management.

In some cases, a single component can contain many smaller components. In order to not pollute the page tab sequence, the parent element can exist in the tab sequence once and should maintain focus within its smaller components with arrow key navigation (roving tabindex or active descendant). ARIA keyboard navigation inside components.

Moodle forms created with the standard forms library are designed to be accessible. Any custom (e.g. javascript) form or custom form elements must also be accessible.

All form elements must have a label

The form must be able to be completed entirely with the keyboard

Invalid entries in the form fields should be indicated with the "aria-invalid" attribute set to "true"

Warning messages for invalid form fields should be associated with the invalid field using the "aria-describedby" attribute.

WCAG error identification

Presentation Only

Any component that contains no information or functionality that is not provided by other components on the page can be considered decorative only. Content that meets this description can be hidden from screen readers using a suitable technique (aria-hidden or presentation role).

WCAG pure decoration

Landmark regions

The layout of each page of content should be separated into valid regions where each region has a unique label and the correct landmark role. This is typically done in the layout files of the theme.

ARIA landmarks

Page Titles

All pages should have a unique title that describes the current page.

WCAG page titled

Advanced UX Widgets

When it is determined that an advanced interface is required (typically one that relies on javascript), a minimum set of principles need to be applied to make sure that the feature "provides equal functionality and information to all people". Each use case is different, but a minimum set of things to be checked are:

Does this component work entirely when accessed only via the keyboard?

Does this component map to any widget from the ARIA Authoring Practices document and if so, does it implement all of the "Keyboard Interaction" and "WAI-ARIA Roles, States and Properties" listed for that widget?

External Resources

Accessibility Tools

Moodle officially supports the following screen reader/browser configurations:

Microsoft Edge, Jaws 15+ (Latest version recommended)

Mozilla Firefox, NVDA 2014.1+ (Latest version recommended)

Screen readers:

Accessibility tools:

International Legislation

European Union

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Nearpod: Foster a love of learning in every student

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Create active learning experiences students can’t wait to be a part of.

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Great tool for collectiions!

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Wakelet | The All In One Content Platform

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Wakelet allows you to bookmark, organize, collaborate and present on content all in one platform. Harness your content to build remarkable things.

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Ways to reduce Stereotype Threats (Growth mindset, Driven Feedback)

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Strategies for Instructors

Stereotype threat is a phenomenon in which a person's concern about confirming a negative stereotype can lead that person to underperform on a challenging assessment or test. This phenomenon has been demonstrated in laboratory research and in classroom settings, as well as in non-academic contexts (for the most recent review of this research, see Spencer et al., 2016). Stereotype threat can affect anyone, depending on the context, but students who identify with groups that are underrepresented in a field or at an institution may be especially vulnerable to its effects.

What can we, as instructors, do to reduce the potential impact of this "threat" and to create a fair learning environment for all of our students? The following suggestions are drawn from research on some of the interventions that have been shown to reduce or "defuse" the impact of stereotype threat on student performance. (For additional ideas and research, see for example, Killpack and Melon, 2016; Spencer et al., 2016; Walton, Cohen, and Steele, 2012.)

Promote a Growth Mindset about Intelligence

Foster a "growth mindset" by conveying the idea that intelligence is not fixed, but can change and grow incrementally, with practice and "exercise." (Dweck, 2008; Blumenstyk, 2016).

Create a learning environment in which mistakes and missteps are valued as opportunities for learning. Encourage students to "think out loud," to ask questions, to embrace difficult problems, and to take intellectual risks. Model this disposition yourself by providing examples of challenging questions and problems that excite you about learning and scholarship.

Describe for students situations in which mistakes, missteps, and wrong turns have led to discovery and innovation in your field and-if you are comfortable doing so-in your own work. Hong and Lin-Seigler (2012) have found that learning about struggles faced by famous physicists increased students' interest in science and problem solving.

Prompt students to reflect on their work by asking questions such as "Who made an interesting mistake today?" or "Did you find any stumbling blocks or places where you struggled when you were writing this paper? How did you work through those difficulties?" (Dweck 2008)

If a student contributes an answer that is incorrect, follow-up with questions that will help the student explain their rationale and identify any "wrong turns" or missteps. Communicate often with your students about the usefulness of wrong answers-they help us to illuminate incomplete understanding and spur us on to learn more. Sometimes, moreover, what appears to be a wrong answer turns out to be an alternative way of correctly solving a problem or answering a question.

If you make a mistake in the classroom, or in an assignment you distributed to the class, correct the mistake as soon as you can. If a student's question pointed out that mistake, thank the student.

When designing assessments in your class, include "low-stakes" quizzes, homework, and shorter papers and other assignments as well as higher-stakes tests, papers, and projects. Provide students with an opportunity to receive feedback on their performance and to build knowledge and skills over time.

Be careful to avoid assuming that a students' performance on an exam or assignment is evidence of "natural" ability (or lack of ability). When speaking with students who are not performing well in the course, avoid statements such as "some people have trouble with math [or writing] [or critical thinking]"; these statements can communicate the idea that intelligence is fixed and may also remind students of identity-based stereotypes. Instead, work with the student to identify areas where the student is struggling and 1-2 new strategies the student can use to improve in those areas (Rattan, Good, Dweck, 2012).

Provide Feedback that Motivates Students to Improve

When commenting on student work, provide "wise feedback," which combines 1) assurance that you are providing critical feedback because you have high standards, 2) specific commentary indicating where the students' work does and does not meet the standards, and 3) confidence that students can meet those standards. This type of feedback has been shown to improve students' motivation and reduce students' perceptions of instructor bias (Cohen et al., 1999; (Yeager et al., 2014).

Articulate and share with all students the criteria you will use to evaluate their work. When appropriate, grade with rubrics or answer keys that promote fairness and transparency. Explain to students the rationale behind these criteria. For example, is the course designed to help students learn more advanced modes of thinking, problem-solving, or writing that are crucial to success in future courses, graduate-school entrance exams, or professional careers?

Combine these high standards with opportunities for support that can help students when they are transitioning into more challenging curricula. Keep in mind that all students will not be equally aware of-or comfortable in seeking out-campus resources. Therefore, set aside time in class to talk about these resources during the first week of class, describe them on the course syllabus, and-when needed-in individual conversations with students. In addition, describe these resources on your syllabus or course webpage.

Provide students with challenging feedback that identifies areas for improvement and expresses your confidence that they can learn new strategies for studying, writing, or solving problems. Trying to comfort students by, for example, telling them that you will give them easier problems, or call on them less often, has been shown to de-motivate students, while "strategy feedback" has been shown to increase students' motivation. Moreover, students perceive "comfort feedback" to be associated with a fixed mindset, while perceiving "strategy feedback" to be associated with a growth mindset (Rattan, Good, Dweck, 2012).

Foster a Sense of Belonging

When students learn that it is common to experience academic struggle and to be concerned that these experience suggest that one does "belong" at the institution, they have improved academic and health outcomes compared with students who do not receive these messages (Walton and Cohen, 2011).

You can improve your students' sense of "social belonging" by providing narratives written by students who initially struggled and questioned whether or not they belonged in the course or at the institution, but ultimately learned new study strategies and succeeded. Include narratives from diverse students, for example in terms or race, religion, gender, or nationality.

As a second step, ask your current students to write their own narratives about a time when they have experienced academic challenges and ask them if you can share this narrative with future students in the course. This act of writing their own stories of struggles and perseverance can help them internalize the message that academic struggle is common and, often, transient (Aguilar, et al, 2014).

Selected References

Aguilar, L., Walton, G., & Wieman, C. (2014). Psychological insights for improved physics teaching. Physics Today, 67(5), 43-49.

Aronson, J., Lustina, M. J., Good, C., Keough, K., Steele, C. M., & Brown, J. (1999). When white men can't do math: Necessary and sufficient factors in stereotype threat. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35, 29-46.

Blumenstyk, G. (May 11, 2016). Carol Dweck says theory of educational mindset often understood. Chronicle of Higher Education. http://www.chronicle.com/article/Carol-Dweck-Says-Theory-of/236453

Cohen, G. L., Steele, C.M., and Ross, L. D. (2008). The mentor's dilemma: Providing critical feedback across the racial divide. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 1302-18.

Dweck, C. (2008). Mindsets and math/science achievement. Carnegie Foundation.

Good, C., Aronson, J., & Inzlicht, M. (2003). Improving adolescents' standardized test performance: An intervention to reduce the effects of stereotype threat. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 24(6), 645-662.

Good, C., Rattan, A., & Dweck, C. S. (2012). Why do women opt out? Sense of belonging and women's representation in mathematics. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(4), 700-717.

Hong, H. Y., & Lin-Siegler, X. (2012). How learning about scientists' struggles influences students' interest and learning in physics. Journal of Educational Psychology, 104(2), 469.

Killpack, T. L., & Melón, L. C. (2016). Toward inclusive STEM classrooms: What personal role do faculty play? CBE-Life Sciences Education, 15(3), es3.

Rattan, A., Good, C., & Dweck, C. S. (2012). "It's ok-not everyone can be good at math": Instructors with an entity theory comfort (and demotivate) students. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(3), 731-737.

Rodríguez, B.A.(2014). The Threat of Living Up to Expectations: Analyzing the performance of Hispanic students on standardized exams. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 13, 191-205.

Shih, M., Pittinsky, T. L., & Ambady, N. (1999). Stereotype susceptibility: Identity salience and shifts in quantitative performance. Psychological Science, 10, 80-83.

Shih, M., Pittinsky, T. L., & Trahan, A. (2006). Domain-specific effects of stereotypes on performance. Self and Identity, 5, 1-14.

Spencer, S. J., Logel, C., & Davies, P. G. (2016). Stereotype threat. Annual Review of Psychology, 67, 415-437.

Spencer, S. J., Steele, C. M., & Quinn, D. M. (1999). Stereotype threat and women's math performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35, 4-28.

Schmader, T., & Johns, M. (2003). Converging evidence that stereotype threat reduces working memory capacity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 440-452.

Steele, C. M. (2002). Whistling Vivaldi: How stereotypes affect us and what we can do. New York: Norton.

Walton, G., Cohen, G. and Steele, C.M. (2012) Empirically validated strategies to reduce stereotype threat. https://ed.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/interventionshandout.pdf

Yeager, D. S., Purdie-Vaughns, V., Garcia, J., Apfel, N., Brzustoski, P., Master, A., ... & Cohen, G. L. (2014). Breaking the cycle of mistrust: Wise interventions to provide critical feedback across the racial divide. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(2), 804.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. © 2016, Washington University.

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Stereotype threat is a phenomenon in which a person's concern about confirming a negative stereotype can lead that person to underperform on a challenging assessment or test. This phenomenon has been demonstrated in laboratory research and in classroom settings, as well as in non-academic contexts (

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5 questions to get you unstuck

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Accessible Math

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Services

Content Transformation

MathJax provides tools to transform your content from traditional print sources into modern, accessible web content and ePubs.

Accessible Web and EPubs

Training and Teaching

The MathJax team is available to train your staff in using our resources for preparing online teaching material and creating accessible STEM content.

Consultancy

MathJax is highly flexible and can be tailored to the needs of your institution by creating customized configurations and specialized software workflows.

Content Transformation

MathJax can help you with the conversion of math documents from legacy sources and print content as well as with the generation of novel content that is online ready and fully accessible for readers with special needs. The MathJax team is available to consult on putting the necessary workflows in place in your institution.

EPubs and Offline Content

MathJax can also be employed in server-side workflows to prepare content that can be viewed offline or generate documents that are compatible with modern ePub readers. Accessibility can be ensured by including alternative textual descriptions or more fine-grained speech annotations and Braille.

For further information on content-transformation services please contact us.

Training and Teaching

The members of the MathJax team are professors in their own institutions with a long and successful track record in teaching and research. We regularly give presentations and workshops on the use of MathJax and its accessibility features for online teaching at international events.

Support for Online Teaching

MathJax is compatible with most Learning Management systems. We can help you to transfer your mathematical teaching materials to the web, allowing your faculty to teach mathematics online in an inclusive and accessible manner.

Support for Online Examinations

Remote online examinations are increasingly important. MathJax can help in preparing exam materials that are not only visually of the highest quality but also ensures that they are accessible for all students regardless of their individual needs.

Staff Training

We train teachers, faculty, and staff on how to prepare fully accessible math course materials. Training programs can be tailored to your specific requirements and those of your audience. We cover a variety of topics including:

porting math documents from sources like LaTeX, Word, and PDF to web formats containing SVG and MathJax,

generating mathematical material that is both web-ready and ePub compatible,

web accessibility and WCAG guidelines for teaching material in mathematics, and

an introduction to assistive technologies for STEM subjects.

Please contact us for more information on how to get your teaching online and the training programs we can provide.

Consultancy

MathJax is a highly modular and flexible system that can be adapted to fit the needs of any application and any content: from static website to highly dynamic environments; from simple teaching handouts to highly sophisticated typesetting in scientific publishing. We can help you create the right configurations for you environments and adapt MathJax for the needs of your organization.

Upgrades

With the release of version 3.0, MathJax has moved to a modern TypeScript implementation. If you need advice on upgrading your local installation, or your content to use MathJax v3, please contact us.

Fonts

We support a variety of fonts and employ techniques to adapt rendering of formulas to fit visually to their surrounding text. Should you need a specialised font or rendering support, it can be incorporated into our production pipeline to be available as an extension for your organization or in the core system.

Conversion Workflows

MathJax is an essential tool in converting traditional print sources to accessible, web-ready content. We can advise you on what tool chain is best for your needs, assemble installations, and provide you with bespoke MathJax customizations.

Accessibility

We provide consultancy on how to adapt your existing web-content, software solutions, and workflows to make them fully accessible for users with visual and print impairments. We will work with your own personnel to ensure that your material is fully accessible.

If you have any particular needs for making MathJax working in your organization, please contact us regarding our consultancy services.

Features and Benefits

MathJax uses CSS with web fonts or SVG, instead of bitmap images or Flash, so equations scale with surrounding text at all zoom levels.

View Samples

MathJax is highly modular on input and output. Use MathML, TeX, and ASCIImath as input and produce HTML+CSS, SVG, or MathML as output.

Try a live demo

MathJax works with screenreaders & provides expression zoom and interactive exploration. You also can copy equations into Office, LaTeX, wikis, and other software.

Learn more

Samples

Our homepage is configured to use MathJax's CommonHTML mode with web fonts to display the equations, which produces uniform layout and typesetting across browsers. But MathJax can also be configured to use HTML-CSS (for legacy browsers), SVG, and native MathML rendering when available in a browser. You can try the various output modes using the MathJax context Menu (which you access by ctrl+clicking / alt-clicking / right-clicking an equation) or the menu below.

Select the rendering mode:

The Quadratic Formula

\[x = {-b \pm \sqrt{b^2-4ac} \over 2a}\]

Cauchy's Integral Formula

\[f(a) = \frac{1}{2\pi i} \oint\frac{f(z)}{z-a}dz\]

Angle Sum Formula for Cosines

\[ \cos(\theta+\phi)=\cos(\theta)\cos(\phi)−\sin(\theta)\sin(\phi) \]

Gauss' Divergence Theorem

\[ \int_D ({\nabla\cdot} F)dV=\int_{\partial D} F\cdot ndS \]

Curl of a Vector Field

\[ \vec{\nabla} \times \vec{F} = \left( \frac{\partial F_z}{\partial y} - \frac{\partial F_y}{\partial z} \right) \mathbf{i} + \left( \frac{\partial F_x}{\partial z} - \frac{\partial F_z}{\partial x} \right) \mathbf{j} + \left( \frac{\partial F_y}{\partial x} - \frac{\partial F_x}{\partial y} \right) \mathbf{k} \]

Standard Deviation

\[\sigma = \sqrt{ \frac{1}{N} \sum_{i=1}^N (x_i -\mu)^2} \]

Definition of Christoffel Symbols

\[(\nabla_X Y)^k = X^i (\nabla_i Y)^k = X^i \left( \frac{\partial Y^k}{\partial x^i} + \Gamma_{im}^k Y^m \right)\]

Live Demo

Type text in the box below. Include some math: enter MathML as MathML tags, and wrap TeX in $...$ or $$...$$ delimiters (or \(...\) and\[...\]), and AsciiMath in `...` delimiters. The text you enter is actually HTML, so you can include tags if you want; but this also means you have to be careful how you use less-than signs, ampersands, and other HTML special characters within your math (surrounding them by spaces should be sufficient).

Preview is shown here:

Accessibility and reuse.

MathJax provides a powerful set of accessibility extensions that provide navigation, exploration, and voicing on the client.

You can find more information in our introductory video on YouTube and our documentation.

Reuse

Using the MathJax context menu, you can access the source of any mathematical expression either in MathML format, or in its original format if that was TeX or AsciiMath.

To access the MathJax menu, right-click on a math formula (if you are using Windows), or Control-click it (if you are using a Mac) or touble-tap and hold on a touch device. In the sub-menu " Show Math as" you can choose between " MathML Code" and " TeX commands " to get a pop-up that allows you to copy the math source into another application. Try it out on the equation below!

\[ \left [ - \frac{\hbar^2}{2 m} \frac{\partial^2}{\partial x^2} + V \right ] \Psi = i \hbar \frac{\partial}{\partial t} \Psi \]

You can also watch our screencast on YouTube of a MathJax equation being copied and pasted into a variety of applications. Note that this screencast is based on MathJax v1.1 so the menu structure is a little different in the current version.

Getting Started

You can ask general questions on the MathJax-Users mailing list where the entire community can chime in.

Learn more

About us

MathJax is a fiscally sponsored project under the auspices of the NumFOCUS Foundation, which serves as the legal and fiscal umbrella for the MathJax project and several dozen other open-source, scientifically oriented software products.

Originally, MathJax was supported by The MathJax Consortium, a joint venture of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) to advance mathematical and scientific content on the web. We are grateful for the commitment offered by the Consortium for over 10 years, without which MathJax would not exist today.

Core Goals

The core of the MathJax project is the development of its state-of-the-art, open source, JavaScript platform for display of mathematics. Our key design goals are:

High-quality display of mathematics notation in all browsers.

No special browser setup required.

Support for LaTeX, MathML, and other equation markup directly in the HTML source.

An extensible, modular design with a rich API for easy integration into web applications.

Support for accessibility, copy and paste, and other rich functionality.

Interoperability with other applications and math-aware search.

Support for equation conversion outside a browser (e.g., preprocessing on a server).

Advisory Committees

The MathJax Steering Committee meets regularly to advise the MathJax team on its development goals and priorities. We're grateful for the support of our committee members!

MathJax Steering Committee

Catherine Roberts, AMS

Robert Harington, AMS

Tom Blythe, AMS

Astrid van Hoeydonck, Elsevier

Ken Rawson, IEEE

Ted Kull, SIAM

Jim Crowley, SIAM

Davide Cervone, MathJax

Volker Sorge, MathJax

History

MathJax grew out of the popular jsMath project, an earlier Ajax-based math rendering system developed by Davide Cervone in 2004. In the following years, there were many significant developments relevant for web publication of mathematics: consolidation of browser support for CSS 2.1, Web Font technology, adoption of math accessibility standards, and increasing usage of XML workflows for scientific publication.

In 2009, the AMS, Design Science, and SIAM formed the MathJax Consortium to enable Cervone and others to design MathJax from the ground up as a next-generation platform, while still benefiting from the extensive real-world experience gained from jsMath. Since its initial release in 2010, MathJax has become the gold standard for mathematics on the web.

In 2019, MathJax joined the NumFOCUS family of open-source software products as a fiscally sponsored project. MathJax continues to be supported by the founding sponsors and other partners, as it joins this dynamic community.

Over the years since MathJax was first developed, new web technologies and paradigms emerged, and MathJax was not always easy to incoporate into these new approaches. In 2017, after nearly a decade of use, work on MathJax version 3 was begun, a complete rewrite of MathJax from the ground up using modern techniques. This new version integrates with current toolchains and frameworks, and can run equally well in a browser on a server, or in a stand-alone application. It should form a solid foundation for another decade of MathJax use, and its use of the Typescript language should make contributions from our user community easier to produce and incorporate into MathJax.

The MathJax Team

The MathJax team consists of Davide Cervone and Volker Sorge. Contributors include Christian Lawson-Perfect, Omar Al-Ithawi, and Peter Krautzberger.

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Write or type any math problem and OneNote for Windows 10 solves it for you - letting you get to the answer quickly, or showing you step-by-step instructions that help you learn how OneNote arrived at the solution. From basic math to calculus, OneNote's ink math assistant is everything you always wished a calculator could do.

Step 1: Write or type an equation

OneNote's ink math assistant works best by handwriting equations on any touchscreen-capable Windows 10 laptop or tablet, but you can also try writing with a mouse or pen input tablet on a standard PC, or use your keyboard to type out your equations.

1. In OneNote for Windows 10, go to any page, and then click or tap the Draw tab.

2. On the Draw tab, click or tap the pen that you want to use.

3. Click or tap the small arrow that appears next to the pen you selected, and then choose the stroke width and ink color that you want to use.

4. Next, do one of the following:

If you're using a touchscreen device, write your equation with your finger or stylus.

If you're using a PC with a standard monitor, write your equation with your mouse or pen input tablet, or use your keyboard to type your equation.

Step 2: Select the equation

Before OneNote can solve your equation, select the ink strokes or typed text that you want it to recognize.

1. On the Draw tab, select the Lasso Select tool.

2. With your finger or mouse, drag a selection around the equation that you created in Step 1. When you let go, all ink strokes or text in your equation should appear selected.

Step 3: Use the Math button

When your equation is selected, do the following:

1. On the Draw tab, click or tap the Math button.

Important: Math features in OneNote for Windows 10 are available only with an active Office 365 subscription. If you don't see the Math button on the Draw tab, make sure you're signed into OneNote with the same account that is registered to your subscription.

Click the Settings and More button in the upper right corner, click Settings, and then click Accounts. If your Office 365 subscription account isn't already listed, click the + Add account button, follow the steps to sign in, and then restart OneNote for Windows 10.

If you still don't see the Math button after signing in and restarting the app, check your Office 365 subscription renewal status to make sure that your subscription is still active.

2. In the Math pane that opens, confirm that OneNote correctly recognized your equation.

If necessary, select Fix It to make any corrections to individual ink strokes. While in Fix It mode, you can use the Lasso Select tool to select any incorrectly recognized symbol or a specific part of the equation and OneNote will offer alternatives for you to choose from.

3. Click the Settings button if you want to switch between solving real numbers and complex numbers, or if you want to set the angle measurement of graphs to degrees, radians, or gradians.

4. To solve the current equation, do any of the following:

Click or tap the Select an action box and then choose what you want OneNote to do with the selected math equation. The available choices in this drop-down menu depend on the selected equation.

Review the solution that OneNote displays underneath the action you selected. In the example below, the selected option Solve for x displays the solution.

Tip: You can drag the solution to any place on your page.

To learn how OneNote solved the problem, you can click or tap Show steps, and then select the detail of what you want to view. The available choices in this drop-down menu depend on the selected equation.

Tip: You can drag the solution steps to any place on your page.

See Also

Change handwritten ink to text or math in OneNote for Windows 10

Draw graphs from math equations in OneNote for Windows 10

Find out when your Office 365 subscription expires

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Convert and solve math equations in OneNote for Windows 10

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Write or type any math problem and OneNote for Windows 10 solves it for you - letting you get to the answer quickly, or showing you step-by-step instructions that help you learn how OneNote arrived at the solution. From basic math to calculus, OneNote's ink math assistant is everything you always wished a calculator could do.

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Web Accessibility Guidelines

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W3C standards define an Open Web Platform for application development that has the unprecedented potential to enable developers to build rich interactive experiences, powered by vast data stores, that are available on any device. Although the boundaries of the platform continue to evolve, industry leaders speak nearly in unison about how HTML5 will be the cornerstone for this platform. But the full strength of the platform relies on many more technologies that W3C and its partners are creating, including CSS, SVG, WOFF, the Semantic Web stack, XML, and a variety of APIs.

W3C develops these technical specifications and guidelines through a process designed to maximize consensus about the content of a technical report, to ensure high technical and editorial quality, and to earn endorsement by W3C and the broader community.

If you are learning about Web technology, you may wish to start with the introduction below, and follow links for greater detail.

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W3C standards define an Open Web Platform for application development that has the unprecedented potential to enable developers to build rich interactive experiences, powered by vast data stores, that are available on any device. Although the boundaries of the platform continue to evolve, industry leaders speak nearly in unison about how HTML5 will be the cornerstone for this platform.

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Uncover your site's most prevalent WCAG violations courtesy of our powerful accessibility website checker, ARC Monitoring. You'll receive an Initial Domain Analysis (IDA) that includes a breakdown of WCAG failures on your site and a list of URLs within the first 100 pages of your site that have the most violations.

With increasing number of digital accessibility lawsuits and a rapidly aging population, forward-thinking companies are addressing accessibility issues head-on for a better overall experience. Making your site accessible to people with disabilities increases customer satisfaction and boosts your bottom line.

Please fill out the form below to request your free automated website accessibility test. All fields are required.
Video not playing? View it at YouTube.

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Free Automated Website Accessibility Test (IDA)

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Uncover your site's most prevalent WCAG violations courtesy of our powerful accessibility website checker, ARC Monitoring. You'll receive an Initial Domain Analysis (IDA) that includes a breakdown of WCAG failures on your site and a list of URLs within the first 100 pages of your site that have the most violations.

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Conferencing that offers recording and integrated captions

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Presentation Software

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Create interactive lessons, record video tutorials and collaborate real-time with your students.

Explain Everything, the leading digital whiteboard platform for delivering engaging lessons, is now joining Promethean.
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Create interactive presentations

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Turn your teaching materials into quick tutorials and explanation videos. Share it instantly with anyone, anytime.

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Create group assignments and let your students work on collaborative projects together. Teach them the value of teamwork.

We are on a mission to help educators provide engaging and effective learning experiences in any teaching scenario.

Meet the teacher template

Introduce yourself to your students and their parents in a warm and welcoming way. This customizable template allows you to share important information about yourself, your teaching philosophy, contact details, and classroom policies. Open template

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Explain Everything | Interactive Whiteboard for Teaching

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Interactive whiteboard for teaching. Record video tutorials, create interactive presentations. Join 24+ million users of Explain Everything.

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Make content accessible from the start!

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A digital educational material or technology is accessible when a learner with a disability "is afforded the opportunity to acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same services as a learner without a disability in an equally effective and equally integrated manner, with substantially equivalent ease of use" (U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights). Edtech developers have been making significant advances in accessibility in response to states and districts that have made buying accessible a priority. As a result, all learners are experiencing benefits. Customization features, options for physical interaction, and multiple modes of output are assets of accessible design.

As classrooms incorporate more digital technology, it becomes increasingly important that materials used in the classroom are designed to be useable by all students from the start. This requires adjustments in the way materials are purchased, and that, in turn, will drive the availability of more flexible and accessible learning materials in the marketplace. The PALM Initiative ( Purchase Accessible Learning Materials) was launched to ensure this change happens as soon as possible.

The E-Book Market Brief begins to highlight some of the problems that we are seeing in the commercial and open education resource markets. The problem extends to purchasing decisions for hardware, software, e-learning platforms, apps, and more. This is a problem worth solving. Publishers will respond when states and local education agencies demand accessible learning materials directly from the source.

In order to increase demand for accessible digital instructional materials, Guidance for SEA and LEA Purchasing Agents has been posted with proposed purchase order and contract language and related resources.

The AEM Center recommends that publishers and developers use up to date guidelines and best practices when creating accessible digital instructional learning materials and technologies. Links to pertinent resources are provided on the Best Practices for Publishers & Software Developers page. For additional resources, see our list of Accessibility Organizations and Resources.

Our hope is that all learners will be able to use the digital learning materials that are recommended by states and/or purchased by school districts and families. This means that those digital learning materials will need to be accessible to students who have print disabilities right from the start. It also means the technologies used to render and interact with the learning materials, such as computers, tablets, and e-book readers, will also have to be fully accessible to students with disabilities.

Simply Said: Understanding Accessibility in Digital Learning Materials

Take Action: What You Can Do
Making the Case: PALM Resources PALM Hand-Outs PALM Guidance Purchasers

Require that all materials purchased are fully accessible

Incorporate accessibility into your policies and practices

Include accessibility in contract language

Educators

Create lesson plans and units that include accessible materials

Introduce PALM at a staff meeting

Form an accessibility action team

Talk with administrators, technology coordinators, and purchasing coordinators about accessibility

Families

Create an accessibility action group in your child's school or district

Inform school administrators about accessibility

Talk with your child's teacher about accessibility

Talk with other parents and parent groups about accessibility

Advocates
Share Your Success Stories

Advocating for change is hard work! Do you have a strategy that's worked for you? Send us an email: aem@cast.org.

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A digital educational material or technology is accessible when a learner with a disability "is afforded the opportunity to acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same services as a learner without a disability in an equally effective and equally integrated manner, with substantially equivalent ease of use" (U.S.

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Design for Accessibility using POUR

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The National Center for Accessible Educational Materials is an invaluable resource for educators and professionals who are seeking to better understand why delivering content in an accessible manner is so important for educators to know and understand.

Delivering accessible content honors individual differences and allows users who rely on various assistive technologies access to the content without a lot of retrofitting, wait time and frustration. One of my favorite resources is designing for accessibility using POUR.

POUR stands for Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust. The AEM Center provides multiple pathways to understand not only the importance of designing accessible content using POUR, but to ensure you will be able to use POUR as a framework in designing accessible content.

If you want to learn more ways to make sure your content is accessible to all learners, check out the National Center for Accessible Educational Materials for powerful resources and training.

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The National Center for Accessible Educational Materials is an invaluable resource for educators and professionals who are seeking to better understand why delivering content in an accessible manner is so important for educators to know and understand.

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How to Design and Deliver Online Education Using Universal Design for Learning by Katie Novak and Tom Thibodeau $29.99, paperback (ISBN: 9780989867481) $29.99, ePUB (ISBN: 9780989867498) Overview UDL in the Cloud helps educators design and deliver more accessible, engaging, and effective online learning experiences.

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Making online and blended learning accessible to all learners

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Dr. Serra De Arment is an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). Go Rams! She prepares early intervention (birth to 5) and K-12 special education professionals for work in high-needs communities through graduate level programs in early childhood special education and a teacher residency program (RTR) for teacher preparation in high incidence disabilities and general curriculum. Both programs have particular emphasis on cultural responsiveness and UDL which are woven throughout course objectives and faculty pedagogical approaches. Serra regularly teaches in online, blended, and face-to-face formats and models UDL as an instructor of aspiring teachers. Though she primarily prepares special educators, one of her favorite courses to teach is an undergraduate level survey of special education course for soon-to-be general educators. This course always results in a few converts to special education! Serra has presented nationally and locally for a wide range of audiences on UDL and loves to encourage others to drink the UDL Kool-Aid.

A former special education teacher for 10 years, Serra achieved National Board Certification as an Exceptional Needs Specialist in 2009. In addition to her current faculty role she co-facilitates a regional support program for National Board Certification candidates through VCU's Center for Teacher Leadership.

When not living and breathing teacher preparation, Serra's keeps it real with her two small children, Will (5) and Daisy (9 months). Soccer, Legos, and the joys of solid food exploration are regular pastimes. Every once in a while Serra gets to enjoy other fun activities like running, yoga, and reading for pleasure.

You can connect with Serra via email: dearmentst@vcu.edu

Dr. Frances Smith has taught blended and online graduate coursework in UDL for the Graduate School of Education and Human Development at the George Washington University in Washington, DC since 2003. Her first dive into teaching an online course was actually in 1997 and when she co-developed and delivered a course on Technology and Disabilities for GW. These were during the days when Learning Management Systems (LMS) were in their infancy and dial-up connections were the only digital way!

She is a member of the former National UDL Taskforce, Board Member-at-Large for VECAP, and part of CAST's UDL Cadre. In 2011-12, she was a UDL Fellow in residence at CAST and Boston College Lynch School of Education where her research and work focused on UDL in higher education, career assessment and transition. She has presented nationally and internationally on UDL, co-authored national position papers on UDL in career assessment, and published research on UDL in higher education.

Fran has been a disciple of the UDL way since her first introduction at a CAST UDL summer institute in 2001. She was immediately hooked when she saw a practice that celebrated opportunities to use multiple ways to understand potential - something she recognized in her career as a vocational evaluator. UDL also matches her own approach to learning which celebrates opportunities to be creative and have fun. Fran is an avid cook and foodie, photographer, squash player, and traveler. She enjoys all of these pastimes that offer multiple ways to be engaged, demonstrate learning, and explore multiple ways to understand. You can connect with Fran through her website at http://www.recognizingdifferences.com and links there to LinkedIn and Twitter.

You can also email Fran at: frennie5@gmail.com

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UDL Zhoosh for Online and Blended Learning

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Dr. Serra De Arment is an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). Go Rams! She prepares early intervention (birth to 5) and K-12 special education professionals for work in high-needs communities through graduate level programs in early childhood special education and a teacher residency program (RTR) for teacher preparation in high incidence disabilities and general curriculum.

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Great resources for Instructional Designers

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Great resources for Instructional Designers

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cybersecurity and privacy in higher education

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EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education through the use of information technology. We equip our community wit

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UDL Universe- A Comprehensive Faculty Development Guide

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UDL Universe- A Comprehensive Faculty Development Guide

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California State University System

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LibGuides: UDL-Universe: A Comprehensive Faculty Development Guide: Home

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LibGuides: UDL-Universe: A Comprehensive Faculty Development Guide: Home

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FREE Resources

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Open Author helps you build and publish Open Educational Resources for you and for the benefit of educators and learners everywhere.

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Open Author helps you build and publish Open Educational Resources for you and for the benefit of educators and learners everywhere. Learn more about creating OER Groups provides a flexible environment to organize, create, share, and discuss resources with others in your network.